bitethehand.org

Insect Carnival in The Peace Press!

Posted on October 4th, 2008 by The Captain.
Categories: The Boogie Room and Gardens, The Peace and Justice Center, Music, Events, Philosophy, The Pharmakon.

Here is an the article that Bite the Hand and The Boogie Room and Gardens composed for The Peace Press.  Enjoy!

The Insect Carnival
An Experiment Towards Sustainability and Peace
by Bite the Hand Productions &
The Boogie Room and Gardens

On Labor Day weekend, a group of young artists and activists worked together to create an event called “The Insect Carnival.”  For three days and three nights, this do-it-yourself festival celebrated the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. People from all around biked and carpooled to the small farm where The Carnival was held, and shared in a lively and inspired weekend with over 30 music acts, public workshops on poetry and farming, a huge mud pit, bonfires, storytelling, and theater.  It was an event that embraced local art and was created by a local consciousness.

The young people of Sonoma County have been working together for quite some time to create a strong underground community.  We are seriously discussing and implementing principles of sustainability, peace, and self-sufficiency. The time we are living in can be discouraging and fearful, and we are responding to a population that is feeling hopeless and bored.  Events like The Insect Carnival are hopeful expressions of our intention for sustainability through creative expression.

This strong new community has been forming out of the creativity and courage of artists and activists.  The two groups who put on The Carnival have been working hard to steward this growth.  They are called Bite the Hand Productions and The Boogie Room and Gardens…

Bite the Hand Productions is the group that organized the Insect Carnival.  It is a collective of artists who put on local events and produce a monthly publication called “The Pharmakon.”  Bite the Hand works to publicize and comment on local activity, and to help artists and activists connect.  According to their manifesto, “‘Bite the Hand’ means to refuse to be led into a life you had no part in creating and instead find real sustenance in the world around you… to feed yourself.”

The Boogie Room and Gardens is the group that hosted The Insect Carnival.  They are a small group of people who believe that there is beauty in self-reliance and self-representation.  They encourage people to provide for themselves and find the balance between work and play, teaching and learning, under the umbrella of artistic expression.  By creating a space to share arts and skill The Boogie Room encourages others to recreate their own culture.

The Insect Carnival was the product of these two groups and a community that was willing to evolve a simple musical event into something greater. It was an effort to look beyond the huge and costly mega-festivals that seem to dominate the summer and to create a rewarding experience that is more about inspiration than inebriation.  At the Insect Carnival, the performers were part of the community: workers, neighbors, and friends

If you want to stay informed on what we are doing, you can pick up The Pharmakon at coffee shops for free.  There will also be a film coming out titled “Pharmakon” which documents some of Bite the Hand and The Boogie Room.  Now, more than ever, we need to reach out, participate, and make connections with each other.  We hope to inspire others, as we have been inspired.

This is a crucial time to be active in Sonoma County. We are standing at a point of great decision and it will take a sustained effort and an open heart from everyone in order to change our course and protect our future.  The Insect Carnival is a gesture in that direction.  Now, it is time to settle into the dirt, find our roots, and rise up.  It is time to learn how to work together.

To learn more about Bite the Hand Productions, go to www.bitethehand.org or e-mail thepharmakon@gmail.com

To learn more about The Boogie Room and Gardens, go to www.myspace.com/theboogieroom

2 comments.

From Aren

Posted on June 11th, 2008 by The Captain.
Categories: Aren Diego, Philosophy.

Energy

To our community-

Wow.  We have come full circle: one complete cycle of our Pharmakon, and this, our 13th issue is our portal issue into the next.  Thirteen.  The number of spheres, twelve fitting perfectly around one, or twelve disciples around the master (there is also a Friday the 13th this month, the day of chaotic luck).

The Pharmakon is a glowing ember.  It’s like the single grain, all that’s left of Fantasia: the breath of your wish makes it grow.  This energy is the creative force.  We find ourselves in its current.  We are already home.  It surrounds us: penetratingly.  From this cosmic dust we arise into form.  From this one, this great cosmic principle we have come.

