Congressman Dennis Kucinich sums up our country’s woes in a nutshell. A must-see video.

Why is acting much more marvelous than one may have first imagined? A desire to better understand human existence is basic to the nature of art and propels the desire of artistic minds to create. Acting and motion picture making are ways to search for that understanding and seek deeper awareness of the human condition.

Human healing and transformation through the Arts

Acting is one of the most essential elements of this art of human healing and transformation. Storytelling, theater, and motion pictures are critical to the stability and progress of our society. These arts give the community the opportunity to examine old and new ideas and to develop the ability of reflecting, learning, and of discovery as central reasons for the existence of the human community. Fellini’s films reflect this in a very special way because they are free from conventional constraints.

The Fellini Way

Anyone wishing to undertake the intense task of studying acting needs as much encouragement and guidance as possible. The Fellini Way strives to encourage student actors and actresses to express their inner reality and perception of human states in a manner that best harmonizes with their individual interests, aspirations, and abilities. The wonderful thing about teaching acting as Fellini did is the individualized attention which makes it easier and more stimulating to personal growth than any methodological, academic theatrical style. The focus is on nurturing the creative energy of students and fostering enthusiasm on their part for personal discovery through the acting process. Perfecting one’s acting ability is different for each aspirant.

There are basic skills actors and actresses need to understand regarding speech, movement, and character which must be developed. Refining each performance according to what works best under the circumstances is the greatest way to accomplish rapid progress.

Becoming an actor or actress in our society depends upon being strongly committed not only to the art from a personal standpoint of growth and career, but also by a commitment to the larger effect of Art as an essential power to lift our society in many rewarding ways.

Acting as science

Acting is not only art, it is also a science. For example, it should be clear that if you “act” an emotion, it will appear false. Acting must be honest in the sense that you act the emotion you really feel. That is where the very subtle science of managing self-imposed emotions comes into play.

The first aspect of it is imagination. For instance when your acting makes emotions rise in the audience, you have tapped in them one of the triggers you must learn to activate in yourself.

Clearly this requires two steps. The first is to understand the actual flavor, so to speak, of the emotion you are trying to act and evoke in the audience. For example: fear. You feel a coldness inside, a tension, a faster heartbeat, a trembling, a near expressionless face with drawn lines, dry mouth, speech difficulty…and so on. Remember that in motion picture acting you may be asked to express fear suddenly and then be asked to do it again a dozen times between takes.

Language and movement are the tools and essence of acting for they are what this art is about — communication. Communication between actor and audience, director and actor as well as actor and actor. Acting is doing. Scene work helps actors to understand that acting is a collaborative art. An actor’s responsibility is not only to his lines and the camera but also to other actors in the scene.

No correct way to act

Acting methods often get in the way of realism. There is no single correct way to act. In fact, one has to discover one’s own way through the process of work/study and trial and error. Too often actors are taught that there is one way to act instead of realizing that different styles of drama will require different approaches to acting and performance. That is why Fellini often preferred untrained people for his films to highly stylized stars.

The importance of professionalism

Film people, whether in Hollywood, Rome, New York, London or Paris, have one thing in common: they admire professionalism. Given a choice between two actors, professionalism will often be the deciding factor. Competence and reliability are crucial to the forming of a reputation far more treasured than erratic brilliance.

The student seeking to become a professional actor must develop and refine understanding of the extra disciplines that filming demands.

For example: you’ve got to know how to help the camera. In a close up, the camera magnifies your actions, so you have to know how to scale down the action of your performance without losing intensity as the shot gets tighter. The professional will reduce performance physically in a close up, but not mentally. In fact, the mind should work even more intensely in a close-up because in a close-up the performance is all in your eyes and facial expression, and you cannot use the rest of your body to express yourself.

The synesthetic medium

Fellini often remarked that movies are a synesthetic medium. The effects on the senses from peripheral images and sounds other than the central elements in any scene. The collateral effects, such as seeing good food in a scene and having one’s appetite stimulated. A song meant for the ears but which brings visualization or evokes memories or historical periods. All these effects are referred to as synestesia.

Fellini was deeply aware of synestesia and encouraged actors to use this second layer of awareness which impacts an audience almost subliminally.

The power of imagination that is the foundation of great acting is implicit if we are to achieve wholehearted harmonious collaboration especially from those who have digested the immense possibility that opens into our lives when we have decided to fully embrace the profession of movie acting.

Alertness and relaxation

The importance of alertness and the wisdom of relaxation in movie acting.

“If you are knocking yourself out, you are doing it wrong,” according to Michael Caine.

Therefore, one of the first things we have to learn is how to overcome nervousness.

We must seek what Socrates asked for in the prayer from the “Phaedrus” when he said:

“May the outward and the inward person be at one.”

It is by this “pulling oneself together” that our greatest powers and talents are helped rise to the surface. Our lives are granted periods of spontaneous grace, when we feel exceptionally well and at ease. Finding the secret for extending these periods of intrinsic happiness until almost everyday of our lives is a fulfilling joy is like finding a magic power.

Reaction vs. action

Acting, by its very nature, is a moving from the world of reactions to the world of self controlled action. In life we are often like boats without direction whose captain is asleep at the wheel as our boat is tossed aimlessly toward dangerous shores. The accomplished actor learns to handle the sails of emotions and stays awake by holding the rudder of reason to take advantage of the pressure of winds and currents, and thereby sets course for safe harbor. Achieving control of your vessel gives you immense self confidence and fills you with joy.

So, as an aspiring actor, if a life storm has pushed you off course do as all good sailors do: head into the wind, reduce sail and then reset course so that by taking advantage of the energy of the storm you make great progress in the good direction where the island of fulfillment awaits you.

Fellini’s style

Fellini had all the appearance and presence of a very simpatico man of the people. He was warmhearted and simple in his daily communications with others and cordial to the constant calls of his admirers. Under his casual and normalizing Romanesque presence Fellini manifested a world of profundity and understanding of the human condition and — least known to most in spite of its appearing in brilliant flashes and in grotesque symbols in many of his films — he had an astounding intellectual intuition of esoteric realities and a vast, refreshing spiritual vision.

His understanding of the magical power to be evoked in the synergy of a cast of actors supported by film technicians all collaborating in the art of making a movie was key to his free directing style and his teaching actors to think and become immersed in the reality of roles. He understood that it was energy and enthusiasm generated by sharing a collective creative process that made motion pictures the principal and most powerful art of the Modern Age.

