A Beautiful Rainforest

"You've destroyed a whole rain forest. This United States of America was a beautiful rain forest. All those dams -- those Hoover dams and Tennessee Valley Authorities that you've got running up and down the water, that's why the dam water's so fucked up now is all them aqueducts and those artificial lakes and rivers that they create for those shopping malls and to water their automobiles down. They've created an artificial environment on the planet with that industrial revolution and its killing all the life on earth."

- Charles Manson

Many Fine Dreams

"Thinking about putting out positive energies towards your spiritual existence, if there is such a thing as your spiritual existence. If you fly in your minds eye in forever - why is the sun burning? In the crystals of many things, space dreams, thoughts I've seen, a place to be or something free to be whatever one might consider. To be what everyone might calculate in their own existence.

But in the simple minded thoughts of a sad sack of shit called Charlie Manson, there has been the burning of your own thoughts and honor that you preach to me and say that you are for or against. Being for or against something could roller-skate within ones own survival instinct until the purpose of life seems to be lost in some bum fuddled freak out with a bunch of kids on the side of a mountain when they heard the sound of Christ dying on the cross and they became aware of the Christ consciousness  - what has been kept there under the ground, so far around that it became a space shuttle back to Earth and landed all the technology of the planet underneath the rattlesnake.

Guarantee survival to the flies and the bugs and the birds and bees and trees and all the things scream and say please - cant you see there's other life other than your own miserable petty selfish trips? But then I upon my petty selfish trip am also a king, in my stables ride many fine dreams."

- Charles Manson

This Hemisphere

'The European Hemisphere - Europeans are noted by their tribes; the German tribe, the French tribe, all the different tribes. Austrian tribes...all the different boundaries that were set be 1000's and 1000's of years of wars and the Greeks and the Romans, all that small little bit of history that they teach goes much deeper here in this hemisphere then those Pharaohs tombs or the bird gods of the mexican heritage of Quitzicotl  and Altowapes and all those guys that were equally powerful as the pharoahs in their pyramid
So all of those come down to a stone quarry in a big black hole of a prison called Moundsville, where my people, most of them were in and out of that prison for the Tennessee Valleys were building those dams on the river and all my uncles that died in nut wards or died in the prisons fighting against those people who were taking the moonshine and the stills and forcing us to go to schools and forcing their way of life over on us after they divided us with Abe Lincoln. So this all comes down to the bottom line in the last days of Armegeddon is only the Christian concept of that Armegeddon, there is a deeper Armegeddon that comes up with the AntiChrist...

- Charles Manson

Rolf Gardiner and Organic Nationalism

" We must plant ourselves again in the Universe." 

- D.H. Lawrence

From far and wide they came bearing salt, earth, sulphur and lavender to the edge of Cranbourne Chase to dedicate 'a centre for the gathering and training of men and women for the weal of Wessex.' The Springhead Ring, centred around the young blond Rolf Gardiner, wished to spark off a rural revival, 'from herb to the hymn', to restore England from the perilous state it had fallen into since the end of the First World War. Springhead consisted of a group of mill buildings arranged around a courtyard on the edge of Gore Farm owned by Gardiner's uncle. This was no romantic rustic revival that was envisaged - this was hard-nosed pragmatism. The plan was to `rebuild a hill-and-vale economy along modern organic lines', restoring the ancient breeds of sheep to the Downs and reviving rural industries along with the traditional rural festivals.

From Austro-Hungarian/Jewish/Scandinavian background on his mother's side and with a British father, the young Rolf Gardiner was educated at the Bedales co-educational school in Derbyshire and as a young man became involved in the thriving Europe-wide youth movement of the time, having contact with the German Wandervogel and becoming something of a roving European ambassador for the Kibbo Kift. He saw hope for a renewed Europe in the "self-supporting communities" of young people that he saw "springing up all over Europe today."He met and corresponded with the novelist D.H. Lawrence.

'I'm sure you are doing the right thing, with hikes and dances and songs. But somehow it needs a central clue, or it will fizzle away again. There needs a centre of silence, and a heart of darkness--to borrow from Rider Haggard. We'll have to establish some spot on earth, that will be the fissure into the underworld, like the oracle at Delphos, where one can always come to. I will try to do it myself. I will try to come to England and make a place - some quiet house in the country - where one can begin - and from which the hiker, maybe, can branch out. Some place with a big barn and a bit of land--if one has enough money. Don't you think that is what it needs? And then one must set out and learn a deep discipline--and learn dances from all the world, and take whatsoever we can make into our own. And learn music the same.'
-  D.H. Lawrence Letter To Rolf Gardiner.
3 December 1926 .

