IMAGINAL CELLS “Purified” album lyrics written by Ethan Foxx
1. Wetiko (Disease of Greed)
The death of the New World, the Old World is spreading disease
Parasite people, Wetiko, infected with greed
Infected with avarice, invisible pathogens, and nature holds the cure
Can’t you see there’s something underneath, corrupting who we really are?
Parasite people, Wetiko, infected with greed
Parasite people, Wetiko, infected with greed
2. Purified
Mother has always fed us
But some lions eat their young
She might scratch at us like fleas
Some see it has begun
When fire consumes the land and rivers all run dry
When carbon fills the sky and countless species die
With living systems in decline as prophesied
We all will feed the Earth when we are purified
Living things have defenses
Natural antibodies
We’ve sought to resist infections
But we are the disease
With money deified and water toxified
When forests slash and burn and cobwebs cross the sky
With living systems in decline as prophesied
We all will feed the Earth when we are purified
The world provides more than enough for human need
But not enough to satisfy our shameless greed
As future generations seek to reason why
They now must feed the Earth lest they be purified
Mother will you forgive us?
It’s getting hard to breathe
I submit my life before you
To be ground between your teeth
When forests turn to ash and glaciers liquify
When oceans overflow and acidify
With living systems in decline as prophesied
We all will feed the Earth when we are purified
The world provides more than enough for human need
But not enough to satisfy our shameless greed
As future generations seek to reason why
They now must feed the Earth lest they be purified
3. Tar Sands Wasteland
For countless seasons, since the time before our father’s fathers
We lived in harmony and shared the blessings of the waters
We swore to keep the Earth in balance for our sons and daughters
Then came the wicked industries and saboteurs
And as I pass through miles of unforgiving wastelands
I feel the anger of the spirits of the tar sands
Death oozes from the ground and seeps into the living systems
Infected air and water transmit illness to its victims
We cry out for the dying world to find that no one listens
Tumorous fish, bird die-offs, symptoms are dismissed
And so we wander lost in wastelands of perdition
Plagued by the torment of this planet-wide attrition
For every sound of shovels piercing sand to take the oil
A shovel breaks the ground to place a loved one in the soil
Keep it in the ground!
The world’s third largest watershed defiled by seeping mining tailings
Death is the emblem of our empty greed and human failings
Toxic exposure brings more grievous cases of sarcoma
The spirits of upset burial grounds exact their toll
And as I walk along these desecrated wastelands
I seek to conciliate the spirits of the tar sands
For every sound of shovels piercing sand to take the oil
A shovel breaks the ground to place a loved one in the soil
Keep it in the ground!
4. Black Snake
Slithering across the lands, underground where waters flow
Black snake demon made manifest by the sale of human souls
Venomous, addicting us to death from long ago
In fiery plumes the snake consumes the burning world that it controls
A thousand miles the snake defiles the lands of native exiles
A spiteful bite, it shines a light on which ones are the hostiles
Vassal stooges and their devil dogs, pet policemen in their ranks
Writs of possession executed by the servants of the state
Stormtrooper corporate minions in their rows of armored tanks
With plastic shields and pepper spray and deafening grenades
A thousand miles the snake defiles the lands of native exiles
The red man’s plight, the toxic bite of armies of the reptiles
The snake digs under burial grounds where sacred waters flow
Its venom seeping into aquifers below
Militarized police
The guardians of the beast
The same old cavalry
The age old bigotry
On display for all the world to see
Overt brutality
Nothing to do with me
The same old apathy
The land of the free
I question my beliefs
Untold atrocities
A festering disease
A trail of broken treaties
Foundations rotten at the core
How can we profess that we are just?
Permitting what is so unvirtuous?
It could be any one of us
The snake bites everyone of us
It challenges who we profess to be
In our culture of toxicity
Conjured from primeval depths, the snake begins to coil
Exhumed from hallowed monuments, extracted from the soil
Awakened prehistoric death emerges from the oil
Poisoning the waterways, the seas begin to roil
A thousand miles it mars the Earth through meadow, stream, and hillside
A blatant disregard for life that I cannot abide
The snake digs under burial grounds where sacred waters flow
Its venom seeping into aquifers below
An intertribal gathering
More united than our world has seen
They’ve come to pray and sing in solidarity
On display for all the world to see
True humanity
5. The Spirit Of Things
Why wait around for saviors, with nature asking us to save itself?
