I'm working for Falling Whistles this spring, working to develop a viable and sustainable program for what we call the Whistler Society, and I've been overwhelmed and confused about how to express why we all need the Whistler Society, and have only been able to come up with jumbled thoughts that express themselves as circles of black figures on the white paper of my mind.
But tonight in my anger and sadness of an unfree world that seems to be caught up in overwhelming cycles of destructive structural violence, all I could do was to write why I need the Whistler Society. And it's still a bit jumbled inarticulate and wine-tainted and written out of frustration, but it's a start.
The Whistler Society is a small group of individuals dedicated to whistleblowing--to growing freedom.
Why do we need the Whistler Society? I don’t know exactly how to say it, but I know I need it, and desperately.
I get so angry sometimes. At a way of life that strips me of my very nature with its systems and institutions and constraints and destructive ways.
Revolution, that’s what we need. To throw off the constraints of another and replace them with our own. This world, it tears at my being, at the very connections of my cells and the fibers and sinew and ligament tying this piece of flesh and bone together. It’s ripping me apart. You know what I mean, don’t you? You feel it too. We all feel it. We have to live in a place with a way and a methodology that tears at us, and strips us of all of our humanity, all that makes us who we are. I am so imprisoned by it all, and my entire being, my very essence, longs to be free. Longs to be free.
I have freedom of speech (to some extent), I have freedom of religion (to some extent), I have freedom of the press (to some extent), I have freedom to assemble peaceably (to some extent), and these are freedoms that many do not have, but I am not free.
Why? Because you are not free, and they are not free. I am not free until all are free.
I do not yet understand what freedom truly is, but I know that I am not free to live in this world in a way that aligns with the deepest parts of my being. I am infringed upon by systems that bind and constrain and dictate and manipulate and terrorize and pull; how they pull upon my soul!
We are not free to live and to love in harmony with the Earth and with one another. We are not free to hope for a world that allows us to do so. We are not free to just be, and how we long just to be.
We are not free to believe in our true selves, and to follow them and walk with them upon this earth. We are not free to turn toward the light and follow that light, being told as we are to look outside of ourselves for the light, we miss the light flowing outward from within.
We are not free to dream our dreams, the dreams of our hearts. We are not free to place our hope in ourselves and in one another, for we’ve been told to place it in something larger than ourselves. We are not free to live toward those dreams, because we’ve been told so many times that they are idealistic and impossible and detrimental and sinful and destructive and on and on and on.
We are not free to be unafraid—of ourselves and our dreams and our fears and our hopes and our failings and our successes and our weaknesses and our powers.
But we ARE free to do those things, aren't we? And yet we are unfree equally so. Freedom is not freedom if one does not know that there is a choice to be free, and the world around me exists to remove the knowledge of that choice from me—from all of us.
Revolution, that’s what we need.
Why do I need the Whistler Society?
Because I long to be free. Because I know intuitively that in order to find again that choice that has been stripped from me—that choice to be free—I must fight for the freedom of others as well, and the two are inseparable.
Why do I need the Whistler Society?
Because I long to be free. Because I desperately want to understand what it means to leave the profane behind and pursue a deeper connectedness with the living world around me. Because I long to be.
Why do I need the Whistler Society?
Because I long to be free. Because I need to love and be loved in a way that illuminates the very essence of my being, as a star is illuminated by the burning of energy within itself. Because I long to love my true self, and accept him for who he is.
Why do I need the Whistler Society?
Because I long to be free. Because I must believe that tomorrow does not have to be like today, that this world is not static, that I am not a static being, that life can be had and eyes can see and worlds can change and love can win.
Why do I need the Whistler Society?
Because I long to be free. Because I am a mover and a shaker and I need direct and concerted action against these systems that bind and constrain me. Because I want to rebel constructively.
Why do I need the Whistler Society?
Because I long to be free. Because I have dreams and I want to live them out loud in high and unobstructed volume in a way that creates a better future for us all, a free and beautiful future of dignified harmony.
Why do I need the Whistler Society?
Because I long to be free. Because I do not want to be afraid of myself anymore. Because I know that liberty is collective, and that only in the pursuit of such will I ever be free.
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. – Albert Camus
I want to be free, but I am not free until all are free. Please. Please join me in pursuing freedom.
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