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travel narrative by sam libby

Monday, October 12, 2009 - post date

Columbus

Columbus was of Jewish ancestry.

Many who came to America with him were of Jewish ancestry.

The Jewish world of the Iberian Peninsula was murdered in 1492. Jews
were given the choice of converting to Catholicism or being burnt
alive, dispossessed of all material goods, dispossessed of life.

Some, like Columbus, became devout and sincere Catholics. But many
defiantly, secretly remained Jews.

Those of Jewish ancestry were the first targets of the Inquisition.
Every "convert" was suspect. More than 90 percent of those murdered by
the Inquisition were "Judaizers."

The Jews came to America because at first the Inquisition wasn't here.
But then the Inquisition came.

The survivors who remained true to themSelves were those that obeyed
the dreams, the portents, the magnetisms, the polarities. Those that
found secret powers of navigation/migration.

They fled to the highest mountains, crossed to the other side of the
most desolate, deadly deserts. They engaged the spirit/demon of place.
They engaged the aboriginal. They were shaped by IT!. Their
descendants are much more like the Indian than they are the first
ancestor that crossed the water.

Jah (Department of Enviromental Protection) D.E.P.: True Possession of
Place in the Time of the Connecticut Indian Casino (see
www.libbyhome.blogspot.com)




Columbus Day has become a day when many celebrate their self-loathing
about being American, when all the hideous details of Columbus'
initial, personal raids, and the destruction of the garden that once
was these Americas is recalled.

And yet, I propose, that this be the day when we Americanos see that
(perhaps, partly, as a result of our bloody, violent, oppressive
history), we Americanos have heightened possiblities/powers of
submitting to the dreams, the portents, the magnetisms, the
polarities, the secret, hidden powers of navigation/migration.