Music is a powerful communication tool–it causes us to laugh, cry, think and question. Bassist and five-time Grammy winner, Victor Wooten, asks us to approach music the same way we learn verbal language–by embracing mistakes and playing as often as possible.  Lesson by Victor Wooten, produced by TED-Ed.

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/victor-wooten-music-as-a-language

• Many environmental experts have warned about the unsustainability of fish farms for a decade now and we have documented those objections in many previous articles. Unfortunately, nothing has yet been done to improve the system.

As usual, government agencies and environmental organizations around the world turned a blind eye to what was predicted to become an absolute disaster and now the ramifications can be seen across the globe, including in BC.

Salmon Confidential is a fascinating documentary that draws back the curtain to reveal how the Canadian government is covering up the cause behind BC’s rapidly dwindling wild salmon population. A summary of the film reads: “When biologist Alexandra Morton discovers BC’s wild salmon are testing positive for dangerous European salmon viruses associated with salmon farming worldwide, a chain of events is set off by government to suppress the findings.

Tracking viruses, Morton moves from courtrooms, into British Columbia’s most remote rivers, Vancouver grocery stores and sushi restaurants. The film documents Morton’s journey as she attempts to overcome government and industry roadblocks thrown in her path and works to bring critical information to the public in time to save BC’s wild salmon.”

If you think watching a documentary about wild fish sounds boring, this film may well change your mind. It provides sobering insight into the inner workings of government agencies and includes rare footage of the bureaucrats tasked with food and environmental safety. It reveals how the very agency tasked with protecting wild salmon is actually working to protect the commercial aquaculture industry, to devastating effect.

Once you understand just how important wild salmon are to the entire ecosystem, you realize that what’s going on here goes far beyond just protecting a fish species. Without these salmon, the entire ecosystem will eventually fail and in case you’ve temporarily forgotten, you are part of this system, whether you’re a Canadian or not.

‘Keystone’ species missing in action by the millions

As explained in the film, a “keystone” species is a species of animal that is essential to the functioning of the ecosystem. It’s a species that other animals cannot survive without. In BC, pacific salmon are a keystone species. They fill hundreds of streams and rivers, feeding hundreds of species, including humans. Alas, since the early 1990s, salmon numbers have rapidly dwindled, coinciding with the introduction of aqua farms raising farmed salmon. Each year, millions of wild salmon go missing and many are found to have died before spawning. They can be found littering the shores of rivers and streams in BC in large numbers.

Biologist Alex Morton has followed and studied the unusual decline in salmon stocks for nearly 30 years. She noticed that, as commercial fish farms moved into the area, they had a detrimental impact on wild fish. The most obvious was a dramatic rise in parasitic sea lice in juvenile salmon, which naturally do not carry the lice. But that was just the beginning.

Fish farms breed pathogens that can spread like wildfire and contaminate any wild fish swimming past. Norway has recognized this problem and does not permit fish farms to be located in rivers or streams populated by valuable native species. In BC, no such restrictions exist.

On the contrary, not only has the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) never taken the spread of disease into account when approving salmon farms in sensitive areas such as the Fraser River, the agency is actually covering up the fact that fish farms are the cause of dwindling salmon stocks.

Wild salmon declines traced back to salmon farms

The film discusses the fate of Dr. Kristi Miller, head of molecular genetics at DFO, who, using DNA profiling, discovered that the fish that die before spawning have a number of DNA switched on that healthy fish do not. In a nutshell, the wild salmon are dying from leukemia, retroviruses, brain tumours and immune system decay.

Salmon leukemia virus raged through fish farms in the area in the early 1990s when the farms were first introduced. A retrovirus, salmon leukemia virus attacks the salmon’s immune system, so it dies of something else, much like the process of AIDS. At the time, it was discovered that virtually all the BC Chinook salmon farms were infected. They also discovered the virus killed 100 percent of the wild sockeye salmon exposed to it. Yet nothing was done.

Instead, as soon as Dr. Miller traced the problem to fish farms, she became ostracized and effectively put under gag order. When her findings were published in the distinguished journal Science in 2011, the DFO did not allow her to speak to the press, despite the fact her findings were hailed as some of the most significant salmon research of the decade.

Two years earlier, in 2009, the Fraser River experienced the worst salmon run in recorded history. Some 10 million fish went missing, leaving traditional people living along the river without catch. In response to the public outcry, the Canadian government created the Commission of Inquiry Into the Decline of Salmon in the Fraser River, also known as the Cohen Commission. The inquiry cost $26 million dollars and spanned 150 days of hearings. Theories presented for the mysterious disappearance of the salmon included overfishing, sharks, water temperature, pollution, even predatory giant squid!

It wasn’t until the very end that attention was finally turned to the most logical source: salmon farms.

Dr. Ian Fleming testified about Norway’s discovery that fish farms are a source of pathogenic disease that can decimate native fish and therefore does not permit salmon farms in certain areas frequented by wild salmon. BC, in contrast, has approved at least 10 farms in one of the narrowest channels that wild sockeye salmon migrate through and disease risk was not considered when approving any of them.

Lethal salmon virus found in every region with installed salmon farms

Dr. Rick Routledge, professor and fisheries statistician at Simon Fraser University worried about river inlet sockeye, which were also dwindling in numbers just like Fraser River sockeye. He discovered the river inlet sockeye were infected with Infectious Salmon Anemia virus (ISA), also known as salmon influenza. This highly lethal and much-feared virus has proliferated in every region across the globe where Atlantic salmon farms have been installed.