Most have forgotten that behind what we perceive to be our world
Consciousness is the nature of elemental beings
We must remember, there is harmony that all creation sings
All are one, there is spirits that flows through all things
When we effect the web, it affects us all
Rise and shine, this is our wake-up call
We are merely part of the living Earth
Our fertile Mother gave us birth
All plants and creatures, each speck of dirt
Every progeny that we pervert
The plants and fungi show us home
To remind us we are not alone
Every mystic, sage, anyone with heart
Transcends the ignorance that sets us apart
We are what we believe
Now open your eyes
A new world to perceive
Our vision amplifies
We are one with everything
We are interdependent beings
There is spirit that moves in all things
Not long ago, as pure as falling snow this was a paradise
Life everywhere with so much more to share, if we’d open our eyes
At last we are aware
As we open our eyes
At last we are aware
6. Uprooted
Now come the termite people from a world beyond the trees
Parasitic cravings, taking anything they please
They violate nature’s laws to bring the world to its knees
We shout to anyone to help us, please, from their disease
Save our tribes, save the trees
A part of the forest, like trees grown from the ground
Apart from the forest, we’re lost, we have been found
Our lives burn faster than most anyone foresees
Now come the ranchers, miners, and missionaries
Resources dwindling in our vast inequities
More dying means less living
Help us, please, from their disease
Save our lives, save the trees
A part of the forest, like trees grown from the ground
Apart from the forest, we’re lost, we have been found
Vice and greed, is your disease
Save yourselves, save the trees
A part of the forest, like trees grown from the ground
Apart from the forest, we’re lost, we have been found
As you march toward extinction,
Defying all reason, you follow us into oblivion
7. Missing
Each morning I drag myself down the hall
Avoid your eyes as I pass your picture on the wall
I’m not the only one to miss a daughter or a friend
Or a mother, sister, lover, but still I can’t pretend
That you’re coming back one day because I want you here with me
So I try to think of you carefree, out there, somewhere flying free
I hear your voice cut through the stillness of the air
From the other side? Or somewhere out there?
I’m not the only one to miss a daughter or a friend
Or a mother, sister, lover, but still I can’t pretend
That you’re coming back one day because I want you here with me
So I try to think of you carefree out there, somewhere flying free
Each morning brings a new day to hang the sky upon
I try to make my way, I know I must go on
How many hearts are breaking, missing loved ones just like me?
How many all but give it up with nothing left to do but think of you
Out there, somewhere flying free
8. Moment Of Truth
Interlude -Spoken word features excerpts from Chief Oren Lyons' keynote speech from 2008 Mother Earth Call to Consciousness On Climate Change
“(Speaks Seneca)
Listen, we are about to speak. The World is coming to an end.
The world is not going anywhere, there’s no end to this world, there’s just an end to us.
We’re these little mites overtaking the Earth, out of balance.
The Earth will bring balance, ‘cause that’s what it does.
It’ll do it through disease, it’ll do it through crisis, lack of food, lack of resources,
‘thousand tornadoes...we’re just starting.
Katrina was the first of many...it’ll all get worse.
Economies of nations will be broken by natural disasters, not war.
Business as usual is over. Instead of competition, it’s gotta be cooperation.
We have to cooperate now. Everybody. We can’t have this racist fight anymore.
We can’t have the luxury of racism because we, as human beings, have to get together for survival now.
We are, afterall, one people.
It’s not white or red, or black or yellow. We can exchange blood, you and I...that makes us family. Brothers and sisters. Common life. That’s what we are, and we have a responsibility to keep the Earth in balance.
So it behooves us now to rethink who we are and what our intentions are, and our values.
The thundering voices are speaking today.
They’re telling you either change your values or you’re not going to survive.
Easy to say, tough to do.”
9. Battlecry
Protectors of Water and defenders of Life
Come warriors, all creeds and colors, join in the fight
Stand tall like at Standing Rock and stand for what is right
All warriors of the rainbow, come together be the light
Fight! It’s time we unite
Divided down the middle now it’s only left and right
Programmers doping us with outrage, seeing only black and white
Concocted civil unrest without any end in sight
Our anger misdirected in the violence they incite
Fight! It’s time we unite!
Peaceful demonstration, First Amendment right
Nonviolent declaration, all our relations
Awaken us to see our sacred place in the design
Fight!
(Excerpts from a John Trudell interview)
“They have entered the reality of the already dead. The reality of the spiritually disconnected.
When you look at leadership, or you look at the institutions, or the things that are held up...
none of these things seem to have any spiritual relationship to life.
