fortification for the weary
I first shared part of this essay on Instagram awhile ago, all trimmed up and compliant with their word count. Here, I resubmit it for your fine eyeballs, complete and as written.
It’s a funny world we have arrived at. A place and time where common sense is whispered by the radicals, where real food is elitist, where women happy to claim the gifts of motherhood are oppressed and men expressing their masculinity are toxic.
There are pills to blunt the pain, but none to fulfill the yearning of a human heart. There are goals to achieve so that they can be immediately replaced with fresh ones so that we may start anew. Forever chasing like greyhounds on a track. There are endless needs and wants to fill every crack of a frenetic mind. Political issues from lands far away that demand our immediate attention and openly declared commitment lest we fall out of favour with the mob.
When fatigue finally claims our resistance and we become too utterly exhausted to keep up anymore, there is an infinite vending machine of distractions to choose from, each capable of pulling us ever further from ourselves. Put in your change and make your selection. A1 pours you some wine. A2 gives you a few minutes of porn viewing. A3 opens up to a television screen that tells you how to interpret the world.
A fringe group of the withered and stunted shout and heave against morality and tradition. The bonds of family are suspect. Words that once held love and admiration, like “mother” are condemned. Individual gifts and talents must be hobbled for the sake of equality. There can be no illuminaries. Dim the lights, dim the lights.
Stand for nothing but the tearing down of others. Dilute truth with opinion until it’s so murky, we can hardly make out what’s right before our eyes.
We will be a collective of hyenas, all nipping and snarling at each other’s heels to keep each other in line. No questions. No leaders. No virtue. Just rules and made up words and labels to abide by. Signal your worth while doing nothing worthy at all.
I was the target of that once. The maniacal set into a frenzy by a boy that didn’t like what I said. Not in real life, of course. Who would dare? No, it doesn’t work that way. Cowards need a blue lit screen to use as their shield.
No human can ever “cancel” another. Such a foolish concept. I am a child of God! How could a mortal human ever erase me without my consent?
“You're cancelled!”
“Au contraire, I am still very much here.”
Speak. Share. Love. Do not empower hate. Connect with Nature and find absolute truths, even if it’s in something as small and miraculous as an acorn or a bird’s nest built of cow-tail hairs blown from a tree to land precisely at your feet as you walk by. Be there for that. Marvel and solidify at your smallness and the beauty of Creation.
Allow the slow. Allow the wash of pain you try to hold at bay. Your tight control is evidence only of a willingness to delude yourself. To dilute yourself. Be afraid if you’re afraid. Be afraid and then surrender. What if happiness does not come with the new job, when school is finished, when your home is renovated, when the numbers in your bank account bulk up, when you move or you, finally, lose those fifteen pounds?
What if happiness is meaningless after all? What if it’s peace and connection and love that fill a life? All the things that can be found, the very meaning of our lives, outside of a fleeting canary called “happiness”. Outside of that sliver of a feeling is the depth and breadth of the genuine in life and it is found everywhere - in the heartache, in the struggle, in the darkest shadows. No need to wait for the lightening strike of joy to hit.
Be still. Accept truth. Slow the hell down! Press your luscious, pounding heart against a mighty tree and listen. Let the perversions of modernity leak out of you. A pool of lies and manipulations gone from your mind, released from your heart, dripping out into the atmosphere where they are picked up by the laughing winds and dispersed with ease. Fortification for the weary.
There is no holding power to imaginary stories. They are simply fables of our time. Speak. Stand firm with conviction. Answer to a higher power. Be loyal to your ever-listening heart over the approval of another. Be duty bound to repay the gift of your life by your meaningful work and the goodness you create.
Refuse to be silenced.
Courage, my love. You are needed.
p.s. This Saturday’s member post will be a Q&A along the theme of all things farming. To submit your questions on this topic, please head over to the member’s audio version of this essay and leave your questions in the comment section.
Oh how I needed to read this this morning. I went to bed and woke up with a weariness in my bones at the state of our world. A world where mothers who love their children are nearly frothing at the mouth in defense of another’s woman’s “right” to kill her unborn children. A world where common sense often feels non existent. And I am first to admit I reach for many things to numb and avoid the pain of this world. So I needed this reminder today to slow down and connect. With my little boy and with the earth. We are planting vegetables in raised beds for the first time, and I think today is the perfect day for it. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to your writing every Wednesday. Your words are a gift and I thank you for sharing them.
A fine read. A needed reminder to hold true to one’s core, to stand firm and grounded. Especially now when the world has gone mad. In Late Capitalism, where industry and money have way too much power, the democracies are breaking apart at the seams. It’s a tough show to watch, to experience. But your life recipe, written and shared today, is the only way out.