Archive for the 'Marie’s Writings' Category

Marie Mason Painting: Ivory Funeral Pyre (Blood, Money, Smoke)

Published April 2, 2013 Marie's Paintings , Marie's Writings Closed
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The burning of smuggled ivory.

Marie recently completed this painting, inspired by this photo from a 2011 burning of poached ivory.

A Chinese reporter in Kenya covers the 2011 burning of 5.5 tons of smuggled ivory. Kenya helped launch a global ivory ban in 1989 but lately has been stockpiling its ivory. The ivory here belonged to other countries. Photograph by Brent Stirton, Reportage by Getty Images

Th feature article, Ivory Worship, documents the religious carving of ivory that fuels the poaching of thousands of elephants each year.  Marie elaborates on the painting, writing that-

“The painting is in response to a National Geographic article on religion an the illegal ivory trade.  The article was heart-breaking and surprising, a lot of poachers and vendors using religious icons as a cover for black-market ivory.  So many elephants were murdered this year!”

A Thank You from Marie Mason to All Who Wished Her Happy Birthday

Published March 12, 2013 Marie's Writings Closed
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Greetings Family and Comrades, Well-wishers, fellow activists, anarchists (and non-be/quantifiable),

I want to say thank you for all of the amazing and sweet greetings, cards, letters, photos and artwork that people sent me in response to the event in January. Mail was held up for a bit, but I think that it has all been processed and passed on to me by now.

It was the most incredible inspiration to hear from so many folks working to defend animals, Earth and human rights from so many places! I have learned so much. People sent their stories about great campaigns and histories of struggle, creation stories and poetry, their own beautiful artwork and so much love in words.

I have been really trying to write as many folks as I can, and am always sad that I am limited by the number of stamps they allow us and by whether contact is approved. Please know that I was touched and encouraged by whatever you sent (not a mean word in the bunch), and that it meant a lot to have been given a push by my community.

I have been processing a lot of my own history this year, probably just a function of so much isolation and time spent in confined quarters. In my former free life, if I was faced with difficult decisions or sadness, trauma or trouble I would go to the woods and hike, or swim in one of my beloved Great Lakes to find solace and focus. The natural world is my source of strength and my comfort. It has been hard to be unable to walk on the ground, touch a tree or see the sky without metal in between. Prison on the compound was one level of removal from life, but this is another level of intensity entirely.

So it was a joy to be able to hear from so many folks actively working in service to this Earth, to be inspired by you all and to be comforted to know that, though I am no longer able to walk with you, that you are continuing the journey forward. That is my comfort now. Thank you all, for your work, for your kindness and for the incredible support that you have offered me and so many others. It makes me feel still part of a community of resistance, still part of the world.

Never give up, never give in – until all are free and this Earth is healed and loved again.

In love and solidarity, Marie

Theocracy

Published September 26, 2012 Marie's Writings Closed
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Theocracy

No disrespect to Detroit’s brilliant,
Beleaguered, and recently drug-martyred poet -
But Gil Scott-Heron was wrong, wrong, wrong.
The revolution Has been televised
And trivialized,
Made almost antiseptic, it’s apocalyptic attempts
Co-opted, contained and commoditized.
Now showing, an exhibit at the MOMA,
A thrilling documentary about
Just plain folks in far away places, maybe,
Coveting our conventional “democracy”
Surely these young people in tents knew that
Last year.
Not far away, but here,
They are serving Ben and Jerry’s,
And endlessly updating their Facebook pages,
Considering the subjugation of women and discussing brands..
Where are the anarchists, now,
As billions change hands and borders flex,
And bodies go to ground (blood being the most productive crop this year)
The shadow of Theocracy
darkens, sinister, solidifies
And creeps into the catbird seat,
Directing an international conversion event

That had naught to do with God

Well-documented and almost unseen.
Whose revolution has this been,
Really?

Shadows

Published August 3, 2012 Marie's Writings Closed
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Shadows
Sometimes when the paper holds a ghost
before the colors touch the page,
and shadows rise to the surface
of collective conscience,
and apparition fast-appearing
whole
like Venus rising in the foam or,
Athena’s agile form
Sword-swinging a surprise entrance on Olympus,
compelling an attention, and
Intention forms, flows, suggests,
Knowing that we
Planaria Imperious
armed with thumbs
and our species’ strange mythology of eminent domain,
Still eat images like microbes do, instinctual amoebas all.
And where dialogue has been defeated
We are still seduced by color and the body’s biophilia.
The shadows stories build an Elegy,
A Requiem for Nature
And maybe more -
A memory consumed from mind to mind direct
As planaria connect
To say in fact across the generations
Look and love the light,
The light that casts these shadows on the wall.
For ‘ love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
Love never fails’
To recreate the world in its own image
And force the false constructions of Tyranny’s diseased display
To collapse in dust, like Ozzymandias
And wash away like chalk in summer rain.

