University of Virginia Library

Mel Lyman Leaves Avatar;
New Editor Begins His Thing

By Wayne Hansen

Reprinted From Avatar

Having very recently finished up
twenty-three years on this planet,
I would very much like to sit
down and write to you some final
statement on everything I have
touched in that time, and really
tell you what's going on here. That
would be the highest message I
could convey to you at this
moment, something to sum up all
of me, to right here, that I might
go on to something higher.
Whether or not I can do that I
will only know when I am through
writing: you are now a very special
photographer, witnessing a peculiar
event. Kindly snap the shutter
at only the right places.

I have always been suspicious
of people who come to me to
offer their services, outwardly unsolicited,
in "helping" me. From
time to time in my life, such people
have come to me, to save my
soul as it were. It must be that
I invite them, unconsciously of
course, for I only recognize it once
they've begun their work. Only one
ever really did help me in that
respect, and he never said a word
to me about it, never tried to do a
damn thing for me, yet I have
changed radically and expanded
greatly under his "teaching." And
yet others come to me, and quite
patronizingly they come, proud
little beasts. After a short public
relations job on my mind, they
gain a foothold, publish an article
or two, then usually get into telling
me about how much they're contributing
to our little cause. The
man who comes to me and says
nothing, but goes immediately to
work, that is the man who is
truly helping. He comes seldom,
he stays forever, he is of one
heart with what we do here. Few
understand, fewer give themselves
up to that understanding.

Avatar is the bridge between
heaven and earth; the word means
pure spirit manifested in everyday
reality. If such "spiritual" language
stops you, perhaps I could say
the highest involvement of the consciousness
of mankind expressed
in every material thing.
It has been my goal in reporting
to take such material events as
there are and show them in the
light of the understanding,
whether it means bringing the
heaven in them out more fully,
or lifting them up into the place.
In such pure light, very little remains
to be seen, all artifice falls
away, and only spirit is left. Avatar
is not yet all that avatar suggests,
but it is the most that there is
on this planet at this moment.
Do you hear me talking there?

As when every new thing, every
reborn thing, comes again to the
earth to manifest itself in even
wider circles of humanity, so now
there is great turmoil bubbling
over that which confines The
cry is peace and the cry is freedom,
for there is now a great need for
peace and a great need for freedom,
but my god, do you know
what that means? That great
need is felt by so many, and they
fill that need as much as they feel
it, and at the time and the place
where they feel it. And there are
but a few as yet who know how
keen and how inward that need is,
and these few are creating themselves
to fill that need. It is just
as in our first revolution, when a
few men, who most felt the need
for independence from the nation
which held the great force of this
nation check, took those first steps
to risk that necessary separation.
With their conviction alone, which
persuaded an unwilling third of
the populace to unite with them,
they fulfilled what was necessary.
And having made the separation,
it became necessary to bind the
disparate parts created out of the
fire of the Revolution with the
form of the Constitution.

And in our time, our revolution
shall differ only in that it is
a subtler thing, for the need
is of a deeper nature, but its
fulfillment shall be manifested outwardly
at every level, in life-style,
in politics, in science and in art.
Men are coming, great men who
are among us now, who will unite
the extremes in to an unshakable
structure, unshakable not
because of its suppression of the
will of the people, but because of
its perfect expression of that will.
And from the present bewilderment,
anger and chaos a true
will must arise to replace that
shadow of will, that vacant greed
which is not called the will of
the people by the clumsy dwarves
who stumble where graceful giants
ought to stride.

The black man is moving now,
in tune with this same need, as it
appears in his terms. The young
white man rejects his society, feeling
the same thing, which is only
outwardly different. The young
politician works against the war,
from his consciousness of the same
need. Everywhere in this country,
and all over the world, but for
the most here, because it is so
needed here, people are driven to
extremes, to widely separated opposition.
This summer will be the
greatest crisis this country has ever
experienced. How history is shaped
in the next few years really depends
on how bad it gets this
summer. If this country is not
totally divided, so that each extreme
really begins to understand
itself and its limitations, we will
get Nixon and Reagan, who will
do all they can to make that
separation more and more extreme.
If it does get bad enough this
summer, we will get Kennedy and
McCarthy, who will have to put
life back into the old form of
our government. I know that many
mistrust Kennedy, fear his personal
desire in this situation, but remember
that the office is bigger than
the man for the man who is big
enough to fill that office, and
Robert Kennedy is that man. If
Robert Kennedy is nominated in
Chicago, anyone who still demands
the politics of ecstasy and searches
for someone beyond him, has
missed the point. Among
politicians, Robert Kennedy is
the avatar.

Which, if you'll allow me, brings
us right back home. Many have
come to me and said how glad
they are that Ml Lyman has left
AVATAR and now I will be able
to do my thing, as they say, with
full force, and they will be able
to do their thing, like they always
wanted to do in the first
place. But AVATAR will not be
less Ml Lyman. No, there will
be more Ml Lyman in every issue,
whether by that name or not, for
there is no separation between us
from where you stand. God is not
dead, my friend, just now more
uncreated. And He will recreate
himself in AVATAR and everywhere
else besides. If you do not
understand, it is because you are
not close enough, and if you are
not close enough, it is because
yet you do not understand. Do
you think I speak in riddles?

But I'll not let you escape without
a word of hope. The greatest
change humanity has ever known
is upon us. Each of us must give
up what we have to further that
change. Evaluate your thing in that
light, check it genuinely, and see
what falls away and what remains.
Bring what remains to us, and together
we shall recreate the world.