I have adopted the phrase "Stay Brown" as a sign off in my posts a while ago and sometimes get asked what it means. I usually give the short answer. Today I want to give the long answer.

I saw an interview with a Hispanic Activist a while ago and he talked about "Brown People". He explained that it had nothing to do with skin color but remembering that we all come from the Earth and when we die we are absorbed back to the Earth. That makes us all brown.

As our society has progressed for lack of a better term we are experiencing what I can only describe as Spiritual Vitiligo. We are getting disconnected form our roots and our natures turning that beautiful healthy brown spirit into a sickly white.

We have a connection to the Earth and Sky that we are disconnecting from. When we work with the earth it gets on our skin and makes us brown. When we are outside the sun beats down on us making us brown.

Our society has developed in such a way that outside is where we go between work and transportation. We while away our days under artificial light in sterile cubicles doing soul deadening jobs. We get so wrapped up is status symbols that have no meaning that we do meaningless tasks to keep and build this status.

The economy of this new society is built largely on more efficient means of destruction. The Military Industrial Complex and The Prison Industrial Complex are blocking out the natural light that help us keep this physical brownness and complexion. We crowd into cities that have effectively encased the earth in concrete and locked us away from the earth.

The food that we eat is also a symptom of this. Alot of the produce that we consume is grown in Bakersfield and Fresno. This Farmland is in the middle of the desert and irrigated because all of the fertile land good for agriculture has been developed into cities and made effectively no good for food production.

We are further separated from each other using the artificial boundaries of Race and Class to keep the machine moving. In the rush to build "Bigger, Better, Faster, More" we have divided the people into the haves and the have nots to keep the race going. The haves fear either losing what they have because they lost the means to get it. Or they fear the have nots wanting what they have so bad that they will be robbed. The have nots have been programmed by the media and the artificial environment around them to want more. When they can't get it they are given any array of chemicals to help them forget that reality.

We are led to believe that we seperate from the earth that we live on to the point that we believe that we can continue to consume and dispose and that there is infinite space for all that we discard. There is an island of garbage the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean that is partially there because of this mentality (Ocean Currents also play a major role).

We are being manipulated by the human tribal nature. We all want to be a part of something bigger. Whether it is a better company, a political party, or a gang we all want in. It is just another way for humans to be divided and conquered so as not to upset the artificial balance. We need to find more constructive ways to harness and use this nature.

Even the New Age movement has fallen prey to this. I keep hearing New Agers talking about 7 generations with a lack of true understanding. There is a Native American saying that before we make decisions we should think of 7 generations. In the New Age community and in the Environmentalist community it has been interpreted to mean "Think about the next 7 generations". When in actuality it means "Think about your Great Grandparents, Your Grandparents, Your Parents, Your Generation, Your Children, Your Grandchildren, and Your Great Grandchildren." It means that even though the generations that came before you made mistakes they also did good things. Remember the good things while fixing the mistakes, pass on the wisdom that you got from them and teach them to future generations.

When I say "Stay Brown" it means remember all of these things.

Stay Brown,
Rev J