"I now have the world's largest collection of my own books."
--Henry David Thoreau (after personally buying up all the unsold copies of Walden)
"Mirth First!"
--slogan from an infamously incestuous eco-tribe
Wild, wild, wild! What else can I say? Grab your arm, feel for a pulse! Wildness: that glorious liberatory samba, faith healers and all Gaia's creatures on the path to stay. Not a march of new toys or boy soldiers, and subject to no orders. Boogie to the protest, boogie in front of chain saws, boogie to the untrammeled beach! Rock and roll, stones and biscuits--"this is the real world, muchachos, and we are in it!"
And this is the real beat, free of digital encoding, succesfully evading the prisons of disc and pursuing hounds of tape, tap dancing past the Tupperware, tinseltown, hundred dollar tickets to the show. We don't want to go! It's all right here, in the great wilderness inside us. Yes, a place where bears of passion gobble up our paltry illusions. The place of the original rhythm.
Listen! Listen! It's the heartbeat of the Mother Earth all right--but when she's sexually aroused, not when she's kicked back in her hammock! When she's unbearably happy, and mad as hell! It presses us onwards. Presses the Earth lover to the front lines of destruction. Presses lovers to embrace, and diners to taste. Presses pilgrims in the direction of the light, presses transvestites into clothes that are just a little-bit-too tight. This is it, breaking the ropes, stretching the envelopes...diving into the depths of the soul, and coming out whole.
Gaia, Gaia, Gaia! No white angel in the ebony sky, but a big, black woman I tell you! A hip-swinging, tornado-making force to be reckoned with! She is a cosmic, take-no-crap Aunt Jemima stirring the seas to a froth with her giant ladle. Hugging the little ones when they need consolation. Spanking us when we're bad. She is a model of self-love: she's just crazy about her belly! And death and life to her are just little twinklings in that belly, as existence continuously transforms and ferments. She has no fear, not even of the sun's eventual burnout...for she and the universe are one.
Gaia, Gaia! She is not sexless, no, no! She's an erotic grandmother, rolling and tumbling through nights of interterrestrial intercourse. And when something feels good to us, it feels good to her! Mama Earth is plenty spiritual, but she doesn't "om"--she "mmmmmmmm"s! And "yummmmmmm"s! What is this unnamed power, that includes us and Gaia and God? Tears and giggles? That draws us breathless into our great response-abilities? It is presence and wildness, essence and vastness. It is everything. It is all. It is love...
Love, love, love!
Jesse Wolf Pardoned (a.k.a. Loose Lips Circles) is an apologetic male, Earth hugger, and sensual provocateur, who wishes he were living even more river crossings from the nearest road than he does. Muffy says, "He can just go on and on. And since I can't understand a thing he writes, it must be deep!" For truths that keep you up at night, advice you'll have a hard time following, or impoverished resident internships: project your needs psychically...and if you're so destined, he'll surely hear you.
©2001* Talking Leaves
Spring/Summer 2001
Volume 11, Number 1
Tools for Sustainability/Eco-Humor