First detected in Norway in 1984, infection spread to other countries via egg imports. In Chile, ISA wiped out 70 percent of the country’s salmon industry, at a cost of $2 billion. But Chile has no native salmon to decimate. BC does and contrary to Chile, the wild salmon of BC are absolutely critical to the ecosystem and residents of the area. The locals don’t just make money off these fish; it’s a main staple of their diet.

According to Morton, at least four species of fish (coho, shum, chinook and sockeye) in the Fraser River have been found to be infected with European-strain ISA virus, yet the Canadian food inspection agency has aggressively refuted the findings and even attacked the credibility of two of the most preeminent experts on ISA testing, who testified that positive results were found to the Cohen Commission.

In fact, everyone who has spoken up about these salmon viruses, which can be traced back to salmon farms, has been shut down in some way or another. And by muzzling scientists like Dr. Miller, the Canadian government has effectively put the entire BC ecosystem at grave risk, just to protect commercial fish farming and international trade. In so doing, they’re also allowing potentially contaminated farm-raised salmon to be sold, exported and consumed.

You may be buying salmon infected with dangerous fish viruses

Morton tested farmed salmon purchased in various stores and sushi restaurants around BC and samples tested positive for at least three different salmon viruses, including Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus (ISA), Salmon alphaviruses and Piscine reovirus, which gives salmon a heart attack and prevents them from swimming upriver.

The problem with this, aside from the unknown effects on human health from eating salmon with lethal fish viruses, is that viruses are preserved by cold and fish are always kept frozen for freshness. Then when you wash the fish, the viruses get flushed down the drain and depending on your sewer system, could be introduced into local watersheds. The environmental impact of this viral contamination is hitherto unknown, but it’s unlikely to be completely harmless.

“This is why it must become public,” Morton says. She insists that consumers, stores and trading partners must become aware of this problem and be the ones to insist on proper testing and remedial action. It’s not just about protecting certain species of fish; it’s about the health of the ecosystem as a whole. It’s about human health and food safety as well.

How can you tell whether a salmon is wild or farm raised? As explained by Morton, the flesh of wild sockeye salmon is bright red, courtesy of its natural astaxanthin content. It’s also very lean so the fat marks, those white stripes you see in the meat, are very thin. If the fish is pale pink with wide, fat marks, the salmon is farmed.

Farmed fish pose a number of health hazards to your health

Farm raised fish of all species can spell disaster for your health in a number of ways. It’s important to understand that all farm-raised fish – not just salmon – are fed a concoction of vitamins and antibiotics and depending on the fish, synthetic pigments, to make up for the lack of natural flesh colouration due to the altered diet. Without it, the flesh of caged salmon, for example, would be an unappetizing, pale gray. The fish are also fed pesticides, along with compounds such as toxic copper sulfate, which is frequently used to keep nets free of algae.

Not only do you ingest these drugs and chemicals when you eat the fish, but these toxins also build up in sea-floor sediments. In this way, industrial fish farming raises many of the same environmental concerns about chemicals and pollutants that are associated with feedlot cattle and factory chicken farms. In addition, fish waste and uneaten feed further litter the sea floor beneath these farms, generating bacteria that consume oxygen vital to shellfish and other bottom-dwelling sea creatures.

Studies have also consistently found levels of PCBs, dioxins, toxaphene and dieldrin, as well as mercury, to be higher in farm-raised fish than wild fish. This fact alone would be cause to reconsider consuming farmed fish.

Wild-caught fish have already reached such toxic levels it’s risky to recommend eating them with a clear conscience. For example, according to a US Geological Survey study, mercury contamination was detected in every fish sampled in nearly 300 streams across the US. More than a quarter of these fish contained mercury at levels exceeding the EPA criterion for the protection of human health. So when you consider the fact that factory farmed fish typically are even more toxic than wild-caught fish and also contain an assortment of antibiotics and pesticides, avoiding them becomes a no-brainer – at least if you’re concerned about your health.

To learn more about the differences between farmed salmon and wild salmon, specifically, please see my interview with Randy Hartnell, founder-president of Vital Choice Wild Seafood and Organics. I’m a huge fan of their wild sockeye salmon and aside from a fish dinner at a restaurant here or there, Vital Choice salmon is about the only type of fish I eat. [Visit www.youtube.com and search for Dr. Mercola interview with Randy Hartnell. Download the transcript at www.mercola.com]

Buying local increases food safety and food security

Morton recommends buying local foods and wild fish. I couldn’t agree more. As mentioned in the film, disease in farm animals is one of the biggest sources of epidemics in humans. Therefore, the health of food animals cannot be treated as some sort of idealistic notion relegated to tree-huggers and animal-welfare crusaders.

Fish farms are the aquatic version of a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) and just like land-based cattle and chicken farms, aquatic CAFOs are a breeding ground for disease and toxic waste and produce food animals of inferior quality. Due to the dramatically increased disease risk – a natural side effect of crowding – these animals are further contaminated with drugs and in the case of salmon, synthetic astaxanthin, which is made from petrochemicals that are not approved for human consumption.

Wild salmon are dying from diseases cultivated and spread by salmon farms. Where is the sense in this? And instead of selling wholesome, nutritionally superior wild salmon, Canada is selling inferior and potentially diseased salmon raised in fish farms. Who benefits and who loses?

