His speech carves; words are fortitude.

Birdman for President

I have often admired those in this world who can speak very convincingly with the conviction that their words are describing the truth and are being understood as such. These conscious minds have developed many artful techniques for transferring their convictions to their listeners. They sometimes yell at their audiences as if they were mad that they have to be talking about what should be obvious to anyone. Their truth is absolute, self-evident and it can be contained and transferred in words. Therefore the truths of which they speak must be limited to what can be understood in one life-time because language is limited by the conscious mind. The conscious mind is as old as the body and acts as a link between the body and the eternal soul which has had many bodies. The soul is much older and wiser than the conscious mind, yet it is trapped in the body which is driven by the conscious mind.

268

Fortitude is in the roof beams and pillars;
Profit is the peaceful man's life.

The soul rarely gets to rule in this world. It has more control of the body only during times of artistic expression which is uninhibited by self-consciousness. Our conscious minds try to interpret the expressions of the soul in dreams and often will mistakenly project the soul's images (or mixtures of the two minds) on to the physical world. The soul is irrational to the conscious mind yet the conscious mind uses it to rationalize the body's irrational behavior. The child is leading the adult and does not understand anything that the adult has to say.

269

The powerful ram shows fortitude;
The wood-pigeon is not a civet.

Our society as a whole seems to be even afraid of the soul. Could this be because it is undeservedly blamed for "irrational" behaviors? We now have institutions which keep souls restricted to what the majority of conscious minds have agreed to be harmless (and practically useless). Religion was originally intended to be a way for conscious minds to find the soul or higher part of the personality. Humans could see that they were immortal and, therefore, limitless; infinite and part of the infinity of God. Today, preachers spend too much of their time saying what God is not and thereby limiting the unlimited. Are we supposed to be afraid to believe in God's unlimited power? Can't God be anything we can imagine? Why must we limit our imaginations?

270

A boar's fortitude is in its teeth;
The officer goes hunting also.

As a society, we are more afraid of drugs and altered states of consciousness than ever before. Today, we blame all the evils of the world on drugs. The way drugs control people stems from desperate enslaved souls confined by conscious minds that can't understand them. As we "get tough on drugs" and become more oppressive to souls, we perpetuate the problem.

171-172

Active flux.
Even the great employ transactions;
Penetrating Yin, submission falls.
Pretense, and desire passes.

Manipulating symbols is a is a way for the soul to express itself and be heard if not understood, and now Congress is passing laws against this expression violating the founding father Masons' very clear rights of free speech and freedom of religion. Today, the soul is oppressed more than any minority. It has always been oppressed, but today, it is much more oppressed than it has been in the recent past. Today, we need "affirmative action" for the soul. In other words, the soul should be allowed to rule us more often than our conscious minds until, as a society, we can arrive at some kind of parity.

273-274

Dark pretense.
One does not see its deeds.

At the time of the next presidential election, this body will be 35 years old, which is the minimum age requirement for running for the office of president. I will run as a champion for the souls in all of us. I will fight censorship of any kind, so that the souls may be free to fly and fight their demons within themselves through the aid of symbols and thus lose the need for projecting evil into the physical world. No mortal can truly be our enemy. We are all God's children and he loves us all. My conscious mind may be an example of one who is in awe of the soul and cooperates with it, and tries to understand it.

275

Dark pretense.
One does not see the heart;
Only the wrapping outside.

Freedom of the soul is the basis of all human rights and, therefore, it should be the basis of foreign policy. The United States should not be oppressive and should not support other oppressive governments no matter what material "necessities" may dictate. The freedom of the soul transcends all economic systems. A society which chooses to be communist is better than one which is forced to be capitalist.

276

The hawk-goose depends on the water;
The other winged creatures on the South Wind,
Riding in its bosom.

I'm not proposing that we undergo a radical change. As George Bush says, "what I'm talking about is the value thing." This change of values would obviously cause a movement away from military spending, but this is already happening as we let go of the myth of the "communist threat." I believe that physical change should happen slowly in consideration of all the lives affected by it. Our minds can focus on our souls only when we are not so worried about the survival of our physical bodies. When we have sufficient food, shelter, etc. for the body's health, our attention should be on the quality of what we do in relation to our soul. All work must be a means for self-fulfillment as well as a means for survival.

277

Departure is their determination,
And perhaps their happiness.
The starlings and the martins at dawn flying together
To the North; their melodious chirping and twittering
Making harmony, not stopping even to eat.

We must continue our progress towards providing health services to a wider range of people. We must help the needy, but, above all, respect them, as we should every individual, as ancient and wise souls trapped, like us, in a limited body.

278

The swallows dart back and forth
Over the River Tzu,
Drinking and eating,
Prospering favorably,
Eating their fill.

These words are much too limited to express what needs to be expressed by this soul.

279

The I Ching has six crossroads.
The Chou nine paths.
No boundaries to their deeds.

[Play]

The tradesman pretends to be stupid,
And thus may avoid being honored.

This campaign will not be funded and, therefore, will not be compromised by private interests of oppressive conscious minds. No one may even ever know about it unless copies of this broadcast are boot-legged and circulated and/or this platform is deemed worthy by the news media (which could probably only happen because of its entertainment value).

280

Active flux;
Expanding in the lofty vault
Nourishing the myriad things,
Proclaiming clearly
The great multitude are even more.
Darkness, all things beginning.
Fire enters the ears;
Tilling and plowing ceases.
The horse is guileless.

Please write in your vote for The Birdman. Thank you.

281

A corpse is about to spread the fields.

This was performed in a coat/art piece made by Ken Havis. I call the coat "Shamanizing in the Military Industrial Complex." It is a military coat with high-ranking strips going around the collar and around the cuff of each sleeve. I also wore bright orange pants, a Buddha mask and an army helmet with peacock feathers trailing out the back. The speech was spoken from a stump placed in the center of an earthwork entitled, "A Place to Perform" at the Bath House Cultural Center at White Rock Lake in Dallas, Texas. I later organized A Novena for Quetzalcoatl, the first of the Novena series at this very location. The video would often cut away to the surrounding native birds as well as multitudes of birds from documentaries, such as The Living Planet and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. A David Frost-style interview followed.

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