When you and your husband only wear black

Day 23

When you and your husband only wear black:

It is insanely hard to keep your clothing from getting mixed up, especially when it comes out of the laundry. And every time you need to change, you curse a whole bunch of times because everything looks the same, and you both mostly wear t-shirts and jeans, but you are slightly different sizes.

When you and your husband only wear black:

You appear to be wearing some kind of uniform. You can see people wondering “bike gang? death metal? goth?” You feel that you look particularly militant,  and out of place when you take your kid to storytime, which is in a room that is every color of the rainbow.  And everyone is remarkably nice to you, even though you know they’re wondering. And that’s really fantastic.

When you and your husband only wear black:

You are very hot in the sun.

When you and your husband only wear black:

You are constantly reminded how much suffering is going on in the world right now, and why you’re doing this project in the first place. But because of that constant reminder, you feel heart breakingly grateful for each moment, and more empathetic to others around you, in line at the grocery store, at the park, walking down the street.

When you and your husband only wear black:

Your outward appearance finally matches the grief you’ve been carrying inside, like an ache within your bones. And it’s such a relief to finally express it.

When you and your husband only wear black:

You never forget, even in moments of great joy or sadness, that this incredible planet, and all the creatures that call it home, are worth fighting for.

Today I mourn all the indigenous people and cultures that have been lost. I grieve for all the mamas and papas who have lost their beautiful little babies, families, landbases, and entire cultures due to colonization, and slavery, violence, and the onward-fucking-march of civilization and the culture of destruction.

And to the original people of this land where I make my home,

Know that I cry rivers of salty tears for you tonight, and let those tears be an offering.

I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to set things right again,  even though it won’t bring you and your people back.

I am so sorry.

Please, please forgive me.

I thank you.

I love you.

Thank you for listening,

Love,

Natasha

photo by michelle j.

Tonight’s guest post is from my dear friend Beth W.K. Beth has the most incredible, earthy, loving heart I have ever come across. She is a mama, activist, farmer, maker, and many other wonderful things. I am honored to know her and I look up to her very much. Thank you for your words Beth. I love you.

A piece by Beth:

Before we wandered these hills, other feet stood on the rocks, walked these woods, heard the way the breezes played through the poplars, watched the sun shoot its borning rays down into the hollows.

Before the parking lots and asphalt roads. Before the houses and the malls, like a million million mushrooms gathered in every valley and on every hilltop. Before the tearing machines, the industrial fumes, the buzz and rumble of commerce.

Before the barbarians came, before the savages appeared with their guns, with hearts of stone seeking halls of gold.

This is not a new story, but somehow we keep missing the point, keep calling the wrong ones the savages, keep stepping up to the bench of divine justice, lawyers defending the mass murderer. Before the first (or not the first) one sailed the ocean blue, before him, yes, there was war here. Yes, sometimes there was famine and disease.

But before the big boats began to appear here, there were functioning and thriving societies here. Families in villages and longhouses, in townsful of people. There was hunting and fishing and foraging. There was knowledge and wisdom. There were councils and songs, dances and dreamings. There was art and society, law and leisure.

Today I will not celebrate the ending of that world. Today I will mourn for the world that was lost when “first contact” was made. I will walk in the woods with my children. I will forage for something to make into tea or supper. I will stand on these stones with my feet and re-member what stories I can.

Inoculation

• Day 17

  This post is a collaboration by Wilson and myself. It is a culmination of many hours of conversations about these ideas. But it was primarily composed earlier today during our afternoon dog walk with Revel in his stroller.

  The American Chestnut Tree

  Around 1900 the chestnut blight came to america. Creeping in through wounds in their bark, travelling via wind and rain splashing from other trees, the fungal infection spread like wildfire from tree to tree. Within 40 years, the most abundant tree in the Eastern Forest, making up at least 1/4 of all the trees in that beautiful ecosystem,  were dead.

  Because when the ones making money off of the chestnuts, selling them for their prized wood, heard about the problem, they panicked that their bank accounts were going to take a hit, and started desperately cutting down ill, AND healthy trees in an attempt to stop the spread of the illness.

  Had they thought it through and waited and watched they would have realized that SOME of the trees appeared unaffected. That their limbs stretched healthy and strong, even as the illness blazed around them.

  They would have noticed that some trees had an immunity.

  In any population, humans, animals, trees, plants etc. there are always some who show immunity to any particular disease.

  Inoculation

  For example, 1% of our human population living right now is immune to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Scientists discovered that this rare group is made up of  descendants of individuals who lived in Europe during the height of The Black Plague. The immunity passed from generation to generation and now appears as immunity to HIV. Scientist are working on an HIV vaccine, based on the blood of these lucky few, and have even cured a man in the initial trials.

  So, if civilization is a disease, a mental illness, a psychosis (remember we talked about the Wetiko psychosis a few days ago ala Jack Forbes) then it stands to reason that there have always been some who are immune to it.

  And that immunity, to joining the culture of destruction lets say, has passed from generation to generation through our genes.

  And now, here we are, some percentage of the population, surrounded by the ones suffering from the Wetiko psychosis, the sickness that is civilization.

  And we are shaking our heads because we just DON’T UNDERSTAND, how some people can just go about their business, consuming and consuming, acting like nothing is wrong, while the world crumbles around us.

  But then we remember that it is possible to create a vaccine, from the healthy ones, that could cure the sick ones. And the sick ones could become healthy too.

  And then we know that we must INOCULATE the ones around us who are not lucky enough to be naturally immune.

  And what does INOCULATION against civilization, against the culture of destruction look like?

  It looks like reconnecting to ourselves, to each other, to the ancestors, to the land, to God. It looks like educating one another, learning together, cooperating.

  It looks like regenerating our landbase, to raise carrying capacity and biodiversity. It looks like reclaiming our place in the grand scheme of things.

  And it looks like rebellion.

  A standing up, a joining together, and a turning towards a new way.

  Thank you for listening,

  Love

  Natasha

  And thanks to MARK N. for the brilliant guest post tonight. Thank you so much for your words and insight Mark!

  Black- a color for all seasons. I suppose it has always had a meaning for me. Not always a positive one either. It is the color of the end, of humanities (and life in general’s ultimate destiny), the heat death of the universe. A return to a cold, dead quantum soup. Perhaps you glimpse where the Goth/Metal fan in me came from.

  However, black is also the fertility of the soil and the sharp beauty of its obsidian heart. Out of it comes the full range of color, from daffodil yellow to the red of a wood geranium. Likewise the black depths of the sea, which were born the first seeds of life on this world. One could say black is a color that rebels against it’s own end, if only by being so filled with possibilities.

  I enter the final half of life even more pessimistic, as instead of the life giving corn goddess or Brigid, humanity seems to be incarnating the Goddess of destruction, an apocalyptic Kali, breathing out coal dust, oil and radioactive poison into the air and sea, her hands collecting more trophies for the skulls already hanging from her great belt. Instead of creativity, it is destructive nihilism that we are incarnating here. We are building a world of cold uniformity, suffering and a bleak worship of authority.

  Maybe the black flags of rebellion will fly en mass to turn back the tide, but mourning is an appropriate response as life itself becomes more imperilled, the shroud of war and pollution, covers us all, the vestments of a funeral procession. The nurturing hands of soil or the shroud of suffering and extinction. Two ends on an ocean of darkness.Today I fear the charted destination.

  May all sentient beings achieve liberation.