Chewing More Than the Fat
To be sane in a mad time
is bad for the brain, worse
for the heart. The world
is a holy vision, had we clarity
to see it — a clarity that men
depend on men to make.
-Wendell Berry, The Mad Farmer Manifesto: The First Amendment
It’s well known that a coyote, when caught in a steel, leg hold trap, will sometimes chew through its own flesh and bones to free itself. The quality of determination and desperation necessary for such an escape is hard to imagine — not to speak of the strength of the coyote’s teeth and jaw. And I wonder if this act is always carried out in isolation, or the coyote’s mate — its kits? — sometimes observes, encourages, commiserates. The animal faces a choice between two fates: remain trapped and die — by starvation or trapper’s bullet, or gnaw through the leg and perhaps survive the wound and make do with three legs. Presumably, the determining factors are fear and pain and instinct. The will to be free of the anchored steel trap with its crunching teeth is paramount. Humans have been known to do the same, amputate an appendage with a knife when any other form of escape is unlikely. Such a single minded act can seem at once foolhardy and heroic, insane and eminently sane.
For a trapped being, all abstract and philosophical notions of freedom evaporate. Gone is the luxury of reflection, the counting of blessings, the range of memory. The coyote’s stealthy errand to feed its young, the soldier’s relationship to duty, the traveler’s anticipation for the unseen, the student’s musings on the meaning of life, the worker’s calculation for the parceling out of the paycheck —- all gone, puff, as quickly and surely as a sailor’s admiration for the wind filled belly of the jib when a black squall suddenly bears down. The only thought, if fear can be controlled enough to think, is the one thrumming in the taught wire strung between spine and heart and brain. The fact, the blaring reality of this moment’s fact, is all that exists. Act now, or accept death.
Moments of entrapment also exist with the victim being unaware, the peril insidious or purposely obscured. No snap of steel jaws, no immediate pain. For instance, we bite into a juicy tomato and swallow cancer causing pesticides, or quench our thirst with cool water and, simultaneously, with not so cool PCBs, dioxin, and mercury. That’s not the time for preemptive surgery by tooth or knife. Rather, it’s the time for political and moral action. One asks, “Who has the right to pollute the necessities of life, endanger my life and the lives of my neighbors and children, to enhance their profit? Why is that allowed? When we talk about a system of, by and for the people, who replaced the word ‘people’ with ‘corporations’? How can we change it? What is government for?” We know today that an adequate response is not just to eat organic and drink bottled water. Our country, having made pernicious practice for many years of solution by dilution, has designated every person, plant and animal, no matter how protected or far flung, as a chemical waste storage facility, each one of us a superfund site. Still, most folks prefer resignation and denial to action, accept complicity with corporate profit. Even though that profit is not theirs, and, in fact, harms them, they reject confrontation. Most folks have been so brainwashed — why call it anything else — to celebrate the gross national product as the apotheosis of democracy that they have willingly made collateral damage of themselves, laid themselves out on the alter of the corporate church, said, “Yes, cut my heart out, just give me five minutes more to shop.” Isn’t it curious that the worship of the golden calf is now called Christianity as well as democracy? Foremost among the many entitlements of being God’s chosen is the comfort of self-deception.
But think for a moment about climate change. That trap has sprung. Our leg is in it, and the water is rising. Even Exxon, Peabody Coal and Fox News couldn’t disseminate enough bogus “science” to suppress real science and cover up what anyone can see. Our cherished, consumer lifestyle, in opposition to which “jealous”, hate filled terrorists are willing to blow themselves up, has turned out to be a steel-jawed trap. We need to hate it with the same vehemence. Mother Nature forgives much, but she’s more than a little prissy about the blanket of CO2 being plumped up around her. Like the trapped coyote, we don’t have a lot of time to cogitate on our course of action. The trap is not going to open. We have to chew off the leg — that leg being the one that allowed us to prowl around the world gorging on resources and defecating on anyone who resisted. During this crude self-surgery, with gnashing of canines and grinding of molars, much blood with be lost. Recovery will be painful and slow, or not at all. Infections may set in. Transformation will be required.
