TVFP on Occupy Toronto / Mary Dowser on Don Juan

TVFP walked in the protest march to St. James Park and stood in the crowd as the event unfolded. He writes:

      The march was about two city blocks long. The crowd at St. James hovered around 2000 people. It was peaceable. For the most part everyone seemed at ease.

     Upon arrival at the park core elements were soon busy setting up tents, a first aid station and a food distribution centre. Everybody, it seemed was looking for, or meeting friends and comrades. Everybody had a camera. There were some speeches, predicable and encouraging.

     The yellow jackets kept a low profile at the corners of Adelaide and Church and Jarvis and King; no evidence of their black garbed counterparts from the dark side of police headquarters.

     The one odious moment that I witnessed occurred when Bob Rae showed up. He was loudly and I think appropriately heckled during his several interviews.

     So what did I make of it all? The Occupy Toronto movement, in its essence, is about people getting together and realizing that in solidarity they can move the agenda forward. The physical numbers are less important than we are led to believe. The established media, though out if force, have already been out flanked.

     As well the pundits have got it wrong, as have the experts and your locally elected creatures, when they say that the movement lacks focus, as if this were some sort of sales blitz or a military operation. The Occupy movements recognize that everything is broken. The issues are painfully evident, the agenda is mercilessly simple; end the suffering of our brothers and sisters, save the world!

Mary Dowser

The imaginatively fragrant Mary Dowser has written to TVFP:

     Don Juan is a Yaqui shaman. The Yaqui tribe is from Sonora in northern Mexico. Don Juan tells me that the Yaqui were never conquered by the Spanish.
     He has taken me through the peyote portal. We have walked together in the dream world. We go through as the rush kicks in. Oh, oh, I cry out.
     He shows me how it was. He takes me for a ride on the back of the Turtle. He introduces me to the tribes as they were in all their glory before the conquerors came.
     I see humanity streaming up from a hole in the ground. We eat maize cooked over a crackling fire. There are fire birds in the trees. He introduces me to Coyote.
      Coyote has stolen Farting Boy's asshole. Coyote, bad boy, has raped an old woman. That Coyote! He reminds me of someone.
      We move deeper into the north where I meet new gods and spirits. We have a tea made out of tree bark with Kitchi Manitou. The Great Manitou says to me, I made the world from a dream.
     I to him, I am in a dream now. He replies, the dream comes before truth. Is the truth for me Marie Driscoll?
     Don Juan and I come south again. We spend a little time with Quezacoatl, the red headed god. He is really a dragon. He tells me a joke.
     He says, there is a handsome man who is very poor and there is a rich widow who wants to marry him. The young man declines, saying to her, you are old. If you were older I'd be interested.
     Quezacoatl is full of laughter. I like him best of them all.
     These adventures leave me exhausted and I have not been as productive as I would have liked with my memoir, Notes from the Quick Fingers of a Championship Typist.
     No word from the Zapatistas. Perhaps it is but a vain wish to serve the revolution. My Spanish is improving although I do not like my instructor.
     Oppressive heat. Broken fan. There is a feral cat in my garden that I have given a little milk. I have named him Mighty Jack. He appears whenever he likes and mews at my window. Yesterday I had no milk for him and I felt his malevolence.
      I am out of sorts. I feel that I am drifting. I feel that I am marooned. There is a little wire in my ear that vibrates so finely that I do not notice it until I have stopped pacing in my room. Who is Marie Driscoll? Will I ever meet her again in the dream world?
     Mighty Jack is perched on the edge of the bird bath. I feel he is taunting me. I am a little bird. I should be away, but I cannot or Mighty Jack will eat me. I hate him. I bring him milk. I love him. In him I see all the violence of the world. I give him milk. I am feeding all the suffering that is in the world.
     Don Jaun is calling to me. There are flowers at the door. The jaguar, the beast is coming for me if I sleep. I must not sleep.

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