The industry will tell you the world needs inexpensive food and inevitably they insist such foods can only be created using the latest technology and artificial means. The latest example of this craziness is the creation of what amounts to a vegetarian fish diet designed for carnivorous fish. Instead of fishmeal, the protein in this feed comes from bacteria, yeast or algae. This way, fish farms will not need to use valuable wild fish to feed farmed fish and this, they claim, will help alleviate world hunger. Never mind the fact that, by altering a fish’s diet in such a drastic way, you’re undoubtedly altering its nutritional content as well.

So at what cost should we clamour for cheap foods? At the expense of our environment and, potentially, the very lives of our descendants? We cannot be so blindly arrogant as to think we can survive as a species if we allow the ecosystem to fall apart.

The ramifications of our large-scale, mass-producing, chemical dependent food system are incredibly vast, which is why I urge you to become more curious about your food. Where and how was it raised, grown, or manufactured? These things do matter – for your health and the health and future of our planet.

Like Alexandra Morton, I am also very concerned about our vanishing freedoms and increasing “corpotocracy,” where citizens are ruled by multi-national corporations with just one goal in mind: maximizing Profit. A glaring example of this loss of freedom was Bill 37 – the inappropriately named “Animal Health Act,” which, had Canada made it into law, would have made it a crime to report farm animal disease to the public. Under this bill, informants would face a $75,000 fine and two years in prison simply for naming the location of a disease outbreak. Fortunately, the Act was dropped, but could potentially be revived sometime in the future.

© Dr. Mercola. Founder of the world’s #1 natural health site, he gives you the low-down on cholesterol at www.mercola.com/Downloads/bonus/why-we-need-cholesterol/report.aspx

Stay current

Video updates, including interviews with international fish pathologists and incoming test results and new science publications, will be released on a regular basis. To stay updated, visit salmonconfidential.ca where you can also watch the film. For more information, visit:
www.mercola.com   http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/
www.salmonaresacred.org    www.callingfromthecoast.com
www.davidsuzuki.org   www.pacificwild.org

Make changes this election in BC!
Elect MLAs who care about wild salmon

Watch this film then contact (letters, emails, phone, etc) MLA candidates in your riding and party leaders and tell them in order to get your vote you want them to stand up for the wild salmon economy (which includes wilderness tourism, first nations food fishing, sports fishing and commercial fishing) and remove fish farms from the migration routes of wild salmon. The Province of BC is the landlord to this industry. It holds the Licences of Occupation required by each site and these licences can be terminated in 60 days, with no compensation if it is in the public interest. The candidates need to know the BC public is indeed interested in terminating the release of European viruses over our wild salmon.

Upcoming events

May 4: Idle No More Christy Clark Edition – Grassroots protest. 1PM, gather at McBride Park at West 4th @ Collingwood, Vancouver.

May 4: Fingerling Festival, Port Moody, 11-3PM. Noons Creek Hatchery & the Port Moody Recreation Centre, Ioco Road, Port Moody.

May 5: Salmon Confidential screening, Port Moody Inlet Theatre, 7PM, $5. Meet filmmaker Twyla Roscovich & Brigette DePape.

May 11-13 Mayday Madness Warriors & Idle No More: May 11: Poco Mayday Parade: 9AM setup, parade starts 11AM, corner Shaughnessy St. & Welcher Ave., Port Coquitlam. 12-4PM, CJSF/Wild Salmon Warrior After Party, Shaughnessy Square, 2099 Lougheed Highway. 8PM: Warrior Night, Joe’s Atlantic Grill, 2410 St. Johns St., Port Moody. May 12: Wild Salmon Mother’s Day, 11AM, Coquitlam Centre, London Drugs entrance & then at Pitt Meadows Real Canadian Superstore, 2PM. May 13: Flash Mob at MP Randy Camp’s office, 11AM.
For more information about these events, visit www.salmonconfidential.ca

• The people’s briefing note on prescription drugs

Dear new member of the Legislative Assembly:

• You’re likely facing a steep learning curve in getting used to your new job so I’d like to offer you some translation help. For free.

You can expect that, just as you are settling into your new office in the Legislature and getting comfortable running the government, a lobbyist working in the “Life Sciences” field – someone representing drug giants like Pfizer, Merck or GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) – will call you up and ask for a little meeting.

As an MLA, you are ultimately responsible to taxpayers for making many decisions, including decisions about spending about $1.2 billion per year of public money on drug products. Many people want to offer their services to help you with those decisions. For example, the GSK rep might come by to tell you how their drugs and vaccines “contribute benefits to patients and value to the sustainability of the healthcare system,” while the guy from Janssen will want to work with you to “identify treatment gaps and focus on ways through partnerships to improve health outcomes for British Columbians.” And then there’s the government relations person from Pfizer who will check in to brief you on “the pharmaceutical industry and/or Pfizer Canada’s business activities in the province, as well as learn more about your health policy priorities.” I know there are dozens of lobbyists who will start making these appointments to see you because that’s what they do. Such visits are recorded in the BC Government Lobbyist Registry and these quotes are directly from the registry.

The lobbyists will want to convince you of one thing: that, like you, they are there to serve the people of British Columbia and they want to make sure BC citizens have access to innovative, new medicines.

