Our History

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Ahoy Mate,

Welcome to the world of the Sea and Sailing!

My name is Lance De Marcor, and I am the founder of Astra Sailing Academy.

I would like to have the pleasure of telling you a bit about myself and the history of the academy.

So step on board this beautiful sailing vessel, and as we sail out into the beautiful sea I will tell you the exciting story of this adventurous crusade.

You are now for a time an honorary part of Astra crew on this informative and adventurous journey as we magically voyage back into the history of Astra Sailing!

Be sure and get ready to duck when I call "READY TO COME ABOUT!", for when the sail and boom swing across the boat and we trim our sheets on our new course we will sail onto a heading of enlightenment.

It's a fair wind blowing and a beautiful sea to be on, so make yourself comfortable and enjoy these moments in time on board this beautiful sailboat, as she takes you for a venture in time with her trustworthy crew and competent skipper at the helm.

Starboard- The right side of a boat

Bow – The very front of a boat

Commodore Lance DeMarcor

* "Ready to come about" – The command of the skipper aboard the sailboat just before turning the sailboat "through the wind" to alert the crew of that drill and the swinging of the boom across to the opposite side of the boat.

Boom – The spar(pole) sticking straight out from the mast that holds the bottom of the sail straight out.

Mast – The spar sticking straight up on a sailboat that holds the sail up.

Trim – Adjust the sail to maximum efficiency.

Sheets – The sail are sometimes called sheets.

Heading – The point of destination or compass bearing.(north, north west, west etc.)

To begin the story mates, we will clear up the names of the crusade so you don't fall asleep and miss out on the main part. Arr-be-dar!

First of all, the name ASTRA is an acronym that stands for Adventure Sail-TRaining Academy. Adventure, because we feel it is and always will be an adventure to be part of this high spirited crew of fun loving sailors.

ASTRA is the Greek word for star and our motto is "ad ASTRA" meaning – "To the Stars!". That motto keeps us on a high purpose!

Astra Sailing Academy is the overall name of two organizations; Astra Academy and Astra Sailing.

Astra Sailing is the organization "For Youth Run by Youth". It's run as a nautical organization and similar to a Yacht Club, with a Captain and a Commodore.

The Captain is the senior youth over Astra Sailing and the Commodore is the senior adult over Astra Academy, which is run as a bureau of adult supervision over Astra Sailing.

(Dolphins off the starboard bow! – A sign of good luck to sailors.) That was great! Now back to the history and adventures of the academy.

I wanted to clarify my titles and hats. I am the Founder of the academy and I wear the hat of Commodore for Astra Sailing Academy, like the Commodore of a yacht club or nautical organization. Commodore is a nautical term and has been used for hundreds of years on the sea. Our academy has a maritime heritage and we take pride in upholding the traditions of the sea.

The history of our academy like the history of the sea is a continuous tale of adventure and confront where daring and brave individuals venture into sometimes uncharted places where none have gone before and where conditions become extreme to many and to the week or faint hearted a place to look at from a distance, like in a picture book, but to the real tough sailors a given chance to spit into the sometimes cruel eye of fate and sail right through danger and laugh with the gods at mere mortal fears as we sail through the storms into the beautiful blue sky and sunshine. It is because of our courage and high confront that we are able to maintain such a high purpose and carry on through the toughest shellackings that fate can muster up. We're still here. Arr-be-darr!!

The purpose of Astra Sailing Academy is: "To provide youth with the help and training they need in life to be successful in the field of their interest".

Astra is not a "box" to put the child in, from where he must escape, for summer vacation, or where in the future he must beat his way out into his own self-determined reality. Astra is a place where a child may grow into his chosen beingness along his purpose line and get help along the way.

Astra is child's step onto an adventure to their chosen vocation. But before I venture forward on the makeup of this runway I must help you to understand a very important reality that is different about this crusade.

I did mentioned the word child, and that brings up the traditional importance of children, and the nurturing and caring for them, so they will make it to adulthood.

At Astra Sailing we have something different, to help out along the way, and we feel it is of vital importance to the survival of our students, so listen closely and I will whisper a little secret to you.

We don't have any children at Astra Sailing. That's right, you did hear right, and no, don't think that the wind and the waves on this journey caused a mis-communication to what I just said, because you did hear right.