English social leadership 

Gardiner set up the Gore Kinship and organised study groups and camps. This little group would turn into the Springhead Ring upon the purchase of Springhead Mill by his uncle and the work of building a movement for the revival of rural England could begin in earnest. Throughout the 1930s the Springhead Ring ran numerous camps with the aim of combating the effects of the depression years by creating a `reinvigorated stock of countrymen' from the unused material of the towns. Gardiner wrote a report for the Minister of Labour on the camps in which he gave details of a 'Harvest Camp' at Springhead. Sixty-nine young men and women `from different walks of life' spent a number of weeks gaining `a direct experience of community by thinking, playing and working on the land'. The 'different walks' included; teachers and social workers, one farm girl, three public schoolboys, six university lecturers, two house painters, two miners, a brass engraver and a cinema operator. Also taking part were twelve members of the German Youth Movement. Quite what this cross section of the nations unemployed made of the heady mix of activities on offer at the camp we are not told. As they progressed the camps developed a regular pattern. Rising at 6.30 to `the rhythmic beating of a mellow-toned gong' the campers would run barefoot behind the camp chiefs in single file snaking in and out of the tents in `circular evolutions' mimicking the twisting and turning rays of the rising sun coming to a rest around a central flagstaff where they sang a hymn to the dawn, whilst the Cross of St George with a Wessex Dragon emblazoned across it, flew above. After breakfast they worked on the farm, clearing neglected woodland, dredging the silted up millpond or planting willow for the revival of rural basket making. The afternoon was for quiet study and contemplation with singing or folk dancing at 4.30. An early evening lecture would be held on the subject chosen as a theme for the camp such as the Tradition of English Social Leadership or Land Settlement and Regional Reconstruction. The day would end by torchlight with everyone standing arm in arm singing:

The Earth has turned us from the sun,

And let us close our circle now to light,

But open it to darkness, and each one

Warm with this circle's warming,

Go in good darkness to good sleep

Good night.

At which point the camp herald would extinguish his torch and the members of the 'ring' would retire to their tents.

The camps were successful and attended by a wide variety of people including the comedian Jimmy Edwards and the composer Michael Tippet who provided music for some of the camps. Music and dance were important features of the camps with a strong emphasis on English folk songs. For a couple of years from 1932 the camps were extended to East Cleveland where Gardiner ran them for unemployed Ironstone miners creating allotments. Gardiner was highly critical of the other major example of rural revivalism of the time at Dartington Hall where he himself had been educated in silviculture, bemoaning its lack of soul and suggesting that it needed to "add an expert in social affection, an engineer in community joy" to its collection of experts on rural regeneration.

Phantom swastikas in the woods

Other more shadowy organisations were active in the Dorset countryside at the same time with similar aims as the Springhead Ring. The combative sounding Wessex Agricultural Defence Association and the much more overtly nationalistic English Array each with links to Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists. Each tried to woo Gardiner into their ranks. But whilst Gardiner was sympathetic with their talk of regenerating `English stock' and praise for unpasteurised milk and the cottage pig, he disagreed with the methods they chose to pursue their dream of an English revival and repeatedly distanced himself from their activities. This did not stop his name becoming associated with far-right politics and this along with his connections with the German Youth Movement, which he continued to support even after it was overrun by the Hitler Youth, meant that he became the target of rumours and smears at the outbreak of the Second World War. The most persistent rumour was that he had planted trees in the shape of a swastika to guide German bombers. And perhaps because of his blond hair and Scandinavian good looks and fondness for wearing lederhosen it was reputed that Hitler had him marked out as a local dictator for Wessex following an invasion. The great irony in all these myths and rumours was of course that given his mother’s Jewish heritage Gardiner would not have lasted long at all under Nazi rule. He himself considered the Nazis to be figures from some Wagnerian nightmare and later admitted he had been mistaken and misguided in his pre-war views of Germany.

Work camps continued at Springhead during the war years and groups of German prisoners came to work the farm. Gardiner inadvertently adding to the rumour mongering by greeting them in German when they arrived. The war also threw up an opportunity for a further venture in rural revival. In 1929 Gardiner became involved in developing the Wessex flax industry utilising a derelict flax mill at Slape in West Dorset. From this base Gardiner oversaw nearly 400 people as the government’s agent for flax production in the West Country. With a core of experienced flax workers and a host of school children, Women's Land Army members and even troops drafted in at harvest time, he tried to create a thriving rural craft industry based on independent growers, processors, spinners and weavers with the aim of organising them into a regional guild under the slogan `Wessex fabrics from Wessex fields'. He tried to instigate flax feasts and harvest festivals with accompanying folk song and dance, but was thwarted in his attempts by the Home Flax Directorate who wanted to see a highly mechanised, centrally controlled flax industry and in the end left Gardiner no choice but to part company with them in 1942.

