Lesser of Two Evils:
"If you want to see the reality of the politician you will have to see him from his back door. There he is in his nudity, as he is, and so is the priest. These two kinds of cunning people have dominated humanity. And they found out very early on that if you want to dominate humanity, you make it feel weak, make it feel guilty, make it feel unworthy. Destroy its dignity, take all glory away from it, humiliate it. And they have found such subtle ways of humiliation they don't come in the picture at all, they leave it to you to humiliate yourself, to destroy yourself. They have taught you a kind of slow suicide." - Osho
On a Thursday afternoon October disappears as days begin squeezing themselves together. Nights stretch out as stars replace relentless sun with a sigh of relief. Driving through rural Oregon one month before election day I note opposing political signs are stapled onto trees and staked into driveways. One in particular illustrates a representative with a machine gun on an American flag background while the next has more than ten simple signs on each fence post, opposing name. After a day kayaking on the river these signs irritate me more than usual.
Earlier I felt light, unbothered and in awe of Earth itself. Like a child I laughed out loud, delighted as salmon swam on both sides of the kayak, jumping and splashing with the rapids. Their bodies slapped against the river, creating a sound almost like a shutter in the breeze..I could not stop looking for them beneath the water, nor forget herons were playing hide and seek with us. So little of our home, Earth, is untouched or protected from human means. Every year we lose vast amounts of wildlife, nature preserves, and endangered species that are sources of information dating back to prehistoric times. It as if we are slowly deleting our history and adding it to the cyber cloud as a desktop image…
In the same breath Monsanto changes their name and begins producing vegetables and fruit that cannot be reproduced from their own seeds, political signs read “take back America” as if America has up and gone someplace. As a citizen of America I believe without ability to grow our own food, taking back land without knowledge of how to regenerate soil is obsolete. Food and cannabis intake seems more sustainable and productive than pitting against neighbors who share our rivers, lakes, and atmosphere. Taking care of soil and sharing techniques is a good place to start. Instead 5 o clock news headlines parties use distraction tactics (someone attempting to appear taller at a rally for example) to avoid questioning of heated topics such as environmental crisis. At the end of these debates, is anything solved or is more conflict created?
This gap is difficult to overcome as a seed saver, grower and small time farmer. How to continue sharing cared for organic seed, build soil with regenerative concepts and provide herbs as medicine. Cannabis cared for and carried on through generations is slowly being obliterated by recreational grow prices. Legalization would do nothing to help this, although it may gain some voters one way or another. Voting for someone who will legalize cannabis sways me, and yet the other ensures rain forests and natural phenomenon's will quickly be eliminated. I wish I did not have to choose between the lesser of two evils.
Mountains churn into a painting as I drive, considering politics and nature. The river is filled with damns and homemade waterway passes. Every year landscape changes due to many hands, water continues to find its own path despite manipulation. I find myself praying for salmon, osprey, herons, woodland ducks, otters, ash trees, and humanity. I wonder how large can the divide become before everything collapses?
I am here, on this river to realize how much bullshit we live in, are attached to, and do not need to be. I cannot help but wonder even if there was land or "America" (for lack of a better word) to "take back" how it would be used? Part of me as a small time farmer and grower wants to paint replace these signs with "take back our food system" or put an ear of corn with a bundle of carrots instead of a machine gun. I realize conflict is created in many different fashions. Freedom of speech is important yet more profound if we use it in a compassionate way. I understand everyone's experience is different, yet somehow believe we can find a way to coexist without violence or politics separated as Blue vs. Red. Then again some of us love to fight and others argue...
I am not here to destroy the system or sway to a certain color. Instead I am here to dismantle it and somehow offer an alternative where we do not have to divide ourselves on a simple disagreement or not being able to broaden our perspective. What would it feel like to live on a healthy planet with clean water, air, fresh rain in early spring, fall colors creating a tapestry reflected from a calm lake, none of it synthetic? We have the ability to intermingle with nature, I view these moments and a deep sense of peace and chaos balance one another. These moments are essential to Earth thriving and not simply surviving. I am able to feel a widened sense of my connection to everything.
As we move away from nature, we move closer to the system, technology, political wars, violence and division from one another. As we search for safety in our own homes, we become more isolated and fearful. We stop helping one another... Humanity’s obsession with politics, war, fighting one another to the death to prove a point or exile another’s opinion has become common practice. Politicians no longer give speeches about what they WILL do, instead they slander the opposing party as to how awful they are. Friends no longer exchange information, they argue about different issues with incredible passion and very little compassion. Arguing for the sake of arguing... Killing in order to not be killed... Building walls to keep one another out...
Slices of nature, a free flowing river, cannot be divided by opinion only fallen trees or beaver damns.. On the river, politics are less arguable and kept by birds and ways of the current. These things are consistent and have no thought of the other side. Simply clearing our minds, listening, smelling, hearing water turn over rocks. The river does not think, does not have a "brain" and yet is of highest intelligence. Without attachment, everything coexists and exchanges information. I had a deep seeded appreciation seeing nature without a lens almost as if I was being shown a sliver of possibility.
Am I privileged to experience this wildness? Certainly I live outside the system to be closer to nature.. A witness to the prehistoric squawk of a heron as it flies overhead, a friend to otters bobbing along rivers edge, an advocate to salmon. Recently a friend told me otters have begin attacking humans, I sit quietly and think to myself how I do not blame them...What is it that separates us from one another's beliefs? Blocks us from accepting differences? Politics ask us to choose between one or the other. We choose an issue we feel most attached to and cling to it with all of our might, hoping "our" representative will follow through. We are so incredibly attached we support violence to remove opposing parties, all the while our deepest issues remain unaddressed. Our planet becomes further depleted while we become less aware.
Anyone on the river that day could not help but be taken aback by the vast beauty of Earth, but we have grown far from our roots as humans. Evolved into half robotic, half present people. Politics give us a reason to fight, and it keeps us from the rivers deeper lessons. It distracts us from our roots to Earth as well as dividing us from one another. Everyone has a different experience,. but we all walked away with simple peacefulness only nature can provide. Seeing an osprey overhead, fish dangling from his mouth, circle of life and death is prominent as ever yet somehow less threatening. Natures brutality has never frightened me the way humanity has…..
"Have faith and do what you can with what you have" I tell myself as sunlight falls behind mountains and flowers in the windowsill wilt, stems melting. My heart pumps with a vision of humanity in a healthy stature. My dreams are flooded with possibility of being connected while aspiration teems beneath the surface. As the election nears and cannabis is uniformly cut down, hung, dried, the Underground utters a prayer to me:
"Politicians don't have real faces. The whole game is a lie. Take a good look at yourself to see if you have been playing this game. What you see might be painful, but not as painful as continuing to play. It doesn't serve anybody's best interest in the end, least of all yours. Whatever you might achieve in this way will just turn to dust in your hands" —
RUST
Spend an eternity in my head.
Live, breathe, one lifetime wrapped in a thousand stories
woven of memories archived.
How many times have I done this?
How many souls have I touched?
One thousand years of living, I must go on, I must....
like Rust I formed with time, oxidized over longstanding grime.
What is time unless you are human?
If you see the world as rust it is nothing, you are simply forming.
Article and poetry by: Medusa G Rilla
Quotation from Osho, “The White Lotus”
