Month: October 2017
I am starting to wonder if some of the weird problems creeping up in society- such as:
1. people searching high and low for things to be outraged about
2. people hating others for holding different political beliefs
3. people wanting to label others as bigots on the thinnest of evidence
4. people treating victimhood as heroism
could be related to having turned our back on the grains that have guided us throughout history and taught us how to live together in harmony and peace. Especially wheat, which shortly before all these problems began became public enemy #1 for no apparent reason. Suddenly every health problem could potentially be resolved by removing wheat (if not all grains) from your diet. Suddenly, a grain free diet took on a saintly aura, despite the added expense and violence of living off only vegetables and meat.
I don’t know much about the history of wheat, but I do feel that the history of grains is the history of humanity, and without their help, we would not have become human as we now understand it. I think that to dishonor grains is to disconnect from our human self.
As I see it, we have three parts- the human, the angelic, and the beastly*. They are like stair steps, with the human resting upon the beast, and the angelic resting upon the human. If we detach from our human self, we are left with nothing but the beast, since without the human foundation, the angelic in us cannot exist.
I believe it was the Great Grains of the world who taught us how to construct the human aspect of our psyche so we could rise up out of our animal nature and reach towards the heavens. It was grains that gave us the ideas, knowledge, and values that were needed to build and organize civilizations.
Because- in addition to being mostly benevolent- grains are also practical beings, who know how to balance virtue with necessity, to let us recognize ideals and move towards them, while having the realism to accept that these ideals can never be reached. Grains know how to find the compromise, the middle ground, between God and Nature, Goodness and Power. And I believe that fleshing out this middle ground between heaven and earth is part of the reason why humans were created. Hence, humans and grains are best friends forever, and their destinies are intertwined.
I have said similar things before, and I will say them again, because the importance of Grains as both food and spiritual guides to humanity cannot be overstated! It is GRAINS that give us a balanced mind! It is GRAINS that calm our emotions! It is GRAINS that give us the capacity for brotherly love, and GRAINS that will give us the vision for how to move forward as a collective!!!!! GGGRRRAAAIIINNNSSS!!! And although you can choose to befriend any grains you prefer (perhaps befriending unusual grains could even lead to novel solutions to age old problems), let us never forget the grains that fed and guided our ancestors. Let us never dishonor them and write blasphemous books like “Wheatbelly.” These age-old friends still have many things to teach us and I am sure we will never outgrow them.
Notes:
1. I recognize that these ideas sound weird and although they do make me laugh, I am still completely serious. I believe in grains!
2. I don’t mean any disrespect to animals by referring to our lower nature as beastly, but I think the word beastly captures the essence of the blood & slime part of our self, that slithers, tricks and fights its way towards power, life, and survival.
3. Despite technically being our “lower” nature, I don’t mean to imply that our animal self is lesser than the angelic. The lower self provides the passion and vitality without which heaven would just be a flaccid and never-ending harp song. The lower self is a brave man who is not good, and heaven is a good man who is not brave. Neither has much value on their own. That is why the Middle Ground (between heaven and earth) is so important. The more this ground is developed the more places heaven and earth can touch. And this is the work that humanity and grains were meant to do together.
This particular set of songs takes place when the Pine Fairy is transitioning from the fiery redness of adulthood to the electrical wisdom of old age. But for a Pine Fairy, old age is much longer than youth. Their adulthood lasts about 60-80 years, while their old age continues for about 4,000 years after that.
Pine Fairies first set off on their own when they are around 20 years old, wandering away from the pine grove of their youth. At this point, they still have enough red blood to be visible to humans. You might spot one walking around during the day. They look much like a human, but a bit taller and thinner, and are likely to be wearing blue jeans, a red t-shirt, brown walking shoes, and carrying a brown paper bag with a sandwich in it. By the time they are 80, this outfit will have been replaced by a robe, nightcap, and shoes made of soft swaddled cloth. But you are unlikely to ever see an 80 year old fairy, because by this point they have so little blood left, that they are more or less invisible. Not to mention that they live deep within the woods and rarely leave their home before dusk.
It is possible though, if walking through a deep forest, to happen upon a Pine Fairy’s house. These are generally small, about the size of a trailer, but more squarish in shape. They may be painted green with a red roof, or dark brown with a mustard roof. If you do happen upon one, go inside! There you will find the iron pots they cook with hanging against the wall, and their dry goods stocked up in mason jars. A bed made of iron will be pushed into one corner with a quilt lying neatly upon it. Help yourself to a stool and take a seat at their kitchen table, where you will surely find a beverage waiting. For although you cannot see them, they can see you, and will be happy you came for a visit.
One day Pine Fairies leave even old age behind, but not to die. Instead, they grow so gold and so silvery that they become indistinguishable from the angels and go to live in the sky beside them. Sometimes these risen fairies will appear to us as the shape of a bone flying through clouds. Like fairy godmothers, they can grant wishes and make heart’s desires come true. So if you ever think you see a bone flying through the sky, stop and make a wish. The Pine Fairies will hear you.
I decided I should give a little background about the Pine Fairy, so you won’t think he is just a whimsical concept I made up! For starters, he is a fairy, of course, but that is a broad term describing all humanoids on different frequencies from our own. Some fairies, such as the Pine Fairy, are very similar to us, with emotions we could relate to, while other fairies are more inhuman, with emotional responses we might find bizarre. As a rule, the more fairies resemble us in shape and size, the more their thought processes mirror our own. And the more likely we are to see them.
Pine Fairies are symbiotic with Pine Trees and share many of their gifts. A Pine Fairy gains in magical power primarily through the experience of sorrow. Over time, grief hollows these fairies out, and colors like silver and gold pour into them to fill up the hollow places. These colors connect the fairy to heaven and the angels and he becomes a conduit for bringing this pure, uplifted energy into our reality.
Pine Fairies are linked to the evening of the day and the season of Autumn. For many fairies, it is forever the same time of year and the same time of day. This is not true for Pine Fairies, although time in their world is skewed to stretch out the hours of dusk and nightfall and condense the hours of morning and day. Likewise, the seasons of autumn and winter are stretched, while the seasons of spring and summer are compacted.
Pine Fairies become loners in their old age and spread out far and wide across the globe, rarely encountering one another. This isolation drives sadness even deeper into their bones. They do interact with other species though, and tend to be friends with many ‘inanimate objects’ such as canes, jars, and grandfather clocks.
They like to walk, especially at night, accompanied by a cane or walking stick. Pine Fairies are delicate beings and it is comforting to have a burly piece of wood with them, much as a woman might like a man to lean upon. They gain knowledge from the silver beams of moon and stars. They will walk by a river if one is near, for they can glean still other forms of knowledge from the moonbeams that float in the water.
All Pine Fairies are male. They do not use sexual reproduction. They are born inside pine cones, nestled beside the seeds. As youngsters, the Pine Trees feed them, shelter them, and teach them some of life’s basics, but eventually the fairies grow independent. And while they frequently choose to live among Pine Trees as adults, it is not a necessity, just as a man need not live in the same town as his mother.
Pine fairies enjoy many of the same foods we do, such as peas, cornbread, and cake. As young men (when they are the most red and human-like), they may even eat meat. In this most burly and masculine time of their life, they have even been known to brawl with one another and possibly kill. But as they grow older, grief eats away their bone marrow and withers their muscles. One by one their red blood cells die and they become empty shells of the men they were before. This is the time when their life is really beginning.