Koyannisqatsi : from the Hopi Language : "Life out of balance" : unnatural life, wrong life, life that calls for a change in the way of living.
only when the last tree is cut down
only when the last river is poisoned
only when the last fish has been caught
only then will you learn
that money cannot be eaten.
-- cree indians
Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi word.
And a movie.
You will probably not find Koyaanisqatsi in any white man's dictionary. Nor can it really be defined in a book anyway. The Buddhists and Taoists say that there is a higher kind of knoledge that cannot be communicated with words. I think the Hopi would agree.
Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi word defined as: life out of balance; un-natural life; wrong-life; life that calls for a change in living. In otherwords, Western Society. But to appreciate what Koyaanisqatsi really means you must watch the movie. You must wander the streets of Los Angeles at 3am in a 1966 Chevy wagon. You must visit the TransAmerica Corporate Headquarters. You must spend some time in Las Vegas. And some time talking to rich white capitalists that don't like welfare, public education, communists, niggers, faggots, heathens, wetbacks, gooks, chinks, tree-huggers, hippies, and weird-ass-yankees. THEN you must sleep the night on Panamint Lake under the full moon and see strange lights upon Telescope Peak. You must see green fire in the Mojave Sky at night, luminous clouds at 1 am, and snow clouds huddling around Red Mountain. Meet Coyote face-to-face; and Tortose, Lizard and Kangaroo Rat, and find a bright red flower growing on the barren 550 million year old beach at Cadiz. Then perhaps you will stand under what it means.