Overview

This is a time in which “policy” regarding drug addiction and criminal behavior is in flux throughout the United States. Certain findings have been found to be consistent by researchers around the world when they have examined interventions that reduce substance abuse, criminality, and violence. Despite these findings most of our policies are driven by indifference, fear, anger, and prejudice. Enemies are always objectified. Enemy making and prejudice production is not friendly to the growth of character. Many of those who will utilize this workbook have become, one way or another, the “enemy” in the “drug war.” This workbook is a gift for people who have been criminal, addicted, angry, violent, destitute, hopeless, and homeless. For people who have hurt others and hurt themselves, who have been selfish, bitter and cynical. It is for people who have run away and never gotten far enough. It is for those engaged in the struggle of moving from Winter to Spring and for those who help them. It contains exercises that we will engage in together to learn from each other. Most importantly, it is for people who would like to move into their next year and have it truly be a New Year. To do so we must all clarify our intent, inviting and invoking the best of ourselves to develop.

Many of those who use this workbook will be those who have been discussed, argued about, demonized, marginalized, excluded from society, included in statistics, tried, transported, documented, fingerprinted, incarcerated, given numbers, urine tested, hair tested, observed, and measured. They have been assigned labels laden with emotional rhetoric, declared hopeless, unredeemable, they often have as much faith in what they have been labeled by strangers as the strangers have in the labels given. People on the receiving end of industrialized processing begin to “industrialize” their own humanity. Human growth is an agricultural and not an industrial process. We humans are part of nature, and we need each other. Sometimes when we gather and take time to listen; with gentle clarity we can remind each other of the best of humanity which resides in each of us.

The DVD’s that accompany the Emergence curriculum are both docu-dramas as well as actual documentaries. Oftentimes, watching a docu-drama prior to the actual documentary increases interest and participation with TC students.

Emergence Documentary Movies (DVD’s)

Beyond Rangoon - This 1995 docudrama portrays the political dissent, unrest and oppression of Burma through the fictional story of an American tourist.

Compassion in Exile - The Story of the 14th Dalai Lama This 1997 documentary by Micky Lemle was the first to chronicle the Dalai Lama’s life and 30 year exile from his homeland. Aside from historical and cultural detail, the documentary demonstrates the response of the Dalai Lama in the face of terrible adversity and how he chose to fulfil his promises not only to the people of Tibet but the global community.

Down Came a Blackbird - This film deals with issues of trauma, grief, systems of power relations and communication as opposed to systems of affection and control. This is a thought-provoking story about denial, concealment, and confession through the group process of a journalist who had been imprisoned and tortured in Central America. This film, starring Raul Julia was made when Mr. Julia was diagnosed as terminally ill. He asked to make this movie as a statement regarding the human condition. He did not live to see it completed.

Inside Burma, Land of Fear - This award-winning documentary by John Pilger investigates the history and brutality of military dictatorship in Burma and the effect and responses of the nation to fear. Notable are the interviews with Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of the assassinated independence leader who spent 6 years under house arrest. Burma has been isolated for more than 40 years, since military dictatorship seized power in Rangoon. Although a country with rich national resources, systems of fear and control have relegated it to one of the poorest countries in the world.

Seven Years In Tibet - Based on a book of the same name, this movie is based on the facts of Heinrich Harrer’s life during the Second World War. Harrer (an Austrian) was interned in a British POW camp in India and through an escape attempt manages to trek to Tibet where he meets the Dalai Lama prior to his exile. The movie chronicles his emotional and spiritual journey, including overcoming arrogance, fear, and selfishness. Harrer develops friendships and relationships based on promises.

The Color of Fear - This documentary film chronicles a group of eight North American men of Asian, European, Latino and African dissent. These men at a weekend retreat engaged in group process on race and ethnicity. Mun Wah, a community therapist facilitates the group circle and picked men that represented different backgrounds. The film gives TC participants a reference point for men articulating their differences, talking about fear, and finding points of identification and empathy with each other.