A Tribute to Lonesome George

Published July 27, 2012 Marie's Paintings , Marie's Writings Closed

From Marie,

In tribute to the passing of Lonesome George, the last Galapagos Tortoise, this week – I wrote a memorial/did a portrait.

Goodbye Lonesome George

Good-bye Lonesome George
Born when the Titanic
Sank beneath the icy waves,
Witness to a hundred years of loss.
Born to be a storied creature of
Galapagos,
And sadly, sought by sailors for the soup,
They only passing by endlessly marauding
through their thoughtless days.
When did they find you, old soul,
Wandering the rocky crags of home,
Picked clean by invading ungulates and bipeds, yourself
Starving and alone?
Perhaps you were a frisky teen of 50
When they packed you off the island in a hurry,
to exhibit in a Quito zoo.
And what should have been a troubling issue of ourcollective shame,became
A curiosity for tourists.
And all the exotic ladies that they brought
From strange and varied tribes,
Were not enough to lure you from your grief.
What use to romance the moon
In the end of days?
And so you took a pass
On the second century that your kind are heir to -
And slipped beneath the waves of time.
Goodnight and good luck,
Sweet Lonesome George,
Good-bye.
I will dream you back to Paradise,
Or at least, try.

   A watercolor painting of Lonesome George, a recently deceased sea turtle.

Marie Mason Painting: A Gender Triptych

Published July 23, 2012 Marie's Paintings , Marie's Writings Closed
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From Marie,

“So these three paintings go together as a triptych.  It’s a short meditation on gender as biology or social construct.

 

The first panel is “Female” with an ovary bursting an egg towards an animated fallopian tube.  The figure (both male and female loosely based on DaVinci’s Vitruvian figure) is small but breaking past the barrier of the enclosing symbol for the female.  She gestures towards the Queen bee.  The three genders of honey bees: Queen (female), Drone (male) and worker are also included as a reference to gender fluidity in Nature.  Thought about using sea slugs; but they are hermaphrodites, I think, so that’s different.  Very pretty creatures though.  The womb surrounds and seems to overwhelm the female figure in reference to women’s history of being defined and confined and controlled by her biological capacity to bear children.

A painting exploring the male construct.

The second panel is “Male.”  Clearly the male is shown superior to his biology, being raised above both the testicle/seminal tube and swimming sperm.  The male figure gestures to the drone bee, fills and extends beyond the confines, of the defining symbol of the male.  I’ve changed it to a square to emphasize the outer boundary of the Vitruvian figure drawing (the square), rather than the one that touches the figure.  Also, the angular aspect for the male (and rounder for the female) conform to current stereotypes and values associated with male and female.  Oh yes, and both Male and Female panels use purple on one side of their background, the idea being that red and blue are primary colors and purple is a secondary color formed by mixing of the two (and red being considered more female, blue being a male identifier).

Image

The third panel takes the third primary color, yellow, to invent a trans symbol superimposed over modified male/female symbols.  The figures in gold are trans individuals (boi to the left, womyn to the right).

The cells in this panel are blood cells and dendrites- as clearly all humans share these.  The worker bees have left the hive and accompany the figures.  The backgrounds are formed by the primary color yellow and blue or red to form a blend of secondary colors to suggest masculinity or femininity as social cues, like the figures’ manner of dress.

“Titanic” by Marie Mason

Published April 19, 2012 Marie's Writings Leave a Comment
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Titanic

A hundred years of stories and it’s not enough
To mark a date,
They will dredge the blue depths
And spare no expense.
(not for charity, make a note
not for Sudan’s needed grain,
not Haiti’s medicine)
But gain….
And details, dollars, samples for scholars,
The self-indulgence of a gilded clock
Stopped in time upon a marble mantel
Miles below the surface of the sea
This brittle allegory,
Sepulchre nestled soft in silt
That is the living ship
And feeds on corpses so long dead
The sea reclaims, reorganizes matter
And redecorates
With stalagtites formed by flesh.
Where the disposables still lie,
Buried with the sordid empty beer cans,
The refuse of a thousand useless cruises
And the castasides who slept in lower berths….
Titanic,
With what callous hubris,
Launched,
With what garrish decadence
Debauched,
Only to meet Nature sideways
And slide down.
Titanic,
Posted as a sign
For all of humankind
A hundred years.
And still
It is the poor who will
Perish down below in each disaster -
While those riding high above them,
Will carry only those that love them
As they fly away too soon
In exquisitely appointed
Spaceships
Headed for Newt’s
Cities on the Moon.

New Painting by Marie Mason

Published February 24, 2012 Marie's Writings Closed
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Here is a painting recently done by Marie.  For more of her artwork and writings, be sure to check out her Writings, Pictures and Videos page.