I assume a three legged coyote ranges a reduced hunting ground, can support only a diminished family, and, in respect to its trickster ways, is mightily humbled. In terms of this metaphor, that’s necessary and good. But, it would be a mistake to allow ourselves the luxury of the us-versus-them mentality. Capitalism is the predatory beast. Just as surely, though, each of us living in the industrial, resource-driven economies, which have loved nature for its profitable bounty but not its sanctity, needs to chew off a leg. Bush & Cheney, Inc. is the bald truth of lying with impunity, imperialism’s for democracy, and resource wars. They hold up an unpleasant mirror, though. To despise them, I must despise my own lifestyle. To eradicate the corporate, insatiable predator, I’ll have to eradicate the insatiable, corporate customer. In spite of my hybrid car, solar panels, compact-fluorescents, and vegetable garden, I’m still part of the system, part of the problem. Spiritual alienation from nature has precipitated the crisis; alienation from personal responsibility will precipitate catastrophe and chaos.
So, it’s time to initiate some community leg gnawing parties. We’ve already organized some here in my town in Maine. And the strange thing is, when a community sets out to chew its trapped legs off together, endorphins are released in great, bathing, thankful quantity. Love and concern for each other and the earth, the fact that we are determined to help each other with local solutions for food, energy, and transportation conquers much of the fear and pain. So far, a lot of it is merely talk. But I know my neighbors now, and I love them more for their leg gnawing abilities than I might have been appalled by their gasoline-powered leaf blowers. Nature’s reality, instead of an angry trap, can embrace us like prodigal children. Contentment with making do on three legs may restore us — restoration to our local community and the community of life, to a wholeness we haven’t experienced for a long time.
What Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1967 — “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late.” — is perhaps even more applicable today. Dr. King could see that our country was risking “spiritual death” because we were embracing racism, materialism, and militarism in the service of profit while we were willfully increasing poverty, insecurity and injustice to enhance that profit. What King could not yet see was that that same dynamic was also causing climate change. The trap was already springing. King said, “We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly.” To me, that sounds like a signal to start chewing.
Robert Shetterly lives in Brooksville, Maine and is the artist of the series of portraits Americans Who Tell the Truth: www.americanswhotellthetruth.org
“In spite of my hybrid car, solar panels, compact-fluorescents, and vegetable garden, I’m still part of the system, part of the problem. Spiritual alienation from nature has precipitated the crisis; alienation from personal responsibility will precipitate catastrophe and chaos.”
No, actually is isn’t a “spiritual” problem that has to be corrected by everyone converting to one persons vapid religion. Solar and wind power, public transportation, socialized democracy and organic vegan agriculture can save us from environmental apocalypse. The only scum who say the system can be changed by just “buying less” are those who’s multi-billion industry wouldn’t survive the change to a green world.
http://www.dreamingearth.net
Dreaming Earth: I couldn’t have expressed it better myself. Thanks!
Shetterly’s essay is marvelous for the way it uses a striking metaphor to present a number of luminous, necessary truths about our present human condition. When Michael Lerner spoke about the new chemical test that measures “body burden,” it made it ostensibly clear that human beings HAVE become a virtual guinea pig caste. The powerful realization that “Two or more” acting together can initate meaningful change is also a welcome and empowering one.
Wonderful words, Mr. Shetterly! And I totally appreciate the spirituality you bring to these overlapping topics. BRAVO!
Sure, a coyote might chew off it’s leg to escape a steel trap (has anyone ever actually seen such a thing occur, or is it just a forest myth,) but said coyote is the exception, just as is the guy who gets trapped in a crevasse and has to do the same. The rest die, trapped. How many more years of millions of us screaming wake-calls before we accept the fact that most prefer deep sleep?
Frank1569 not all do. As I’ve made clear in this forum, I pursue mystical answers to mankind’s persistent questions. I have met many frauds in my life and also some truly enlightened souls, those with aptitudes not generally understood by the halls of academe, yet wisdom nonetheless. One such individual said to me, “Many want oblivion. An end to it all.” This sure explains (and Bill Moyers is the one who exposed the numbers and did a profound analysis of this topic a ways back on CD) why Tim Le Haye’s LEFT BEHIND series, a diabolical prophetic discussion that generally stems from the Bible’s book of Revelations, has sold over 50 million copies!!!!!! If the Bush supporters WANT Armageddon, and hate this magnificent world so much that they would destroy it under the deluded notion such action constitutes God’s will, perhaps the rest of the world should decide to give up ONE continent, give it to them, and allow them to play with weapons as they like and just destroy themselves. Then they get to experience the after-life and their arrogant notions of being saved without taking the rest of us along. Australia, are you interested? It’s understood that apart from your own Aboriginal peoples, you began as a penal colony. Once this group exits to the great beyond, perhaps new tribes of Indigenous people will arrive…
Beautiful!! Thank you Robert for this wonderful piece!!!
