“ And then the farmers came with their certainty and arrogance and began dancing about and flirting with the very same dangerous, feverish ego that we had held at bay, merrily nurturing their greed and envy and vanity and desire, embracing their insatiable lust for power, building their ego-driven ravenous societies, until, well, you know what happened, what’s happening, what will happen.”…..so timely.
I am later than expected but here to give silent applause nonetheless.
Just as I hit send on a last message to you, there was a commotion in the chicken house, then the sheep bleating under an almost full moon - signs of not normal goings on. I tore out to the field, bare feet kicking up dust in the immoveable heat of an August evening still doing its best to suffocate all brave enough to move and found a half starved pine marten attempting to chew through the wire mesh on the open window of the coup. She barely had the strength to hold herself up yet she continued while I watched, also unusual but a undoubtedly a sign of her desperation.
Pine Martens are a beautiful creature, it is said that were they to be the size of a tiger the human race would be in mortal danger, so masterful is their ability as predator. But, this was small, a youngster exhausted by lack of food and water and eventually she slumped, panting hot air (I have never seen a pine marten pant) and she slunk off, back towards the woods, a sad picture of defeat.
I couldn't help feel her desperation, her hunger, so I closed the window on the coup and went in search of food and water which is how I found myself, barely clad (don't imagine that if you are eating your lunch) in the middle of a stifling night, rummaging in the freezer for a small morsel of something, anything that might sustain her, defrosting it and leaving it raw on the ground by a bowl of water in the woods where I know she has often left her traces.
This morning it was gone, of course, another starving creature may have happened by, but I far rather hope it was her.
Anyway, all this to say, I may be a semi-farmer, but I hope I walk the path of a human being, I hope along the way and beyond into death, I will always reach through the shimmer.
I love pine martens, like half monkey half cat on steroids, so cute and lethal. Sorry to hear about your struggling friend and I'd have done the same thing, leave out food.
It's funny with this farmer thing. I suppose I'm trying to use the value system shift when one lives according to different social systems. I've always been a fan of writing like Against The Grain by James C. Scott and The Dawn Of Everything bye Graeber and Wengrow. I'm trying to shine a light on our underlying assumptions and behavioral tendencies within different systems. And as I know you know Susie, our current assumptions and behavioral tendencies are doing no one any good, even pine martens!
Thanks so much for reading and commenting my friend. I'm always so appreciative of your time and thoughts :)
"like half monkey half cat on steroids, so cute and lethal." Haha I love that!
I know too well indeed, hell, I wish I didn't, ignorance is bliss and all that but when fires are breaking out not only on the hill opposite mine but in Scotland too -Scotland FFS! And there's a mad-man who believes he's a strong-man (thank you for that @darrenharely) just an ocean away it gets hard to ignore. As I said my friend, I hear you!
Farmers..., hmmm. We came to Portugal ages ago because I thought the system was about to collapse, and as a 'responsible person' I thought we'd better 'prepare' and become farmers, growing food for when our five offspring in three different countries fled the collapsing cities, hungry. After buying and eventually selling two small-holdings, I discovered I'm not a farmer - a somewhat painful but informative experience. The 'famous five' have now added seven grandchildren to the list, and with partners that'll make 17 of them. It'll be a squeeze. Which is why we're contemplating building a granny-flat extension; so they can live in the main house and look after us :)
You sound like a pathfinder Joshua, because I think your guess to prepare was right, just a decade or two early ;) Farming is a nightmare. Not just the accumulation = hierarchy disaster, but as you rightly point out, it's bloody hard work. I'd prefer the flint tipped bow and arrow myself!
If you could add a room or two on the granny flat (I'm guessing it'll be a geodesic dome so maybe a bubble or two) my wife and I would be happy to move in. No grand kids yet but all in good time and I'll bring a cave painting kit and all the arrows you need :)
Hi Jonathan, you're welcome to drop in with family if you ever contemplate coming down our way. Avoid Summer (it's 35-40degC relentlessly, this year at least). But we have a small plunge-pool for cooling off.
We did think about a geodesic extension but in another lifetime, maybe :)
Any prolonged period that hot and a northern forest guy like me would just burst into flames I reckon. I don't mind (actually love) a week or two on the beach but 40 degrees in town, oh man. Next time were passing Portugal in the other three seasons and we'll swing by :)
It's a matter of scale - and scaling back other interests. We still hope to get there, growing more food than so far. The grunt work of basic maintenance (bramble-clearing, etc) got too much. No tractor either. I have a feel for building, rather than farming.
