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| [Prairie Flowers] My buddy Sarah (left), and I back in the day |
MODERN MAY DAY
Today, our disconnection from the traditional celebrations which kept us in tune with the earth’s cycles, and our own, has created a knock on effect throughout history which has structured our current reality and sorrowful states of being.
A GREEN STORY | A RED STORY
Renee, one of my fellow Ethical Writer’s Coalition members and creator of her own blog, Model For Green Living sent me an interesting interview with historian and author Peter Linebaugh which further exemplifies recent realities which connect our progressions of religion and disconnect from nature in THIS interview with Democracy Now. He breaks his examples into two: A green story, and a red story.
Now, this was around the time that agriculture became mechanized (another big move away from nature), starting with the mechanical reaper, which was being made by a company / man named McCormick. It was being produced by ironworkers who happened to be supporters of the eight-hour movement and they decided to demonstrate their wishes on the 1st of May in 1886.
The ruling class, the billionaires and capitalists who exist around the world, with their fingers in media and police forces and legislation want you working. They don’t want you thinking. They don’t want you thinking because the more time you have to think, the higher your consciousness rises. The higher your consciousness rises, the less you care about money and material goods and the more you care about those involved in creating it and the harms it causes to the world. The less you care about material goods and money and the more you care about the earth and her inhabitants, the less uninspiring work you’ll be willing to do and the less spiritual holes you’ll be filling with consumption random shirt. The less shitty work you do and the less money you spend means the less money that 1% will be able to horde. And hoarding money is all they care for, apart from power.
There’s a interesting clip from a movie back in 1984 in which one of the players explains this much more articulately than I:
During the repression of the First Nations people and the robbing of their lands, there was a healer who was going around teaching a certain gospel that was a mix of their spirit world and that of Jesus. He taught the First Nations people a dance called the Ghost Dance, which was a hopeful prayer that spread across their communities, from Texas to North Dakota (and probably Canada as well). It consisted of people standing in a circle side-by-side, holding hands, the drummers would keep time, that beautiful soul rising heartbeat only a animal skin drum can create, and the people would begin to sing and move, one inch at a time, in unison.
This dance scared the shit out of the ruling class at the time, so much so they murdered a large group of Lakota First Nations at Wounded Knee, because they were so on edge about the empowerment this hopeful prayer created to untie and enlighten them during devastating times.
Just look at the current U.S elections, the fraud and corruption which is already running ramped and being exposed because the internet has since been invented and nobody, but the zombies who consider Fox News gospel, believe the words they’re told anymore. Inch by inch, banding together, those whose consciousness sits at the forefront of their decision making, are uniting under a leader who wishes to change the way things are for the better, not continue to perpetuate negative spin, bigotry, violence and violence.
So this May Day, whether you’re worshiping the dollar or dancing around the maypole, ask yourself, are you looking for change? And if you are, what change might that be? Whether you’re attempting to save the world from climate change or better the lives of your neighbors, a group of strangers, or animals above or below the sea, what could you concentrate your time and energy on that might change the world for the better? Under what cause will you create a community and join hands in movement with? Will the ribbon you hold in your hands, as you dance through life, interweave intrecitely and consciously with all other living things, or are you living in a way that will disrupt the harmonious pattern it could create?
This was beautifully written, but I do want to mention that there are MANY, many Christian mystics and practitioners who considered, and still consider, themselves naturalists, finding the wonder of God in nature. There were also sects of early Christians who were vegetarian for religious reasons. It's a common misconception that Christianity and other forms of presently dominant religions are directly responsible for patriarchy, industrialization, and any number of social and ecological ills, but I find it incredibly important to understand that these corrupting forces were just as much a part of the "paganisms" of Babylon, Assyria, Greece, and Rome as they were a part of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Blaming ideology only gets us so far because it denies the variety of practice within a particular tradition. It also makes us less on our guard against the possible perversions of ideology we consider good.