I am a hunter of light.  I stalk it patiently from the shadows.  I duck behind dumpsters and large wooden boxes and I wait.  Small movements continue around me: the breath of a scarred ally cat listening, the decomposing shoe, stringed from above, a flickering street light.  It’s glimmer can be seen reflected as two luminous search lights, jewels of green and gold: the retinas of a human photographer.  I pounce and cling then grapple in the dark (room).   

Everyone has felt themselves of the battlefield of light and dark.  Some teach the concept of yin and yang, that polarities are the two forces, manifesting simultaneously, engaging in a never-ending dance of perfect equilibrium: at times one seems to rise.  While this appears to be true, others teach that there is only one force, universal.  Light and dark are but expressions of a higher force that guides and directs: every revolution leads us forward.  It’s like the continuing spin of the potter’s wheel; around and around it goes.  The guiding force-hand of the master potter gives to it shape and creation, a vessel for our intent.

     “Size matters not.  Look at me.  Judge me by my size do you?  Hmm?  Hmm.  And well you should not.  For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.  Life creates it, makes it grow.  Its energy surrounds us and binds us.  Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.  You must feel the force around you: here, between you, me the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.  Even between the land and the ship”  

     - Jedi Master Yoda, on the nature of the Force

-Aren

2 comments.

Phaedrus (Part Three)

Posted on May 20th, 2008 by The Captain.
Categories: Phaedrus, Philosophy, The Pharmakon.

  Part Three:  Our Prescription 

Dear Reader,

Poison and medicine.  As I mentioned in my first letter, the word pharmakon means both.  Not either/or, but both poison and medicine at the same time.  The same way that we have seen the text itself is both composed and decomposed (see “Phaedrus 1” in September’s issue), the same way that my writing is both a straying and hunting (“Phaedrus 2” in January’s issue), the pharmakon is that which both heals and kills. 

It makes sense: in the logic of the supplement (the pharmakon), whatever comes from without cannot be entirely beneficial, nor can it be entirely harmful.  It remains simply “different.”  Every encounter with the supplement is new and it contains both healing and destructive power. An ambiguous experience, an encounter with the pharmakon never proves to be entirely one-sided . What you get is more like a subtle description of the whole.

Descriptions: mythic and metaphorical hints.  This is what the pharmakon offers us.  It requires a bit of meditation and imagination to fully digest this ambiguous metaphorical supplement.  This poison, this medicine, this pharmakon is something that comes from the outside and conjures up reactions in whoever encounters it.  It is just like the written word, which conjures up a number of different image and ideas in the reader.  Remember how in ancient Greece, the word pharmakon referred to writing…

Now, look at The Pharmakon periodical.  Our little written supplement is also like poison and medicine.  Full of hints and descriptions of art and activism, it has both a constructive and deconstructive effect on Sonoma County.  Merely the presence of a monthly publication has created plenty of positive and negative effect.  People have been pleased and people have been upset, all from a little mixture of writing… just scribbles… like a wolf paw scratching… What The Pharmakon represents is the ambiguous power that an inscribed message has on reader and writer alike.

“Really?” you may think, “but why all of these articles on art and activism?  Isn’t there some great political scheme behind this?”  I think not.  The Pharmakon, though not outside of politics, should not be misunderstood as logical political discourse.  There is a political world that we live in, but our writings are more like artifacts left over from that world. Our writing is a magic bag of tricks and inspiration, it is not meant to be a definitive commentary.  The Pharmakon does not work in a logical way.  It is more physical than that, working on many levels at once.  A collection of scribbles, it sails through our community, effecting us in a variety of unpredictable ways.

So, what are we hoping you get out of The Pharmakon?  What is this supplement supposed to do?  That is a difficult question to answer, since The Pharmakon can be read in many ways.  It is not meant to tell you anything in particular.  It is more of a strange invitation.  A prescription.  To accept it is to let the poison and the medicine take their effects.  It is to join in the creation and discovery.  It is to paint your world with an intimate and artistic vision.  To compose and decompose.  To stray and to hunt at the same time.  This inscription is our prescription.  This script… this script… this script… 

Yours in Service, 

Phaedrus  

0 comments.