I guess in that respect we are lucky, my husband takes the building problems, I take the farming, (no tractor either) and honestly I am far from expert, its all rotten hard work!
I wanted to find a perfect time to listen, before commenting. And so I did, trudging up the steep hills of the NEK, deep in the forest ,away from other humans, birds helping with the soundtrack. Especially the defeated Ravens, escaping the wrath of the Peregrine falcons as they attempted to enter their private cliff side home with fledglings.You certainly know how to make a grand return to the pages! Seems like you’ve been gone awhile, that’s what happens when I micro-dose with great writing, I missed my fix. In the end it was a good death. A “return to Love”.
Holding hands with Death as we cross the thin veil is the next and greatest adventure, we are just energy after all, destined to be apart of everything ( I am trying, beginning, and constantly learning to feel a certain reverence for Death, thanks to Chloe Hope D&B, and now your grand finale of Life in to the Shimmer, I have been a long work in progress, and still am so thanks for the baby steps forward ).
“We all receive Death’s kiss. But life and death are in a fine balance and it is not the role of the Human Being to do Death’s bidding. Human Beings should be on the side of Life. That is the balance.”
Great ending,(or beginning) “Can anyone hear me? Can you hear me?”
Why is it that whenever a dog dies in a story, I am absolutely devastated .(Old Yeller, Where The Red Fern Grows, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Sounder…)
How you smoothly insinuate time by using “flint-tipped arrows”.
Welcome back, Jonathan, and a pat to Benny. I have missed you guys, Ranger woofs a hello. Hope you had the most excellent ‘away time’. After listening to this, I absolutely loved the audio, I pictured you sitting in a lounge chair at the beach, the family hanging out in the water while you are smiling and writing furiously, as the words came to you. 🏖️☀️
Ah Lor, it’s good to be back just to read your wonderful comments. Thanks. I’m so glad you appreciated the death part. I really like this assumption the death is a home coming and a safe and warm experience. People often focus on the supposed afterlife but I think the actual process is interesting. Didn’t like writing about the dog getting killed though, not good!
Had a very good time away. Next week’s story will lean into all that :)
This must be the most uplifting, appreciative and glorious homage to Death — as an old friend who comes to meet us all and take us home sooner or later.
"it wasn’t Pandora who released all the evils into the world, it was those damned farmers." This made me laugh out loud. I never believed it was Pandora either, btw! After all, she was first made and then set up by those belligerent and malapert Greek gods who took any opportunity to set traps for unsuspecting humans and catch them out. Pandora had only just been 'born' when she arrived in the human zone. She'd been made explicitly to become a scapegoat... 'Those damned farmers' puts another twist on the plot.
I love the idea of you laughing out loud Veronika, wonderful. And I know, poor Pandora, scapegoated for all the wrong reasons (not that there's any right reasons of course ;)
Thanks so much V and I hope you had a wonderful time with Susie too :)
Oh yes, I had a wonderful time with Susie (and Rosie)! A precious moment. And if/when you come to Portugal (better not in the summer), do let us know...
haha, I think you and me would get along. I feel like this is blatant plagiarism of my thoughts (if I could write half as well and with so much imagination, haha)
Yep I reckon Thought Plagiarism Software is finally working! Here come the big bucks!! Ha ha!
I'm not surprised you like this one Leon, I reckon you know exactly what I'm talking about, that shift in values that brought us to here. As I mentioned to Susie above, if you haven't read them, Against The Grain by James C. Scott and The Dawn Of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow are both excellent along these lines.
Anyway, I might have to take back some of that farmer stuff, I know you grow some beautiful stuff on your land, so I'm sure the ghost would accept you as a real Human Being ;)
I have a friend who I think still calls himself an Anarcho Primitivist, but essentially he's a subsistence farmer and barely surviving above the poverty line and we've had a lot of conversations mostly about why would you label yourself anything (it's hard enough being a farmer, why constrict yourself to some pre-defined set of values that someone else created that you'll then probably feel the need to defend criticism of?) and the difference between the different labels. What's funny is that most of the people that call themselves Primitivists are essentially keyboard warriors.
Me, I kind of follow the "small farm future" logic of Chris Smaje, small family farms, low technology, all community based.
I did try starting ATG (isn't that the one mostly about SE Asia?) but it wasn't the right time for me, did enjoy TDOE. Have you ever read Soil and Soul by Alastair McIntosh, this was a big shaker for me.