The chosen art

The artist, whether a poet, singer, dancer, actor, musician, writer, or craftsman, invests first in himself/herself and follows his/her love for his/her chosen art. In many cases more than one art fills the life of the artist. Dedicated artists soon intuitively discover that as they perfect their art, after much work and even pain propelled by love of it, gradually and sometimes suddenly a luminous quality, an inner well being, enters their life and with it a profound understanding of life itself. This understanding becomes the very wine the artist produces and feels compelled to offer others so they may become “inebriated,” even if for a moment only in a theater, while reading a book, by hearing a song, and share the artist’s vision of life’s potential for perfection.

Learning to act frees our power for self expression. By gradually learning to express feelings in the interpretation of a role, a power is developed inside of us that can unleash joyful enthusiasm not only for this great art but for the infinite dimensions of life itself.

Training the will

Part of the actor’s work is to train the will so that the personality can break out of all self imposed limitations born of fear and illusion about the human condition. Only in a fearless state do we become fully empowered to manifest what is best in ourselves. That is when we can fully share and enjoy life with others.

We hear often the question: “What’s new?” and life responds, “I am always new! Haven’t you noticed?”

Acting is the art of conscious renewal. Some of the greatest actors are known to have experienced the sudden “awareness of awareness, ” what in the traditional Japanese “No” and “Kabuki” theater is known as the “Zen of acting.”

The profound transformation called “renewal” is best grasped by those who, facing the shock of imminent death, are suddenly reprieved and literally given a new lease on life. That is when human awareness fully awakes and experiences a rebirth and a full restoration of a sense of proportions: eyes see better, ears hear more sharply, and all sensations become deeply real as they were when we first entered life and had no questions yet.

We tend to forget the cyclic aspects of life, even though we are taught the lesson of cyclical repetition daily with the rise and setting of the sun and with each season, and by the four directions rotating around the axis of high and low.

October 27, 2011

Dear Governor:

The whole country is seeking the leadership of decent civilized human beings who will not tolerate terrorists in police uniforms roaming our streets and attacking peaceful demonstrators.

Human patience has a limit. When armed forces of the biggest military power in the world cannot quell the resistance of  populations of small and poor countries, it would be wise for powerholders to estimate how massively explosive the potential upheaval of an outraged American population pushed into self defense could be.

Such a reflection should send shivers in the spineless dark minds who are attacking American citizens exercising their constitutional rights to protest peacefully.  That is like stepping on the tail of a sleeping tiger … totally insane!

Recalling you to your past greatness and progressive instincts, we respectfully ask you to condemn police violence and act in defense of the people.

Thank you.

Aldo Vidali

Read about Scott Olsen HERE.

It’s a simple concept: The U.S. Constitution guarantees Americans privacy in their homes, papers, and privileged communications with their attorneys, doctors, and other professionals. Along comes one terrorist incident of highly murky origin and POOF! the Fourth Amendment is gone.

Do you think they teach kids this in school today? I guarantee they don’t and most people under say 30 would probably be amazed to know that these rights even exist.

Searches of your home, your car, your private communications, your bank account require a judge’s order – unless an agent of the President (the one with the forged birth certificate) decides otherwise.

Take a listen.

On May 21, 2009, Obama’s talk on national defense showed the Ship of State falling off course. Immediate correction is needed to avoid the looming iceberg and shipwreck in these dangerous waters and to reach safe harbor. TheLuminousCompass.com, An Instrument For Multi-Directional Awareness, offers accurate bearings focused on the Magnetic Pole of Reality.    … _ _ _ …    … _ _ _ …   … _ _ _ …

Excerpts from Barack Obama’s 5/21/09 speech
Obama: [M]y single most important responsibility as President is to keep the American people safe.

TheLuminousCompass.com: To keep the American people safe, it is obvious that you must stop all wars and bring our boys home as you promised. Using our troops to take control of the assets of weaker countries for oil companies is a crime. Once our boys are back home, we the People can take care of our own safety, as we are morally much better equipped than the Homeland Security circus with its silly color-coded alerts. Remember Katrina? Bring our soldiers home, save trillions by closing all foreign bases, and protect 30,000 American lives every year by listening to the majority that elected you and now wants single payer health insurance. Adjust course, stop the rhetoric, and really keep America safe.

Obama: We are less than eight years removed from the deadliest attack on American soil in our history.

TheLuminousCompass.com: Here we go again! Mr. President, please! Don’t imitate the neo-cons’ frames of fear. 9/11 (still unexplained) has been overused by corrupt politicians who resolved nothing in eight years, other than to spend billions for the profitable slaughter of more than one million civilians and several thousands Americans. This is where studying the past may explain the present and save the future. You call it “the deadliest attack on American soil in history” (it was if we forget the genocide of 500 Native tribes).

After over a year of pleading by widows of the victims, George Bush’s un-elected criminal administration appointed a rigged kangaroo 9/11 commission that spent less than half as much to “investigate” what really happened – while failing to address WHO financed and carried out such a massive plot – than was spent to expose Whitewater and Bill Clinton’s personal escapades. The Ship of State needs a course correction on this unfinished business if you, Mr. President, really do support CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.

Start by convincing our treaty partners to summon their experts, detectives, and scientists to investigate the myriad crimes committed under the Bush regime, crimes that have nearly destroyed our Republic, worsened our so-called international reputation, and bankrupted the American people, while super-rich scoundrel-banksters are helped to steal what’s left in the US Treasury. In other words, order that justice be served. Only then will you show the world, with more than rhetoric, that America is at last returning to its senses. Unfortunately, if you get serious about restoring a real democracy with clean elections, thieving banksters and the war profiting plutocracy will do all they can to make your presidency shorter that JFK’s.

Obama: We know that al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again.

TheLuminousCompass.com:  Here we go again! See what we mean? You’re off course, caught in the Republican paranoid counter current. The millions who lost families to American bombers, drones, white phosphorus, aggression, calumnies, and lies are dreaming of revenge.

A remedy can be found in Dennis Kucinich’ proposal for a Department of Peace and in answering his call: “Come home, America.”

Countries that have suffered centuries of abuse are breeding more and more people who hate the Anglo-American evil empire. We do not need a Sherlock Holmes to figure that many are planning to fight back.

