in the particular presence of Elk Mountain, numbering every hair and grain of sand, twining baling rope and the message of the elder trees at the speed of time
(a fashion of eulogy)
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand
Bob Dylan
A few months ago I was watching a documentary on the chapter(s) of Adam and Eve in the Bible. It occurred to me that the whole understanding of the Garden of Eden part of the history of the world seemed, shall I be so bold, as wrong? I have been pondering this idea lately for a number of reasons. We can deliberate on the obvious, I hope we won’t though. My idea here is about paradigms, and how we have been fooled by them.
Let me elaborate for a moment, if the Garden of Eden story is wrong, say we didn’t get banished but simply were given an opportunity, the chance to experience. I’m not a scholar so I will apologize up front for what I get wrong. I’ll go up front and say that I am Agnostic at best. Here we have the tree of knowledge, a tree that we are not supposed to eat from, the proverbial forbidden fruit. Adam is scratching his rib and Eve thinks an apple is what ails him.
The rest is history so they say.
Yet of eating from the tree of knowledge do we yet sit fulfilled? Exactly what is the key of that phrase? Did we so precisely do that? Did we as much as gain from that experience or was this more the tree of experience and of opportunity? God did not destroy the world? God did not forsake Adam and Eve? In fact, God went out of the way to protect these children. If I recall it correctly the overall impression that was given about eating from the tree was that life will no longer be the same, that is, in the simplest terms.
I bring this up because of the peculiar notion of what we are thought to be taught. I say this because as a concept, we seem to get so many things wrong. Do we in the end understand what we think that we do? How do we come to the conclusions that we have?
Shelley wrote in the Triumph of Life, “then what is life I cried”
Imagine this, if you will, a notion that would contradict the first story of origin. What about Jesus, Mohammad, Moses, and the Buddha? How about that tragedy of the soul? Imagine if all these people were teaching love for the love of each other as well as God? What if there are no chosen people but all people chosen to live in this world together? I know what I am saying; I am being a little bit facetious to illustrate a point.
On the whole, we could easily say these guys were all failures. The message is drifting too far from the shore. Or has been so bastardized that who the hell knows what they were saying in the first place.
We are told that all this sacrifice has been given to mankind for mankind to be saved, to be saved from the evil that we have not been able to beat since the nibble on an apple in some far away paradise. Are we that pathetic? Are we so stubborn, so sure we are right to not find a way into the hearts and minds of those that seem to distrust us? Are we so unsure of ourselves to be able to reach across the table and listen to another tale? I have a mental picture of Jesus shrugging his shoulders in reaction and asking, “you want to get take-out?”
I’ve been to a number of memorial services lately. I could have been to more if I had more time. I found it to be a curious study. A woman buried her husband who destroyed himself. A son buried his mother who lasted out time. I witnessed both of their lives briefly, I wasn’t terribly close, but both had entered my consciousness over the years. Because of the circumstances anyone could come to a conclusion of pass or failure for their lives. Both had moving eulogies. I have had many discussions about both the last few weeks. I am drawn for a meaning. I am drawn to the holistic.
But why any judgment? Is it because of that damned story of Adam and Eve? Is it because generated empathy resolves itself in those judgments? Is it because the love of humanity is so difficult to grasp? Is it because we are so shy of the love we hold for ourselves? Is it because we confuse that with a selfish ambition? I don’t have an answer for anyone as much as a general observation.
Both had an eccentric love of life. Both managed this in opposite directions. Both operated out of what we consider sometimes tritely, but sincerely as Goodness. If you had asked either one, would they have considered their life a failure? I find this disturbing, perhaps because of the concession that it levels. How small and short are our lives, so temporary is everything we interact with, yet how we muscle it to be such a range.
So I ask now, what is a successful life? To what extent to do we use values and reaction to that judgment? To what measure to do we confound ourselves by eating of the tree of experience?
Whenever someone is rebuilding their lives, they are told to be aware of people, places and things. I always thought that to be funny because I wonder what’s left? I also wonder do we judge ourselves in those aspects too? Do we judge by the people we meet, the places we go and the things we have or done or been a part of? Should we? Or should we stick with the simple lessons of those salad days in the garden?
Can we reach over the cultural divide? Can we reach over the geo-political divide to form an understanding? Can we try to use empathy even when we believe that others are wrong? Must everything and everybody conform to a doctrine that is misunderstood?
I think it to be more genuine to the story of God being a parental figure if the moving of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden if is like being pushed out of the nest the way the animal kingdom does it. What I think is; it was inevitable, part of the plan, sooner or later if they didn’t eat it, they would be told to move on. It must have been premature, we never caught the this is happiness vibe from the experience.