Come Make Some Cheap Art!

Posted on March 14th, 2008 by The Captain.
Categories: Music, Free Mind Media, Events, Workshops, Philosophy, Cheap Art, The Pharmakon.

Art is an everyday thing and it is for everyone. No matter how much money you manage to make, no matter what time of year it is, we remain artists. That is what Cheap Art is about. Bite the Hand Productions is devoted to pushing forward the Cheap Art Movement in Sonoma County through articles in The Pharmakon, the displaying and selling of Cheap Art at our gallery at Free Mind Media, and through reoccurring Cheap Art Days- the first of which is taking place this Sunday at a little home called Assa Ni Assa.

So, come on down to 1560 Humboldt Street and spend the day with your fellow Cheap Artists! We will be making all sorts of arts and crafts to keep or put up in our gallery (whichever the artist prefers). There will be acoustic music as well as refreshing food. Also, we will be holding a harmonica workshop in the afternoon! Everything is free, so come over and put your energy into the Sonoma County Cheap Art Movement!

Call 326-5274 for details.

0 comments.

Money As Training Wheels (Vol. 5)

Posted on March 13th, 2008 by The Captain.
Categories: Aren Diego, Philosophy.

Our friend and Pharamkeus, Aren Rye, has been writing his “Money as Training Wheels” series in The Pharmakon ever since September of ‘07. He has been working over some very interesting themes. We are now putting the whole series on our web page for viewing. Enjoy!

I was at Earthdance, and there was this martial arts master who explained the world as an organism. He related it to the human body and the use of acupuncture (meridians). He said that the world has its own natural meridians too, and that when they are blocked, such as by bridges over rivers, or by dams, then chi will not flow properly, will be blocked and imbalances will occur. He said that hurricane Katrina happened because of the block chi flow of the Mississippi. This makes sense to me.

I think that money, or people’s relationship to it, plays a similar function in blocking the chi-flow of human interaction, If someone wants to use resource that “belong” to someone else, for the service to all, he or she must first come up with some sort of money or trade to go to the individual who “owns” the resource. This is why sharing is caring and the notion of ownership is limiting. If a person wishes to use resources, the freedom is at first typically withheld: he or she is first expected to, “play the game.” These hurdles sometimes act as “blocks” in the free flowing chi of the world.

Moneyless systems of interrelational support work in small native communities because everyone sees that their actions benefit others and that other people benefit them. Let’s start here.

What I’m talking about is not so much about imposing a system-less system, but rather to utilize an undercurrent, a force of giving that exists whether or not we are in a monetary system. If this monetary system ever collapses, then we will be fine because we will have built up inertia in this giving-based system, where our incentive is not monetary gain, which is short-sighted and incomplete, but rather for the greatest good of all. The force of capitalistic desire is the force of consumption, while the force of giving is the force of creation.

-Aren

1 comment.

Money As Training Wheels (Vol 4)

Posted on February 26th, 2008 by The Captain.
Categories: Aren Diego, Philosophy, The Pharmakon.

Our friend and Pharamkeus, Aren Rye, has been writing his “Money as Training Wheels” series in The Pharmakon ever since September of ‘07. He has been working over some very interesting themes. We are now putting the whole series on our web page for viewing. Enjoy!

Money As Training Wheels Vol. 4: Money, Honey

Our survival does not depend on money. They’re just little green pieces of paper: their value is in our minds. It is an agreement. Not everyone makes this agreement consciously. Many of us were born into a system of monetary exchange. Those with the most money, who feel empowered by it, make an effort to place more and more world inside their system of power. There is, always has, and always will be another way. It is in direct contact. This is not the same as the Law of Suspended Consequences which is predominating monetarily. We must be aware of, and connected to the cause and effect of our actions. There is an underlining universal principle to which one’s attunement brings forth such a high level of the perception of interconnectivity, that people will delight much more in the giving, the creation, while taking only what they need, after asking and giving thanks.

