Loh El the Minstrel

Welcome to Raising The Revolution
by Loh El

2012

In a year we saw the seeds of discontent find fertile grounds in the minds of the young and old alike, take root in the foundation of our evolution and sprout. So many lives lost, so much corruption exposed, vanquished, empowered. 2012 has come, the beginning is near. The revolution continues.

The Arab spring continues. The Occupy movement continues. The machinery of debt and destruction, of fear and oppression moves on ever-vigilant to remain in the darkness of human consciousness, but this is no longer possible. More and more of us are waking up. More and more of us are realizing how much there is at stake, how much there is to be gained, and how much we have been misguided by our supposed leaders. Political, religious, social, celebrity… Our idols have failed us. The people are recognizing the power is in them, if bit by bit.

What is heralded by so many as the end of times, the apocalypse or the energetic reformatting of the planetary consciousness – if you believe in that sort of thing – is to me an emphatic mark on the passing of time which stands out only to highlight a feature of human nature: Our obsession with our own mortality, paired with our utter terror with the responsibility of living.

If we are to live on this good green Earth for such a finite and minute time in the grand scheme of cosmic history, are we not charged with at least the responsibility to live well? To live in relative peace and harmony, to do good deeds and to leave this place better than when we came, as passing travelers whose footprints through the ether are made as memory to the warmth of each place visited, each being encountered? Why then do we not only travel carelessly wreaking havoc in our path and towing the baggage of millenia of hatred in our wake, but also take solace in the idea of the end times being so near?

We would rather die than face our fears. We would rather the apocalypse come, the mysterious alien overlords take over, the mystery Planet X crash through our atmosphere, the exotic cosmic energy to sweep through our pitiful hearts and minds, than to believe that we ourselves have the capacity to build a new world. No one person has the ability to bring about world peace, only to propose it, to ask for it, to work for it. It is we, The People, together who have the sole responsibility to bring about world peace in a new kind of civilization that is not built on a foundation of deceit and control.

We ask ourselves how it is that these power structures can be dismantled. Perhaps a better question would be how it is that we have tolerated these power structures so long, or how it is that we can go on living without them after becoming so complacent, so subservient, so dependent. Certainly if it is worthwhile to ask the question “How are we going to destroy the systems of oppression?” it is equally worthwhile to ask “How are we going to build a system of liberation?”

Clearly a new world order must come, for the old order is failing. Those of us who live or strive to live outside of its most firm grasp can see it is doing a very good job of destroying itself, while we are struggling to keep up with the demand for alternative societies, livelihoods, housing and communities. It is no longer a question of how we can defeat the new world order. It is a question of whether the new world order will make The People free, or make us slaves.

Now is not the time to build bunkers and buy food provisions. Now is the time to build houses out of our garbage, to plant orchards of fruit and nut trees that will feed our grand-children, to grow the food that will sustain us through cold winters. Now is the time to build the new world for The People, by The People. The systems which oppress and control us are only as powerful as we allow them to be, by giving them our money, our votes, our acceptance. We can provide for ourselves and for each other everything we need to thrive as a civilization. It is only up to us to take the charge.

There will be chaos. There will be death. There will be war. The revolution will be carried out and inspired by the militant defenders of freedom and justice, the non-violent resistance of those carving out a new paradigm, and by the passively complacent.

I will not prepare for the end of the world, but I will prepare for when the supply lines are cut, and the fuel which feeds our grocery stores with foreign fruits runs dry. I will not prepare for the arrival of alien overlords, but I will prepare for the lawyers and corporate entities which will try to take our lands and our liberties. I will not prepare for the illuminati of the new world order, but I will prepare for the battle of declaring one’s sovereignty in a nation built on colonialism. I will not prepare for the eradication of life on Earth, but I will cultivate rich soils and purify water; I will build homes out of the Earth and create jobs for my community; I will make beautiful art that awakens the spirit to its own untapped potential. I will live, and I will love, and I will continue to raise this revolution.

If we don’t, who will?

2011

Revolution is in our genes. We produce paradigm shifts as if it were a necessary part of our diets. We hunger for a new world, to stretch our limits and explore new ideas.

