Cornstalks in the Snow
Outside my window, dead cornstalks stand coated with a fresh layer of snow. Their dried leaves blow around them like the cloak of some forgotten scarecrow.
Winter is the season of rest. It is symbolic of the change and the cyclical nature of death and life. From the tomb of Winter’s snow springs forth new and revived life. It reminds us there is no true ending or beginning beyond our own creation.
So I sit meditating on the power these dried husks have on me.
They transport me back to the Autumn, when my mind was on the romance of Halloween. I think back to that freshly carved Jack-o-lantern, brought to life through the removal of pieces of itself. It nows lies frozen under the snow, and will decompose in the spring and be brought back to life through the same process as when I carved it.
Creation through decomposition.
Now the festive Christmas romance is upon me, and a lit Christmas tree replaces the Jack-o-lantern, and the celebration of continued life in the midst of death replaces the celebration of death in the midst of dying.
As I romanticize the Cornstalks in the Snow, I find my early winter melancholia start to whither like the Autumn leaves had. It is buried and revived in spurts of new vigor and I wonder sometimes if this is what bi-polar disorders are like. But it keeps me alive. And dead.
I am a cycle more than a solid thing. A fire and a dried cornstalk. A Sheave of Grass waiting to fall into rot and be reborn.
The Spirit of Celebration
Much fuss is made during the winter holiday season over whose holiday it is. I see signs proclaiming, “Keep Christ in Christmas!” and hear Neo-pagans lay claim to the symbols and traditions of our Dickens-esque trappings. Folks like me who are disheartened by our commercialized culture make note of how the corporate world has injected its infectious ideals into the heart of our celebration.
But these are all just threads in a bigger cloak. The true owner of the holiday is the Spirit of Celebration.
Life is a difficult journey. Simple survival is complicated by the interplay of individuals fighting for the basics and being an emotional creature in a tumultuous world. Suffering is inevitable, and happiness and comfort is not a guarantee.
Celebration is the light that illuminates the worth in suffering. When family and friends can get together to share in the joy of companionship, and be lighthearted and carefree, by gum we ought to do it! Need it be owned by a tradition or a specific group of people? No! If folks wish to include stories of Jesus, or the symbols of Pagan festivities, then great. But why make a fuss over calling it this, or using these, or doing this? This serves only to remove the human aspect from celebration, and creates an ethical system that inevitably limits the freedom to enjoy it.
That’s not to say the tradition and symbols are unimportant; on the contrary, they are the star on the tree. Growing up with a brightly-lit Christmas tree, prettily-wrapped presents, and well-spiced eggnog associates these dressings with the playfulness of childhood and are hard to ignore when making merry.
The symbols are a self-expression. And celebration is human expression. Why limit it?
I’m An Animal
Rushing into a new decade of a young millennium, we find our sight ever focused on an idealistic goal. Around us, the kaleidoscopic background of a postmodern society swirls with the confusion of commercialized entertainment and jargoned meaning, while our basic, primal guidance system is convoluted by progressive ethical discourse and traditional standards.
Is there any wonder we struggle with a pandemic of psychological complications?
As I walk through the forest where I spent much of my youth, I experience the queer sensation of the culture shock created from the television ads still running through my mind from the night before, and the primal purity of the wilderness around me. I feel like a domesticated dog playing the hunter, or a capricious child returning home.
I think of the mistakes and humiliations I’ve felt. I feel the stinging blows of being myself in a world that expects me to don the mask of the American Consumer reaching through the fog of an American Dream.
No, I don’t want to buy my redemption at low, low prices. No, I don’t want to sell my soul for the chance at being a mediocre hero. No, I don’t want to whore myself for the history books.
Yes, I want to lie naked on a cool forest blanket of sticky needles and lose myself in the beating of rain on dead Oak leaves.
But that’s overtly sexual and…queer.
Hot blood flows through hot veins, pure energy stimulates living nerves, and wondrous thoughts flow smoothly through an uncluttered mind as I find myself running fiercely and unbound over rocks, through water, and around trees. In a furor, I rip through the flaming sword that hides the pure experience of Eden from me. Chaotic and divine joy!
But this is idle, romantic play, and the cold, stark reality of the culture I’ve been born into calls me back; I have an overdue student loan payment, my car needs a new muffler and back tire, and I have jobs to apply to.
But I procrastinate. Lazily I daydream of a new sexual encounter. Or, languidly I imagine tearing into the throat of someone who humiliated me. Do I feel spite? Of course I do. Do I know better? Intellectually, surely I do; I am educated in ethics as much as any person. But still I yearn, and still I grasp hold of the viscera of life and bite down.
And still I feel the guilt of being idle, of dreaming of impure and immoral things. Freud would have said this is my superego prodding my ego for giving into my id. Kierkegaard would have said it is freedom reflecting on its triumph over dread.
I would say it’s the consequences of unleashing the animal inside of me and allowing it to trample the masks created from my education in a civilized culture.
In the words of REM’s Michael Stipe, “What’s the big deal? I’m an animal!”
Reflections of the Tortoise
I remember seeing a line on a sign once that I will never get out of my head. It read: “He who laughs last, thinks slowest.”
Now, I’m a slow thinker. It takes me a while to grasp a concept, and when I do, it takes me even longer to articulate it. That’s why I’m a writer; I can take as much time as I need.
Is there something wrong with being a slow thinker? Our culture is driven by speed and intelligence. The powerful among us are those that can think creatively on the fly. Those who think slow are left behind.
I could be wrong in my assessment, but in a culture where “retard” has such negative connotations, maintaining a slow pace is a difficult situation.
At least those who think slow are thinking. I suspect that many who “think fast” lack depth. That sounds snide, but I mean it seriously. In situations where I am called upon to think quick, I make more mistakes and my actions lack that creative substance that my slower thoughts gently render. Albeit, I am a thinker more than a doer (the latter also being a prize in our industrious culture), and my speed may not be that of the more gifted thinkers, but I like to think. And deeply.
And so in this, my second attempt at a blog, I expect to have a slower, but more substantial go at it. It will be a “thinking blog”–as I’ve heard this style called. I want it to be rendered slowly, and be thick with meaty juices!
So partake! Human knowledge and wisdom is best served in the company of other thinkers. And feel free to discuss and debate. I learn and teach best in the spirit of free dialog.