Please don’t be fooled. Despite the enticement of the pitch and the warm-n-fuzzy feeling that you and your new lobbyist friends are on the same team, I assure you, you are not. Your bosses (unlike theirs) are the electorate. Their bosses occupy corner offices in glass towers in Montreal or Mississauga, the franchise headquarters of Canada’s multinational drug industry and the Canadian bosses take orders from places like New York (Pfizer), London (GSK) and Whitehouse Station, New Jersey (Merck). You need to remember this fact when well-heeled lobbyists show up or when disease or consumer lobby groups ask to meet with you. If they are living partly off the avails of the “life sciences” industry (and many of them are), they will ultimately be working to please the CEOs in New York, London and New Jersey and not your voters.

So to help you in your new job, I’ve devised a handy interpretive codebook that may guide you through your discussions. Here are a few common topics you might face:

Investments in new medications

They will say: “Investing in new medications and vaccines improves our communities – because health innovations help save lives.”

Code for: “If you don’t agree to pay for the latest, greatest drugs produced by our labs, BC citizens will suffer.”

Only on rare occasions do the newest medicines and vaccines save lives and, at best, one in 10 new medicines offers significant benefits over and above existing drugs. But most independent research would indicate the additional costs needed to cover newer drugs –sometimes hundreds of times more than existing treatments – are almost never worth the added costs. But more importantly, being new they lack important safety data. York University professor Dr. Joel Lexchin has studied this situation intensely and says, “Almost 20% of new drugs approved in Canada between 1995 and 2010 were dangerous enough that they either acquired a serious safety warning or had to be removed from the market. Half of these serious safety problems turned up in the first three years after the drug was approved.” In other words, don’t set yourself up for being Vioxxed!

Investments in innovation

They will say: “Health innovation creates jobs, generates economic activity and eases the burden on our healthcare system…”

Code for: “Drug company research is a great way to create all those high-paying, high-tech jobs that feed the “knowledge economy.”

The implied threat is if you don’t pour more government money into BC’s universities and drug research labs, the companies will pull up stakes and move elsewhere. What they won’t tell you is that BC, with 13% of Canada’s population, only gets about 6% of the national expenditures on pharmaceutical research and development. In other words, the drug companies are spending less than half of what they should on generating sexy, high-paying jobs so for them to expect you to put up even more public money to subsidize the jobs that they are promising is a pretty bold, yet hypocritical statement.

Restrictive drug coverage

When they say: “BC PharmaCare’s ‘historical, and current approaches to listing decisions in BC have been unreasonably restrictive.’”

Code for: A “listing decision” is whether the government decides to pay for a treatment or not.

Historically, the BC government, acting under the influence of science and evidence, has been a bit tight-fisted and refused to pay for some so-called new and innovative drugs, like Vioxx. What they won’t tell you is that insisting on evidence and good independent drug evaluation (like those produced by groups like the Therapeutics Initiative) is not unreasonable, but an approach that has saved lives and money.

Transparency of drug coverage decisions

When they say: “We want ‘improved transparency and the enhanced deployment of a wider array of peer-respected specialized expertise.’”

Code for: “We want scientists that we have funded at the table when it comes to discussing the evidence around our wonderful, new drugs. If you don’t allow us to have our own people on the committees that make drug decisions, how will we be able to manipulate you into our way of thinking? We demand ‘transparency’ because that’s the best way we’ll be able to bias the process. Oh, so you have rules against conflicts-of-interest? How quaint.”

Disease management initiatives

When they say: “Innovative drug manufacturers have developed, or have been involved with, a number of disease management initiatives.”

Code for: “Look, don’t you want us to come in and provide a free diabetes or osteoporosis or Alzheimer’s program using our evidence? Then you better let us do things our way, which means putting our industry-friendly experts in place and engaging our industry-friendly disease groups so that they will work towards our marketing objectives. Basically, if you are nice to us, we’ll bring our programs to BC.”

Good corporate citizenship

They will say: “We are guided by a code of ethical practices, which has been a ‘tangible demonstration of Canada’s research-based pharmaceutical companies’ commitment to a relationship based on trust, openness and transparency with health-care providers.’”

Code for: (sotto voce) “Let’s not talk about our rap sheet, ok? Even though only four of the world’s biggest drug companies (GSK, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Schering-Plough) have together paid some $10.5 billion (US) in financial penalties to the US government over the past two decades, that doesn’t mean we’re criminals.”

According to US consumer group Public Citizen, “The pharmaceutical industry now tops not only the defense industry, but all other industries in the total amount of fraud payments for actions against the [US] federal government under the False Claims Act.”

Look out for those watchwords: “partnership,” “transparency,” “shared goals” and “engagement.” These are loaded words, which imply you as an MLA and he (or she) as a drug lobbyist are on the same team. You are not.

Remember this: money has the ability to pollute even the most noble aspects of healthcare. Lobbyists provide a valuable service: to convey to you what the CEOs of multinational drug companies want. Remember that and use it to your advantage.

Good luck. You’ll need it.

–

Alan Cassels is the author of Seeking Sickness: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease. Follow him on Twitter @AKECassels or www.alancassels.com

• There is an awakening of consciousness occurring on the planet right now. Day by day, more people are considering their potential to evolve. A metaphysical awareness is being fostered within the media. The seeds being planted are shifting the collective consciousness of humanity. Information is being communicated that is sparking the latent memory of the Truth through the mass media. Our entire culture is adopting the notion that we have a greater potential to realize within ourselves, both individually and collectively as a society.

