My rosemary plant is dying.
It cannot survive the winter. The attar of its leaves makes me feel good.
There are a few things that just make me feel good, just as they are, without any special preparation of artifice. Rosemary is one, ginger another, cinnamon and cloves and cherries; perhaps good oranges not too domesticate and broken beneath the genetic demands of commerce... they make me think of ancient oranges and bergamot of Andalusia in Spain, where they grew in the courtyards of the Fatimid Caliph: the trees were pollarded and held their fruit easily, bright white beacons to the honeybees, bright orange pharos to the thirsty men and women...
I think of Tahrir Square in Cairo; people should gain freedom and liberty in places set off apart from the mundane by the heraldry of noble trees and plants; we gain sustenance and succor from them as they provide for us and guard us.
Our Congress, our Parliaments, Our Allthings should place their deliberations in the confines of orchards and walk and talk together along hills and tors and across bournes of fields. Stop and smell the Rosemary. Discover the uses of all the growing things.
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And even when rulers did what you suggest, when they walked and talked, debated and weighed, they came up with the same ‘solutions’ as they do today: fight those not of our mind.
I don’t know if they screamed abuse then, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.
They certainly went to war.
I guess so.
Of course, sometimes they back themselves into corners, and then war is the only option. I guess our Civil War was an example.
We have been warring much too easily over the past few years. We have also warred in a futile manner, spending lives and wealth for goals we created on the fly.
A government reflects the people.
It is the people who must change themselves.
Change is the last thing we want to do. We are just fine the way we are.
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