However, Mr. President, do not replace “change we can believe in” with “terror we can believe in!” Time to wake up! As long we fail to punish ALL those who ordered and committed torture, we’re in deadly danger. Jews, Christians, and Muslim should remember that the first suicide terrorist was a biblical hero. First blinded and tortured, Samson then took his revenge and collapsed the temple of his tormenters by killing himself along with 3000 Philistines in the region we now call the Gaza Strip. Same number as 9/11. A coincidence?

Obama: We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it. 

Already, we’ve taken several steps to achieve that goal. For the first time since 2002, we’re providing the necessary resources and strategic direction to take the fight to the extremists who attacked us on 9/11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

TheLuminousCompass.com: The Bush Doctrine of never ending war and of taking the fight to the terrorists while invoking 9/11 over and over are a myopic looking-back as well as a repetition of the same catastrophic errors.

Obama: [T]he Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights-these are not simply words written into aging parchment. They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality, and dignity around the world… I’ve studied the Constitution as a student, I’ve taught it as a teacher, I’ve been bound by it as a lawyer and a legislator.  I took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief, and as a citizen, I know that we must never, ever, turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake.

TheLuminousCompass.com: The people desperately want to trust you. These are not words an honest man can speak lightly, especially as a President. Your predecessor blabbered many such empty words and never respected the Constitution. Of course, he was not legitimately elected; he was appointed to reside in the White House by a lunatic court majority. You, Mr. President, on the other hand, have been given a mandate by a large majority of the people for CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. Therefore, you must act with courage and honesty and use your eloquence to educate the millions who placed their hopes in you to save the People, not just the banksters. By doing so you can become a truly great President.

Obama: From Europe to the Pacific, we’ve been the nation that has shut down torture chambers and replaced tyranny with the rule of law. That is who we are.

TheLuminousCompass.com: Mr. President, take time to review history. Start with the book Hugo Chavez gave you, Open Veins of Latin America. Examine the shameful genocide and continued oppression of Amer-indian Natives. Learn about the 1973 murder of President Salvador Allende in Chile. Take a good look at your first employer, Henry Kissinger, that international criminal who took part in Chile’s fascist criminal tragedy. Regard what our government did in Timor, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama. Read Howard Zinn’s, A People’s History of the United States. Consider the 2002 CIA coup against democratically elected President of Hugo Chavez and the flood of corporate media lies about what happened there. Learn about the shocking U.S. interference in Bolivia’s democracy. Consider the half century of economic sanctions against the people of Cuba, only because Cuba rejected savage capitalism. Take notice that corporations, like the hypocrites they are, avoid comments when their Chinese communist partners sell us cheap labor and massacre Tibetan people in their own homeland. The list is too long. But you are an educated man. Surely you get the point.

Here is a clear image of what we as a nation have become in the eyes of the world:

The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis…It’s a scintillating stratagem. ~ Harold Pinter

Mr. President, your credibility can only be sustained by your teaching truth to our young people who worked so hard to elect you. That’s why you need to learn from the most maligned President in the world: the courageous Hugo Chavez, who stood firm for free education and free health care for all his people. He removed the power of thieves and is working to return his country’s commonwealth to the common good. Instead of giving away the people’s treasury to worthless banksters and corporate cronies, he nationalized crooked banks and warned the others to straighten out.

Obama: After 9/11, we knew that we had entered a new era-that enemies who did not abide by any law of war would present new challenges to our application of the law.

TheLuminousCompass.com: There you go again, adopting Bush’s BS. To begin with, 9/11 was a major crime still to be seriously investigated. No new era was started and “the war on terror” is a false verbal frame repeated to fool simple people. 9/11 was either an act of well-financed, super-organized revenge or the most sophisticated false flag operation ever produced to provide big enough public terror to justify immediate massive military action (conveniently pre-planned) for global expansion of “the evil empire” and to fatten the bottomline of the oil-military-financial complex. In this sense, one might say that Bush’s “mission impossible” did succeed. So, Mr. President, you are duty-bound to take a serious look at recent history to realistically understand the present and be prepared for the future.

Obama: [F]aced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. I believe that many of these decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people.

TheLuminousCompass.com: Apologizing for Bush’s crimes is a serious deviation from your course. You are too intelligent not to know it. George Bush gave numerous brays about protecting the American People, but Katrina alone tells the real story. The list of wrongs and crimes is too long and you are not uninformed. The People are not dumb. They may go into denial for a while, but unless you correct course, they will soon see that they have been deceived again. Think carefully about that, Mr. President.

Obama: Now let me be clear: We are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability.

TheLuminousCompass.com: Again, you adopt Republican frames of fear, this time with Nixonian flair. Let us see how faithfully you follow the rule of law. Start by applying our laws to the past, present, and future and bypass feel-good rhetoric. As long as Justice remains Justice, we do not need to update our institutions. Instead, let us restore our Bill of Rights, restore habeas corpus, restore due process, all precious rights the preceding criminal administration trashed. Your administration needs to be busy restoring, not updating.

Obama: I knew when I ordered Guantanamo closed that it would be difficult and complex.

TheLuminousCompass.com: Exactly what is so difficult and complex about closing Guantanamo and housing its 250 prisoners in our penitentiary-bloated country, now holding 3 million of its citizens behind bars? Hard to find space when America has built more prisons than colleges in the last 20 years? What is so difficult about that when it was as easy as snapping his fingers for Bush to round up five hundred kidnapped derelicts and a few genuine enemy combatants and have them shipped like animals from one side or the world to the other? Americans know when they are hearing...oh baloney!

Obama: We’re confronting some of the most complicated questions that a democracy can face. But I have no interest in spending all of our time re-litigating the policies of the last eight years.

TheLuminousCompass.com: Spending all our time? Whose time? What time? Re-litigating? What? The treason, fraud, and myriad crimes that have devastated our people have never been litigated. We have courts and law enforcement to handle criminals. You, Mr. President, need take no time other than to order that justice be done. You can attend to your work undisturbed by the wheels of justice grinding on.

If we are a country under law, as you affirm, then we are duty bound to investigate and prosecute all crimes. We cannot gloss over the colossal economic fraud that has plunged America and the world into an economic and human catastrophe! Changing the dialogue to avoid action will only serve to make it obvious that America is at the end of the line as a free nation and cannot be trusted.

