Treasures of Darkness: Part II

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, 

than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. 

~Gandhi

What is violence?  And what do we do with it?

Dictionary.com's first definition of the word "violence" is "swift and intense force,"  as in "a violent storm."  This kind of violence is natural, and unavoidable.

The second definition is "rough or injurious physical force, action, or treatment."  This sounds more like the kind of violence most people agree is inappropriate in most situations.

The American Heritage Dictionary lists as its first definition:  "Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing: crimes of violence."  This sounds even more like the kind of violence we want to avoid or overcome.

What is the difference between this kind and the "natural" kind but human intention? 

Is violence just

anything

that wounds?

Blake said, Colors are

the wounds of light.

Everything

is wounded, even

light is broken.

This violence is

essential

to the world.

This is beauty.

When my heart is

hard and dull and dry, it wants

to be broken,

a violent grace;

my heart must be

broken open,

because it cannot break

itself.

This is beauty.

While I was working on this post, I came across a very interesting chart of the "Levels of Human Development," in the magazine What Is Enlightenment?  According to this chart, the "Integral" phase that humanity is beginning to enter will be defined by "new, higher forms of integral or holistic thinking."  One of the people held up as an "exemplary leader" at this level is Teilhard de Chardin.  The philosophy he may best be known for is that of the Omega Point, the belief that humanity is evolving into union with the divine.

I had already been thinking about him in relation to this discussion, because of his reaction to being involved in World War I. For him, being on the front lines led him into an exalted, mystical experience, reducing life to its essences, and paradoxically inspiring his faith in the spiritual evolution of humanity.

Another strange and wonderful thing that happened while I was contemplating all of this occurred at the library. I was browsing in my favorite section, the 291s, and a book called Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, caught my eye. I opened it randomly and read the following, in a section whose heading was “Contradictions as Treasures”:

We need to rediscover contradiction as a creative force within the soul...that disavows mere linear progress in order to awaken all the aggregate energies of an experience. It is the turbulence and conflict of their inner conversation that brings an integrity of transfiguration...There is a secret light and vital energy in contradiction...If you remain faithful to this energy, you will gradually come to participate in a harmony that lies deeper than any contradiction. This will give you new courage to engage the depth, danger, and darkness of your life.

John O'Donohue, the author of this beautiful writing, then goes on to say that we need to reconsider what we judge as negative, that morality is often “the enemy of growth” because of the rigid judgments associated with it, and that we need “a new way of understanding and integrating the negative,” by befriending it.

Author Barbara Kingsolver, in her essay, “Be Careful What You Let In The Front Door,” discusses receiving two letters addressing the violence in her novels in the same week One of these letters was from a woman who had been abused as a child, and couldn't read past a certain point in one of Kingsolver's novels because of the violence done to one of the characters. The other letter was from a nun, praising her for “daring to hold up a mirror of the horrible devastation our country has visited upon Nicaragua” in her novel, Animal Dreams. These letters led Kingsolver into deep contemplation. She comes to no ultimate conclusion, but says, “I don't know whether my convictions about art...that contains violence will ever be allowed to settle into a comfortable position. They have been revising themselves for a long, long time, roaming restlessly over the options, continually exhorted by the ghosts that bless and curse.”

Twelve years later, in her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, she offers an excellent discussion of actual violence, in the context of killing the animals her family raises to eat on their small farm. She says, “It's not without thought and gratitude that I slaughter my animals, it is a hard thing to do.” And she offers the following quote from Kahlil Gibran:

When you kill a beast, say to him in your heart:
By the same power that slays you, I too am slain, and I too shall be consumed.
For the law that delivers you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.

The meaning embodied in this message is what rescues the acceptance of paradox from fence-sitting, integration of the dark side from alignment with it.  Because to have this kind of identification with the object of your violence is to have compassion.  And for me, choosing a position on an issue only has value if it is an expression of compassion.

I hope you'll join me as I explore the relationship between violence and compassion in the third and last post of this series.

Pumpkins and Pollinators: Part Two

So where is the dark side of the pumpkin?

In her delightful and devastatingly educational book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver advocates eating fresh, locally grown food as much as possible.  She comments on the absurdity of the fact that people in droves buy pumpkins for their Halloween jack-o-lanterns but then throw them away after Halloween and buy canned pumpkin for their Thanksgiving pies.

I maintain that the global food market is at least as evil as global warming and indeed contributes greatly to it, but because our food is almost as close as our breath, the big picture can be hard to see.  For a better idea of it, go to animalvegetablemiracle.org.  Click on some of its resources links - but be forewarned - it may change forever the way you feel about eating a banana.

The other dark issue I'm thinking about today, because I'm thinking about pumpkins, is the pollination crisis.  Which is, of course, unavoidably intertwined with the global food crisis.

Stephen L. Buchmann and Gary Paul Nabhan, authors of the The Forgotten Pollinators, say that bees of the genera Peponapis possess superior ability to pollinate pumpkins and others in the squash family.  In fact, these "squash" or "gourd bees" show up at the crack of dawn, when blossoms are first opening, beating out honeybees by about half an hour.  They also visit squash blossoms more often than other pollinators, and are, according to the authors,  "strong fliers that frequently move pollen between far-flung plants of the same species, thereby promoting genetic diversity."

But these bees are in decline for a number of reasons, including pesticide use and habitats disturbed by human activity.  Most commercial pumpkins are now pollinated by domesticated honeybees, but there is still often an inadequate number of pollinators, in which case farmers resort to hand pollination.  Artificial insemination, if you will. 

The message of The Forgotten Pollinators is that the relationship between pollinators and plants is so important and delicate that if one declines, the other often will too.  And therefore so will we.  It's not much of a stretch to imagine how the overall ecology of the planet is affected by the myriad of such relationships.  And this is the point, really - that the problem is not just extinction of species but extinction of relationships.

I love honeybees, but their domestication and humanly created ubiquity is a major contributor to the decline of native pollinators.  Kind of like how Wal-Mart puts the Mom-and-Pop grocery out of business.   And when you personally know that sweet couple, Mom and Pop, it pisses you off all the more.  The squash bee and blossom are a sweet couple too:

Pollen-covered gourd bees spend lengthy periods of time perching, grooming, and waiting on the massive gourd stigmas--behavior never observed among honeybees, nor among other native bees for that matter.  These are secretive little lives that feed us.

And when we mistreat these little lives, the repercussions may suddenly cascade in from unknown directions.  (from The Forgotten Pollinators)

It's food for thought, no?

Now don't get me wrong - I still sometimes buy convenience and fast foods, and my household consumes way too much coffee to always go the fair-trade organic route.  And I still regularly buy bananas for my toddler's breakfast, even though the amount of fossil fuel required to get them to the local grocery store is outrageous.

But I've made little changes, here and there, and they add up over time.  It's like the advice you always read about starting an exercise program or diet - don't try to change it all at once; you'll just get overwhelmed and give up altogether.

I just want to keep making these changes, keep growing my awareness of The Way It Is.  Get to know the birds and the bees and all my other enigmatic neighbors, and as much as I'm able, to love them as myself.