Media and Communication

The film Press Pause Play disuses the change in media over the years and how that has resulted in a larger range of possible artists. With new resources more people have access to the equipment need to create music. "With just me, my laptop, an idea and five million downloads." (David Weinberger). With very limited items now, one can create a piece of art and share it with the world. Today the technology gives this opportunity to everybody. "Everybody is an artist, in olden days people didn't make stuff" (Moby). Any person that wants to can easily make music. This was not the case in the past. The technology has improved, opening the door for new artists. "In five minutes, I can do what took six months" (Moby). The technology has not only connected more people to music but also in a shorter time. Artist can easily create music and put it out into the world. All of these advantages have come with the technology that has progressed over time.

Images and music have a way to connect emotion to a subject. In the film Existential Bummer with Jason Silva uses images to enhance what he is talking about. For example the old photos they use. These bring the viewer back in time and connects them throughout time to people and emotions. Without the images the viewer would only hear the worlds. The Images make them feel and connect to them. In the film The Most Astounding Fact, Neil DeGrasse Tyson uses music to add dramatic effect. Music amplifies an ordinary moment and makes it important. Music tells one how to feel. Depending to the beat and sound, one knows the feeling the artist was feeling and feels it themselves. In the film Press Pause Play Olafur Arnalds talks about how even without speaking the same language, two people can feel the same thing and be connected. "Technology can connect art to people with different language" (Olafur Arnalds). Music and photos are a form of technology that connect people. They don't need to speak the same language to be connected and feel the same things.

Smoke Signals

Thomas and Victor both grew up surrounded by stereotypes and separated from the world. As they start out their journey to leave the reservation they run into Velma and Lucy. Velma says " Yeah, your leaving the rez and goin' into a whole different country, cousin" (Smoke Signals). The reservation is keep so separated by the two different cultures. There are stereotypes on both sides that keep the disconnection from ever being able to come together. Natives have resorted to becoming stereotypes in order to be respected. Victor tells Thomas "you gotta look mean or people won't respect you. White people will run all over you if you don't look mean. You gotta look like a warrior! you gotta look like you just came back from killing a buffalo" (Smoke Signals). Even thought their tribe was never known for hunting buffalo, that is the main stereotypical idea about natives. In order to gain respect the boys must present themselves as warriors, and become the stereotype. People get set in their ways of thinking and let these stereotypes influence their views on all natives and therefor judge them before they even say anything and treat them inferior. When Thomas and victor are in the police office, Victor tells the man he has never had a drink of alcohol in his life and the police officer proceeds to question that and ask Victor "what kind of Indian are you". (Smoke Signals). The stereotypes have influenced the cops thinking of all natives and he judges Victor before he even knows his story and the truth about him drinking. These ways of thinking are set in our ways and therefore continue to up keep the separation.

In order for Victor to heal from his Dads death and leaving him earlier in life, he must first face it. Thomas always tried to get Victor to relies this. Since they were kids Thomas would always ask Victor why his dad left. He was trying to get Victor to see the real reason he left and that it was not because of of him but the fire he started. On their trip Thomas continued to tell stories about Victors dad no matter how many times he told him to stop. Thomas was trying to get Victor to think about his dad and face the truth of what had happened. If you keep denying tragic events you can never heal from them. Suzy Song also pushed Victor to face his fathers death. She encouraged him to go into his fathers trailer and look at the things he had left behind. She knew it would be help Victor heal to connect to his father and seeing his belongings would be a good way of doing that. Victor needed to really think about and absorb the pain in order to get past it and heal.

Ceremony part 6

As Tayo is healing from his PTS, his triggers are fading away. Tayo is seeing things in a new light. "The valley was green, from the yellow sandstone mesas in the northwest to the black lava hills to the south. But it was not the green color of the jungles, suffocating and strangling the Earth. The new growth covered the Earth lightly, each blade of grass, each leaf and stem with space between as if planted by a thin summer wind." (Leslie Marmon Silko 203).  The green that once made him think of the horror he endured during war had turned into life and growth. It is now a happy and uplifting connection. Tayo is able to relax and enjoy things that once sent his mind to the darkest places. "The terror of the dreaming he had once had done on this bed was gone, uprooted from his belly; and the women had filled the hollow spaces with new dreams" (Silko 204). Tayo used to lay in that bed and the sound of the old springs would take him back to the hospital or to a coffin, but now she has helped him replace though thoughts with new dreams and new memories that relate him to a bed. Tayo is noticing a change in the weather and it is no longer triggering his PTS. "Only the sky had changed, washed clear of the dust and haze which had swirled off the red clay flats the summer before. He could smell wild flowers growing in the weeds and grass beside the road, and he heard the big bumblebees and the smaller bees sucking the blossoms" (Silko 204). Tayo is seeing the growth and new life that is coming from the weather and not letting it take him back to the jungles of the Philippines. He is embracing the life around him and living connected to it.

