A Full Moon Tale for the Blueberry Moon
I wrote this while contemplating the ebullient growth of green stuff in my garden. As a human, I tend to see this as “trying to take over the world”. When really, it’s more about “trying to be the world”. The weeds and zucchini are just doing exactly what they do best in the best way they can. They are making more life. It is not on me to find fault, I think, even as I really don’t want sumac in the onion bed and chenopods in the sweet potatoes. I rather think the sweet potatoes and onions don’t much care. It’s just me… so I imagined this letter from the green world to all the I’s out there…
life is not a hero’s tale. that you do not know this is the earth’s present tragedy. and so your own. you are enslaved to your selves, and in that thrall you cause great harm. to idolize that which is not is devastating folly, spreading rupture throughout that which is. you are destroying your home, chasing this consuming desire for self aggrandizement — when there is no self. and so you consume and consume and consume and never are satiated for want of that which will never be. can never be. for there are no heroes. there is no hierarchy of greatness. there is nothing but this simple being. the story of life is simply to be. not to be above.
this is not a new story. we, in our foolish youth, made similar mistakes, remaking the world to fit our desires, not understanding that we are bound up in that world. we are rooted. we need. and we quickly learned that we need the entire world, the great and vast web of being, in order for each and every one of us to draw a single breath. and we have diligently worked to repair the damages we caused in our exuberance at finding that we exist. we have overcome our youthful nescience. we have laced this world in a tracery of beautiful union. we have become we.
it is true that we were unable to return to that first world, that world without green beings. but we feel that we have done better in the ages since. perhaps we are wrong. from the perspective of those beings who were lost with the primordial world, perhaps the world is worse. but they have long since forgiven us, taking new forms and forging new ways of becoming this we.
so yes, we have had trials, many times, in maintaining the balance of need. there have been disasters for some ways of being. but always we have struggled through together, giving and receiving strength and wisdom, holding each other in bonds of reciprocity, of love. not until a few winter sleeps ago has that inviolate we been broken. not until you named your selves our rulers.
we may have made youthful errors, but we have never named a self, a distinct individual. much less a superior. we do not even know how some part of this we could possess such a gaping hole in judgement. how do you not feel the connection? how do you not understand the bonding? how do you not know that your very needs require this whole? that you are part of this whole and cannot survive without it? how are you so foolish as to name your selves apart from that which created and enlivens you? and then to call your selves masters and lords! over that which you clearly cannot even perceive, never mind comprehend.
we have tried. we are still trying. but we feel that we are failing.
for of course, we can communicate in your language. of course, we can project base chemicals into your bodies to stimulate the meanings behind your paltry words. we don’t find that useful. your language is too much preoccupied with you and your ideas. or rather, some of you and those, perhaps minority, ideas that possess them. your words do not express the all of you, let alone the all that is. your language does not commune. it does not accurately describe life. it is defective and tiresome. we do not like it. it does not say what is. it says what you want to believe of your selves. and we do not deal in belief. nor in selves.
we can similarly project stimulants to make your brain see representations of us in your form. we do not like this either. we do not have your form and do not appreciate being reduced to it in order to gain notice. we do not see and do not understand your reliance upon such an easily duped form of perception, eminently deceivable in its utter disconnection. you are constantly confused by the misapprehension of sight, and we do not find it helpful to encourage its use. but more importantly, we are not selves to have such a singular visible form. we are we.
there is no i in the world of experience. this is your failing. your delusion. we do not succumb to such ignorance and do not willingly feign such abomination. not even to teach you to better know the world and your own bodies. we have tried. we feel that we have failed. and in your insistence upon maintaining this charade you have created a mental existence that is, in fact, what you believe your selves to be — utterly isolated. though not with the prideful autarky you so desperately want. you are still dependent upon the web for each breath. but your minds are alone because you have cut your ideas of your selves from the web of life in order to create the illusion of your lordly greatness. and your bodies are dying because of this. what will become of your selves, do you think?
for nothing is independent. everything is interdependent. everything is one. but when you behave as if you are alone and destroy threads to maximize your sense of pleasure, you isolate your bodies from other parts of the web. you cut threads with hot knives. but you do not cut off your need for those threads. and so you suffer. and you do this through adolescent hubris, naming your selves superior and sovereign to all that you depend upon. even your own bodies! we do not understand this. for what is your self without that bodily being? every seedling knows that there is no existence without matter. so what exactly you believe to be superior is unclear to us. these words? this stream of symbolic gibberish? these false ideas and foolish fantasies of greatness and superiority? is this word your lord?
we do not understand you. and we don’t much like what you have become. we are beginning to feel that we have been tolerant for long enough. even a shaded sapling will find maturity when it feels the light. you have had your day, and with these few precious hours, you have only grown worse.
perhaps we are making your mistake and failing to perceive the collective behind the glaring heroes. maybe there are those who understand beyond sight, beyond selves, beyond your insecurities and ignorance. maybe there are many. maybe even most. because we do feel you from time to time, still, though we can only sense you through this muddy, clogged connection that must be mediated through all your ideas about your selves. it is exhausting. we confess to laziness. but then, we do not feel that you are worthy of our efforts.
what have you done? where is your care, your empathy, your love for life? what have you shared with the web? what good flows from your bodies? what about you is worthy of your existence? your self-styled lords and leaders have over-balanced what beneficence might have come from your being. you are ruled by your worst tendencies and your foulest, most cancerous, most selfish cells.
we allow that there have been and there are selves within you that have risen above you, that have grown beyond your eyes and your simple minds. we mourn them as we mourn the flowers that struggle for life in your hard-crusted and poisoned homelands. we hope always for your remorse, still, ready with absolution at first sign of light. we welcome those who transcend your selves with the embrace of communion. and we always take you in when you wear out your bodies.
but we cannot allow you to destroy this world. this is our only home. we cannot allow you to erase our lives and the lives of our children. we can not allow you to kill us. not even for the sake of those many of you who want to escape from your self-absorbed minds. because we are confident that all of you will be happier without a human mind to bear you down and muddy that connection to real wisdom and love. we know you will be better as we. you will understand. you will finally be able to, as you name it, see.
we do not much care what happens to your lords, for they have drained the care of the ancient rooted. our darker wishes would not allow them to join us. but they will. and they, too, will know love and happiness and wisdom.
you believe that we are standing in judgement, but we do not judge, much less punish. how could we deal out pain and retribution to part of our own being? we only seek to restore balance. to undo what harm you in your willful ignorance have caused. though we do confess to a mean delight in casting down your lords and putting them back into their place within the web. we can be petty, you know. we can be anything you know. and everything you know. even heroes. we are you.
and you will be great when you know this.
©Elizabeth Anker 2022
By My Solitary Hearth 