“Capitalism is the predatory beast.”
This is not quite true. Whether capitalist or communist, conservatives are the predatory beasts whose interminable lust for wealth and power destroys liberal democracy and replaces it with authoritarian dictatorship.
Capitalism and communism unfettered by a democratic public lead to conservative dictatorship. There can be no liberal dictatorship as it would be a contradiction.
there can be a liberal dictatiorship.
do the test here and then read the thesis:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
Thanks Djorn. Interesting site. It does not say there can be the oxymoron of a liberal dictatorship however. It makes no mention of the conservative vs. liberal polarity, choosing to use “authoritarianism” (the proper name of conservatism) vs “libertarianism” which is not the opposite of conservatism. In fact many libertarians are conservative. The opposite of conservative is liberal but the words do not appear in any of the illustrations.
It’s Art in the service of our world community. Thank you for your gift, Mr. Shetterly.
But, I wince to read the responses of people I assume to be well-meaning environmentalists (?) who don’t understand the distinction between spirituality and organized religion, and who resort to the use of hatewords like “scum” to refer to those who differ from them. So long as we’re nurturing hatred in ourselves, the transformative change we require to survive this cataclysm is doomed.
Anyone else notice the much larger number of historical personages on the top two quadrants (authoritarian) vs. the bottom?
Also note that “deregulated economy” suggests that one is to the right. It’s a misnomer, since lack of public/democratic regulation automatically reverts to private/plutocratic fixing. The economy is, and always has been, cornered by someone. It’s only a matter of picking one’s poison, check and balance. Up vs. down is much clearer of an axis.
siouxrose;
Have you had people joining you for “meditations” as you suggested some weeks ago?
A woman here in Madison[a retired Oscar Mayer production line employee] used to hold small gatherings at her house re various “esoteric matters. Her suggestion was at a given time all interested would relax as best they could and seek a community spirit.If nothing else it was a chance to try to ameliorate the pressures of the day. In the small area of Madison I know that most who participated had positive feedback from this. Similar to TM’s teachings I guess?
And to those curmudeonly little grenade throwers who have ridiculed Sioxrose’s writings in the past-don’t stay too angry at her/and me-you might find your “fece bolts” deflected back in your direction.
You missed the most fundamental trap of all - the exploding human population. Unfortunately we are now so far into overshoot that die off looms by default.
If not for the last three centuries of population growth we would not be facing global warming or imminent resource depletion (”peak oil”) or ecological catastrophe.
Unfortunately our economic and religious paradigms are based on growth; hence I say we’re ‘doomed by design’ (TM)
Good day
“I tell you this, no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn”
Jim Morrison
siouxrose
I am always entertained by your wit and charm,
keep the faith,
however it is difficult in these trying times
we have 6 more years, make the best of it
[if this 600 million y o Mayan Math is correct, umm just saw some pix in Yahoo from Uxmal today]
and the universal physic seems to run like, well atomic clock work
-I spent most of the afternoon [when I wasn’t working] exploring the political compass site. I found it both interesting, and at first confusing. As I thought about it, it began to come into focus.
For starters ‘Libertarian” in NOT US Libertarianism, with it’s anything goes socially, coupled with no-holds barred capitalism economically. I would have used the term Anarchism to oppose Authoritarian.
The economic scale leading left to right, is more consistent with common phraseology.
I wound up in the Left libertarian quadrant: Left of Fidel and Stalin, economically; and hanging out with Kropotkin on the social scale.
Now I am faced with explaining to all my kids that I wasn’t kidding when I said I’ve become more ‘Liberal’ as I get older.
The metaphor of the beast trapped and chewing off its own leg is very well drawn. But, it’s important to know what kind of Revolution we are willing to die for, which is where this ‘compass’ comes in. I for one, will not go far down a road that ends in compromise with those I view as the agents of Evil.
