Beyond the beginning there was
Io the Supreme God
Io the Unknown Origin
Io the parentless Parent
Io the great God over all
Io the everlasting
Io the life - giving.
Io dwelt in
Te Kore-kore the Great Nothingness,
Te Kore-kore the Unknown
In tranquility and perfect peace.
For aeons.
No light. No dark.
No sound. Not even a whisper.
No sense. Nothing.
Only pure potentiality in the interminable void of the Great Womb of Being.
In the beginning Io called into being
Te Po
The extensive black night.
It was dark. Intensely dark.
Silent. Formless for aeons. Unknown.
It was the realm of becoming.
Then there was a slight movement,
a twitch, a twist and a tiny speck gathered form.
Life had begin in the midst of Te po.
The speck began to grow in the depths of that vast black void.
It grew, swelling, swirling, curving, twisting, twirling.
It grew and grew.
After aeons it became a huge wind
Sweeping across the realms of space.
In its erratic, chaotic, twisting movement
It collected a billion particles of cosmic dust in its form.
Uncontrolled. Violent movement.
Speeding everywhere but nowhere.
Wild beyond compare.
Finally, the whole heaving, gigantic, speeding mass crashed.
Horrendous sounds echoed through
The once silent spaces of eternity.
Billions of particles burst throughout the void
And vivid, unconfined colour broke up the dark.
It was the first dawning of the great light in the heavens.
It was an act in the process of Io:
Existence had come into being from nothing.
Te Po, the realm of becoming, was transcended.
Te Ao Marama, the realm of flight, was created.

A world where the teachings of the Prince of Peace are taken at face value, and not distorted into a complex web of carefully chosen biblical quotations and theological tomfoolery that conveniently ignore the true heart of Christs' words.

This action has been happening every year for almost 25 years, since the assasination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the El Salvadorean priest who made the grave mistake of standing up for the people.

Our first encounter is with a group called ‘One Thousand Grandmothers', who heed the call of a song by Holly Near:

40% of their ‘students' are from Mexico, and there is no small connection between the repression in Oaxaca, the repression that lead to the death of my friend Brad Will, and this shop of horrors in Fort Benning. Upon arriving in the quaint, small town near the fort, where every other business is a ‘Title Shop' which will buy the title to your house or car in exchange for instant cash - testament to the extreme poverty of the region - we discovered that parallel to the SOA protest will be a counter rally, organized by the military, called ‘God Bless Fort Benning Day.'

As I walk into the room filled with black clad anarchist activists, I'm conscious of the fact that I've got too much colour on - orange sweater, bright green jacket. I'll get over it soon enough, but the initial entry is always a challenge for me. That's the thing I loved about Brad - he always made you feel like you were on the inside. In fact, that there is no inside. No outside. We were all in this together. As for me, I don't want to be any ‘Ist' - not an anarchist, not a socialist, not a buddhist, not a capitalist, not a .... fill in the blank. I'm a human, being, thank you very much. And better still - a human doing.