Tayo has a new and positive outlook now that his PTS is less effective on his life. He is starting to see the brighter side of things. "He was overwhelmed by the love he felt for her; tears filled his eyes and the ache in his throat ran deep in his chest. He ran down the hill to the river, though the light rain until the pain faded like fog mist. He stood and watched the rainy dawn, and he knew he would find her again" (Silko 202). Instead of focusing on the rain and his old trigger he is optimistic for his future and finding the women again. He is embracing the Earth and letting that overwhelm him instead for is trauma from the past. Tayo is becoming more aware of the life around him. "He knelt over the arching tracks the snake left in the sand and filled the delicate imprints with yellow pollen. As far as he could see, in all directions, the world was alive. He could feel the motion pushing out of the damp Earth into the sunshine" (Silko 205). He notices the life within the Earth and it gives him a feeling of happiness and hope. He can relate to being trapped under something damp and hopeless and is now reaching for the sunshine. The women has been his connection to the Earth and she is bring out this new sense of security. "The sunlight moved up and down his back like hands, and he felt the muscles in his neck and belly relax; he lay down beside the pool, across from her, and closed his eyes" (Silko 206). The PTS and stories that lingered in his belly have subsides and he is now free to relax. Tayo  is embracing life instead of fearing it.  

 

Ceremony part 5

Within this section of reading the idea of stolen land was a major subject. Tayo is going though his process of healing and dealing with both his trauma from war but also trauma from his cultures history. "They were never the same after that: they had seen what the white people had made from the stolen land. It was the story of the white shell beads again... stolen from a grave and found by a man as he walked along the trial one day" (Leslie Marmon Silko 156). Nobody really owns anything, procession is just a state of mind. The land was not stolen it was just used in a new way. To the Indians it seemed as if it was stolen because the new way did not match their ways and they felt they had no control over that. "Every day they had to look at the land from horizon to horizon, and every day the loss was with then; it was the dead unburied, and the mourning of loss going on forever. So they tried to sink the loss in booze, defending the land they had already lost" (Silko 157). They drink to deal with the loss of land and only blame white people for taking it away. Defaulting to drinking only reassure the stereotype and solidifies the white mans reasoning to why they deserved the land over the Indians. With every loss, there are multiple factors that pays apart in it. "And it was then the Laguna people understood that the land had been taken, because they couldn't stop these white people from coming to destroy the animals and the land. It was then too that the holy men at Laguna and Acoma warned the people that the balance of the world had been disturbed" (Silko 172). It was not necessary that the land had been taken but the way of life in that area changed. It went from the natives ways to the white cultures so quickly and without integration that the Indians felt they had been wronged.

Tayo is starting to heal and it takes many factors to accomplish this. Betonie is helping him see that other ways to heal outside his culture. "Caterpillar spreads out dry corn husks on the floor. He rubbed his hands together and tobacco fell into the corn husks" (Silko 167). The caterpillar is helping the corn, witch is the way of life for both Pueblo and Navajo tribes. In Pueblo culture the caterpillar is believed to be bad and hurt the corn, where in Navajo culture it is believed to have great powers and help the corn. Tayo need aspects of both cultures to help himself heal. Many people are helping Tayo heal as well. "Being alive was all right then: he had not breathed like that for a long time" (Silko 168).  After spending the night with the women Betonie had told Tayo about, he had a new, brighter outlook on life. She had helped him live in the present and focused on that and not his traumatizing past. The lost cattle have also lead Tayo towards healing. "He had been so intent on finding the cattle that he had forgotten all the events of the past days and past years" (Silko 178). Focusing on the cattle gave Tayo an outlet to escape his past and replace it with motivation and good memories. Many things have to work together in order for true healing to occur and that is finally happening for Tayo. 

  

Ceremony part 4

Tayo had began to heel being with Betonie. He knows what Tayo needs in order to get better. " the ceremony isn't over yet. He was drawing in the dirt with his figures. Remember these stars he said. I've seen them and I've seen the spotted cattle; I've seen a mountain and I've seen a women" (Leslie Marmon Silko 141). Betonie is guiding Tayo thought his path of  healing and showing him what he must do while still giving him the space to do it on his own. "But the effects of the witchery of the evil thing began to leave his body. The effects of the witchery of the evil thing in his surroundings began to turn away" (Silko 142). Tayo is learning how do deal with the evil i his life and that is allowing him to heal and the evil to seem less present. Tayo wants to be healed. "Leroy and Harley were happy; they had wine and six-packs, and they didn't watch her the way Tayo did." (Silko 144) Lust and drinking are distractions and block the path of healing. Tayo wants to heal and therefor is not focusing on distractions and just on his mental health.

