Last weekend, my sisters and I had the pleasure of seeing Bob Dylan perform live.  I have considered myself a Bob Dylan scholar/enthusiast ever since discovering his music/poetry as a teenager.  At one point, I had Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie memorized by heart and could recite it line for line.  (If you’re not familiar with this poem, go check it out, as it is a great message of living one’s purpose and following inner knowing with faith and optimism.)  It was synchronistic to see the announcement today about Dylan’s recognition with the Nobel Prize in Literature a few days after having revived my connection to his music.

At Desert Trip, (the concert last weekend) his set was very intentional and included a few of my favorites.  He ended with the song Masters of War.  

I’m not sure the people around me at the concert quite understood what he was saying.  I heard comments about how it was a strange ending and I told them “it was a political statement.”  Political means relating to the people – the organization of a society – not just the idea of politics we hold now where we believe “governments hold power and effect change.”  This is a great delusion of our modern era – that social change is up to someone else.  The power to change the world is in your hands.   Bob Dylan is a visionary here to awaken people to this knowledge of our power.  Let us not be deluded into complacency and assuming that simply voting is enough.  We must create a revolution of love within ourselves, our relationship to nature, to each other, and to the Earth.  

On this week of Columbus Day, I thought it was appropriate to consider what it means to be a Master of War vs. a Master of Peace.

As we are gearing up for a few great conferences over the next few weeks here in Southern California, I am thinking about who the revolutionaries of our era are and what we can do to empower each other to create a better world.  These conferences coming up include the Coalition of Vegan Activists of Color 2016 Conference (October 15, which my friend Liz Ross is co-organizer of) and the West Coast Ecofeminist Conference (November 12, which my friend Julia Orr is the organizer of and which I’m involved with as well).

I have been connecting with America – the land of this beautiful nation – on a personal level the past few years.  Speaking to her and asking her for guidance.

I want to share this writing with you from a class earlier this year.  

Please go here for my full blog post on America and insights from Native American culture and Tori Amos.  https://www.charlottecressey.com/reflections-real-america/

And, here are Dylan’s words from Masters of War.  I can’t say I agree with the “eye for an eye” approach of the last few lines, but I do want the death of the outmoded paradigm and old stories of the “dominator paradigm.”

 

Masters of War by Bob Dylan