jdmann@cdp.uucp (08/19/89)
******** Ancient History, Modern Eco-crisis ******
*** A New Release from Solstice Publications ***
*** THE DRAGON AND THE ICE CASTLE ***
***** Rediscovery of Sacred Space in the Finger Lakes *****
Synopsis
On January 24, 1988 David Yarrow visited the south shore of Onondaga
Lake to search for the last village of Onondaga Indians on the shore of
the lake which bears their name. What he discovered impelled him to
step into "the path of progress." By persistence and civil
disobedience, David brings public attention to hazardous waste and
petrochemicals under a site in Oil City soon to become central New
York's largest shopping mall. On March 11, 1988 the Syracuse Herald
Journal proclaimed: "David vs. Goliath - the healer vs. the $150 million
shopping mall." The Syracuse New Times declared David Yarrow the "Folk
Hero of 1988" for his solitary stand against The Pyramid Cos., termed
"the green berets of shopping malls" by Fortune magazine. But hidden
beneath this public news drama lies an untold narrative of fascinating
dimensions.
David Yarrow is a dowser, popularly known as someone who locates
water underground. But like David's tale, dowsing is more complex than
this common image. For dowsing is a native ability to tap the innate
powers of our Intuitive Mind. This opens a window onto the invisible
energies which encircle the Earth to form the Web of Life - a landscape
of scared spaces and geomantic power centers. The Dragon and the Ice
Castle introduces several unusual applications of this ancient art.
Central to David's tale is Onondaga Nation, the capitol of the
oldest surviving decmocracy in North America. Readers learn that
Onondaga Nation is 12 square miles of still sovereign soil at the center
of New York, the Empire State - not a "foreign" country, but an original
"native" nation. Its founding is the "Legend of the Peacemaker" - the
tale of a virgin-born messenger from the Creator who came centuries ago
to end killing and war. On the Onondaga Lake shore he planted a Tree of
Peace to found the Haudenosaunee: The Five Nations Confederacy. In the
18th century this original "United Nations" gave advice to and provided
a living model for the Founding Fathers of our own United States to form
a government based on freedom and respect.
On September 12, 1788 the Salt Treaty was drafted between Onondaga
Nation and the newly created State of New York, to give birth to a salt
industry, giving rise to the Salt City: Syracuse. David Yarrow learns
that Pyramid's mall will be built at "the place of beginning" of the
Salt Treaty on its 200th anniversary. Later he learns that due to
irregularities in how New York conducted its affairs, Onondaga Nation
has a land claim which will restore to it the Salt Lake on which
Peacemaker founded its government. This land claim will also give
Onondaga Nation title to New York's fourth largest city: Syracuse.
But David has a dragon by his tale, for the Earth herself is its
central character. "Dragon" is an ancient image to depict the coiled
power of the magnetic forces which unify the Earth and all her life.
Onondaga Valley, with its naturally salty Salt Lake, fed by an
underground salt river, nestled in limestone bedrock carved with deep
channels 10,000 years ago by rivers of post-glacial meltwater, is a
unique environment to discover currents of magnetic energy in the
landscape. It seems Onondaga Valley's ancient inhabitants understood
this mystery, for the landscape of David's tale is dotted with so-called
Indian mounds and other artifacts of an unknown era of human history.
And the Onondaga Nation land claim will reunite the head with the tail
of the Onondaga Dragon.
The result is a tightly woven tapestry of myth, legend, mystery,
history, and metaphor set in the dramatic context of the modern
environmental crisis. This compelling opus opens startling vistas into
hidden realms of Nature, Spirit and the Earth, and is sure to arouse and
inspire readers, challenging them to reconsider the Nature of the Earth
we live on.
THE DRAGON AND THE ICE CASTLE is a call for healing - of human
beings and of Gaia: our Earth.
*** THE DRAGON AND THE ICE CASTLE is published by Solstice,
200 E. Main St Suite H, Charlottesville, VA 22901, 804-979-0189/4427.
Solstice Publisher and Editor John David Mann (igc.jdmann) produces a bi-
monthly magazine on Health and the Environment.
This is little more than a peek at a complex. multi-level experience I
was swept into last year. And, needless to say, still find
myself in the midst of. I don't have all the answers to what is implied by
the above, but I am watching, learning, recording, pondering, discovering,
and, most of all, astounded, by what is in the hole I dug on the shore of
the Salt Lake at the Place of Beginning of the Salt Treaty on its 200th
anniversary.
- David Yarrow, turtle
---
Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations
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