Painting done by Marie Mason

Entropy- A poem by Marie Mason

Published February 8, 2012 Marie's Writings Closed
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(Entropy)
What do you see
In this Winter face?
The imminent decomposition of the unbeautiful?
Even so, even in that
I see that all my pieces
Have their own story.
My hands have worked a brand of
Entropy
That is much more sociology than
Physics.
My body has bourne children
Who fly away from me
In becoming of themselves.
This body burned and burning,
Flies apart in exothermic birthing,
Molds again in endothermic coupling,
Touches ground and stretches to the sky,
Dissipating heat.
My hands move across the page
With words this time,
The taste, the sound of them
Drips, mists, rains in torrents,
Common-tongued as a storm on a street corner;
Cursed and shared and necessary.
Fingers pushing colors from my eyes into images that speak,
Or pulling the taut metallic strings of a guitar,
And waves flowing between notes
Falling from my lips
Join with the air,
Steam rising, molecules
Dispersed to dance,
Becoming something new,
Somewhere else,
Again.

A New Year’s Update from Political Prisoner Marie Mason

Published February 2, 2012 Marie's Writings Closed
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Hello and Happy New Year!

It’s been a little more than a year and a half since I was transferred to the Admin Unit at Carswell. Many folks have written wondering if I was in the hospital here, and no, I am not. The Admin Unit is just part of a larger compound that has a major medical center for the Bureau of Prisons. This unit is completely separate from both the compound and the medical center. It’s actually more difficult to see most medical staff from here because of the security detail that must accompany any of us if we leave the unit for any reason.

It is a very small world here; only some 20 women are housed here in complete segregation from general population. It is a mixed unit and serves as both death row and as a kind of control unit. We are fortunately not locked down as often as the men’s units are, as policy in the BOP is different for male and female prisoners.

I have been able to maintain my vegan diet, mostly at my own expense until recently, and will continue to do that. It has been easier to get a more healthy and varied diet here than before. The Carswell kitchen has consistent vegan options for meals with a few exceptions, as beans and rice and vegetables are mostly available.

Carswell is far enough from everyone I know that it makes it hard for people to visit. It’s expensive to travel, it’s intimidating to come here I’m sure…But my family and my friend Julie have all made the trip to get here, things went well and it was good to see my loved ones. Mostly I have been struggling to keep up with folks through mail and email. I have had some trouble these past few years with lost letters and such, but have resolved to track and increase my communication this year. If you have written a letter, or signed one of the wonderful message cards (after an animal rights convention, at the Heartwood gathering, from a prisoner support letter writing night)- thank you so very much and please know how much I appreciated your kind words and encouragement! I’ve been so happy to hear about walks in the woods (how much I miss being in the forests!), amazing bike rides, photos of animal friends and beautiful natural places and descriptions of all the great campaigns to save forests and animals, to stop nuclear pollution and to halt the Keystone Pipeline project!!!! You all rock with a vengeance!

Tomorrow I will turn 50. It’s a mile marker and a time to reflect on my life. Like all humans, I’ve made mistakes and have some small regrets. But I am still an anarchist, a feminist, an internationalist, a Wobbly and community organizer, a passionate Earth First!er, and am still proud to have played my part in the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front’s work to defend the wild and our non-human brothers and sisters.

My life has been spent in many movements, and all seem to be part of the process of necessary change. That experiment in social change is still ongoing and we must all keep trying, keep contributing what we can. My body is trapped here, but my heart is with you still fighting out there. Never give up, never give in, keep your minds open to inventing better compassionate ways to make
change happen. And write when you can. I’m a mom, I worry about all of you out there…..
As Woody Guthrie used to say, take it easy…but take it.

June 11th Events

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Write to Marie Mason

We encourage everyone to write to Marie Mason in prison:

Marie Mason #04672-061

FMC Carswell

Federal Medical Center

P.O. Box 27137

Fort Worth, TX 76127

Under no circumstances mention any illegal acts. Letters that mention other Green Scare prisoners may be rejected. Mason has a list of 100 pre-approved people she can write to; if you are not on that list, she will be able to receive your letter but not write back.

Everyone must use their first and last name when writing. All letters must be entirely in English. Be sure to include your return address on the envelope. You should also write her name and prisoner number on each piece of correspondence, as the prison tends to discard the envelope and then may "lose" track of who the letter is going to.

Last, do not send anything that is "affixed" to the letter or card - such as glitter and glue. Pen, pencil, crayon and paint are fine.

About Marie Mason

Marie Mason is a loving mother of two and a long-time activist in the environmental and labor movements. In March 2008, she was arrested by federal authorities for charges related to two acts of property destruction that occurred in 1999 and 2000; no one was injured in either of them. She accepted a plea bargain and was sentenced on February 5, 2009 to just under 22 years. She is now serving the longest sentence of any "Green Scare" prisoner.

The “Green Scare” is the name given to the recent arrests of animal rights and environmental activists who have been charged with acts of economic sabotage. Federal authorities have sought outrageous sentences (often Life in prison) and have publicly and legally labeled the activists as “terrorists” – despite the fact that no one has been killed or injured in any of the acts.

Supporting Marie Mason does not mean agreeing with the actions that she took -- but it does mean opposing the fear-mongering tactics of the federal government and the outrageous sentences they have imposed.

Background on the Green Scare

For more information on the Green Scare see here

Contact

supportmariemason@gmail.com
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