Extending the Iraq War till 2009. or setting aside Impeachment in hopes of a winning team in 2008 will generate no sacrifice on my part. Anyone on the Right and in the upper realms of the Authoritareanism scale will have to stage their Putsch without me.
Alas, how needing of compassion are they.
Thus spake Padmasambava 1200 years ago. So much time wasted splitting hairs…them…us…you…me…I want…they want, etc., etc., etc.
Our solar system is about 18 galactic years old,(if a year is the time it takes the earth to go around the sun once then a galactic year is the time it takes the sun to go around the galaxy once),a mere teenager.
This time last year the dinosaurs were just beginning their rule over the planet. In no time at all the words
“United States” will have no more meaning to what ever inhabitants still scuttle about earth’s surface then the words “Mercia,” ” Septimania”, or “Pontus” have to those scuttling about today. Remember the “Armenian Question?” Me neither, but it was once the focus of all politically correct crackpots…and not that long ago; certainly not even a bare fraction of one galactic year…not even a galactic day.
It is about 15 billion light years to the edge of the observable universe. That means the light we observe traveled for 15 billion years to reach us…long before the earth was a gleem in her daddy’s eye.
So what’s the point?
The point, my dear, is…one day soon, the sun will burp enough charged particles to strip off the atmosphere of this rock and time will be up. This will happen long before the nova event astronomers taut as the end of the world. And it seems the short time alotted to homo sapiens will have been wasted in anger,
hate and greed…and war.
Alas, how needing of compassion are those who have ensnared themselves in the unfathomable ocean of suffering.
Yes the beast will chew its own leg off but it is not known if it is doing so because it thinks the leg is at fault for its pain and even recognizes what a trap is. They do not bite at the trap.
I have seen large carnivores bite at where a bullet entered its body, did it recognize a bullet wound?
Why the talk of revolution?
What would be gained if say we killed every neocon in existence but kept the same governing mentality amoung the people?
Would not the same system allow the rise of more neocons?
The fault we in US now find ourselves is of our own making, BushNCorp did nothing but use the system put in place by us.
there has not been a liberal leader in this country since end of WWII.
Martin Luthr King was not a liberal he understood the Constituion better than the so called liberals of that time and was only demanding the words it said be applied to people of his race as well as others no matter the race.
Teh Liberals took over the movement from men like him and Malcolm X, the Black Panthers and turned them into the the Jessee Jacksons and Al sharptons; white liberals for profit in black skins.
When there is a population made up of weaklings no form of government will refrain from taking advantage of them.
A mob is not a sign of strength but more a sign of weakness of each individual within its ranks and we would end up much like the French Revolutionaries and have to invite the monarchy back into place to end a form of tyranny worse at end than at beginning.
Amerians want a bloodless revolution , one that pays them for their efforts, one that protects they and their childen from harm, they want the staus quo of a percieved previous time, about like having a flashback when one had never used acid, that was already a failed state in the making.
The social restructuring that most seem to be talking about is Utopia but a utopia within undefined and illdefined borders.
It is also one judging by most within all the readings I have done in last 45 years a white ideal of utopia led by those who will tell everyone else how to live thier lives, Or Else!
No thank you!