Many children have come and stepped aboard this adventure; and when they did, for the time they were aboard our crusade, they were elevated to a higher status above that of a child. This is something you may not be familiar with but it is something you need to know to gain true understanding about our academy.

We have no children here, but a higher level of youth that is able to perform with competence and stability, and lend a hand in our crusade. These youth are able to do a job, wear a hat or to be specific – Hold a post. This may not seem like a great accomplishment to some and I agree it shouldn't be, but in today's society, it is a big deal. Some parents of this day, believe it or not, cannot stand a child participating, feeling dignity and earning self-respect.

I find most all kids love to step up to a challenge and are proud to earn their self respect at an early age. I see kids realize their potential and purpose at an early age because someone gave them a chance.

At Astra Sailing kids come to terms with themselves, and together play an ethical game of comradeship and survival. They enjoy it, and have fun with the challenge of real life adventures. The world is their sandbox. Actually the beach is a pretty big sandbox. Yo! Ho! Ho!

On Old Man Sea there is no other way than fun and adventure and here is the place for youth, where each can do a job and maintain a trustworthy attitude towards the other crew on board as a team.

When these kids come to us and show their true spirit we take them right out of that category of child and elevate them into a new and well deserved status.

The title of this "extraordinary kid being", is CADET. A child steps on board and rises in stature to CADET and with our help "makes it" as part of our adventurous crew of sailors. Now to me as the Commodore of Astra Sailing, I have seen that this is a big deal for a child to step up in stature to Cadet and take on a post and maintain a good ethics record, and that gives me a true satisfaction of accomplishment to have helped in this. To me this is the important part of helping youth in life as this leads to the willingness towards the other parts of education.

It is true that some youth cannot make it as a Cadet but it is not usually the kid that fails.

I have to say that the child's parents have a big part in this as it is usually the youth of a certain quality of parent that will be able to maintain the personal integrity needed to step up in stature.

I find parents stepping in and knocking off their child's "Cadet" hat with a "landlubber" attitude and the poor kid looses every time. The kid gets adventurous about Old Man Sea or some form of responsibility taken, and comes home with a wild sea story and scares the parent half to death. The parent will dramatize their fears on the child and that's the end of that kid's chance to bring out his true adventurous nature.

Competence is above case gain and to make the case gain there are barriers to push through. When the going gets tough the tough get going and eventually we all have to face the truth, commit ourselves to a destination, set the course and face the wind and the sea of life. Parents need to be around for the encouragement and support needed and that is why stable parents are a key to a child's success and the future of the planet.

So this is the secret of the Brotherhood of the Astra Crusade. We are a few competent beings of human compassion and understanding, that have risen above the psychotic world and live in the adventure of the future creativity of the culture, together in a world of dependability, honesty, trustworthiness and integrity.

Wow mate, you did well sailing through that bit, and with that rough sea out of the way, and that was a lot to confront, but it is the building block of the entire activity and needed to be understood as a main reason for the success of it. So lets readjust our sails for some smooth sailing and relax for a while as we continue on our journey to enlightenment of this crusade and it's history.

As the story of Astra is told and history being continually made, we realize that we are only as great as the beings that comprise our crew and the history of this academy is made up of many different beings, who over time, have been given the opportunity to put their ability to create, to the helm, steering our crusade as a ship into the seas of success.

Many have come and gone and many have left with great achievements and great stories of adventure and success to carry with them through their lives. I find an interesting way to view life is from ten years into the future looking back at what is being done now to make history and that new future.

Now you may be able to see how this crusade is the real runway to real survival as it is based on the integrity of the beings that are the makeup of the future society we live in. When you can see this and confront it you can then see the true responsibilities of creating and maintaining such a runway to the success of our youth.

So this runway is the future survival of our youth. The abilities gained for their success. It must be handled with reality. A certificate is only as good as it represents the ability to demonstrate competence in relation to survival in the real world. Our certificates represent certainty in demonstration of competence of abilities useful in real survival. We can safely say that our academy is not a social club but a survival activity. Social interaction without survival in mind is as useless as getting together as a group without a common purpose in mind. It mainly breeds non-survival actions and is why there are problems with youth finding a common ground to interact thus resulting in juvenile delinquency.

Just like the sailing of this boat has something to do with survival, so is our academy's runway a survival activity that involves hands on drilling of our cadets in real life survival actions.