You are at the forefront of this movement because you are now actively working to awaken your consciousness. Even now, considering this, you are activating your latent faculties of higher awareness; you are awakening. As you awaken, you begin to influence and inspire others drawn to you innately by their spirit, just as you were innately drawn to read this. At some deeper level, you have a sense there is something to all this and at some deeper level, every human being knows it too. Each time you share with anyone while being conscious, consciousness begins to grow between you. Seeds of awareness are being planted through individuals sharing. Spirit is using you to help awaken the consciousness of the planet.

Oxford physicist Milton Sheldrake refers to the collective energies that humans share as “morphic resonance.” There are electromagnetic fields around human beings that hold the energy indicative of their states of consciousness. As your awareness grows, your energy shifts and is then transmitted through the energy field around your body. Your auric field illuminates. Through Kirlian photography, you can physically see the energy fields shifting though acts of love, meditation or by reflecting on the nature of your Self. By connecting with this Divine presence, you light up. Others feel the energy field that is conducting your state of consciousness, at some level. The more evolved you become, the easier it is to feel those subtle energies. Your body serves as an instrument for this Divine transmission of this Holy Spirit. Your spirit is an extension of the Holy Spirit and through spirit we are all interconnected.

When there is harmony within your mind and spirit, when your mind connects and cooperates with your spirit, there is harmony within your field. When there is harmony within you, there is more harmony around you. Your relationship with others and with life itself is harmonious, congruent and synchronistic. Conversely, when your mind abrogates the authority of your spirit, discord occurs. Attuning to the Divine Cosmic transmission supporting all life attunes you to all life. The interconnection between yourself and all of humanity, all of creation, can be felt. You feel the Living Presence of God as your own Self.

–

Steven S. Sadleir is a recognized Kundalini Master in the lineage of Vethathiri Maharishi and a Siddha Yogi in the lineage of Sri Sri Sri Shivabalayogi Maharaj. He is a bestselling author, host of Enlightenment Radio and founder of the Self Awareness Institute. www.selfawareness.com

The Raging Grannies are a group of women my age who are strong and firmly believe in social justice. We sing and participate in support of peace issues, women’s rights, gay rights, the environment and other issues that affect all our lives in this world. Wherever we are, we intend to join protests and sing songs voicing our opposition to the Enbridge Pipeline.

I come in peace, but I come alone because the two Grannies who are here as observers are not allowed to join me and sing during my presentation. We asked to sing today and were told we could not do so as a group. We are quite frankly frightened and distressed by the whole concept of what we see as an emerging police state. We are angry that the grannies are not allowed to sing and are not even allowed to be in the viewing room next door.

I would now like to share with you the story of The Flight of the Hummingbird, a book based on an Ecuadorian legend, illustrated by Haida artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas.

The terrible fire raged and burned. All of the animals were afraid and fled from the forest. The birds were afraid as well and they all fled the raging fire. They huddled at the edge of the fire and watched as it devastated their forest, all except one, the Hummingbird. The hummingbird proceeded to go to a small stream, picked up a drop of water in its beak and flew to the fire and dropped the water. It flew back and forth between the fire and the stream… The little hummingbird persisted. She flew back and forth, each time dropping a tiny drop of water. Finally the large bear said, “Hummingbird, what in the world are you doing?”

The hummingbird said, “I am doing all that I can.”

I love this story. The message to me is very clear and, from your faces, I think you heard the story.

We fear the pipeline. We see it as being like a raging fire out of control that will destroy the farms, forests and homes in its path. We see ourselves as the hummingbird, doing whatever we can to stop this from happening.

–

Marge Johnson and her family came to Canada from the US in 1969 to protest the Vietnam War. Prior to moving to Regina, she was actively involved in the civil rights movement and anti-war activities. Upon moving to Vancouver, Marge joined the Raging Grannies because she believed they provided her a way to express her strong desire to work for peace through song and protest.

by Bruce Mason

• I had myriad opportunities to chat with legendary music icon and spiritual teacher Victor Wooten during his three successive annual pilgrimages to the Haven on Gabriola Island. During breaks in the intense daylong workshops, before and after sound checks and performances and over breakfast and late-night beverages, I had the chance to share thoughts and stories with him and with the highly engaged and enlivened participants from far-flung corners.

See a video featuring Victor Wooten: Music as a Language >

For 30 years, the Haven has programmed wide-ranging courses for personal and professional development. Executive director Rachel Davey says Victor is “hugely successful. The entire property is alive with music, discovery and conversation.”

At 48 years of age, Wooten is now equally renowned for his singular and inspirational publication The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music (Berkley, 2006), which turned readers on their ears, including faculty and students at the famed Berklee College of Music, Stanford and other prestigious institutions, where it is now listed in curricula. A novel soundtrack is available this month. The book grew out of an ongoing global demand for lessons on his unique style, approach and elusive techniques. It took shape while he was developing his unprecedented Center for Music and Nature at Wooten Woods, the 150-acre retreat he purchased with his wife on Duck River, near their home in Nashville.

Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten in Istanbul, Turkey

The parable and firsthand journey not only created a buzz among musicians, but also resonated with a growing, diverse audience as copies passed from hand to hand, read, re-read and keenly discussed. As a result, Wooten has been dubbed, among other things, “the Carlos Castaneda of music.”