Yeah man, those labels we love, mostly to do with wanting support, being a member, and existential loneliness I reckon. I remember as a younger person being quite attracted to "titles" and "Movements" for comradery and legitimisation. Now I just think keep your umbrellas to yourselves, I'm standing here in the rain.
I love the idea of community based, environmentally embedded, directly democratic and diffused power living, too. Chris Smaje sounds very up my street, but I'm also a bloke living in Stockholm so I've got to accept some keyboard warrior tendencies too!
Thanks for the Soil and Soul by Alastair McIntosh suggestion, Leon. I'll check that out :)
Haha, keep your umbrellas to yourself, I’ll have to remember that one.
I spent my youth trying to avoid being a group cliche but that in itself means you still become a sort of cliche. Age has its benefits, you certainly care less about what anyone thinks about you.
So I know you mentioned this in your story, but what if it wasn’t so much the fact we became farmers (because even the Australian aborigines, and I reckon a culture that lasts a good 40 to 50 thousand years has sort of worked out “what works” and what doesn’t work, even they, according to early historical records of us white settlers, cultivated massive amounts of grains and yams and all sorts of stuff. Highly recommended read is Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu, what if it’s not the fact we started farming, but it’s more the fact that we stopped pushing the egotists off the cliff/iceberg , spearing them in the leg, etc
I've got this idea/feeling that quality of life can be measured through relationship. The "things" in life, like individual people, and trees, and ecosystems and frogs and solar systems, or whatever, all appear to be isolated and atomized, and in some ways they are, we're born alone and we die alone. But statements like "we're born alone and we die alone" are really self-fulfilling philosophical and conceptual positions that come from a specific way of thinking about relationships. Linnaeus's taxonomical way of looking at things is a great example of the demotion of relationship (the whole) and the promotion of "things" (the parts).
But, maybe all that really counts are the quality of these relationships between all these apparently isolated and atomized things. In fact, you could say that the relationships, the overlapping of "things" are what makes each isolated and atomized "thing" alive. Nothing is actually isolated and atomized. Everything lives in relation to others things making a Whole (I like David Bohms thinking on this stuff).
Thinking of things as isolated and atomised is just our currently dominant way of conceptualizing the world. A way that really got started (probably) after widespread farming took hold, which allowed for surplus "wealth" to encourage new relationships (based more on power that reciprocity) with each other and the landscape where we began to see each other and the landscape as resources rather than brethren.
So yeah, I totally agree "the fact that we stopped pushing the egotists off the cliff/iceberg , spearing them in the leg, etc" has contributed to increasing the way our relationships have changed (maybe for the worse), and I kinda think that our conceptual separation from the land and each other made pushing the egotists off the cliff/iceberg increasingly more unlikely (especially as the ones who needed pushing off cliffs were often - and still are - the ones doing the pushing).
Maybe this is just a stupidly long way to say which came first the chicken or the egg? And I suppose they came together?
Jonathon goddamnit you're doing that thought plagiarism thing again. I was thinking about this relationship thing just earlier today when I replied to Rob's good piece (sorry to just dump a link but it's almost sleepy time for me and I'm lacking coherent thoughts after a glass of mulberry wine.
Ha ha exactly! Vegetable patches are the gateway drug to FARMERDOM!! 🤣 Thanks Alia, that really made me laugh, and reminded me I have to listen to your water audio still, I have it lined up...
Yep, wheat, barley and rice, lethal stuff, highly addictive, you'll need a strict diet of Bow and Arrow caught rabbit followed by a bit of cave painting, works every time.
Shimmer a word that the slyph, the ghost slips through silently sees , seizes the breath of opportunity, and but so sad not to be heard have these ghost words vanish in ethereal dust that remans to be tossed, tumbled, turned throughout time. But some how your words reach out to return the echoes. The pandora essence still exists. The mystery of a myth continues. The farmers planted a murderous seed. See how it grows unobstructed.
