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On Human Gardening
I am happy to see that the January 6 Committee is holding an "unscheduled" hearing tomorrow. While it certainly can't undo the Supreme Court's assault on reason and science, it should serve to get us back to taking care of business. Each of us has our own unique response to the rabid republican declaration of holy war; for me, this includes meditating on the teachings of those human beings that I recognize as the prophets.
I consider Bob Marley to be among these people, imperfect and 100% human, who delivered a message of truth over the centuries. I should note that the lyrics to the above song were authored by Peter Tosh, another of my favorites. As Peter was murdered on Spetember 11, 1987, I will suggest that younger readers unfamiliar with him listen to some of his music, both with Bob, and after. "Downpresser Man" is one I'd recommend.
"Downpresser man
Where you gonna run to
Downpresser man
Where you gonna run to
Downpresser man
Where you gonna run to
All along that day"
It helps me to listen to them as I tend to my garden. My son and I recently acquired a collection of artifacts from the widow of a guy that I used to know from walking the fields. Rather than sell them, where the collection would be broken up and leave the area, she wanted them to stay local with a young person who understands their value is not measured in dollars and cents. The collection has over 500 artifacts that document human beings living here, on this land, for over 12,000 years. There is some fascinating science that seems to document the Original Americans were here much longer than that, although there are still differing opinions among the experts. I keep an open mind.
About 100 of the artifacts are gardening tools. They range from about 2,000 bc until shortly before Europeans arrived. My late friend used these to decorate his gardens, and his widow "hinted" it would be nice if we did the same. I told her that they would be added to those we've already placed there. My son built me a beautiful labyrinth where my large, above-ground swimming pool sat before a tree fell on it. On the rock walls that he built for raised-bed gardening, he placed hundreds of fossils, mapping the earliest tiny life-forms, from water to land, including ancient trees, and even a fish, before mapping out the timeline of human history.
Carrying those rocks out, I think of one of the two mentors I had as a teenager and young man. I was an angry, troubled person in that phase of life, so much so that the universe decided not only that I required two mentors, but that they had to be extraordinary. I was so bad that in high school, my favorite teacher called me aside one day, gave me a book, and said I needed to read it ..... not for class, but for life. It was "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." She was, by the way, the same teacher who brought me bags of food when I was a homeless teen, so I trusted her.
Now, one of those mentors was Onondaga Chief Paul Waterman, who I have quoted a thousand times on this forum. With him, I learned the traditional history and wisdom of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. For years, I have overlapped his lessons with the archaeological record, and they match up well. With Paul, I also got to know many other Chiefs and Clan Mothers, who serve as the Wisdom Keepers.
When I work outdoors with my son, or when we walk the fields, I tell him about the things I've learned from this, both from Paul and others, and from sitting in university classrooms. I tell him how Paul and my other mentor, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, redirected me from a path that likely would result in prison or death, to the correct path. My son thinks the most hilarious story came one night long ago when a friend and I, both teens, were in a store to buy beer. We had money, but the synergy of intoxicated and stupid kicked in: I told him I would grab a few extra cases, and run out the employee's back door. He would buy beer, and I'd meet him outside. It made perfect sense at the time.
He said employees were watching us, so I told him to leave. Then I grabbed cases of beer, and dashed out the back door. Two athletic employees were chasing me, so by the time I was out the door, I had set the cases down, and began hurling bottles of beer at them. In my extended family, you had to box and play baseball, and I had a mighty accurate fast bottle, er, ball. They hurried back inside. Somehow, I was never caught and charged. I did worse things, for sure, but that was the most stupid.
Although Paul had met people as stupid as I used to be, he could not relate to my youthful rage, so that is where the Hurricane came in. We had a couple things in common, although on the surface, there were significant differences. Much of his early life was the experience of many young black guys in an urban setting, or in reform school. I was an Irish second-generation small farm family, with some BCI Senior Investigators that somehow knew what trouble my brothers and I were making. (That remained a mystery until I was an adult.)
I was a pretty good boxer, and was featured in an article in a boxing magazine when I was 13, authored by a British writer. We corresponded through letters and cassette tapes, talking about boxing, prison, and my conviction that most adults were stupid. Rubin had known Malcolm X, and paraphrased him in a question: "If they are truly that stupid, then why do you behave in a manner that allows them to control your life?" I would use that same question, years later, when I worked with troubled youth convinced adults were stupid beings.
At the age of 18, Rubin told me to hang up the boxing gloves, and to go to college. Though I questioned that, of course, but did. And at that time, my conversations with Rubin started on another path. He began talking about the meaning of life, and what human evolution was possible at this time. That coming from a long line of DNA, that modern humankind must evolve psychologically, or we will bring our own extinction upon the human race.
When people would ask Paul about the "Iroquois religion," he would say that it wasn't a "religion," but rather, a way of life. Rubin, on the other hand, was an atheist. His paternal line was of Baptist ministers, and he knew the bible. He had also studied Islam, and he called the human we know as Jesus as "the Master." And he pointed out things such as the Gospel of Matthew quoting Jesus sixteen times in what are much like the essence of Buddhism. Most fall into concepts of balance, but three are specifice: Do not be afraid.
We are in a horrible time, and I'm not suggesting that we will not emotional responses. Those can be good things, because we are human beings. But our best responses are those that -- by no coincidence -- separate us from the republicans, who are the angry bottom-dwellers that worship Trump, guns, and a "religion" that is shallow and fragile -- and very destructive. Many of their victims wll suffer, and some will die. Thus, to paraphrase Albert Camus, our job is to lessen the numbers that may suffer and die.
Finally, if we form a DU baseball team, though I'm too old to throw a good fast ball, I could be of service as a pitching coach.
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