That force which we call God is inside, outside, all around us. Let all debates only highlight and prove the fact that whatever it may be, whether more myth than fact or more literal than figurative, that force is inseparable from who we are. It is in each breath, each step, each glance. Everything we do, see, touch, feel, say and hear… everything we are is made of that essence. We all have different names for it.

I have called it Mother, Sun, Child. I have called it O Infinite Radiant Is. I have called it Light and I have called Dark. I have called it Music and I have called it Poetry.

It is nature. Our nature and the nature of all things.

Whatever name one has for this force, it is a tangible thing when we are in harmony with it. When the stars seem to align to guide our way home. When the clouds part at that potent point in the sky where the moon reflects the sunlight to illuminate your shadow against the grass. When you meet someone at just the right moment to change your life.

I fell in love once, and I worshipped a woman as if she were my Goddess. When she broke my heart, there was a long time I thought I would never recover. Then one of those days came along to pick me up off my spiritual crutch. One of those days that feels somehow heavy, weighed down by fate.

I was sitting in a field of tall grass on a beautiful summer’s day, digging out new space in the garden with friends and strangers who had come together to engage in what we considered to be a revolutionary act: To grow our own food. It was sitting there breaking bread that I met a young woman with her infant child.

I had just been robbed of all my dreams of having a family by the love of my life, and along with them my hope for a better world for my children. I asked her if she wasn’t afraid of being a mother in this generation, so filled with ignorance and a rampant disrespect for life in all its forms. I asked her if she didn’t fear for the welfare of her son, knowing what he was growing up to become a part of.

She said to me, “If we don’t raise this revolution, who will?”

Those words changed my life. It was one of those moments when my purpose felt somehow clear. The plants we were going to raise on that very spot were a revolution to me: creating food security for the poor and starving artists of the city. I realized that all my life was a simple and humble attempt to do this, to raise the revolution. Through raising peoples’ awareness of their place on this biosphere and its status as a living whole. Through raising peoples’ spirits by feeding them with songs, poems and stories.

Now many years have passed and the woman who stirred my spirit and helped me find myself in a moment of casual conversation has blessed me with a son, and now I am raising him, another revolution who will one day inherit my triumphs and mistakes. Before he was alive my existence revolved around myself, my desires, my beliefs. I can no longer exist in such an ego-centric universe. Everything I do now, I do for my son.

If we don’t raise this revolution, who will? The question implies that time is running out. We cannot be like generations of times passed by who, in comfort and complacence, let slip the warnings abounding around them and let the burden fall to their children to clean up the mess.

The truth is, we have strayed for far too long from that force which we call God. We have strayed far too far from nature and the harmonious balance we can still enjoy with her. Our soils are rapidly being depleted of fertility, yet we need only a tiny fraction of the total available landmass to remain fertile for our survival. Our waterways are quickly drying up, becoming contaminated, diseased, salinated, and yet we have the technology and the man-power to harvest rain and purify ground water so that no human being on Earth is ever thirsty.

Even in the most affluent places on Earth, people do not even have shelter. Drug addiction, murder, neglect, racism and sexism all claim the lives of children and adults alike. Yet the situation is not hopeless. Once our ancestors built homes out of earth, straw, mud, clay, stone, wood and water, some of which still stand today. These practices, along with the deliberate cultivation of food-forests and high-yielding ecosystems for human consumption, are being revived in modern-day terms under the banner of permaculture: permanent culture.

In the words of permaculture’s co-founder, Bill Mollison: While the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.

We can make a difference, individually and communally. It is only on the fuel of our apathy and the power that we sacrifice that the existing structure persists.

Here you will find the writings of a man who has chosen to reject the status quo, and to participate in the construction of an alternative civilization, a permanent culture; a tribal revivalist eager to share his poetry, music, stories and other artwork with the world in an attempt to ignite passion in peoples hearts, and to give a voice to the collective conscience; a permaculturist raising the revolution one seed at a time; a father raising his son in the hopes that he will be proud one day to realize that he is not only of my blood, but also a relative of the entire human family, as are we all.

Raising The Revolution Vlog 2010