Indians were treated differently after war. They got no respect after returning home. "They had been treated first class once, with their uniforms. As long as there has been a war and the white people were afraid of the Japs and Hitler. But these Indians got fooled when they thought it would last." (Silko 153) After returning home from war, there survive and honor was forgotten and they were back to only being seen as the stereotypical lower class Indian. Indians suffered and sacrificed during the war as well and had nothing good to turn. "she knew where to find them-which downtown bars they liked. She knew the veterans' disability checks came out around the first of the month." (Silko 151) They used money they got from the war to forget the war. They had no real support system and this lead many of them down a dark path. Indians not only dealt with war trauma but also with trauma for their history. "So they tried to sink the loss in booze, and silence their grief with war stories about their courage, defending the land they had already lost." (Silko 157).  They let drinking take over to forget the hardships they went thought over seas and to forget the struggles of their past as well.

ceremony part 3

As time goes on thing are continuously changing. Even before white settlers became a part of Indian life, ceremonies were changing. "But long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow ground rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagles claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation, singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing" ( Leslie Marmon Silko). The ceremonies had been effected by many other things prior to white settlers. Indian nations noticed a huge change as white settlers came to their land and blame them for the change because it was such a drastic and hard change to live though. "But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift;and it became necessary to create new ceremonies" (Silko 116).  As white people came into natives lives, they made an impact and forever altered the natives lives. There was no ignoring these new people and going on with life as if a drastic change had not occurred. Changes were made to keep up with these new influences. "So, long time ago they got him back again but he wasn't quite the same after that not like the other children" (Silko 120). Once you have experienced something, no matter what it is, you are forever changed. That change becomes a part of you and influences the rest of your life.

Race is just a social label put on people. there once was a time where race did not exist at all. "Thirty thousand years ago they were not strangers" (Silko 114-115). Long before modern cultures, we were all on species. Everyone shares the same ancient ancestors, there were no differences between the people we all evolved from. You can not put a judgement on a whole race because it is only how society defines a person not what controls them. "Nothing is that simple he said, you don't write off all white people, just like you don't trust all Indians" (Silko 118).  All races have good and bad, evil isn't secluded to a specific race. It is in everyone and the color of ones skin has no influence on their actions or how they deal with it. The social construct of race is what is wrong with people and why change and healing is so hard. "he would never get well as long as he used words like we and us" (Silko 116). As people continue to view themselves as separate, they will never be able to come together and fix the problems in society. Race is just a cultural ideas and has no real significance in peoples life. Once people accept that and believe there are no differences, healing can start.

ceremony part 2

As part of the Laguna Pueblo culture, actions of one effect the whole community. Tayo's mom is a great example of how they all feel at fault when one strays from the culture. "The Catholic priest shook his finger at the drunkenness and lust, but the people felt something deeper: they were losing her, they were losing part of themselves" (Leslie Marmon Silko 63). They are all connected and feel the blame when one assimilates to white culture and leaves their native beliefs behind. The Laguna people take it upon themselves to fix the problem and don't leave her on her own to deal with things herself. "For the people, it was simple, and when they failed, the humiliation fell on all of them;what happened to the girl did not happen to her alone, it happened to all of them" (Silko 63). The community is all connected and it is not just about the individual. His mom went thought what many natives did during this time period. They were all put in catholic schools where they were forces to assimilate and caused them to lose both cultures and be in a shadow world. "Shamed by what they taught her in school about the depolarable ways of the Indians" (silko 63). They were taught they their ways were wrong and so being native was wrong but they were also not accepted in the white culture as equals so they were left with nothing and no place to feel at home.

Natives were always went to the worse areas or war and separated from the white soldiers. There was racism even when it came to wanting to fight for the same country. "Anyone can fight for america,' he began, giving special emphasis to 'America,' 'even you boys, In a time of need, anyone can fight for her" (Silko 59). Even thought he is not trying to be raciest, the recruiter is saying that they are different and will be taken but not necessary wanted. He talks to them in a manner that puts them on a different level than white soldiers. "Now I know you boys love america as much as we do, but this is your big chance to show it!" (Silko 59) He makes it so they are not they same by saying "as much as we do". they are separated, us and them. Natives as well as African Americans were a;ways sent to the worse war zones that had terrible conditions. They were never able to rank up or be anything other than a soldier on the front line. "I want to be a pilot.' he paused and look at the recruiter. The recruiter didn't look up.'Sure, sure,' he said 'you enlist now and you'll be eligible for everything" (Silko 60) They would lie and promise that they could be anything they wanted but that was never the case. Natives were separated and not giving equal opportunity that white men got.