As we sail a steady course through this beautiful bay of playful dolphins, let me tell you some of the characteristics of our programs.

Our programs are designed to help our students achieve their goals by each finding their own heading and setting a doable course to attainment. It is an understood in education that each student has their own program and there are as many programs as students. Our academy was founded on this principle. We take the time to adjust and re-adjust the students programs for optimum performance to achieving their goals in the same way we continually trim our sails on this boat for optimum performance.

It is probably obvious by now why we use sailing as a drill in the handling of real life situations. The reason for sailing real boats, is to provide a method of increasing confront and competence as done throughout history with sailing being used for the training of competence.

I spoke to a fellow sailor just today and he would be proud for me to mention his name, Cameron. Now Cameron comes from a family of sailors and they have sailed with the best and I mean the top sailors, some great names. And he was very direct in telling me that he attributes the success of his business to the application of his learned experience and technology of sailing to his business, on a daily basis. Now to me, a fellow sailor, that is quite a statement, however, it didn't surprise me in the least, as I have the same reality on my own success in life. I can myself say, that I would have folded up and thrown in the towel years ago from the cruel suppressions of this universe had it not been for my sailing experience applied to my own life. It's a given, that the drilling on the confront and handling of the physical universe in sailing, increases ones confront and handling of life in general, and any real sailor will tell you the same thing.

I enjoy sailing, surfing, swimming and other water sports and have been involved in these sports for over 30 years and have been an instructor for 20 of them. I began competitive sailing in 1990 and earned a world title in windsurfing in 1995. I have learned much in these years not only in how to myself overcome the barriers to survival on Old Man Sea and then rise above action and into a level of competitive games, but also the additional responsibility of leading others into this zone of operation, in dealing with the many problems and barriers overcome towards winning consistently as a stellar team.

It has been said that it is the playing of the game more than the winning that is important but winning sure helps. (laugh) In life one needs to win more than fail to make it all worthwhile otherwise all of the dues paid will seem to be paid in vain.

Someone once commented on how they had paid their dues in life. They seemed to be speaking down on me as if I had not yet. I thought to myself, have I paid my dues? Well, I looked at my successes and accomplishments and my failures too and realized that one is done paying dues when one is no longer playing the game. Life is a constant upwards climb and a constant exchange on the dynamics; relax for awhile and you go for a slide down until you decide maybe it's best not to slide too far down. People who "have paid their dues" are simply taking a break as they are relaxing and not maintaining what it took to achieve where they are. When they get the gut feeling they are sliding too far down, they too will get busy and start paying some more dues(laugh), as the dues are the trials and tribulations we all face on a daily basis, together, as a species of mankind, and we share in them together, as we all need each other to survive; And that is one lesson of Old Man Sea. "Where we go one we go all".

Sometimes you get hit by an unforeseen wave or gust of wind and your boat goes over. Well, "These are the times that try man's souls", and they must be overcome. Sometimes a sailor gets lucky and connects up with a fellow mate of an abundant amount of honesty and integrity and life gets better and even beautiful; but sometimes one misjudges character and trusts those of dishonesty and risks loosing his entire ship due to some form of betrayal. Such is life on Old Man Sea. We become better and better at spotting the tricky waves and capricious wind gusts and, in time we learn and are not fooled, and are able to sail a stable course in a sea of Love, Compassion and Friendship.

I enjoy my work and have had many people tell me I'm lucky to have a job in the area of my greatest interest. I have to agree that I feel fortunate that for me work is fun and I enjoy getting up each morning while looking forward to a whole day to create in my own special and adventurous zone of life.

My pleasures in life stem from my family and the creative thought from that dynamic. I have experienced it to be true that behind every successful man is a spiritually beautiful and inspirational woman. Lacking a woman, life becomes harsh and unforgiving as the beauty and inspiration of a woman, is for me, a basic of life and survival on this planet.