The way that the cancers of greed and war, the way that these viruses, these diseases are spread,
and no one is really taking responsibility to effectively deal with these things.
I mean, people are having emotional reactions, emotional outbursts and these types of things, but nobody’s taking clear and coherent action to deal with this disease of aggression that is taking place. So whatever this disease of aggression and violence and greed, whatever this disease mentality is, it lives in this life system now, and it’s eating up the spirit of the diseased. Protect your spirit, because you’re in the place where spirits get eaten.”
Fettered to the systems that perpetuate the plight
Complicit in our feeding of the mutant parasite
Inattentive to corruption and the global death and blight
Silently consenting the extinction we invite
Fight!
Our fight is your fight!
Defend what is right!
Condemn and indict!
Fight!
10. Mauna Kea
(Hawaiian chant sung by Sandy Essman of the Hawaiian metal band, Storm)
HE KŪKULU (kūkulu means: to build)
HE AHA LA HE KŪKULU, HE MAUNA (What is a pillar, a mountain)
HE AHA LA HE KŪKULU, HE AHU (What is a pillar, an altar)
HE AHA LA HE KŪKULU, HE PŌHAKU(What is a pillar, a rock)
HE AHA LA HE KŪKULU, HE KANAKA (What is a pillar, a person)
HE KŪKULU
E NĀ HOA’ĀINA E (hoa means: strong, defiant, and bold)
E NĀ HOAWELO LIKE E (Welo: to float, as in stream in the wind like a flag)
E NĀ HOAPILI E
E NĀ HOAALOHA E (Hoapili and Hoaloha are best friends)
ALOHA ‘ĀINA (Aloha’āina: love of land)
KŪ KIA’I MAUNA (Ku Kiai Mauna is a rallying call. It is the call to stand firm on a sacred mountain)
Mauna Kea, where heavens touch the ground
Merged with the cosmos, trillions of stars abound
If we’re looking out there to find what we’re here for
We should instead look in the mirror
Mauna Kea
Mauna Kea
Respect existence
Or expect resistance
Protect the mountain where ancient shrines are found
Where native people have consecrated sacred ground
Historically exploited and alienated
This time their rights must be respected
We’re not against science, we stand in reverence
For native people, we stand in their defence
You’ve taken without asking, and trying yet again
You’ll have to choose another mountain
11. Children Of The Earth
When leaders act like children, children lead the way
They bear the burden of our cultures gone astray
With innocence, their eyes are more attuned than we
They think creatively and speak truth of what they see
No need to feel ashamed, fearing smoke on the horizon
Inheritance is just a world engulfed in flames
When elders fail to see the long run
We all were children once, before we turned to gray
We knew within our hearts that there would come a day
When children freed the world from systems of control
So young and old aren’t buried sharing the same hole
We sold the world away, without thinking of tomorrow
Child sacrifices to the monied gods of greed
Be the leaders you can follow
When leaders act like children, children lead the way
When leaders act like children, children lead the way
When leaders act like children, children lead the way
Step down, step aside, we’re here to say
You can’t steal from our future anymore
12. Promise Of Tomorrow
Survivors of unacknowledged genocide
Witnesses to unrelenting ecocide
There is nothing to undo five centuries of sorrow
But we can share in a better tomorrow
Forced out to clear land for colonials
Dehumanized in Indian boarding schools
There isn’t anything to undo generational sorrow
But we can unite as a better tomorrow comes
We call upon the stewards of the land to share in their wisdom
To show us how to live as was ordained, in harmony
Concentration camps called reservations
The poorest places in the nation
The old ways are calling to us to find leaders Earthkeepers can follow
It’s time we atone for the suffering and sorrow
With new innovation congruent with indigenous tradition
If you will teach, there are those who will listen
Together we are stewards of the Earth
13. Imaginal Cells
With death all around us, the system clutches for control
Awareness is spreading, the masses are counting the toll
Like eating each other, taking from one another is the most immoral sin
Can’t you see that to transform our conditions we must awaken from within?
Caterpillars gorge their way to their perfected selves
Butterflies are then transformed by imaginal cells
Our gluttonous ways
Depraved mores
The world ablaze
We must be born anew
To realize what we’re here to do
All through our larval stage
The world was rearranged
To herd us toward the ledge
While in a chrysalis
We witness those of us
Veering from the edge
Transmuting
Transforming
Emerging
Responsible
Regenerative
Self-sustaining
Beneficial
Cooperative
Community
Creative
Imaginative
We all shall live
A new generation evolves to save humanity
