Doing what I must
This is an excerpt from my journal in which I comment on how I handle my everyday affairs in my land while respecting the greater magnitudes.
The hours are shorter when you have no idle moments. I have not had the chance to write much because I am preoccupied with time-sensitive tasks around my land on top of everything I do on the computer. I was scheduled to have a video call in ~30 minutes but it got rescheduled, so I am finding the opportunity to write this note.
Spring is the time of the year to plant vegetables and prepare everything for the coming summer. Irrigation must be reliable and the land should be clear of anything that cannot be controlled. Tall grass represents a threat in two ways: (i) potentially venomous snakes may take cover in it and (ii) once it gets dry it is a fire hazard.
A design choice for my land is to not pave anything that is not essential. There is the foundation of my house, made out of concrete, a one metre buffer around my house consisting of the extension of that same concrete, and everything else is just soil with vegetation. The cost for this arrangement is maintenance work to keep the wilderness in check.
Controlling the grass is a time-consuming endeavour because it is a manual process. I choose not to uproot it and am against the use of chemicals for such a task. I carefully remove only what represents some kind of danger to my continued presence here. The rest I control and take care of.
Doing it carefully is important to spot new plants that take form. This morning I discovered several more blackthorn offshots while I was in the process of transplanting a few aromatic roses. They are less than ten centimetres tall right now, though they will quickly gain height. I will not be surprised if they even start bearing fruit in the summer of 2027.
Many of my roses will blossom soon. They look beautiful while their aroma makes me feel comfortable. I transplant them at the edges of my land to form a perimeter. I enjoy the aesthetics while I also do it for practical reasons. Plants keep the soil together.
Having the roots in the ground is among the best forms of insurance one can get against soil erosion. This is true for the most hunble blade of grade to the most imposing oak tree. Without plants, the soil is dispersed easily.
Many farmers here will blithely cut down or poison everything, only to say “god help us” when they get a heavily rainy season, such as the past winter, which washes away parts of their land. I do not share their outlook and feel nothing for their plight.
The mountain has its own logic. It answers no prayers. You cannot do whatever you desire. It is better to think of it as an organism in its own right, even though this may sound like mumbo jumbo to you. The shape of the land itself creates certain conditions you must be aware of, such as for the flow of rainwater and the direction of the strongest winds. Where plants grow and what sort of conditions does their growth create to the soil, to the presence of insects and birds. These are all factors that are there. They form the situation you must be aware of. You may choose to ignore them, but that does not make them irrelevant.
Thus while god may one day answer your calls, continue doing what you must, deliberately and decisively. Have forethought, understand the mechanics of the system you are a part of, and conduct yourself in a manner that respects, but does not fear, the greater magnitudes of this world.
A trap many philosophers fall into is that of seeking the abstract among the abstractions, while losing sight of the here-and-now of their quotidian experience. The human condition is such where our body imposes certain inescapable patterns of behaviour, while our mind retains the capacity to fathom that which is transcendent. The key is to find a balance, else we suffer.
I find that the notion of an abstract god is ultimately unhelpful as such. Not because the idea is not worthwhile, but merely owning to the fact that abstractions are necessarily not concrete. There must be narratives that have immediate utility in what we do everyday. It helps little, if at all, to pray to some deity in the heavens while you do not recognise anything greater than you in your immediate surroundings. The absence of an intermediate life form between humanity and divinity easily devolves into a rudderless mode of living. Even when that is couched in terms of ceremonial theism, of talking to your priest and attending the liturgy, it remains inherently atheistic in its day-by-day expression.
To picture the mountain, the sea, the forest, the earth at-large as intermediate mountain-god, sea-god, forest-god, earth-god is not to deny the possibility of that which is absolute, for there is a common in the multitude of all that is—the mind inevitably discerns those patterns in the cosmos. Think of what envelops, nourishes, and outlives you as greater than you. It is a recognition of how things are in our world, but also a means of keeping yourself in check, specifically by not mistaking your ego as the master of this world and the centre around which everything revolves.
I am here, not in the heavens. My condition demands that I have situational awareness in order to thrive. When I admit that I am not the most superior life form on this planet, for example, I account for what my environment renders viable. I “respect” the rain-god, for instance, by taking care of my land so that it is resilient and robust to the forces of erosion. When I cut down the tall grass, I “worship” the fire-god by acknowledging how easy it is to suffer irreparable damage from wildfires. And so on.
I refer to them as “gods” in an artistic way. This is a metaphor,a figment of the imagination, which helps me describe in a few words a complex system whose workings can both benefit and harm me. It is my responsibility to find what is benign by remaining alert, asking questions, and seeking knowledge.
This “respect” or “worship” is not symbolic. It is neither expressed through nor exhausted in rituals. There are no special garments I must wear or certain words I have to chant. There are no intermediaries of any sort; no hierophants who reveal mysteries to the initiates. It is all about a life of readiness, a life of determination, a life of unflinching resolve to do what is necessary. There is an immediate feedback loop between my deeds and their consequences, which I find invigorating. The outcomes keep me honest to my word, while they serve as a reminder of the limits as well as the potential my power has.
Against this backdrop, I continue labouring with the same enthusiasm I had in the beginning. Which now inspires me to write this poem:
The echo of my steel
Where aromatic rose
and blackthorn shrub
spring from shared soil
you find what you seek
once you realise
that the mountain-god
heeds my prayer
as the echo
of my steel