The Harkening

In January, there were the first signs of spring. This morning, the cool air and muted sun suggested fall to me. Each season anticipates the next in kind. There is plenty of summer left, mind you, but here in late July I feel the first suggestion of autumn. Indeed, the days have already begun a quiet shortening, and some of the earliest leaves of spring have yellowed and fallen off some of the trees in my neighborhood. What are we to make of these changes embedded in an otherwise consistent time? Is it not the overarching pattern of life itself? Like the plants that seem dormant while building energy and suddenly exploding from one day to the next, or the quiet seed that starts it all? These are universal patterns and as an active member of this universe, I cannot help but think the culture of human beings might be exactly the same. These deadly times, this misguided leadership (though I hate to use that word to describe them), the fanaticism that drives power and power's enemy, the myopia and fear, these are the dominant trends. They have been growing in influence since my first political awareness in the 1970s. They have been growing in influence, in fact, since the 1960s. Their seed was planted and it eventually flourished. A reactionary, mysanthropic, frightened, paranoid, life-denying set of ideas that have gained prominence. Their simple-minded statements of certainty appeal to the under-educated and the greedy alike. And so they have put down roots and grown their tree of evil. But all things pass into the next, like seasons and life itself. And I believe the seeds of a new world and a new culture are being planted today. We are in the final flourishing, perhaps the mid-summer, of fanaticism and fantasy politics. I will criticize and complain, but in my soul I must believe that change will come and I will help it rise. I hope you too will take the time to notice and care and perhaps be a part of cultivating the good life to come.

Let us work for an end to this unnecessary and brutal ideology.