I see real women as an endangered specie, as I feel this civilization is loosing its culture and art in the area of "living life", by loosing real women as the standard of true devotion, love, trust, honesty and integrity. When I find a real woman, now days, it is like seeing a beautiful mermaid, who sometimes can be found in a beautiful long lost dream, of life in ages past. Women have become men and men women and I see woman, in attempts of claiming her rightful place next to her man, has gone overboard in fighting male chauvinism and suppression, and has placed herself in an extreme opposite position; in competition with her most compassionate and appreciative partner, man. We live in a confused age where some women still hold their responsibilities in trust to the society and are an asset to the stability and future of our culture. The real beauty of a woman is in her character. TO THE REAL WOMEN OF THE WORLD!! We, the real men and children who seek, stability, beauty, honesty and integrity; we love and cherish you forever more! Hear! Hear!

You may have realized that I am not motivated by money but by my purpose in life of creating competent beings, and it is a great pleasure forwarding this inspiration and creativity into the academy. It is a purpose which transforms beyond a lifetime and I am constantly looking at ways of improving the delivery potential of the academy and getting better and better products in our students while keeping it relaxed and fun, just as our beautiful sail, on this fun loving sailboat as we near mid point of our sail into the history of the crusade of Astra Sailing.

In retrospect of this, our, my crusade, I have lived life from both sides; as I have been poor and I have been rich, I have been an amateur and a champion, been an opinion leader held up as an example and then boiled in oil, unsupported, and forsaken; a true "Project Engineer". Dues have been paid, yes for sure.

I have only few regrets in life, other than having lost the embodied closeness of those I still and always will love spiritually. These few regrets number in those who gave up faith in me, due to the cruel and unjust pressures brought to bear on them by others lies, jealousies and fears of our success. However, even those painful losses have opened doors to new vistas, new plans and new support. As the saying goes, "For every door closed is a door opened", and these doors that have opened have opened within my own heart and are doors of forgiveness and love to even those who beg to assign me as their executioner. I refuse that job. And so I always feel I have a bright future ahead and each day new friends to be made and old friends to be regained at some future date, maybe distant but maybe not.

(As we sail along we come to a beautiful tropical island and make our way into a quiet bay with a sandy beach and swimming lagoon. We can anchor and take a relaxing swim and explore the island for wild birds and sea life. As we look at new things I will continue the history of the crusade.)

I, born in Pasadena, California, as a "baby boomer" personally come from a stable, upper middle class, unbroken family of high standards, honesty and integrity. My mom was an artist, and an entertainer (a Rockette in the Radio City Music Hall) and she would dance around the house, with me, kicking her her legs high into the air, as a showgirl and a mom.(laugh) And my dad an entrepreneur who after escaping from the suppression of Hitler in Nazi Germany (his dad had sent him to Germany to become an engineer), married my mom, went out West to California and built his own successful business . My favorite time was before dinner, listening to my dad's stories of adventure as a salesman making his way in and out of the most interesting factories and markets of trade. I learned more from his adventures than I ever did in school. He was a man of honesty and integrity and that was a lesson I took to heart.

I realized an interest to help others at an early age, finding myself mentoring kids in my neighborhood by teaching them competence and providing a place for them to do constructive things and learn to create things using my dad's tools in the garage. I have always enjoyed seeing others become more competent and have felt myself to be a friend setting an example of honesty and integrity to others.

My major in school was design and engineering and I enjoyed designing and creating my own inventions and ideas, however a strong desire and pull in the area of the humanities was constantly pulling me into philosophy and the meaning of life itself and I made a pact with myself not to take part in the society until I found the true meaning of life and my relationship to it. I decided not to get married and have a family until I had the answers for my children to questions that I had asked and not found answers.

After college I helped my dad in his business in L.A. and although I enjoyed the work and could see the potential of a prosperous future for myself, I, during this time, stumbled onto the answers to all of my philosophical questions after reading a book on the human mind that made sense. My first love had gone off with another after giving up on "me the philosopher" and I then realized that I was needed elsewhere and turned my dad's successful business opportunity aside for a humanitarian lifetime career in a religious organization dedicated to helping others reach spiritual freedom.

I gained an incredible amount of experience working in that organization and after 15 years found my true "Hat in life". I decided to take my experience in what I had learned and apply it to what I found to be my hat as a Specialized Educator. There are educators in many fields but this was a particular field that I saw as needing some creativity. The closest field would be "schooling" however this would be a very limited concept to what I had envisioned.