Forever a joy to read your stories. I need to do catching up with reading. The world time appears to speed up. Lewis Carroll knew. “got to run twice as fast just to stay in place,”
I listened to this while driving through the Cascade Range, your calming, lyrical voice hugging the curves of my mind as much as the winding road. I couldn’t help but feel like I was listening to the soul of Jonathan’s past alongside The Dog, of course. The two of you entangled since time immemorial. I recently finished a novel by Charlotte McConoughy about the rewilding of wolves in Ireland and how farmers would frequently hunt down any four-pawed creature that threatened their livestock, even if they were nearing extinction and protected. Made me feel the ache of progress, how life once knew how to exist in the balance, but humans in the name of power and wealth have thrown that balance on its head. I feel the grief and the warning in your ghost, pleading to us mortals to return to being Human, with a capital H. Eerie to feel how we are so not Human anymore. Forgetting our sacred place in the kingdom of earth’s, inhabitants, rejoicing in the privilege to be alive.
I love the way all our writing can be read/listened to in such wonderful places, so far this one's been driving through the Cascade Range, on a farm in the Philippines, on a boat in the Pacific, in a forest in France, an apartment in Greece...Just amazing really.
I'm thinking that sometimes this idea of progress get blended in with technological changes or social value changes, so that "progress" get an undeserved platforming that has nothing to do with "progress" per se, but are consequential to these others changes. I'm thinking that so much of our modern angst is about unconsciously knowing that we're being dragged in regressive directions that harm us all, yet we can't seem to grab the steering wheel and change course, find that balance again and as you so beautifully say rejoice in the privilege in being alive :)
And thanks so much Kimberley for the kind welcome back :) That book you read Charlotte McConoughy sounds worth a read, thanks for that too.
Welcome back Jonathan….
“ And then the farmers came with their certainty and arrogance and began dancing about and flirting with the very same dangerous, feverish ego that we had held at bay, merrily nurturing their greed and envy and vanity and desire, embracing their insatiable lust for power, building their ego-driven ravenous societies, until, well, you know what happened, what’s happening, what will happen.”…..so timely.
Thank you so much Michaele, good to be back :)
I am later than expected but here to give silent applause nonetheless.
Just as I hit send on a last message to you, there was a commotion in the chicken house, then the sheep bleating under an almost full moon - signs of not normal goings on. I tore out to the field, bare feet kicking up dust in the immoveable heat of an August evening still doing its best to suffocate all brave enough to move and found a half starved pine marten attempting to chew through the wire mesh on the open window of the coup. She barely had the strength to hold herself up yet she continued while I watched, also unusual but a undoubtedly a sign of her desperation.
Pine Martens are a beautiful creature, it is said that were they to be the size of a tiger the human race would be in mortal danger, so masterful is their ability as predator. But, this was small, a youngster exhausted by lack of food and water and eventually she slumped, panting hot air (I have never seen a pine marten pant) and she slunk off, back towards the woods, a sad picture of defeat.
I couldn't help feel her desperation, her hunger, so I closed the window on the coup and went in search of food and water which is how I found myself, barely clad (don't imagine that if you are eating your lunch) in the middle of a stifling night, rummaging in the freezer for a small morsel of something, anything that might sustain her, defrosting it and leaving it raw on the ground by a bowl of water in the woods where I know she has often left her traces.
This morning it was gone, of course, another starving creature may have happened by, but I far rather hope it was her.
Anyway, all this to say, I may be a semi-farmer, but I hope I walk the path of a human being, I hope along the way and beyond into death, I will always reach through the shimmer.
I hear you, I am listening... 🙏🏼
I love pine martens, like half monkey half cat on steroids, so cute and lethal. Sorry to hear about your struggling friend and I'd have done the same thing, leave out food.
It's funny with this farmer thing. I suppose I'm trying to use the value system shift when one lives according to different social systems. I've always been a fan of writing like Against The Grain by James C. Scott and The Dawn Of Everything bye Graeber and Wengrow. I'm trying to shine a light on our underlying assumptions and behavioral tendencies within different systems. And as I know you know Susie, our current assumptions and behavioral tendencies are doing no one any good, even pine martens!
Thanks so much for reading and commenting my friend. I'm always so appreciative of your time and thoughts :)
"like half monkey half cat on steroids, so cute and lethal." Haha I love that!
I know too well indeed, hell, I wish I didn't, ignorance is bliss and all that but when fires are breaking out not only on the hill opposite mine but in Scotland too -Scotland FFS! And there's a mad-man who believes he's a strong-man (thank you for that @darrenharely) just an ocean away it gets hard to ignore. As I said my friend, I hear you!
One thing I love about you Susie is that I know you hear me. I hear you too :)
Yep, all that is exactly what the ghost is going on about.