We are so intellectual but lack the common instinct of convicted compassion and empathy that as a species should be the easiest instinct. The type of economy that we established so many thousand of years ago is the most confounding thing to comprehend because it is the exact nature that is so against what must have been the intention of the tree of knowledge and experience.
Only We as a species go out of our way to not enhance the lives of our kind. The white, the black, the brown, the yellow and the red have never concluded that we are the same as a species and that our particular reasons for following a higher power is saturated in a contempt of a God rather than a love of a God.
I saw a commercial this morning for a promo of a book, WWIII, Iran vs. Israel. Are we so bloodthirsty to deny the doctrine of what all the prophets speak? What does the Muslim want? Why are we as a culture so afraid to find out? Why do we fail to realize that a culture that is sacrificing their young as suicide bombers has something desperate to say? Why do we sacrifice our young in an action that we consider a monument of freedom when we are destroying, destroying, destroying any and all good will we could ever hope to accomplish.
On the other hand, we have our lives where we contemplate what it is that garnishes our value. What we must accomplish… what we must achieve to be thought of in a way that everyone can feel good about us. We are not blowing ourselves up in the Starbucks, no – no –no. We are not rioting in the streets because of the corruption of government or how business is eating away at the American Dream. We are diligently searching for forgiveness for the foolish things we do or have done. A forgiveness that may or may not have been given so many thousands or millions of years ago.
What we do have are people destroying themselves because of that futility. We have people who look over a conventional life that was fraught with tears uncried or unshared and poke holes through the sheer layer of pride and leap away in disgust. There is difficulty in shouldering the circumstances that make up a life. We search for guarantees that are not elusive, but non existent.
We render our spirituality to a fashion that leaves the essential request we have to answer and remains unanswered at times. What is the more that we ask for? Where is it to come from? What is it to accomplish? We want happiness, but what does happiness want from us?
Of what dignity do we afford ourselves? Of what nobility? Of what selfless example? Of what understanding do we allow the shortcomings of our lives and in others? It’s hard.
Pete Townsend sang I don’t know why I thought I should have some kind of divine right to the blues. If we reach out our hands, if we open our hearts we can have both happiness and meaning. It is the individual that makes that happen, not the herd. We shouldn’t lose track of that as individuals. We shouldn’t lose track of that as a nation of individual peoples.
I’m back from trampling in the woods, from the steady despair that ridicules our spirit and manifests the slick delusion. The monkey becomes an ape after awhile if you let it live on your back. That generosity comes from within to give to ourselves. We should only feel badly for others not ourselves, mostly though we shouldn’t judge lives lived or that seem unfulfilled. The only vague conclusion we can enter is our own comprehension and for the most part is uncertain. Happiness requires of us only a few things, mostly that is opening our hearts unconditionally, without expectation. We pause to discover the people places and things that evoke our interest, we give them the tree of experience, we don’t lacerate ourselves for a sacrifice. Happiness is slow and steady and a crafty little buggar because it seems to enjoy being doubted since its energy comes from us.
We should find ourselves inspired then in the wake that we create walking in the shadows, in the sunshine, in the rain, in the dark, in the quiet, in the crowd and in the silence that is unsought and unheard, where the trees fall…where our hearts skip a beat, where our names are recalled. In my personal list of things once started and never finished is something called Honorary Joe. The idea I had was to mention to ourselves that we are all honorary middle men, the perfect go-betweens, the conduit of goodness with the rather forgotten art of synchronistic kindness vs. what people seem to forget about themselves and the world we live in.
I’m rambling, the editors will be all over me…but it is the focus of this experiment. As Elvis asked, What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding? I couldn’t go on in good conscience without speaking about some of the faulted and forgotten. We see our lives as not being extraordinary. We don’t always see the lives we share as extraordinary because of values and circumstances and worse yet, expectations. There are a million stories out there wearing the face they keep in a jar. There is an essential beauty that lingers in the palm of our hands that we nullify; we keep hidden because of the contempt of others.
I’ll end with this, so at least I can keep my composure…(see my faulty values?)
Sunflower Sutra
by Allen Ginsberg
A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden monthly breeze!
How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your grime, while you cursed the heavens of your railroad and your flower soul?
Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower? when did you look at your skin and decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive? the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?
You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a sunflower!
I’ll end this rather personal notation with a short good-bye… Hopefully next week we will get back to the business of politics and philosophy… be good y’all.
Good-bye Eva. Good-bye Big John. Good-bye Milan. Good-bye Mary.
and as always Good-bye T.S. Dewey, Good-bye Dougie. Good-bye Austin and for good measure WRM…you’re always around the organic ranch…
…you will all be missed by those who remain behind…
-Sisyphus out…