Obama: [A]s President, I too am bound by the law. The United States is a nation of laws and so we must abide by these (lawful) rulings…I am not the only person in this city who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution-so did each and every member of Congress…I ran for President promising transparency, and I meant what I said.

TheLuminousCompass.com: We The People continue to hope that you mean these all-important affirmations.

Obama: [T]o a call for a fuller accounting, perhaps through an independent commission.  I’ve opposed the creation of such a commission because I believe that our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability.

TheLuminousCompass.com: Have they delivered full accountability in the last eight years? Did they call to account the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and the rest of the neo-con mob?

Obama: The Department of Justice and our courts can work through and punish any violations of our laws or miscarriages of justice.

TheLuminousCompass.com: So, let’s get started. The crimes America must deal with are so many and so serious that a major investigating commission, numerous grand juries, and ultimately a full Nuremberg-type special court are absolutely essential. The attempted destruction and plunder of our country deserves as much attention as did prosecuting Nazi crimes against humanity.

Correct course, Mr. President. There is a big iceberg dead ahead!

Dramatic moves by the people’s government are necessary to prevent our Ship of State from sinking. But the people have lost their government and these moves won’t happen.  As citizens, we need to give up the false illusions under which we live. A view from the Crow’s Nest.

Pirates still in control

The U.S. ship’s command deck is threatened by a mutinous crew of old capitalist pirates still free to roam about. They are the same rotten gang that stole the People’s wealth and sunk the world into poverty. These bastards are driven by lust for absolute power over us all. The Ship of State is now still in their financial hands. They own it. We, the dispossessed, are navigating in a stormy sea on uncharted waters in the fog of political ignorance, reading false charts created daily by the hegemony of fake news, false values, and weird doctrines. President Obama, smart as he is, has placed too much control in the hands of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who is steering the U.S.’s financial rudder on a perilous course in a desperate attempt to save obsolete capitalism by bailing what is irremediably sinking in a storm of financial troubles that threatens all the people on earth with shipwreck and drowning in a bottomless ocean of debt. Clearly, this is the end of the lunatic empire and, we hope, the painful birth contractions of a new truly human civilization.

Half measures not enough

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is right when he says that the administration needs to stop “taking half-measures and should tackle the recession head-on.” This is, of course, no “recession” by any stretch of the imagination. It is more than a “depression.”  It is much larger and deeper than any economic fall in human history. The President, says Krugman, must prepare public opinion for really bold policies that the President keeps on promising and really act on those. Krugman’s opinion is realistic. We must receive specific and timely orders from the Captain when a ship is sinking.

Ridding ourselves of ridiculous illusions

What are these bold actions Obama must order to save our Ship of State and the future of humanity? First, help the American people to cast aside and let go of the ridiculous illusions fostered by capitalist lies that greed is good and opportunity is equally open to all in the land of the free and the home of the brave. That has never been true and is evermore untrue.

Second, the President must help the People see that the “American Dream” has turned into a nightmare from which we must awake fast if we are ever to save that lost dream and make it a reality.

From the Crow’s Nest, the course ahead is clear and what happened on our course behind us is even clearer in hindsight, as expected. We are sinking. No matter how fast we bail out this old capitalist slave ship (which has been masquerading as a carnival luxury cruise), it is full of holes and the water is coming in faster than we can bail it out. What we must do to save our asses is.  First, the People must realize that we have all been robbed of our commonwealth and our constitutional rights; we have all been raped and deceived by a satanic system of human exploitation run by inhuman monsters that claim to own the entire planet.

Collapse of capitalism

The capitalist system is collapsing and it must die if the planet is to survive, but the evil thieves want to prop up their system of legalized robbery and murder any opposition. They want just enough terror to save their own privileges and their fat behinds. So, Secretary Geithner, one of the privileged money boys, is trying to save the private Robber Bankers with the People’s money. These useless con men deserve to walk the plank after being keelhauled. Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Taylor in 1816, wrote, “And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.” To save our nation, all banks must be nationalized. The Federal Reserve fraud must be unmasked for the instrument of oppression it is. It must be permanently removed. All utilities must be nationalized.

Obama won the election for the People, not for the bankers or the speculators who rob us (the working men and women( blind every day of our lives without producing anything of value. The People now have bought and own the banks and the People know how to run them and should run them. Unless we nationalize and regulate all major industries and take back all that the robber bankers and CEOs have stolen from us, our country may soon collapse in chaos. The Federal Reserve’s printing of worthless cash is not going to prevent the colossal fall that will take down with us the rest of the global economy and expose all humanity to the most destructive consequences in the history of the world.

A clear view from the Crow’s Nest

So, this is the clear view from the Crow’s Nest. This is a warning call for all hands on deck. We are about to sail through very dangerous reefs and shoals. We must put the rootless rascals, still unpunished, free among us, and who brought us to this pass, in irons or they will soon try to take the ship back by deceit or force, just as the German right wingers did under the Nazi brown shirt movement after first destroying their own country.  The U.S. neo-fascists have already set up private armies like the Blackwater goons waiting to act with the excuse of terror they will arrange for as they did on 9/11. They have the money to pay killers to do their bidding and keep silent. (See the Kennedy video on this page and you’ll understand what is meant here.)

We must help Obama by protecting his back. We must help him feel strong, even if the super-rich treasonous privateers surround him, ready to cut his throat. We must help Obama stand strong and save our democracy from the threat of the neo-cons’ fascist reactionary violence. Their real domestic terrorism is hiding behind their fake patriotic verbiage. And remember: they are torture aficionados!

We still hope that Obama will bring real change. However, right now we’ve got the same slick mob of capitalists running our economic and military ship from behind the curtains of capitalist propaganda and we still hear that, despite how discredited they are and how indifferent they are to the plight of the people’s rising homelessness and lack of healthcare, profits and tax cuts are their highest priorities. When the People’s patience runs out, then all hell will break loose and the most vicious form of fascism will react with terror and mass killings. The time to ask for nationalization of the assets We the People paid for and own is NOW. We the People, if we had honest elections, would own the government, not the CEO’s of fat-ass corporations.

A story about the Buffalo People of the Prairie and two young lovers caught in the tragic events of history.