I met my beautiful wife, Marian, in 1988, and she was the inspiration behind the success of the future academy and sailing team. Marian was an artist, dancer and sailor and loved and appreciated all forms of art. She had her own Art & Framing business and put every piece of art that she touched on display in a professional and artistic setting that brought out the beauty of the artists work. She was a true humanitarian and would go to anyone's defense in times of need. Marian learned to sail her own 24' sailboat, as a teenager, in Ft Lauderdale, her home after moving from Australia where she was born a true Aussie. Her mother owned a fleet of pearling luggers (sailing ships)in Australia and Marian was definitely a lady of the world. She traveled Europe mostly alone and with her sister and loved Spain where she attended the Universidad de Valladolid. Marian could be found hiking in the wilds of Florida and owned property in the Everglades. I had never seen Marian flinch at danger but she confronted it with human compassion and understanding. Marian was a "straight A" student in high school and in the Who's Who for Colleges and Universities. She earned a degree in Oceanography at Florida Atlantic University and became a SCUBA and Deep Sea Diver at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute diving off the Coast of Florida in Diving Subs. She worked at Harbor Branch doing research into environmental issues and wrote official U.S. Government research papers on her work. It has been Marian's support and dedication as a true woman and wife that has brought me to the level of success that I have been able to achieve in my work. I will carry on after her tragic loss, as a causality of the crusade, and in her memory and dedication to the completion of our lifetime work. Marian left her body, after a bout with pneumonia during our battle with cancer, on the 26^th of May 2004. Her last words to me were "I want to live" and "I love you". She never gave up, even to the end as she died in my arms. Marian was an inspiration to the students in the academy as she had many stories to tell and information about the environment and the ocean which is our life, at the academy. Marian taught in the school, and had a special interest in the success of the Astra Arts Academy. She raced on the sailing team making trophies in windsurfing and big boat Gulf Racing. Marian supported the windsurfing team both in competition and running the Book Booths we set up to promote and give assists to athletes. Marian's dream for the success of the academy lives on through myself and all of those who love and admire her courage, humanitarian and artistic qualities. She was more than part of the history of the academy as she was the founder and inspiration of it through myself, her husband and admirer. Marian truly lived up to the true definition of a woman in all her support and inspiration and will be anxiously awaited for her return as she has made it known of her intentions to come back and help in the crusade of the academy.

We will now light a candle for Marian as we sit by our camp fire on Fire Island where Marian once sat and inspired us to create the academy with her thoughts and ideas of how to spiritually help mankind around the world through the competence of sailors and the dreams of artists. As we gaze into the stars and see a "shooting star" we will make the wish for her speedy return to us.

The story continues with the formation of our first training and dissemination project which was brought into being as a project pilot.

In 1990 we formed a team and donated the next seven years, as an athletes, promoting the book that had set us on this philosophical Road to Truth, through the sport of competitive windsurfing. Since it is a known fact, in the inner circles of athletic competition, that "90% of winning comes from "mental attitude", promoting a book, known as the handbook for the human mind, was a way of helping expose athletes to knowledge that could help them. Together Marian and I worked to create a champion team, winning 7 National titles, a North American title, one World title, had one team member on the U.S. Sailing Team and another as an Olympic contender in 1996.

The pilot was definitely a success and we achieved all that we had hoped for and more as it paved the way for the future success of the academy.

In following with the crusade we were also being professionally trained in our careers, as educators. Aside from managing and running a champion team, we found ourselves wearing several other hats including the hats of Instructor, Mentor, Teacher, Consultant, Executive, Entrepreneur, Crusader and Project Engineer. These hats have been part and parcel to the work in creating this academy.

For a brief time we worked with academic schools as a pilot to implement our concept of education into the field of traditional schooling, however, here were too many differences in major areas in what we felt needed to be implemented and we eventually realized that we had to start our own private program.

By 1999, in keeping with our original purpose, we turned the sailing academy with it's organizational training program into a State Licensed All-Denominational Religious Academy with a full academic curriculum, organizational training, sail-training and arts. With this merger we had succeeded in integrating all of the facets of our crusade into one academy as a pilot program.

The success of this academy was due to several things that transpired over those years.

The academy was designed from scratch and piloted as one entity over the following years, adjusting each part as an integrated whole.

It was set up as a religious academy after realizing the importance of spiritual awareness in Cultural Education and History and in the area of the Humanities.