See, there’s this illusion that the functioning of society is dependent on the use of money (incentives, so forth). But no, it is actually rooted in the human power to intend. Our power is not dependent on money; in fact, the more we learn to work with this power, and cultivate it, the more the material things will come to us as needed. We are all able to do this. This is a fundamental conception of, at the very least, all humans (most likely all of life has its own way). It goes beyond commutative, into the realm of creation. There is an all-pervasive force: a direction. We are now in the process of discovering it, and then, when we can hear it, as resonate as the hum of quartz, we can channel it as the sole motivating force.

A state will be manifested when we replace the incentive of capital gain with the incentive of greatest good for all. When we participate with this intent, the things we need individually, including money, tend to come naturally. And, absolutely, our experience will raise the bar of what we consider possible.

There is a certain mind that gets applied to money: the mind of scarcity, that there is not enough to go around. Well, there is. Yet, it is this mind, which fosters the competition for money and resources which create these imbalances which we see all over the world: some people are not allowed access to their land and so suffer. While at the same time, certain countries have such an excess, that they either waste, or consume in over-abundance. Thus both are cut off from equilibrium.

It is this mind, not the use of money itself, which is the concern (given, it is very common inside monetary systems). If we can raise our intent to the free-flowing service of all, then we can feel free to use money, harm-free. And then, when a critical mass reach this higher vibration we will no longer need money at all.

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love, as deep. The more I give to thee

The more I have, for both are infinite.

-Shakespeare

-Aren

P.S. Honey is an antiseptic.

0 comments.

A Warm Reminder

Posted on February 13th, 2008 by The Captain.
Categories: Philosophy.

THE EARTH WILL SURIVE

Before we start feeling righteous in our green crusade, we need to make something clear:  It is not up to us to save or kill the Earth.  Even if the ice caps melt and every human is drowned, there will still be abundant life on this planet.  This fact must be the foundation of our culture if we want new generations to learn to live in harmony with nature.  We won’t get far if we only pave the way with guilt, panic, and the insane mission of “saving the Earth.”

What we are saying is this:  DON’T GET WORRIED-at least not for the Earth.  The world as we know it may soon be changing (it may end alltogether), but the Earth will survive.  With all of its dynamic systems of balance and its amazingly adaptive web of life, this planet will, as always, be able to feed itself.  We would do well to stop trying to “defend” the Earth, and start learning a thing or two from it about how to live.  It has, after all, been doing it longer than we have.

-Bite the Hand

0 comments.

Money as Training Wheels (Vol 3)

Posted on February 8th, 2008 by The Captain.
Categories: Aren Diego, Philosophy, The Pharmakon.

Our friend and Pharamkeus, Aren Rye, has been writing his “Money as Training Wheels” series in The Pharmakon ever since September of ‘07. He has been working over some very interesting themes. We are now putting the whole series on our web page for viewing. Enjoy!

Money As Training Wheels Vol. 1: Possession is Not Wealth

Wealth is the abundance of experiential surfaces from which to reflect. It is in that which we are connected. One can descend deeply on a start of bamboo: short green stalks, rising up inches and shooting forth emerald leaves, creases running up into tips of brown curlies. The fresh growth is underneath. What difference does it make if, or not, I own it? We are free to cultivate our connection to the entirety of our experience. This does not mean we own anything. Everything comes to us for awhile.

In Native worldview, there are some key dimensions: one is that instead of humans owning the land, dictating its direction and purpose, humankind is realized as but an extension of it, one of many. And if the world exists for our life, then, as well, we exist for the worlds. This simple shift in perspective can cause profound increase in our connection to life.

Another guide is the note of animism: everything is alive. This is true of the traditional conceptions of plants and animals and extends also to entities previously considered inanimate such as to rocks, to air and to the sun. It proposes that all objects are beings, each with their own consciousness and connection to the one universal source. With the scientifically recent discoveries of single-celled creatures as well as the curious movements hidden inside the atom, it seems like a good idea to bet safely. This trend of discovery evinces this worldly belief.