The Moon of Making Fat was full, the grass green and good, the horses again strong, the cherries darkening when the one who came to be known as Spirit Wind was born. That late spring night only women were allowed in the small birthing lodge that Dull Knife’s band had erected for Soft Cloud who was about to become a new mother. That was the custom among the Buffalo People of the prairie.

All men know when they are strong that it is good to honor woman, for her hand helps man’s weakness at the beginning and end of life. So, High Horse, the father of the coming child, rode all night outside the camp on the prairie, as far as the great river as a good father must when his wife gives birth. He was performing the ritual travel the people call Searching for Milk, praying to Wakan Tanka to send him a strong warrior son. High Horse was a respected warrior with many coups to his credit. His eyes were dark and clear and his skin like tanned leather. On his chest the scars of battle were marked next to those of the Sun Dance.

At the first light of dawn he rode up a timbered butte as far up as he could and dismounted to climb on foot to the summit where he scanned the land below. As far as the eye could see herds of buffalo pastured upon the plain. Hundreds of thousands.

It was Tatanka’s mating season. Bulls were raising dust, pawing the ground and fighting, and their deep-based mating calls could be heard far. High Horse would soon ride with the hunters for the chase and get all his family would need from Tatanka. Skins for a new lodge, real food, and just before winter when Tatanka’s coat grows thick and dark he would get warm buffalo robes to make a big soft couch for Soft Cloud and the new little one if it lived through the season. As he contemplated the abundance of life on the plain, he wondered about the invading white man, the Wasichu, coming in ever greater numbers from the east. There had been promises, but would the young ones still be able to hunt and raise families on this rich land among their own people?

 For one whole moon mother and child were left alone, secluded in unique closeness to allow the new baby to prove it had come to stay. Soft Cloud’s wise grandmother had made a soft leather moss bag which she brought with a great bundle of fragrant sage leaves and a pack of bison chip powder to keep the baby dry. Her husband’s sisters helped finish the handsomely beaded cradle board. The young mother for the first time chanted to her own son the tribal lullabies as night fell, stretching a shining mantle of stars across the immense land.

“Sleep, little one. The prairie grass sways. Your father hunts milk for us now. The eagle flies high, waiting for your eyes to open and see. Dream, little one, as your mother offers you her breast and her love.”

High Horse had returned to camp with an antelope across his buffalo hide saddle and walked proudly to the birthing lodge as many followed. Soft Cloud came out and watched him climb the gentle grassy slope to the lodge. When he stood before her smiling, she handed him the cradle board. High Horse held it at arm’s length straight before him. The baby awoke and saw his father’s dark, deeply carved face and shining, happy eyes. High Horse raised the child toward the sun and let out a fierce war cry. The baby wailed in response, not in fear but in a rage. Two warriors meeting each other.

“Ah, ho!” exclaimed the father, pleased. He handed the child to his wife and went out to make preparation for the first gathering in honor of his son.

The old one who gave the child his first born name at the Feast of Cradling the Infant was Strong Eagle, and everyone received gifts, but the most and the best went to him. High Horse gave a spotted pony to the old medicine man for giving the child the rare first name of Eagle Plume in a sacred way. All celebrated with food, dancing, chanting, and drums beyond sundown around a bright fire until the half moon was high above the circle of lodges.

A year and a half later in the Moon of Popping Trees when the snow was piled high on the north side of the teepees, there was the First Walk Celebration.

The camp was between the forest and the river. Eagle Plume stood up and followed his mother outside where she had gone to fetch more wood for the fire. He stopped, stunned by the blue sky and the blinding white world, then saw the great bird painted on the lodge down wind of him. He watched the hundred smokes rising from the many lodges beyond. What a wonderful sight! Resolutely Eagle Plume wobbled through the snow all the way to the great painted bird and made sounds to it. The honor of this first visit having fallen on Thunder Hawk, himself a father, demanded that his lodge give a great feast for all the people in the band of Dull Knife. A big fire burned throughout the day. Elk meat was roasted and much singing and dancing went on as Eagle Plume slept soundly cradled between thick buffalo robes.

Three snow seasons later was the year when Grandfather made turkey tracks and excited Little Eagle Plume cried out, “I know what those are!” as he ran off holding his bow, ready to shoot.

Grandfather said, “Are you making so much noise to warn Turkey that a dangerous hunter is coming?”

From then on the little hunter followed behind his grandfather, learning to move like a silent mountain lion, and brought back much small game.

Grandmother took him along to forage for food and medical herbs. Eagle Plume helped carry her leather bag stuffed with the best.

“Why do you dig these roots so far from camp, Grandmother? There are many closer to our teepee.”

“The best are here. It is like the gathering of berries. You do not go to the deep forest for those, you go where the sun has been shining on them to make them sweet. Roots and herbs must not be taken where it is too wet or too dry. They have more medicine where the sun has given them strength and not robbed them by making them too dry.”

“You know so much, Grandmother!”

“When you grow into a man who can tame a pony I will tell you many medicine secrets. But you must grow into a good man because medicine secrets are treasures that cannot be given to bad men. I will pray to Wakan Tanka that little Eagle Plume will become a great and wise medicine man when he grows up. To be a brave warrior it is great, but it is greater to become a wise medicine man, and greatest of all is to be both a wise medicine man and brave warrior chief.”

They picked wild rice, roots, berries, and fruits, and little Eagle Plume learned how to find and gather all one needs to live on the land.

On his thirteenth Flower Season Eagle Plume broke and tamed his first pony by taking it deep in the great river and riding it in the water until it was exhausted, then breaking it on shore. To mount a young colt when it was fresh would have been almost impossible on the dry land, but in the river Eagle Plume could easily do this. He had to be very careful though, for horses can drown quicker than a man. His father had told him that if a horse has water running into his ears, it grows weak. As the boy rode he guided the young horse by clinging to its mane with one hand.

That year he had a dream and saw a giant Wasichu with long yellow hair. Half his face was also covered by yellow hair. He carried a flaming stick in his hand with which he burned teepees. In his dream Eagle Plume saw a powerful wind rise which bent down the prairie grass until it was flat against the ground. He saw a great buffalo rise from the earth on its four legs, charge against the yellow-haired pale eye, gore him again and again, then trample him until he was dead.

