Living Freedom Archive

Being free is a universal need. Wherever there are living beings there are personal and social movements towards love, understanding and being free.

I have enjoyed exploring what it means to be free by using processes that are themselves free. I play and record improvised music and also host a radio show where I interview people about social change and spirituality.

The Great Leap Forward airs weekly on Free Radio Santa Cruz, 101.1 FM, www.freakradio.org The radio station is an experiment in being free by being the media without any outside authority; FRSC is commercial-free, collectively-run and has been operating without a license from the US government since 1995.

Ever since I did an interview with Native American activist/musician John Trudell, I often choose to use the words “being free” instead of the word “freedom.” He pointed out to me that freedom has become “a habitual, lazy abstraction.” Trudell offered his personal way of liberating freedom; “Life is about responsibility,” he told me. “Freedom is an abstraction. Responsibility is not.”

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I would like to say that I have some world changing statement to make concerning freedom.

Perhaps to say that I had crossed the very ethers of time and space and glimpsed a daring look at freedom. Maybe even to have the audacity to say that I and I alone know the true meaning of freedom.

That I have reached that wonderful state of enlightenment that reveals all the answers to mankind’s questions would be a humbling thing to say. However, none of these are me.

I do know that I believe in freedom in many forms and shapes. I believe that my freedom does not necessarily equate to another’s meaning of freedom.

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Let me don my clown wig and big shoes, and tell you a little bit about the wisdom of the fool. In the tarot there is always a dog biting at the heels of the fool. That dog represents the constraints of society. The fool does not notice-she continues merrily on her way, with a grin that says, ‘If I can’t laugh in your spiritual revolution, then count me out.’

The fool is the trickster, the crow, the dervish, the changeling, shapeshifting, adapting, aware of the impermanence of the so-called person. True to the diamond self, indestructible. The fool was the only one in the court who could question the king, who could mock the pompous dogma of the day.

Back in the eighties, punk rock was all about tearing down the structures of hierarchy, the ways of power over. “God Save the Queen – she ain’t no human being,” the Sex Pistols sang, laughing in the face of dogma.

Of course there were some severe limitations to this tearing down – nothing was really raised up in its place. This is why spiritual activism is so key. What was missing from punk rock, to a large extent, was compassion.

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There is none better…or more effective method to liberate personal freedom than to sit in quiet and hear the voice within — as often as possible.

Such meditation has been known for millennia to be THE way, not just to freedom, but also to personal discovery, personality integration, inner peace, balance and the eventual release of fear, the root of all evil.

Sitting in silence is the sine qua non for anyone interested in their psycho-spiritual growth.

The voice inside is the voice of the One Source and Center that gave us life and created each of us as unique individuals. The aim of this sacred voice is to bring us into harmony with our infinitely loving, forgiving and caring Creator, a harmony that provides for our health and well being while we mature as human beings. We all know this “harmony as being in the flow.”

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I write in fragments:

1- Freedom doesn’t exist as an exterior phenomena to me, it exists when I feel it as an interior to myself.

2- So no one can give me my Freedom, until I discover it in my inner self.

3- Freedom is a complex concept. It’s complexity exists before the presence of “the other”.

4- I fasten myself in my habits. I fasten myself in my believes. I fasten myself in my desires and my intents. I’m a prisoner of myself.

5- I’m a prisoner of myself, a prisoner of my language, the language which bears the weight of history, the shadow of “the other”.

6- The complexity grows when I feel “the other”, whatever as a present or absent. I fasten him/her with all my intents, with all my believes. Also with my language.

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Freedom to me is my ability to express myself through touch, words and actions, which are accepted with love, tolerance and respect – without censorship.

Also, freedom means the ability to dress, work and play the way I want and to live how and where I want, as long as I am not harming anyone else. The concept of freedom is so confronting to so many because it makes them question their values and behaviour which they know are lacking but either do not know, or do not want to know, how to change.

World leaders should be preaching tolerance, acceptance of diversity, especially in this age of rapid globalization, and love for all humanity regardless or color, creed, and religion. Much more energy and money could be put into programs and policies for healing and creating peace than for war.

We need to set an example for future generations; practice what we preach, dematerialize, love unconditionally and unreservedly and look after the planet.

by Jo Garnett
Australia

I stand before you most of all as a heartbroken human being. I cannot bear any more to hear all about it, read all about, to know all about it.

Every day the evidence mounts about how bad it is, how much worse it’s getting and how the truth is full of lies, distortion and deception. The litany of loss we are facing in our civil rights, human rights, earth rights, spiritual rights has grown so extensive that it almost feels as though we are being flung back in time to some regressive science fiction state where warlords reigned and the people huddled together in hiding.

The diabolic manipulation by the corporate power structure of the tragedy of September 11, and the subsequent war on Iraq, are so shocking and shameful that any words used to describe them are mocked into meaningless. A friend of mine said that when she tries to talk about how she really feels, she feels as though she should be grasping for a new language. A language that isn’t made up of words.

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And the Future of Freedom – A Manifesto:

Children are the mantle upon which the future of our planet rests, investing in their wellbeing is the ultimate sustainable and political act.

Every child is wanted and welcomed.

Pregnancy is a natural event (not a medical condition) and the importance of the mother’s emotional, mental and physical wellbeing is recognized and supported.

A natural birth affords significant benefits to mother,
baby, father and family; therefore both the potential
benefits and risks of any intervention warrant careful
consideration.

Parents have the right and responsibility to be fully
informed about pregnancy, birthing, health and education
choices.

Optimal development for infants and children is fostered
by full-term breastfeeding, baby-wearing, co-sleeping,
maintaining genital integrity (no circumcision), and
plenty of skin-to-skin contact.

Children are by nature social beings, born with the
drive to love and be loved, to learn about their world
through spontaneous play, exploration, and participation
inclusion in the activities of their elders, to cooperate
with others, and to contribute to their world. They are
most able to develop their full potential when treated
with care and respect.

Children are born with inherent, physical, emotional,
intellectual and spiritual needs.

Children depend upon their caregivers to protect
them from violence, abuse, being left to cry it out, shaming,
toxic food and toxic environments.

Children depend on their parents to demonstrate and
model to them appropriate ways of setting safe respectful
boundaries and limits to inappropriate behavior.

The role of the father and mother is profound and not
to be underestimated. Also important are the multiple
attachments outside the immediate family.

Optimal development includes supporting children’s
growth towards healthy sexual maturity across the physical,
emotional, social and ethical dimensions of sexual
wellbeing.

Family-friendly political, economic, educational and
social structures enhance parents’ opportunities and
ability to nurture and sustain a secure bond with their
children.

Community plays a vital role in raising children, both
as a support system for this secure bonding and also as a
source for secondary attachments.

Parenting our children means also re-parenting
ourselves. Self-discovery plays a major factor in the art of
effective parenting.

Imperfection is the lesson in how to be perfectly
human. Allowing ourselves as parents to make mistakes,
be transparently ourselves and emotionally alive in
relating to our children, enables them to individuate and
find their own separate and unique self.

After bonding comes healthy separation, facilitated by our
perfectly human inability to be everything to our children.

by Kali Wendorf
Mother, activist, magazine publisher/editor
Mullumbimby, Australia
Kindred Magazine