Hi Klever, I don’t know how many meditated at the solstice. I did. In Singapore it was far easier to assemble persons of ALL religious faiths to meditate on a more peaceful world. PLANTMAN is right about the universal call to and for compassion. This is something the severity the Bush regime lashes out on the world almost forces in response. If any have read this far, allow me a quick anecdote. In my college days (SUNY Albany) there was a very fine foreign film program. Foreign films are a direct doorway into how another culture, via its director, things. Fellini is my favorite, and any who want insight into the Roman Catholic Church ought watch his masterpiece ROMA again. In any case, just about the same audience, perhaps 150 students, attended most of these avant garde films and one time, maybe it was good pot, but people standing up AFTER the film, in particular a tall man with a bushy head of white curly hair LOOKED like he had just come OUT of the film having played. Another couple that always merited my interest was a short woman with straight dark hair who reminded me of Natasha from Adam’s family (is that the right name?) and her very tall boyfriend who didn’t seem to match her at all. YEARS later she crossed my path (I’ve had this happen repeatedly, someone I notice later on shows up in my life for a purpose) and befriended me. A lot of people think I am far out, though few question my intellect, it’s the subject matter that I’ve made it my mission to study that is so unfamiliar to them and their conditioning… but this woman, she made me look like an average student of conventional thought! Obtaining a masters in art she had a unique capacity to use images to convey extremely complex subject matter. This was a woman (definitely ONE very old and enlightened soul) who could meditate for HOURS. In these meditations, she “traveled” out of body and “met” beings from other dimensions. She had a huge scrapbook she shared with me in which she drew the FORMS she met in other dimensions, which is to say WORLDS. I have no trouble believing this as it surely shows lack of imagination to presume WE are the only form of “intelligent” life. Years ago Art Buchwald did a satire that if UFO landed during a JULY 4 weekend, they would take this planet to be uninhabited. And a very promising reading program, known as SRA when I was a child, was promoted in NY schools where the student had a certain amount of time to read a usually interesting panel of info, often related as a story, and then had to answer questions based on this quick retention of material. (One progressed by color according to his/her reading comprehension and capacity to offer relevant feedback as per the questions.) I still remember a very interesting SRA panel (this from like 2nd or 3rd grade!) where the premise was that our concept that an alien would have to LOOK like us was off. Using a parallel to the concept of evolution and how biology is shaped by the constructs of the land, its rainfall pattern and food sources, etc. the short piece concluded that on a different planet with a different atmosphere, the life forms might not fit our presumptions at all. Perhaps they would not be discernible to OUR sensory wiring and its attendant mechanisms.
I wish I could find this woman again to see if her work was ever published? Many women take on the names of men they marry and are tougher to trace. Knowing her was better than any X-file episode!
Senior Pescado, nice to be called charming! I appreciate it! Today is D-day in that I am mailing my script conceived in 2000 based on cloning Ralph Nader to a self-publishing firm. It will be OUT in print soon… I’ve entitled this work, THE CARETAKERS.
Well siouxrose;
Another long-winded new age rant from you-does it never cease? And you even outed yourself as an [ex?] pot smoker. Or was the herb so strong one could get an enlightening contact high? SUNY Albany eh? Think it’s changed much-do they welcome grizzled old Big Ten alums?
I also today want to list for my ex-wife’s protection-my name. We share this computer but she has never posted on CD.If You jacboots from Blackwater [or another mercenary force]start rounding up dissenters-only I have bashed our illustrious leaders from this computer.
Robert L.Klevins
AF 1565708
k Madison Wisconsin–
Hide Behind:
Thank you for saying so well what I was attempting to say when I said I would not join with those I view as evil to over-throw a government that is obviously evil. Certainly many Bolsheviks learned that the hard way when they wound up in bed with Stalin.
Or, as the old maxim goes “Be careful what you want, you might get it”
At the moment, I am neither looking for a Savior, nor chewing off my poor wounded leg. Rather, I am planning for a future when my survival may depend on my own abilities.
Klevins: I second your Siouxrose comments. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who believes these new age rants are …I’ll drop it at that. I’m trying to learn to not say what I believe because that’s not allowed by her herd of admirers.
“herd by her admirers,” you sure are a herd creature, Ron. The point of a progressive forum is for NEW ideas, ideas marginalized to BE heard. You never get it, do you, that the prejudice cast on this arena of inquiry… what is more breathtaking then considering how heaven sees us… was MARGINALIZED because it empowers people, provides the realization that each of us is a Divine creature on an evolutionary trajectory. THAT understanding takes away the middle man, i.e. the “church” authoritarian. Do you know that the Vatican has the largest occult library in the world? Did it ever occur to you that your concept of astrology is the FOX equivalent of the news?
If you can’t appreciate MY contribution to this forum, fine. You show me what I am up against in the way of centuries of ignorance… however, you will not succeed where centuries of burning witches and its current incarnation as the right wing hate machine have failed to silence the likes of me! WOMEN with a wisdom outside your purview terrifies you, and I have already told you WHY it’s a huge issue to you. Others not interested, merely bypass me… why YOU take offense speaks of YOUR unresolved issues. Kind of haunts you like Lady Macbeth’s blood stained hands…
Siouxrose
I take offense because your lengthy diatribes totally destroy any discussion. You and Ron should take your fight private and give the rest of us a break!
Face it, it ain’t all about you all the time!