Eagle Plume told his dream to his father who asked him to repeat it to Grandfather Strong Eagle. The old wise one smoked a pipe and told the boy he must reenact the dream for the people and make himself look as much as possible like the white man in his dream. Long Blade, a great warrior, had heard many stories about what the Wasichus had done to the forest tribes. Long Blade had traveled east with a woman of the Forest People whom he loved. The woman had traveled through Sioux country between the Black Hills and the plains to guide traders who were looking for yellow river pebbles.

Not long after this dream Grandfather told Eagle Plume to go up for three nights to the sacred mountain to cry out to the Great Mystery, Wakan Tanka, for a vision. He cried and cried, a whole day and night, and on the third night he fell asleep.

His grandfather laughed.

Soon after Eagle Plume was given a new name. He had more control of his horse than anyone in the Dull Knife’s band. He made his horse obey the slightest movement of his body while riding bareback. Eagle Plume had taught his mount the war dance that keeps a target ever moving, and the people said he looked one with his horse. So he received his new name: Dancing Horse.

It was in the season after snow has melted on the prairie but is still thick and crusty in the cool shade of the forest, when women and children go after the sweet saps of the maple and darker birch, the bitter medicine sap of the ash, and the rare white thick liquid sugar that the box elder yields, when excited little boys help the women by minding the fires under the precious pots traded for buffalo robes with the eastern tribes in which the mothers and grandmothers boil the sap and form it into sweet candy and crush much of it into leather sacks for the winter.

In that season of renewal when flowers bloom all over the land, the bands met each other and pitched a great camp by a bend of the Cheyenne River for the annual powwow and festivity of the Plains Tribes. Splendid braves in feathers ready for the meeting with their peers from other bands. Dignified chiefs and medicine men wearing majestic war bonnets, riding at the head of the people discussing past hunts and wars, and exploring the the doings of the Great Mystery in their spirit path.

There was much talk on the invasion of Wasichus: the forked tongued pale eyes who taught about their loving God and then had lied, robbed, and killed.

Hundreds of buffalo hide teepees were raised by the women, their doors facing the direction of the rising sun. At the center of each band was a semicircle of teepees in which the medicine and the chiefs’ lodges stood. Hunters had brought plenty of meat for the great camp. Antelope, deer, and elk were abundant and a few of the scattered lone bull buffalo could be seen beyond the river.

The braves of the different bands were making ready for a joint buffalo chase across the water beyond the first rise of the foothills where the grass was thick and lush. The scouts had sighted a mighty grazing herd many thousand strong and found several other herds, but the big one west of the tributary creek would be the first to be hunted. The building of new lodges was assured as were abundant warm winter robes for the people.

The Arapaho band of Black Bear had planted a circle of teepees immediately south of Dull Knife’s lodges. Before the hunt a counsel was held and the pipe smoked. There was much talk of the encroaching Wasichus, of the gold they had found in the Black Hills, and word had come that soldiers were building a fort inside Indian land sixty miles south of Crazy Woman’s Fork, near the Powder River, land that was by treaty with the Great Father to remain Indian territory as long as grass grew green. Chief Red Cloud had allowed a wagon train escorted by the Army to pass but had demanded tribute to reaffirm Indian sovereignty over the land.

Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapas had been alerted.

“When the White Man comes to my country he leaves a trail of blood behind him. There are two great mountains in that country: the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains. I want the Great Father to make no roads between them. I have spoken this three times and I now speak this again.”

This had been the message to the Great Chief of the Wasichus sent by Mahpiua Luta (Red Cloud), Chief of the Oglala nation. There was grave trouble brewing, they all knew it. Some spoke of caution and of pursuing peace. Others voiced their anger at the wanton slaughter of tatanka, the bison, in Cheyenne and Arapaho hunting grounds. If the Wasichus were allowed further into the Sioux Nations’ lands, they would keep killing until hunger would bring an end to their free way of life.

Dancing Horse, as a young brave, listened silently, his heart beating faster in rising anger at the realization that his people must live in fear on their own sacred land. He had only one war raid to his credit and had proudly told of his coup against the treacherous Pawnees, the Indian mercenaries of the Wasichus, who had attacked their Cheyenne brothers by leading the Pale Faces deep into Indian country. He had gained an honored first feather. 

After the powwow as he walked to his lodge to make ready for the coming hunt, he saw the beautiful maiden for the first time as she was carrying water to her family’s teepee. The river was a distance from the camp. The young warrior felt his heart leap, but he had to make ready for the chase. A man must be great in the hunt before he would deserve the joy of a woman, so he pretended not to have seen her. She quickly glanced his way. He was already a hunter and a warrior, and it was licit for him to think of having his own wife and his own lodge. The thought was fleeting because of the excitement of the coming chase where he would gain even more honor.

In the early morning the hunters gathered five hundred strong on their fastest horses, bareback, and near naked except for their feathers, a loin raw hide, a bow, and a quiver full of arrows. A few carried muzzle loaders. Fewer still had .44 Army rifles.

Dancing Horse had his strongest bow. He knew how deadly it was to ride close to a great Tatanka, how the arrow would go in clear to the feathers, cutting the inside as the great beast ran until it dropped.

After fording the river and a ride of some five miles, the hunting party sighted the buffalo. No one must go off by himself and risk disturbing the scattered game. The ground was broken by several round topped buttes on which was a growth of bushes breaking the sea of grass. The hunters dismounted behind one of these that screened them from notice of the watchful sentry bulls. Prayers were offered to Wakan Tanka, the Great Mysterious One, for protection.

The hunters were too many to approach the grazing herd as a single body. After a brief counsel, one third rode off to circle to the east. Another third rode to the west to close in from the south and chase the buffalo north. Riding behind them, the rest would come out of their hiding place and flank the herd until it would likely turn at the river banks. Dancing Horse stayed with the last group and was sent by the older hunters with two other youth to the top of the butte to give the signal when the herd was on the move.

After nearly one hour Dancing Horse saw the dust rising like smoke. The southern portion of herd begin to move, pushing the other ones into action. He jumped on War Wind and remained still for a brief time, half concealed by the bushes. The nearest buffalo were four hundred yards away. Some were still feeding and some were laying down. An army of the rust-colored calves was playing while a solitary old bull, head low, pawed the ground. The thunder of hoofs rose as a tide from a half mile away until they were all taking off to the north. The near buffalo became alarmed, formed into a compact herd, and headed north. Dancing Horse signaled the hunters below to mount their horses. The trained horses became eager and, as the bison passed the ridge, were given free rein, laying their ears flat they dashed after the fleeing animals.

