More Words
Early June and the Saturday morning holds promise of warming sun, growth for the vegetables lately placed in the ground. I sit here in the corner at Starbucks listening to the beat of easy jazz playing too loud over the PA. This rhythm is a human replication of the heart beat of nature that animates us all. This is a comfort. My friend Reno stopped by and I listened for a few minutes to a story or two. Exchanging of stories creates, layer by layer, friendship and by extension a entire community.
I continue to reflect upon the desperate act of self aggrandizement entailed in the presidents withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Accord. His complaint was that it was “a bad deal for America.” I do not understand how an opportunity for survival of the human species along with the ecosystem that has supported the rest of living Nature — is a bad deal. But of course the president can only think in terms of a short term Profit and Loss financial statement. That is the limit of what he knows. I also found the statements made by his courtiers, Pruitt and Pence offensive. They offered a wrapper of flattery to this Earth Killing attempt to isolate the United States from the inertia of cause and effect.
Many years ago I read Frank Herbert’s magisterial science fiction series. The first book in the extended series is entitled Dune. Herbert wrote presciently on the grand themes of politics, religion, science, and human nature. So I turned to Herbert’s words for solace this morning. Here are several quotations for your consideration.
If you need something to worship, then worship life—all life, every last crawling bit of it! We’re all in this beauty together!
— Paul Muad’Dib Atreides
The flesh surrenders itself, he thought. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to he instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not…yet, I occurred.
— Paul Muad’Dib Atreides
You do not take from the universe. It grants you what it will.
— Paul Muad’Dib Atreides
A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the human’s way of life changes. Old values change, become linked to the landscape with it’s plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of those multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as Nature. It requires a measure of respect for the inertial power within such natural systems. When a human gains this knowledge and respect, that is called “being primitive.” The converse of course, is equally true: the primitive human can become sophisticated, but not without incurring dreadful psychological damage.