The Academy being All-Denominational with the acceptance of study about any religion as part of the program allows the freedom of choice to our students to learn about the importance of religion in their lives. Some schools deny the study of religion altogether and miss out on vital parts of major studies such as the historical, cultural, philosophical, political, artistic and moral studies of this planet of which religion has played the major role in all of them. It would be impossible to teach these subjects and leave out the study of religion as religion has played the major role in civilizing its populations.

Although Astra Academy is not parochial to any one religion, I attribute our success in running the academy (along with Marian's inspiration)to the application of our own spiritual training. I believe the spiritual aspect of education is senior as it is the spirit who interacts with the materialistic world in human relations that we have with each other. Included as a special unit in the academy is a Research Library for the purpose of providing information on the Great Religions of the world and in fact any religious books can be included and read from this library.

Some of the spiritual training we had received had taught us the importance of gaining the willingness and self-determinism of the students and this was employed as a key in education as well as the principle that doingness and outflow is where learning occurs as opposed to the traditional practiced theory that the inflow of data is considered the basis of schooling.

We had also learned that children have an innate sense of integrity and posses humanitarian goals at an early age and they will grow in stature along these lines if given the opportunity at an early age. Allowing them to be part of an organization that can help make others more competent gives them an operating environment of contribution and exchange making for their positive growth.

We realized that youth spend most of their lives in school and this is where they develop their ability to interact on a humanitarian level. If they are not drilled in situations they will encounter after they graduate they will not know how to operate in life, as their training will have consisted of "school life" which is different than the "Work–a-Day World".

We realized that youth also need exposer to life as an opportunity see what part of life they want to engage in. By finding out where their interests lie and letting them explore these, they can be happy and apply their humanitarian side to those chosen interests. Giving them the needed time to research and find these things out is an important part of the program and another key factor in the success of their education.

Living around open spaces and the open water most of our lives Marian and I had found to have developed a larger space spiritually, and I attribute my positive outlook in life directly to the amount of the world that I can comfortably have in my space. We found our students to flourish, as a result of having lots of space and a challenging environment to play in.

We could see art as an important part of creativity and this as a major area of development in a student. Simple or complex art and the facilities to be able to make things of quality was, to us, part of the development of creative potential, ideas and dreams which develop into goals and purposes that become major factors in a student's life endeavors. We have a reputable arts program including industrial and fine arts, for the purpose of allowing the students to develop their creativity.

I believe strongly in the importance of the family unit and feel that the success in youth and their positive creativity are directly related to strong family ties and stable families. Broken families are a direct influence on a students moral and drive. I see it all of the time and it is obvious the difference in youth that come from unbroken homes and stable environments, as they are calmer and more inspired to succeed. The way to destroy a child is to selfishly break up their home and I strongly believe that two people that get together and create a new life have no "just" excuse to destroy that family. It is the responsibility of two people to work out before creating a child the future stability of a family and the duty of the parents after the creation of a life to maintain that commitment and handle whatever comes up to keep it stable. I realize this may be unpopular in a degraded culture but it is suppressive and reasonable to destroy any family and I stand firm on this belief.

So there you have it mate; I have given you a short briefing on some of the basic philosophies of this academy, where they come from, and that from my personal education and experience in life, I have found to be a vital in preparing youth for their future adventure in life. These basics are the foundation for giving them a stable environment and the freedom to create and develop their own humanitarian goals and purposes.

The creation of this academy has been a true test in maintaining my own personal integrity in continuing on with what I know to be truth, despite storms and heavy seas. The academy is our ship sailing through the live adventures of life, always testing and increasing the strength of our spirits. And to all of those who are interested in an alternative to traditional education in the field of mentoring youth in an uptone and fun creative way, we welcome you.

As we sail back into the port of traditional reality I hope I have inspired you to become interested in Astra Sailing Academy and you will come to visit us and possibly sign on in our crusade in creating a more fun and better world of competence, aesthetics, human compassion, honesty and integrity.

The dolphins have befriended us and guided us safely back into our calm port as a tribute to us all for taking time for enlightenment towards humanitarian goals and in thanks of your visit with us. We at Astra grant you the wish for future success in everything you do in life. Sleep well tonight and may all of your beautiful dreams come true.

Lance Demarcor,

Your skipper and host

"The Academy for Youth Run by Youth!"

"Truth is found by seeing through lies"