The hunters fanned out. Those with the faster horses pressed in the midst of the pack. The danger was great, but the excitement greater. Riders and bison were moving at the same speed, not more than a few feet from each other. Dancing Horse was surrounded on all sides by a waving sea of dark brown humpbacks, sharp horns, and shining black eyes. To fall would be instant death. Holding on with gripping legs to the bare back of War Wind, Dancing Horse used his bow and arrow repeatedly, seeking the fattest ones. By the time the chase had reached the river, the herd began to swing east. One by one the hunters moved out, letting the living stream of great beasts pass them. Only one hunter, Running Elk, almost lost his life. His muzzle loader had backfired and nearly thrown him off his mount. He had abandoned his weapon and grabbed his pony’s mane just in time.

The rest of the day was spent in skinning, carving, cutting, and dragging the carcasses in great pieces on travois across the river to the vast camp now studded with more than fifteen hundred teepees and more than five thousand people. The Tetons and Hunkpapas had not yet arrived.

After the great work of cutting the meat and stretching the hides, preparation for the spring feasting began. Dancing Horse watched the Arapaho maiden concealed among a thicket of trees.

Gathering courage, he went to his lodge, donned his porcupine-quill, embroidered moccasins and leggings, brushed his long shining hair with the porcupine tail brush, perfumed it with scented grass and leaves, arranged it in two plaits with otter fur as an ornament, and folded his best robe about him. He jumped on his best pony, War Wind, throwing a part of the robe under him to serve as a saddle, and, holding the end of a lariat tied about the animal’s neck, Dancing Horse guided his stead in rhythm to the movement of his body. Wily War Wind snorted and seemed to enter into the spirit of the occasion as if it, too, wanted to capture the eyes of the maiden with its graceful movements in perfect obedience to its master’s.

Dancing Horse pulled his robe over his head, leaving only a slit to look through. He saw the maiden walking toward the river with her empty vessel and took his position directly in her return path. On their first meeting, Dancing Horse did not reveal his face or introduce himself. The maid stopped. They looked at each other silently, his heart beating fast, hoping hers would, too.

In camp they both inquired about each other. She was Morning Star, daughter of Chief Black Bear, a fierce warrior admired by all the bands.

Their second meeting was by the woods where she had come to collect wood. She stopped, and they spoke for the first time, introducing each other. When she left Dancing Horse rode into the distance, exploding with delight. He loved this beautiful maiden. Their meetings continued, and soon they met in the early part of the evening, or drifted from the public dance away beyond the circle of the fire’s light in the shelter of peripheral shadows.

They loved each other, but there were some objections from her family, for it was too soon, and there had been much talk of the coming of the Wasichus into their country and of the need to retreat further west to avoid war before the winter. The Wasichus wanted the yellow gold of the Black Hills. Trouble was coming with many frightening stories of villages attacked and burned, of wagon trains with soldier escorts intruding in their land.

When the large camp broke for the last fall hunting, the Black Bear band went one way and Dull Knife the other. After three days traveling, the Black Bear band made it to the first rise, a few miles southwest of the Black Hills. One evening someone saw Dancing Horse, who had been following his sweetheart and sleeping outdoors all the way, although the nights were already frosty and cold.

The two lovers met each day in secret. Morning Star brought him food, but Dancing Horse would not come near her teepee. Soon the whole band was whispering and laughing, amused at the young man’s predicament. He was asked to accept hospitality in the lodge of High Hawk, the kind old man who knew much medicine and taught his new ward about what man must give woman. The old one gave him a “chotanka,” the magic flute that holds the soft heart of all maidens and makes them slyly turn their heads to its plaintive love serenade calling out into the night.

“Hear, oh, maiden! Listen to him who loves you! Listen, maiden. Hear him who loves you, who loves you. Turn to him who calls you. Listen, maiden, for he who loves you may be gone soon to fight your evil foe!”

One cold evening, hearing the distant call of the flute, Morning Star wanted to go out to find Dancing Horse, but she had no excuse to do this, so she stirred the embers, causing smoke in her teepee. She now had a reason to adjust the teepee’s flaps. She took a long time to do this, moving the pointed ears of the teepee with the long poles first this way, than that, as if on such a quiet night the wind were unsettled. Finally, the “chotanka” ceased to be heard. In an instant Dancing Horse appeared ghost-like at her side.

“So, it is you, is it?”

“Is your grandmother in?” he inquired.

“What a brave man you are to fear an old woman! We are free. The country is wide. We can go away and come back when the storm is over.”

“Ho,” he replied. “It is not that I fear her, or the consequences of elopement. I fear nothing except that we may be separated!”

Morning Star went into the lodge, then slipped out once again.

“Now,” she exclaimed, ”to the woods or the prairie! I am yours!”

They disappeared into the darkness.

Quickly and quietly Dancing Horse took willing Morning Star and rode into the Black Hills with War Wind and two of the horses of her father. The Arapaho had a large herd of ponies, nearly three thousand that year, pasturing along the Tongue River. Unseen and unheard, Dancing Horse packed one of them with all that would be needed for travel until they would overtake his people’s band. This silent, undetected maneuver gave him the name of Spirit Wind.

The two lovers traveled two days toward Paha-Sapa, the sacred Black Hills, where the band of Dull Knife could be found camping at the end of summer. His tribe moved there every year with many other bands to commune with the Great Spirit, to seek His compassion and cry for a vision at the center of the world.

Spirit Wind and Morning Star traveled swiftly. They were now moving along the grassy slope of a hill clothed with majestic oaks. They heard the murmuring of a stream in the narrow valley below and decided to make their camp there to be alone for a few days, to feast in the pure joy of their love. This they did. Spirit Wind hunted and both bathed and played together, happy as children.

On the third day, while roasting their freshly caught meat, they heard horses. Spirit Wind ran to the edge of the grove and saw five riders. At the head of the small party was a Cheyenne warrior, followed by three women and two boys astride a travois. Spirit Wind recognized two of the women as members of the Black Bear band. He showed himself and signaled. The five joined their camp. The warrior was Little Horse whose wife was an Arapaho woman, Red Dove. They had been traveling with their seven summers-old son, Hunting Fox, to the Black Bear camp to visit Red Star’s relatives.

