"Don't mourn. Organize" - Bill
Rodgers, December 22, 2005
In the dark night of the Winter Solstice, the spirit of Bill
Rodgers, a.k.a. Avalon, slipped through the bars of his cell,
down the institutional corridors of the Coconino County Jail
and out into the crystalline Flagstaff air. He left behind
charges of arson and feelings of betrayal and came home to
the heart of his community.
Most of his friends said that they felt him close by following
his jailbreak. During a nighttime memorial ceremony in which
they remembered his warrior spirit, a picnic table burst into
flames at a crucial moment. They put out the fire, blew out
the remaining candles and remembered Bill in the darkness
he loved so well. Surrounded by the scent of Ponderosa pine
and granite, his friends lingered a few moments more before
gathering around the campfire to tell stories of Bill.
Bill attended Prescott College in northern Arizona in the
late 1980s. While there, he strengthened his interest in activism,
eventually getting involved with EarthFirst! actions in Idaho
and several other western states. He returned to Prescott
a decade later and set up the Catalyst Infoshop with his partner,
Katie Nelson, two years ago. The shop provides books, 'zines,
and activist support, and it is above all a center for environmental
and social justice.
One of Bill's last campaigns before his arrest in early December
provided support and news of Matt Crozier and Rod Coronado.
The pair was facing conviction for charges relating to direct
actions they took to protect in mountain lions in Sabino Canyon.
The lions were feeling the effects of human encroachment,
and in a scene becoming common in the increasingly-cluttered
West, they were also losing their fear of humans.
Throughout his adult life, Bill suffered the consequences
of that same encroachment, and like the wildcats he resembled
in movement, nocturnal habits and stealth, he also lost his
fear - of the system.
"He was a small man, delicate bones and gentle movements,
who sometimes moved - I swear! - like a cat," said friend
Gene Dilworth in an email.
Bill's affinity for cat symbolism found expression in the
Catalyst's logo, a black cat shattering a pane of glass.
In the Catalyst newsletter, The Stray Cat, he wrote, "The
black cat reminds us of nighttime, of that 'other world'-
a world of possibility. Whether it's spiritual or political,
we can move through that world with all the grace and stealth
and cunning of cat. At night we are no longer prey to our
masters, but predators seeking to change the established order
and create a more just society - by whatever means necessary."
Bill's last act as a wild-loving warrior set him free. Moments
before suffocating himself, he wrote, "I have not departed.
I have merely changed form. With or without me, the resistance
grows stronger everyday."
Bill's memory continues through the dedicated actions of
other warriors. On New Year's Eve, the A.L.F. in Spain liberated
26 beagles in his name.
|