Farmers..., hmmm. We came to Portugal ages ago because I thought the system was about to collapse, and as a 'responsible person' I thought we'd better 'prepare' and become farmers, growing food for when our five offspring in three different countries fled the collapsing cities, hungry. After buying and eventually selling two small-holdings, I discovered I'm not a farmer - a somewhat painful but informative experience. The 'famous five' have now added seven grandchildren to the list, and with partners that'll make 17 of them. It'll be a squeeze. Which is why we're contemplating building a granny-flat extension; so they can live in the main house and look after us :)
You sound like a pathfinder Joshua, because I think your guess to prepare was right, just a decade or two early ;) Farming is a nightmare. Not just the accumulation = hierarchy disaster, but as you rightly point out, it's bloody hard work. I'd prefer the flint tipped bow and arrow myself!
If you could add a room or two on the granny flat (I'm guessing it'll be a geodesic dome so maybe a bubble or two) my wife and I would be happy to move in. No grand kids yet but all in good time and I'll bring a cave painting kit and all the arrows you need :)
Hi Jonathan, you're welcome to drop in with family if you ever contemplate coming down our way. Avoid Summer (it's 35-40degC relentlessly, this year at least). But we have a small plunge-pool for cooling off.
We did think about a geodesic extension but in another lifetime, maybe :)
Any prolonged period that hot and a northern forest guy like me would just burst into flames I reckon. I don't mind (actually love) a week or two on the beach but 40 degrees in town, oh man. Next time were passing Portugal in the other three seasons and we'll swing by :)
We have twice done the same Joshua, I try to believe such decisions as self preservation rather than farming!
It's a matter of scale - and scaling back other interests. We still hope to get there, growing more food than so far. The grunt work of basic maintenance (bramble-clearing, etc) got too much. No tractor either. I have a feel for building, rather than farming.
I guess in that respect we are lucky, my husband takes the building problems, I take the farming, (no tractor either) and honestly I am far from expert, its all rotten hard work!
I wanted to find a perfect time to listen, before commenting. And so I did, trudging up the steep hills of the NEK, deep in the forest ,away from other humans, birds helping with the soundtrack. Especially the defeated Ravens, escaping the wrath of the Peregrine falcons as they attempted to enter their private cliff side home with fledglings.You certainly know how to make a grand return to the pages! Seems like you’ve been gone awhile, that’s what happens when I micro-dose with great writing, I missed my fix. In the end it was a good death. A “return to Love”.
Holding hands with Death as we cross the thin veil is the next and greatest adventure, we are just energy after all, destined to be apart of everything ( I am trying, beginning, and constantly learning to feel a certain reverence for Death, thanks to Chloe Hope D&B, and now your grand finale of Life in to the Shimmer, I have been a long work in progress, and still am so thanks for the baby steps forward ).
“We all receive Death’s kiss. But life and death are in a fine balance and it is not the role of the Human Being to do Death’s bidding. Human Beings should be on the side of Life. That is the balance.”
Great ending,(or beginning) “Can anyone hear me? Can you hear me?”
Why is it that whenever a dog dies in a story, I am absolutely devastated .(Old Yeller, Where The Red Fern Grows, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Sounder…)
How you smoothly insinuate time by using “flint-tipped arrows”.
Welcome back, Jonathan, and a pat to Benny. I have missed you guys, Ranger woofs a hello. Hope you had the most excellent ‘away time’. After listening to this, I absolutely loved the audio, I pictured you sitting in a lounge chair at the beach, the family hanging out in the water while you are smiling and writing furiously, as the words came to you. 🏖️☀️
Ah Lor, it’s good to be back just to read your wonderful comments. Thanks. I’m so glad you appreciated the death part. I really like this assumption the death is a home coming and a safe and warm experience. People often focus on the supposed afterlife but I think the actual process is interesting. Didn’t like writing about the dog getting killed though, not good!
Had a very good time away. Next week’s story will lean into all that :)
Good to see you Lor
This must be the most uplifting, appreciative and glorious homage to Death — as an old friend who comes to meet us all and take us home sooner or later.
"it wasn’t Pandora who released all the evils into the world, it was those damned farmers." This made me laugh out loud. I never believed it was Pandora either, btw! After all, she was first made and then set up by those belligerent and malapert Greek gods who took any opportunity to set traps for unsuspecting humans and catch them out. Pandora had only just been 'born' when she arrived in the human zone. She'd been made explicitly to become a scapegoat... 'Those damned farmers' puts another twist on the plot.