Little Wolf told an alarming story. On their way to Black Bear’s camp along the Tongue River, Red Dove had gotten off her horse to tighten a loose pack and rearrange the travois on which their young son was riding, when, looking up far behind them across a ridge, she saw a long file of mounted men.

“Look!” she warned her husband.

Little Horse shielded his eyes from the morning sun.

“Soldiers!” he said. “Come, let us move quickly!”

Past the rise of the next hill they had abandoned their travois, taken the child on his father’s saddle, and left the trail to ride at a gallop straight across the land directly to Black Bear’s camp, causing sudden agitation in the two hundred and fifty lodges of the peaceful village. They tried to have the crier warn the people, but were not believed.

After all, “This was Indian territory, theirs by treaty!”

“Certainly Little Horse had made a mistake.”

“The riders were Indians traveling to their late summer grounds.”

“Nothing to worry about.”

Even some of their relatives did not believe them. Red Dove’s brother laughed at his Cheyenne-brother-in-law for always getting too excited about things.

That same evening Little Horse and his family moved on, followed by Strong Woman, the grandmother, and Talking Bird, Red Dove’s sister with her child Sparrow Hawk, only five summers old. They were on their way to warn the other villages in Paha-Sapa.

“We go back at dawn,” Spirit Wind spoke.

“It is too late,” said Little Horse. “We heard the big guns talk the next morning after we left. We went back at sunset. The soldiers killed many. “

“My father, my brother!” cried Morning Star.

“They, too.”

There was a deep hollow cry from the young woman. Spirit Wind put his hand on her shoulder as tears filled her eyes. She got up and ran among the trees. Spirit Wind stood and watched her, his jaw set tight.

Little Horse related all that he had seen and what he had learned from the many who had escaped. How they had fought back, scattered the horses, chased the soldiers, but how they could not get back to the camp because of the Howitzers. Women and children were shot down. In impotent anger survivors watched from the hills while the lodges were torn down. Poles and skins were heaped along with their winter food, buffalo robes, pemmican — all the tribe’s possessions — and a great fire was set, burning everything while the wounded, moaning on the ground, lay dying. The Wasichus wanted the winter to kill all those who had escaped their guns and rode after those warriors who had managed to get on a pony. When the soldiers’ horses got tired, Black Bear and his warriors turned and chased the Wasichus, stinging them with their arrows, until Black Bear fell not far from where his son lay dead.

No greater pain can strike the human heart than to live after the defeat and death of loved ones at the hand evil men. The Wasichus wanted all Indian land. They were treacherous men without mercy. For them, there would be no peace until the last Indian and the last buffalo were dead. Spirit Wind felt a rage that expanded his chest with anguished pain.

A Reflection

Once upon a time, long ago, there were sixty million buffalo on the Great Plains of North America. To the east and west of these flowered grass plains virgin forests stood so thick that it is said that a squirrel could have traveled from the Atlantic seashore to the Great Lakes without ever touching the ground. Eagles soared all across this fabled land. Rivers flowed wild and free, teaming with life. On the Pacific shores the air was evergreen and ocean-scented. The imposing giant forests of redwoods and evergreens faced the sea, sheltering an abundance of wildlife. That was a time when life was true to itself. Ever-present evil was restrained by awareness of the sacred, and a sense of proportions imposed itself upon the abundance of the wilderness and its immaculate splendor.

But evil must have the fullness of its cycle, as do all things under the sun. There came explorers, missionaries, soldiers, merchants, and immigrants with their guns and greed. Wildlife that had thrived for millennia began to die, killed by evil versions of progress, arrogant visions of manifest destiny, and a utilitarian materialism hiding under Christianoid hypocrisy. In just 500 years almost all the giant trees have been clear-cut. Chemicals now poison the rivers. As a result of human greed and a lack of respect for life, nature and living creatures are suffering all around us.

Those who feel a love and longing for the wilderness and wildness that once was — the millions now crowded in cities, poor, oppressed, and unable to find a target for their rage because technocracy is virtually everywhere and omnipotent — those who can still feel a delirious, exhilarating independence, a rebirth into primeval liberty, into utter freedom — these brave people are joining together with countless others from around the world to preserve and restore the Earth to its former majesty for the survival of the Human Family.

When I included these in Paris Sweets, they were called Korova Cookies and they instantly won fans, among them my neighbor Richard Gold who gave them their new name. Richard is convinced that a daily dose of Pierre’s cookies is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness.

I once said I thought these cookies, the brainchild of the Parisian pastry chef Pierre Herme, were as important a culinary breakthrough as Toll House cookies, and I’ve never thought better of the statement. These butter-rich, sandy-textured slice-and-bake cookies are members of the sable family. But, unlike classic sables, they are midnight dark — there’s cocoa in the dough — and packed with big chunks of hand-chopped bittersweet chocolate. Perhaps most memorably, they’re salty. Not just a little salty, but remarkably and sensationally salty. It’s the salt — Pierre uses fleur de sel, a moist, off-white sea salt — that surprises, delights and makes the chocolate flavors in the cookies seem preternaturally profound.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips</span>
~ Makes about 36 cookies

Instructions

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

Getting ready to bake

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Working with a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

Serving

The cookies can be eaten when they are warm or at room temperature — I prefer them at room temperature, when the textural difference between the crumbly cookie and the chocolate bits is greatest — and are best suited to cold milk or hot coffee.

Storing

Packed airtight, cookies will keep at room temperature for up to 3 days; they can be frozen for up to 2 months.

~ NPR.org, December 19, 2006.

There is nothing I can give you which you have not;
but there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it,
you can take.

No Heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today.
Take Heaven! No peace lies in the future
which is not hidden in this present instant.
Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
Behind it, yet within reach, is joy.
There is a radiance and glory in the darkness,
could we but see, and to see we have only to look.
I beseech you to look! Life is so generous a giver, but we,
judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly,
or heavy or hard. Remove the covering,
and you will find beneath it a living splendor,
woven of love, by wisdom, with power.
Welcome it, grasp it,
and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty,
believe me that angel’s hand is there;
the gift is there, and the wonder of an over-shadowing presence.
Our joys are too. Be not content with them as joys.
They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
And so, at this time, I greet you.
Not quite as the world sends greetings,
but with profound esteem and with the prayer
that for you now and forever, the day breaks,
and the shadows flee away.

from Giovanni 1513 A.D