Drawing on the art form for inspiration and example, he explores and shares concepts of creativity and the art of living, examining blocks, tools and skills to shift patterns, habits and other limits to accessing the full range of our resources and potential.

It became clear in conversations he is increasingly concerned that music is endangered, a worry that developed through his observations and perspectives as a touring musician, in-demand session player and soloist, teacher, father, skilled naturalist, best-selling author, magician, acrobat and committed, consciously evolving human being. And it is a subject of his next book.

However, the question I wanted to ask first is how it feels to be referred to as “the world’s best bass player” with virtually every mention of his name. “I’m still not used to that kind of stuff, especially since guys I learned from and look up to are still playing above me,” Wooten says. “At first it made me want to talk about Stanley Clarke and many other great musicians and influences, but I’ve discovered an initial response – ‘Thank you.’ Everyone’s free to make their own decisions and how they look at others. I have no desire to change that. What’s important to me is to try and seize the opportunity to help people begin to see themselves in the same way.

“I’m put up on lots of pedestals and rather than take myself down from them, I’ve learned, wow, if people have those high sights, they can envision possibilities. My focus is on the potential people have to achieve lofty goals, to try and help them realize they can do everything I’m doing and more. That’s my approach now – to let people say great things about me and then bring to their attention and awareness that they can also accomplish wonderful things, coaxing them to climb up on those so-called pedestals.”

Wooten has earned every major award for bass guitarists, including five Grammies. He is the only musician named “Bassist of the Year” three times by Bass Player magazine. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine voted Victor one of the Top 10 Bassists of All Time.

He recalls his unusual, formative early days: “When I was born, my four brothers were already playing and needed a bass player to complete the family band. They started teaching me as soon as I could sit up straight and I was performing in nightclubs and theatres by five and touring as the opening act for the likes of Curtis Mayfield a year later.”

The accolades were immediate and affectionate, including “eight year-old ace,” “Michael Jordan of the bass” and “one of the most fearless musicians on the planet.” And there are many stories, the stuff of Wooten legends. Victor had never played violin, but in 1981, older brother Roy recommended him as a bluegrass fiddle player for a gig at an amusement park. With an instrument borrowed from his high school orchestra teacher, he learned the popular tunes and tricky techniques almost overnight, landing the job. Twenty years, dozens of recordings and frequent global tours later, the eclectic, genre-bending ensemble continues to create completely new sounds and sustains its reputation as an international phenomenon through relentless invention and experimentation.

In the meantime, Victor released his first solo project, A Show of Hands, recorded with only a four-string bass, no multi-tracking and much groove and soul. It is a revolutionary CD widely recognized as one of the most important bass records ever made.

At the core of his music and message is his belief “music is a language,” cogently articulated in his five-minute TEDEducation You Tube video. “Because I learned music at a very, very early age – from birth – my outlook is different from most people about how music is taught,” he says. “Think about learning English; no one ever made you practise. You were encouraged to jam with professionals all the time, to feel good, including about being wrong. Mistakes didn’t matter as much as jamming constantly.

“We’ve also been listening to music all our lives and know what’s good without analyzing it. Our bodies move. It’s a feeling. And if you can recall that feeling and recreate it while playing, the music comes out instantly and spontaneously. It’s similar to not having to be motivated to talk or to focus on our instrument, our mouth, and obsess over technique and constantly practise scales. We speak before we learn the alphabet because all we require is something to say. I believe we should really go inside of ourselves and strive to become what we find.

“Basically, the message is you can make whatever is in your heart work. The groove and feeling is more important than the notes, in life and in music.”

At the Haven, Amazing Grace is played every sunset and when it was recommended to Rachel Davey that she Google Victor’s arrangement, she invited him to design and present a workshop for musicians and non-musicians alike. In last month’s Common Ground, Judy Collins spoke about the power of redemption in the song. Victor agrees and demonstrates an example of what he hopes we all find in music and in life, also captured and taught on You Tube. However, he fears we are lost.

In The Music Lesson, his mentor Michael observes, “We have forgotten, as a species, how to listen.” Expect a further exploration and explanation in the book’s sequel, now in progress. “I sense symptoms of an illness and if it grows, the result could be the death of music as we know it,” Wooten explains. “After all, only parts of a body break down before it dies and, for example, music is disappearing from our schools. We are losing our natural ability to listen, to hear and fully sense feeling and emotion and I want to help free the full experience of music. Its range and dynamics are compressed on MP3s. Music is becoming more and more commercial, trend-driven, canned and pitch-corrected. We’re consuming small samples instead of the entirety and fullness of whole albums and live concerts, playing music in isolation with and on computers.

“Music is out of balance and I want to re-focus attention on the song and the living feeling, not its recording,” he concluded.

Expect Victor to follow and enlarge the credo instilled by his mother who frequently interrupted family jams with wise advice he adheres to daily: “Boys, the world already has lots of good musicians. What it needs is more good people. As you learn, ask yourself why you are doing it and where you want to help lead people.”

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Bruce Mason is a Vancouver and Gabriola-Island based five-string banjo player, gardener, freelance writer and author of Our Clinic. brucemason@shaw.ca www.victorwooten.com

three players on the stage photo © Petitfrere

• The year is 1717. Voltaire is sent to the Bastille because his rather edgy writing makes powerful people uncomfortable, a massive earthquake strikes Antigua, Guatemala, and France gives a portion of land along the Ottawa River to the Sulpician Missionary Society. France doesn’t own the land, but for the French Crown, such matters are neither here nor there.