Rolf Gardiner's achievements on his uncle's farm were impressive. He had taken over the running of the farm in 1927 aged only 25 and carried out a mass reforestation programme planting in total some 3 million trees. He believed that upland planting would raise the falling water table even on the porous chalk downs: a belief borne out when in the 1970s drought years Gore farm remained green whilst all around turned brown. His forestry management was way ahead of its time with methods pioneered on the Dorset Downs in the 1920s only recently being taken up by the Forestry Commission as good practice. The farm was (and still is) managed on organic lines long before it was fashionable and Rolf Gardiner was a founding member of the Soil Association on its establishment in 1945. Springhead is now owned by the Springhead Trust, set up by Gardiner's widow with the help and encouragement of Fritz Schumacher after her husband’s death in 1971 and is run as a conference centre hosting the like of the Other Economic Summit, the Soil Association and Voluntary Services Overseas.

Rolf Gardiner never did manage to totally shake off the tag of being a Nazi sympathiser with Springhead visitors still asking, 'Is this where the Nazi lived?' He never planted a swastika in trees on the Dorset Downs. How could he have done? He had carried out his reforestation programme in the 1920s long before the rise of the Nazis. He did however plant a different symbol on a Wessex hillside, Balflour's Circle, a ring of evergreen trees, each one a different North European species, marking the site of his uncle Balfour Gardiner's interred ashes and perhaps marking in the circle of diversity a different vision of Europe.

Thunder Perfect Mind

I was sent forth from the power,

and I have come to those who reflect upon me,

and I have been found among those who seek after me.

Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,

and you hearers, hear me.

You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.

And do not banish me from your sight.

And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.

Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!

Do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin.

I am and the daughter.

I am the members of my mother.

I am the barren one

and many are her sons.

I am she whose wedding is great,

and I have not taken a husband.

I am the midwife and she who does not bear.

I am the solace of my labor pains.

I am the bride and the bridegroom,

and it is my husband who begot me.

I am the mother of my father

and the sister of my husband

and he is my offspring.

I am the slave of him who prepared me.

I am the ruler of my offspring.

But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.

And he is my offspring in (due) time,

and my power is from him.

I am the staff of his power in his youth,

and he is the rod of my old age.

And whatever he wills happens to me.

I am the silence that is incomprehensible

and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.

I am the voice whose sound is manifold

and the word whose appearance is multiple.

I am the utterance of my name.

Why, you who hate me, do you love me,

and hate those who love me?

You who deny me, confess me,

and you who confess me, deny me.

You who tell the truth about me, lie about me,

and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me.

You who know me, be ignorant of me,

and those who have not known me, let them know me.

For I am knowledge and ignorance.

I am shame and boldness.

I am shameless; I am ashamed.

I am strength and I am fear.

I am war and peace.

Give heed to me.

I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.

Give heed to my poverty and my wealth.

Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth,

and you will find me in those that are to come.

And do not look upon me on the dung-heap

nor go and leave me cast out,

and you will find me in the kingdoms.

And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who

are disgraced and in the least places,

nor laugh at me.

And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence.

But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel.

Be on your guard!

Do not hate my obedience

and do not love my self-control.

In my weakness, do not forsake me,

and do not be afraid of my power.

For why do you despise my fear

and curse my pride?

But I am she who exists in all fears

and strength in trembling.

I am she who is weak,

and I am well in a pleasant place.

I am senseless and I am wise.

Why have you hated me in your counsels?

For I shall be silent among those who are silent,

and I shall appear and speak,

Why then have you hated me, you Greeks?

Because I am a barbarian among the barbarians?

For I am the wisdom of the Greeks

and the knowledge of the barbarians.

I am the judgement of the Greeks and of the barbarians.

I am the one whose image is great in Egypt

and the one who has no image among the barbarians.

I am the one who has been hated everywhere

and who has been loved everywhere.

I am the one whom they call Life,

and you have called Death.

I am the one whom they call Law,

and you have called Lawlessness.

I am the one whom you have pursued,

and I am the one whom you have seized.

I am the one whom you have scattered,

and you have gathered me together.

I am the one before whom you have been ashamed,

and you have been shameless to me.

I am she who does not keep festival,

and I am she whose festivals are many.

I, I am godless,

and I am the one whose God is great.

I am the one whom you have reflected upon,

and you have scorned me.

I am unlearned,

and they learn from me.

I am the one that you have despised,

and you reflect upon me.

I am the one whom you have hidden from,

and you appear to me.

But whenever you hide yourselves,

I myself will appear.

For whenever you appear,

I myself will hide from you.

Those who have [...] to it [...] senselessly [...].

Take me [... understanding] from grief.

and take me to yourselves from understanding and grief.

And take me to yourselves from places that are ugly and in ruin,

and rob from those which are good even though in ugliness.

Out of shame, take me to yourselves shamelessly;

and out of shamelessness and shame,

upbraid my members in yourselves.

And come forward to me, you who know me

and you who know my members,

and establish the great ones among the small first creatures.