This means that we can commune and communicate with anything, everything. All is responsive to our loving interest. We are all inexorably wealthy. Don’t be fooled into believing that your wealth can be contained by the notion of money. It is bigger. It cannot even be contained by your notion of everything—there is always more. Your wealth is unlimited.

There is a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.
Is the one I love everywhere?
-Rumi

-Aren

P.S. It is like lovers. They have found each other: two leaves colliding mid-air, almost inconceivable. They look into each other’s eyes; it’s as if a portal opens up before them, an opening into a moment of creation. They don’t think for an instant that they can reach into that doorway and pull something out to call their own, and to walk away with. Unthinkable. They give themselves up. You have to. There is no life-line. Every moment is new and is defined by the entirety of your perception. This is it. Who is your love? The door is open.

0 comments.

Our New Bite-Sized Manifesto!

Posted on February 7th, 2008 by The Captain.
Categories: Our Webpage, Philosophy.

We have redrafted our bite-sized manifesto to incorporate some elements from our full manifesto. Both of them are in the “pages” sidebar to the left. Or, you can read the bite-sized one right here:

“We at Bite the Hand Productions maintain that what is administered to us cannot sustain us. Our work is to collaborate to bring forth the essential qualities of life, those which give us meaning and sustenance. These qualities will not be found in what is slopped on our plate by outside forces. They can be found inside ourselves and through a knowledge of and cooperation with our communities, media, and environments. So we say bite the hand that feeds you nothing- FEED YOURSELF.”

0 comments.

Money as Training Wheels (Vol. 2)

Posted on January 29th, 2008 by The Captain.
Categories: Aren Diego, Philosophy, The Pharmakon.

Our friend and Pharamkeus, Aren Rye, has been writing his “Money as Training Wheels” series in The Pharmakon ever since September of ‘07. He has been working over some very interesting themes. We are now putting the whole series on our web page for viewing. Enjoy!

Money As Training Wheels Vol. 2: The Courage of Life

Sometimes money is viewed as a universal currency—if you deal with money, you are dealing with an infallible balanced system that represents the “true value” of any given thing. Abiding strictly to this philosophy, a thing without monetary value is valueless.

I don’t need to point out that this is absurd. For example: air. Without it, we cannot breathe. Without breath, we die. Yet what is the (monetary) value of air? No one pays for it. What is my capitalistic incentive to conserve the quality if air? Where is the profit?

We must honor our higher allegiance, which is to life itself.

How does the truth of money become disconnected from the truth of life? It sets up a false incentive.

Let me see… if I just chop down this rainforest, then I can raise cattle here—I’ll make money. But, will I make life? Sometimes I don’t understand how this can happen. Let’s look at two pictures: one, a lush and biologically diverse rainforest; two, an empty lot after eight years of cattle grazing, the soil now unable to grow anything (note: almost all of the nutrients in rainforest soil has been brought up and exists in an active form of life, above ground; so when clear cut, there is not much left). Who could really prefer the latter? How can someone do this? They are trapped in the matrix of money.

But doesn’t a person need money? People pay for their food with money. True. Consider this: we are all responsible. We are all the reason we are trapped in the matrix of money. This is that we are all requiring others to give us money. This is because we are all expecting others to require it from us. Let us free ourselves.

Imagine a whirlpool: people all circulating in a tub. It one person stops by themselves, they will get bumped into by the person behind. Yet, if they all want to stop, then, with a concentrated awareness of each other, and slowly, with mutually exchanged attention, they will. This communication is key.

If we accept money from someone who does something unwholesome to get it, we are essentially saying that we will not give them what they need unless they do this thing—we are hiring them to do it.

The monetary system is not infallible. We can do better. We are arriving at a cusp, and will soon be able to be born forth into a system of sustainable equilibrium. The concept of money hints at interconnection, but enforces separation. The first step is the awareness that it represents but a small part of the greater interconnectivity of life. The next step is to move ones investments into this greater system. The use of money is not necessarily harmful, but must be synthesized with this awareness.

What is the value of simply being alive?

-Aren

P.S. Be courageous.

0 comments.

Older »