December 18, 2021- I frequently refer to Prescott, AZ, where I live, as Home Base. There are several other “bases” that mean the world to me: Grapevine, TX, where my son and daughter-in-law live; Dineh Bikeya (Navajo land) and Hopi, where I came of age, spiritually; Flagstaff, where I was “birthed” (my term) as a Baha’i; Saugus, MA, where I learned basic life lessons; Arlington, VA, where I learned intermediate life lessons; Rouen, FR, from whence several of my paternal ancestors came and Jeju, Korea, where I learned patience, fortitude and the right way to face adversaries.
There are whole regions where I feel at home- virtually all of Arizona; northern New Mexico; southern and central Colorado; northwest Nevada; coastal California; the entirety of Oregon and Washington; southeast Alaska; the western and eastern areas of Canada; New England and the Appalachian Crest. Then, too, there is no place where I’ve been that seems truly foreign or hostile. In that sense, Mother Earth is a Base unto herself.
So, as this calendar year fades, slowly but surely, I feel a deeper connectedness with each of the elements that make life not only possible, but meaningful: Air, water, fire and mineral, on the physical side; Reverence, emotion, intellect, curiosity and proactivity, on the spiritual side. A great spiritual plan is in process, from the Universal House of Justice, and spanning nine years (2022-2031). With that, my own bases will become both deeper and more numerous.
May the coming Solstice, Christmas and Kwanzaa be fruitful and fulfilling to all who cherish them.
I hope one and all had a Happy Thanksgiving, as the three of us had.It was non-traditional, as we grilled chicken sausages and carne asada on a gas grill outside, in Plano Home’s outside pavilion. The dessert was chocolate pecan pie. It was as close to the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner as the original meal probably was- with its menu of oysters and clams, squab, pheasant, maize and fiddlehead greens. It was unlikely that any turkey with dressing was served, nor was there any pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving, then as now, is a festival of the heart.
It’s been hot and dry here, this month, as it usually is in Arizona, during the month of June, and often during the first half of July. There are high clouds, that keep the sun from becoming too blazing in intensity, and sometimes, we get the cooler air that’s left over from the storms that are hitting the Rockies and Great Basin. The monsoons, though, come from the south and southeast of us.
The very ground, though, doesn’t usually sizzle. I feel it starting to smoke, this year, though. Earth has a memory, of how her children, whose remains lie in her near crust, have been treated- often in the name of profit; sometimes in the name of convenience; most often in the name of ego gratification-which takes the other two along for the wild ride. She also has a memory of how she herself has been treated.
Reckonings have, historically, been very hard-and are resisted by those who are being asked to face the music. So it is now. There are events that have already happened and those yet to transpire, which have caused, and may cause, me to wince. Many of the great national heroes of our past are being lumped with those who challenged our country’s more enlightened social constructs.
The Confederates, even with the attempted revisionist history of the period 1985-2015, are still relatively easy to relegate to museums and scholarly study. I have visited Stonewall Jackson House, in Lexington, VA and learned that he taught his male slaves to read and write-using the Bible as text. I have learned that he was an organic gardener and herbalist. I recall thinking that, well, Hitler was a vegetarian. There is a difference between Thomas Jackson and der Fuehrer, in terms of degree of supremacism. Nonetheless, Stonewall OWNED people.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, and John Tyler each owned people. They did great things for the Nation, but they OWNED people. The Presidents from the northern and midwestern states didn’t own human beings, but they supported the institution of slavery, to one extent or another, right past the Emancipation Proclamation (which only freed the enslaved people of the states which had seceded). New York City even had a plan to secede from the Union, in 1864, to guard Wall Street’s investments in cotton and tobacco.
All Presidents, with the possible exceptions of William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy, had blindspots when it came to the First Nations-and, except for Lyndon Johnson, none had a true sense that African-Americans were the equals of European-Americans. There were limits to how much the country was willling to do, to set things right.
For purposes of this post, I will stop by saying that “Liberals” and “Progressives” do not have a sterling track record, when it comes to empowering and working WITH those for whom they claim to support. There are many paternalistic efforts being made, which only draw the condemnation of conservatives and their supporters among the African-American and First Nations communities. Doing things FOR people has only resulted in a lack of progress for these communities.
I remind those on the Right, though, of two things: The Democrats who actively engaged in segregationist policies, until 1970, or so, became Republicans, at the invitation of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, in the 1970’s and’80’s. Donald Trump is accelerating that effort, in the current era. Secondly, there is still a climate of fear being stoked, by the leaders of both parties, but the Republicans are in charge-and can fire up the machinery of pushback.
Personally, I see value in some aspects of both sides of the aisle. There remain these, however: African-Americans, for lack of a better collective, are not “Negroes”, “coloured people”, or even “people of colour”. There is no “Negro Problem”. Native Americans, asking for their land titles, are still not intent on destroying long-established communities with diverse populations. I was in Maine, duirng the Penobscot Land Settlement. The once and again owners of 2/3 of the state’s land did not evict anyone from that territory. The settlement was legal and financial, not socially disruptive. It was gratifying, as the Penobscot Nation includes some of my distant relatives.
Both sides would do well to get past hatred of the other and dispense with any air of superiority, especially when approaching the communities about whom they claim to care.
Here is a link to a very important, and challenging, presentation. It is worth a lot of thought, in my humble opinion. God bless America.
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A Sagittarian Seeker 