The gift did not sit well with the Mohawk since the land in the French grant was their land and for the next 151 years, this piece of real estate would be a thorn in the side of Mohawk and Sulpician relations.

In 1868, a year after Confederation had overtaken Canada, Joseph Onasakenrat, a chief of the Mohawk, wrote a letter to the Sulpicians demanding the return of the land within eight days. The Sulpicians ignored the warning and Onasakenrat led a march on the Sulpician seminary, weapons in hand. After a short and rather unpleasant confrontation, local authorities arrived and forced the Mohawk to retreat. Then, in 1936, the Sulpicians sold the property and left the area. The Mohawk protested the sale and again the protest fell on deaf ears.

Twenty-three years later in 1959, a nine-hole golf course, Club de golf d’Oka, was built on the land, right next to the band’s cemetery. This time, the Mohawk launched a legal protest, hoping that the courts would provide them with some relief from White encroachment. The authorities and the courts dillied back and dallied forth, and in the meantime, the developers went ahead with the construction of the course and happy golfers began roaming up and down the fairways in their little carts.

Finally, in 1977, the Mohawk filed an official land claim with the federal Office of Native Claims in an attempt to recapture the land. Nine years later, the claim was rejected because it failed to meet certain legal criteria. Which was a fancy way of saying that the Mohawk couldn’t prove that they owned the land, at least not in the way that Whites recognized ownership.

For the next eleven years, relations between the town of Oka and the Mohawk were spotty. Then, in 1989, the mayor of Oka, Jean Ouellette, announced the exciting news that the old golf course was going to be expanded into an 18-hole course and that 60 luxury condominiums would also be built. In order to manage this expansion, the town prepared to move on the Mohawk, taking more of their land, levelling a forest known among the Mohawk as “the Pines” and building new fairways and condominiums on top of the band cemetery.

That did it. After 270-odd years of dealing with European arrogance and indifference, after trying every legal avenue available, the Mohawk had had enough. On March 10, 1990, Natives began occupying the Pines, protecting their trees and their graveyard. Their land.

Five months later, in the heat of July, the confrontation became a shooting war. Neither the provincial government nor the federal government wanted to deal with the situation. Jean Ouellette had no intention of talking with the Mohawk and said so on television. Instead, he insisted that the province send in the Sûreté du Québec and in they came, storming the barricades that the Mohawk had erected with tear gas and flash-bang grenades. Shots were fired. No one knows who fired first. Not that it would have made much difference. And when the smoke cleared, Corporal Marcel Lemay had been mortally wounded and a Mohawk elder, Joe Armstrong, had suffered what would be a fatal heart attack trying to escape an angry mob.

So began the Oka Crisis.

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Excerpted from The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King (Doubleday Canada). Reprinted with permission.

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki

• Access to information is a basic foundation of democracy. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms also gives us “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.”

We must protect these rights. As we alter the chemical, physical and biological properties of the biosphere, we face an increasingly uncertain future and the best information we have to guide us comes from science. That scientists – and even librarians – are speaking out against what appear to be increasing efforts to suppress information shows we have cause for concern. The situation has become so alarming that Canada’s Information Commissioner is investigating seven government departments in response to a complaint that they’re “muzzling” scientists.

The submission from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre and Democracy Watch alleges “the federal government is preventing the media and the Canadian public from speaking to government scientists for news stories – especially when the scientists’ research or point of view runs counter to current Government policies… The complaint and investigation follow numerous similar charges from scientists and organizations… Hundreds of scientists marched on Parliament Hill last July to mark “the death of evidence.”

The list of actions prompting these grievances is long. It includes shutting the world renowned Experimental Lakes Area, axing the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, eliminating funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences and prohibiting federal scientists from speaking about research on subjects ranging from ozone to climate change to salmon.

All of this has been taking place as the federal government guts environmental laws and cuts funding for environmental departments through its omnibus budget bills… The government appears determined to challenge any information, person or organization that could stand in the way of its plans for rapid tar sands expansion and transport and sale of raw resources as quickly as possible to any country with money.

The results have been astounding. An Environment Canada document leaked to the Climate Action Network states, “Media coverage of climate change science, our most high-profile issue, has been reduced by over 80 percent.”

In the environmental movement, we’ve become accustomed to attacks and attempts by government and its proxies to silence us. We’ve been called everything from “radicals” to “un-Canadian” to “money-launderers.” Federal Treasury Board President Tony Clement even blamed the David Suzuki Foundation and me for opposition to the proposed TransCanada west-to-east pipeline, a project we have yet to say a word about!

In a truly open and democratic society, ideas, policies and legislation are exposed to scrutiny, debate and criticism. Information is shared freely. Governments support research that makes the country stronger by ensuring its policies are in the best interests of the people.

Countries where governments hold a tight rein on information, shut down or stifle research that runs counter to their priorities and demonize and attack opponents are never good places to live. We have to make sure Canada doesn’t become one.

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Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation communications manager Ian Hanington. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org

Occupy-The Movie: the emotional roller coaster of being an occupier

• This year’s DOXA Festival (doxafestival.ca), our version of Hot Docs, bristles with ideas and provocations over its 10 days in May. If the five films I’ve seen are representative of the whole program, expect some intelligent and well-crafted documentaries coming your way, along with lively Q&As and discussions with filmmakers and other audience members.