Great essay, and as always, so well written. 🙏
I love the idea of you laughing out loud Veronika, wonderful. And I know, poor Pandora, scapegoated for all the wrong reasons (not that there's any right reasons of course ;)
Thanks so much V and I hope you had a wonderful time with Susie too :)
Oh yes, I had a wonderful time with Susie (and Rosie)! A precious moment. And if/when you come to Portugal (better not in the summer), do let us know...
Glad to hear it, and yes, love to :)
Haunting. In every sense of the word :)
I have missed your voice, your hope and your dog. Welcome back, Jonathan!
Good to be back Fotini! Yep, haunting :) Thanks pal
Glad to see you back, Jonathan, and I truly love the sound of your voice, but more so, the deep humanity of your writing 😊🧡
Thanks so much Paul, that’s a very generous comment pal 🙏🏼
haha, I think you and me would get along. I feel like this is blatant plagiarism of my thoughts (if I could write half as well and with so much imagination, haha)
Yep I reckon Thought Plagiarism Software is finally working! Here come the big bucks!! Ha ha!
I'm not surprised you like this one Leon, I reckon you know exactly what I'm talking about, that shift in values that brought us to here. As I mentioned to Susie above, if you haven't read them, Against The Grain by James C. Scott and The Dawn Of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow are both excellent along these lines.
Anyway, I might have to take back some of that farmer stuff, I know you grow some beautiful stuff on your land, so I'm sure the ghost would accept you as a real Human Being ;)
I have a friend who I think still calls himself an Anarcho Primitivist, but essentially he's a subsistence farmer and barely surviving above the poverty line and we've had a lot of conversations mostly about why would you label yourself anything (it's hard enough being a farmer, why constrict yourself to some pre-defined set of values that someone else created that you'll then probably feel the need to defend criticism of?) and the difference between the different labels. What's funny is that most of the people that call themselves Primitivists are essentially keyboard warriors.
Me, I kind of follow the "small farm future" logic of Chris Smaje, small family farms, low technology, all community based.
I did try starting ATG (isn't that the one mostly about SE Asia?) but it wasn't the right time for me, did enjoy TDOE. Have you ever read Soil and Soul by Alastair McIntosh, this was a big shaker for me.
Yeah man, those labels we love, mostly to do with wanting support, being a member, and existential loneliness I reckon. I remember as a younger person being quite attracted to "titles" and "Movements" for comradery and legitimisation. Now I just think keep your umbrellas to yourselves, I'm standing here in the rain.
I love the idea of community based, environmentally embedded, directly democratic and diffused power living, too. Chris Smaje sounds very up my street, but I'm also a bloke living in Stockholm so I've got to accept some keyboard warrior tendencies too!
Thanks for the Soil and Soul by Alastair McIntosh suggestion, Leon. I'll check that out :)
Haha, keep your umbrellas to yourself, I’ll have to remember that one.
I spent my youth trying to avoid being a group cliche but that in itself means you still become a sort of cliche. Age has its benefits, you certainly care less about what anyone thinks about you.
So I know you mentioned this in your story, but what if it wasn’t so much the fact we became farmers (because even the Australian aborigines, and I reckon a culture that lasts a good 40 to 50 thousand years has sort of worked out “what works” and what doesn’t work, even they, according to early historical records of us white settlers, cultivated massive amounts of grains and yams and all sorts of stuff. Highly recommended read is Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu, what if it’s not the fact we started farming, but it’s more the fact that we stopped pushing the egotists off the cliff/iceberg , spearing them in the leg, etc
I've got this idea/feeling that quality of life can be measured through relationship. The "things" in life, like individual people, and trees, and ecosystems and frogs and solar systems, or whatever, all appear to be isolated and atomized, and in some ways they are, we're born alone and we die alone. But statements like "we're born alone and we die alone" are really self-fulfilling philosophical and conceptual positions that come from a specific way of thinking about relationships. Linnaeus's taxonomical way of looking at things is a great example of the demotion of relationship (the whole) and the promotion of "things" (the parts).
But, maybe all that really counts are the quality of these relationships between all these apparently isolated and atomized things. In fact, you could say that the relationships, the overlapping of "things" are what makes each isolated and atomized "thing" alive. Nothing is actually isolated and atomized. Everything lives in relation to others things making a Whole (I like David Bohms thinking on this stuff).
