The King & The Tyrant (Father's Day)

5/25/2010:

Every month a speck of dust rubs my clammy insides and around this central point, I try and build my newsletter blog posts. My hope is that upon the conclusion of my writing, a pearl is formed. This month has been the most difficult to write of all the newsletter entries I've done. Many things have come together all at once leaving me both confused and exhausted.

--Why is this difficult, aren't you just trying to sell produce?

Sure. But I hope you realize that it is more than this. The [redacted] is not just business as usual, or that is what I strive to communicate and hope to believe. I don't do this for money. I want to believe that I stand for something. . .

--So, what do you stand for?

Each month, I invoke some sort of muse or God toward the beginning of these experiments in advertising. The aim of the invocation is "authenticity", serving something to which to be true.--Wait. Perhaps that's it. Maybe, I just answered the above question indirectly. What do I stand for? I stand for the authentic. That is, a true experience of being alive. This month we celebrate the solstice, and the father. If I'm invoking anything to be true to this month, it is myself. . .

As a member of the produce team, it would be difficult not to be a goddess lover. As one begins to consider the Earth that supports us, it isn't much of a stretch to then personify our home as mother and to take on the cause of protecting her. I recently saw a special on PBS called Born Wild: The First Days Of Life. It showed mothers and babies and how various animals care for their young--and they are all different. Of course the most striking to me was how the Amaurobius spider mother offers her own body for her newborns to feast upon. She willing gives her entire self for her offspring. Beautiful, right? Wait, what if we don't have to kill her. I feel like the spider baby screaming, Wait! Sop! We don't have to eat her! She can give us all milk almost forever!

A week ago, the Idaho chapter of The Friends of Jung presented a sneak peak at The Flicks of an unreleased film called, Call Of Life. The film unflinchingly looks upon our civilization's impact upon the world and life. Talk about spiders eating their mother. It kind of messed me up. And here is the interesting part of being a father. The father wants to control the situation to arrive at the desired results. But by holding on so tightly, the father becomes the tyrant, the monster of the story. The Mother has a natural system and order that supports life. The Father's control of the environment enabled civilization, but he now thinks that it is actually he that is in charge--that civilization is above the natural order, not part of the web of life. The father needs to learn how yield, submit, to let go. . .

I might be the monster in the story, the ogre. Life is such a struggle for me. I'm aware of the harm that our lifestyle causes, yet then create harm in trying to get my house to also be aware. I've become a tyrant trying and teach my children to value the "things" in our life, but not to worship them. I don't want them to waste anything. I want them to know that they aren't the only people in this world, and that their actions effect others and can harm them. We should be conscious of how we live. Of course, I'm trying to control them. . .

Did you know that one can quantify the life of a honey bee? One honey bee produces about 1/12th of a tablespoon of honey (.028 oz). Honey is true gold. To waste any honey at all is to take for granted the life a of a bee. Of course that is the case with everything. The laughter and joy of children is also precious. An ogre trying to impose controls upon his tiny subjects also diminishes the joy in this world.

I wish there was an outside "bad guy" we could point to for this tale. But, like in Gilgamesh the hero is our problem. If there is any evil at all, it is the king turned tyrant. Is Walmart our enemy? What about BP? These corporations are serving us and our needs. They are only giving us exactly what we want, and this is why they are successful. The darkness we fear is ourselves. The so called "others" are us. For a few years now I've been throwing myself against the wall of global consumer capitalism, being ground into nothing from the daily grind against a tyrant of a system. Thankfully there is another way. I recently stumbled upon a wonderful quote from Richard Buckminster Fuller:

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

Let me tell you what is authentic. It is Boise, Idaho here and now. There are people doing things here that they love to do, and if we support them, we can create our own vibrant, sustainable local web strong enough to sustain ourselves through any national or global crisis. We can lead the country through our example to a new paradigm and to paradise. Our local farms are beginning to produce right now. Do take advantage of this moment. The old model of everything the same for everyone everywhere is killing us, and it doesn't give us any sense of place. We've lost our sense of home. Let's create a new model. One that ties us to the land that supports us. Let's live in Boise, and all that that entails.

I've personally dropped the ball, and have been selfish with my time. My own "wants" and desires have taken away from the real, authentic work I should be doing. I'm sorry. I haven't been writing about our local growers as I said I would. I will continue. I want to introduce them all to you. I myself want to meet them, and see what it is that they do. I will not struggle anymore. I will try and submit my own greedy wants for the good of the mother, and for the good of our family. You know we are all one family, right?

I will try and be a better father. I promise.

9/25/2010:

I hope to offer some explanation of this tonight after work. I just finished J. Franzen's latest work, and have begun again to consider the question "how should one live?" I can see maybe a local nonlocal sync whole post on the horizon, and well anyway, maybe we'll talk tonight.

db