The festival opens with Corey Ogilvie’s Occupy: The Movie, a thorough and at times poetic look at the US “spring” in the fall of 2011. Ogilvie primarily focuses on Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park, looking at how casino banking and bailouts created conditions for the popular upsurge. As well as a host of occupiers talking about the emotional roller-coaster of the Occupation as it swelled and then dispersed, there are some astute observations from the likes of Aaron Black, Chris Hedges and Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn on tactics (“reformers” vs. “revolutionaries”) and how such a popular, social movement can sustain itself.

Another DOXA highlight is Mike Freedman’s ambitious, future-looking Critical Mass, which extrapolates theories about human over-population and resource depletion based on renowned ethologist John Calhoun’s ‘60s and ‘70s mice colony experiments. In a documentary brimming with sustainability thinkers such as ecological footprint inventors professor Bill Rees and Mathis Wackernagel (and others from the Ecological Footprint Network), Freedman paints a dystopian trajectory for the human species as it explodes by the billions. I found it difficult to accept some of the conclusions, but with its nifty info-graphics, it makes for stimulating viewing. One to watch with a crowd.

Where did our urban rivers go? Many of them are beneath you, under the concrete, as Lost Rivers reveals as it follows “drainers” down the manhole to re-discover ancient rivers and tributaries around the world, from Brescia in Italy to London in the UK. Caroline Bâcle’s visually attractive film illustrates the revitalizing qualities of daylighting covered-over rivers and plots a culture shift in urban design toward working with, rather than fighting, nature – although apparently too late to prevent old-style industrial storm water solutions for Garrison Creek in Toronto.

The globe-trotting Google and the World Brain platforms the debate around the Big G’s practices, in particular its opaque dealings with libraries and authors over its giant global library, apparently part of a plan to create an all-encompassing artificial intelligence. High-tech evangelicalism crashes against digital-age angst as the doc explores issues around copyright (“archaic and unproductive” or a way of remembering the efforts of authors?), privacy, commercialization of knowledge and quality control (Google Book Search is likened to a “meat grinder”).

Political junkies will relish Our Nixon, a sympathetic and intimate behind-the-scenes look at the staff close to the former president, caught on scratchy newsreel footage and the warm glow of Super-8 home movies. Mashed together with famously redacted secret audio tapes from the White House and a swinging soundtrack, it’s a unique and fascinating – if somewhat elliptical – insider account of the ill-fated presidency.

Aside from DOXA, there’s Michael McGowan’s tender and gently humorous romance Still Mine, set in a bucolic-like New Brunswick. Great performances by James Cromwell as a cantankerous old man whose projects are beset by red tape and Geneviève Bujold as the love of his life bring a rare dignity and spiritedness to the ageing process.

DOXA runs May 3-12 in Vancouver.

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Robert Alstead is making the documentary Running on Climate (www.runningonclimate.com).

• The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof. – Richard Bach

Is it ever okay to turn your back on your family? We think of commitment and loyalty as a good thing, but in my experience they can sometimes keep people stuck in situations that are negative and even destructive.

I have often seen the toll an extremely bad marriage can take on an individual’s psychological and physical health. When I ask why they stay, they say it is because they made a commitment. While I think we should be committed in relationships and not bail at the first sign of trouble, when there is no love left for the partner, dread at the sound of their key in the door, no quality of life and the person has been depressed for years, it is time to do something. I think of these kinds of relationships like carbon monoxide poisoning; the individual is so tired of the relationship, but just can’t summon the energy to get out.

It seems more socially acceptable to divorce a spouse than a family or family member, but the toxicity of a family relationship can be even more intense because of the family history. If, for example, one was always criticized as a child, that person may suffer from low self-esteem and a lack of confidence. If the criticism continues into adulthood, it is virtually impossible for that person to heal and live authentically.

As adults, we have the opportunity to discover who we really are and to transcend any limitations put upon us as we grew. It is a sad commentary on our culture that many adults are in therapy to learn how to love and honour themselves, to trust their own inner wisdom and to understand their sole purpose on Earth is not to please everyone.

A healthy family with strong, supportive relationships is a very good thing. Not everyone is so blessed. Some families or individual members can be a source of constant stress, whether or not there is overt conflict.

It is certainly worth trying to talk to family to try to make things better. Such conversations are not always well received, however, especially if the other gets defensive and sees criticism where there was only an attempt to communicate honestly.

Another approach is to try to set healthy boundaries, letting others know what is unacceptable for you. I had to tell one couple it was okay to tell the in-laws they could not keep using their copy of the key to drop in anytime or come in without even knocking.

If a family situation has become so difficult you are losing sleep over it, cannot get it out of your mind and it is affecting the rest of your life and your health, it is okay to disconnect temporarily or permanently, if need be. If you felt bad in your family growing up and they still make you feel that way, you are not sentenced to live with that the rest of your life.

Young adults leave home to gain their independence and start their own journey, hopefully toward their true path. Even though we may not still live there, sometimes we have to leave home for the same reasons.

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Gwen Randall-Young is an author and psychotherapist in private practice. For articles and information about her books, Deep Powerful Change hypnosis CDs and new Creating Healthy Relationships series, visit www.gwen.ca. See display ad this issue.