Thinking of things as isolated and atomised is just our currently dominant way of conceptualizing the world. A way that really got started (probably) after widespread farming took hold, which allowed for surplus "wealth" to encourage new relationships (based more on power that reciprocity) with each other and the landscape where we began to see each other and the landscape as resources rather than brethren.
So yeah, I totally agree "the fact that we stopped pushing the egotists off the cliff/iceberg , spearing them in the leg, etc" has contributed to increasing the way our relationships have changed (maybe for the worse), and I kinda think that our conceptual separation from the land and each other made pushing the egotists off the cliff/iceberg increasingly more unlikely (especially as the ones who needed pushing off cliffs were often - and still are - the ones doing the pushing).
Maybe this is just a stupidly long way to say which came first the chicken or the egg? And I suppose they came together?
Jonathon goddamnit you're doing that thought plagiarism thing again. I was thinking about this relationship thing just earlier today when I replied to Rob's good piece (sorry to just dump a link but it's almost sleepy time for me and I'm lacking coherent thoughts after a glass of mulberry wine.
https://open.substack.com/pub/theclimateaccordingtolife/p/are-we-giving-the-land-alzheimers?r=fhgru&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=144551102
Thank you for your great reply though and agree!
I am enjoying this thread between you and Leon S, kind of a part II, or an addendum.
Leon is always good value. Really interesting writer too. I’m so lucky to have such a good bunch here, including you too of course Lor :)
Back once again with righteous fury!
Boom! Thanks pal :)
So good!
Thanks Holly :)
You've got me wanting to rip out the veggie patch - I was so proud of it - but I want to be a Human Being 😆
Great opening line, Jonathan. And strong with the biblical reference at the end, too.
Welcome back!
Ha ha exactly! Vegetable patches are the gateway drug to FARMERDOM!! 🤣 Thanks Alia, that really made me laugh, and reminded me I have to listen to your water audio still, I have it lined up...
It only takes one crop and boom, you're hooked 😄
Yep, wheat, barley and rice, lethal stuff, highly addictive, you'll need a strict diet of Bow and Arrow caught rabbit followed by a bit of cave painting, works every time.
Shimmer a word that the slyph, the ghost slips through silently sees , seizes the breath of opportunity, and but so sad not to be heard have these ghost words vanish in ethereal dust that remans to be tossed, tumbled, turned throughout time. But some how your words reach out to return the echoes. The pandora essence still exists. The mystery of a myth continues. The farmers planted a murderous seed. See how it grows unobstructed.
Thank you Richbee, that was a beautiful comment :)
Forever a joy to read your stories. I need to do catching up with reading. The world time appears to speed up. Lewis Carroll knew. “got to run twice as fast just to stay in place,”
I listened to this while driving through the Cascade Range, your calming, lyrical voice hugging the curves of my mind as much as the winding road. I couldn’t help but feel like I was listening to the soul of Jonathan’s past alongside The Dog, of course. The two of you entangled since time immemorial. I recently finished a novel by Charlotte McConoughy about the rewilding of wolves in Ireland and how farmers would frequently hunt down any four-pawed creature that threatened their livestock, even if they were nearing extinction and protected. Made me feel the ache of progress, how life once knew how to exist in the balance, but humans in the name of power and wealth have thrown that balance on its head. I feel the grief and the warning in your ghost, pleading to us mortals to return to being Human, with a capital H. Eerie to feel how we are so not Human anymore. Forgetting our sacred place in the kingdom of earth’s, inhabitants, rejoicing in the privilege to be alive.
Welcome back! You’ve been missed!
I love the way all our writing can be read/listened to in such wonderful places, so far this one's been driving through the Cascade Range, on a farm in the Philippines, on a boat in the Pacific, in a forest in France, an apartment in Greece...Just amazing really.
I'm thinking that sometimes this idea of progress get blended in with technological changes or social value changes, so that "progress" get an undeserved platforming that has nothing to do with "progress" per se, but are consequential to these others changes. I'm thinking that so much of our modern angst is about unconsciously knowing that we're being dragged in regressive directions that harm us all, yet we can't seem to grab the steering wheel and change course, find that balance again and as you so beautifully say rejoice in the privilege in being alive :)
And thanks so much Kimberley for the kind welcome back :) That book you read Charlotte McConoughy sounds worth a read, thanks for that too.
this is heading to my children.. however this became what it is I’m grateful for it..
10,000 years in the making and it became :) Thanks Patris, glad you enjoyed and good to see ya