Come forward to childhood,

and do not despise it because it is small and it is little.

And do not turn away greatnesses in some parts from the smallnesses,

for the smallnesses are known from the greatnesses.

Why do you curse me and honor me?

You have wounded and you have had mercy.

Do not separate me from the first ones whom you have known.

And do not cast anyone out nor turn anyone away

[...] turn you away and [... know] him not.

[...].

What is mine [...].

I know the first ones and those after them know me.

But I am the mind of [...] and the rest of [...].

I am the knowledge of my inquiry,

and the finding of those who seek after me,

and the command of those who ask of me,

and the power of the powers in my knowledge

of the angels, who have been sent at my word,

and of gods in their seasons by my counsel,

and of spirits of every man who exists with me,

and of women who dwell within me.

I am the one who is honored, and who is praised,

and who is despised scornfully.

I am peace,

and war has come because of me.

And I am an alien and a citizen.

I am the substance and the one who has no substance.

Those who are without association with me are ignorant of me,

and those who are in my substance are the ones who know me.

Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me,

and those who are far away from me are the ones who have known me.

On the day when I am close to you, you are far away from me,

and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you.

[I am ...] within.

[I am ...] of the natures.

I am [...] of the creation of the spirits.

[...] request of the souls.

I am control and the uncontrollable.

I am the union and the dissolution.

I am the abiding and I am the dissolution.

I am the one below,

and they come up to me.

I am the judgment and the acquittal.

I, I am sinless,

and the root of sin derives from me.

I am lust in (outward) appearance,

and interior self-control exists within me.

I am the hearing which is attainable to everyone

and the speech which cannot be grasped.

I am a mute who does not speak,

and great is my multitude of words.

Hear me in gentleness, and learn of me in roughness.

I am she who cries out,

and I am cast forth upon the face of the earth.

I prepare the bread and my mind within.

I am the knowledge of my name.

I am the one who cries out,

and I listen.

I appear and [...] walk in [...] seal of my [...].

I am [...] the defense [...].

I am the one who is called Truth

and iniquity [...].

You honor me [...] and you whisper against me.

You who are vanquished, judge them (who vanquish you)

before they give judgment against you,

because the judge and partiality exist in you.

If you are condemned by this one, who will acquit you?

Or, if you are acquitted by him, who will be able to detain you?

For what is inside of you is what is outside of you,

and the one who fashions you on the outside

is the one who shaped the inside of you.

And what you see outside of you, you see inside of you;

it is visible and it is your garment.

Hear me, you hearers

and learn of my words, you who know me.

I am the hearing that is attainable to everything;

I am the speech that cannot be grasped.

I am the name of the sound

and the sound of the name.

I am the sign of the letter

and the designation of the division.

And I [...].

(3 lines missing)

[...] light [...].

[...] hearers [...] to you

[...] the great power.

And [...] will not move the name.

[...] to the one who created me.

And I will speak his name.

Look then at his words

and all the writings which have been completed.

Give heed then, you hearers

and you also, the angels and those who have been sent,

and you spirits who have arisen from the dead.

For I am the one who alone exists,

and I have no one who will judge me.

For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins,

and incontinencies,

and disgraceful passions,

and fleeting pleasures,

which (men) embrace until they become sober

and go up to their resting place.

And they will find me there,

and they will live,

and they will not die again.

Cat Confusion

"Then I say the life they are killing is mine. And then I go out, and they’re cutting a great big old tree down. And I say, '‘Oh, I feel that! what are you doing? You are cutting me down here!’'  And I say, '‘Stop cutting me down or I will shoot you.’'  You know, if you keep cutting the trees down, I’m gonna cut you down. He says, '‘Well look, I got a wife and kids and I need the money. I have a job and I don’t know anything else.’'  And I say, '‘Well, I can’t blame you. Who’s your boss?’'  So, I go to the boss and the boss says, '‘I worked 20 years to be foreman here.’'  And he says, '‘This is my way of life and my kids are going to college and I need the money.’'  And I say, 

'‘Well, it ain’t your fault.’'  And then I say, '‘Who’s your boss?’'  And he says, '‘Ace and Ace Lumber company.’'  So, I go to the Ace Lumber company and they're a subsidiary to a Rabiscapp company and 40% of that stock is owned by Reverend Sun Myung Moon; let me say Korea. Then another 20% is owned by Bolivia and somebody else owns 10%. Then Margaret of Malibu owns 10%. And I go check Margaret out and she died 5 years ago and she willed all of her assets to the cats. So, she’s got 300 cats living at a 10 bedroom mansion with a butler and a chauffeur, and everybody’s provided for life as long as they take care of the cats. And the cats are reproducing themselves, so we got a legal lock on the trees. And so the cats are walking around cutting all the trees down."

- Charles Manson 

1985

Interview with KALX Berkeley