"Home" is a Verb

Radical Kindness; Interspecies Decency and the Illusion of "Whiteness".

I’ve been yearning again for home. That distant, fantastical notion of home. That far-gone dream that in some special corner of this troubled world there lies a place where children can truly be free. Free from all the wars and forever chemicals, from plastics, gangster education and shitty, sugary snacks from 7-11. Free from screens, mowed lawns and jaded adults who long ago lost their ability to be in love with being alive. Free from the viciously swarming psychic thought waves that suggest everyone is out to get us, that that solitary man over there wants to steal my child, that that guy with the tattoos is dangerous and ought be sent to a prison in El Salvador in order to keep her safe, that everything everywhere must be under constant surveillance, that we must have complete control always, that even seeds, rivers and the Four Winds are something we must demand do our bidding.

This is an image taken recently of several alleged gang members the Trump Administration sent to El Salvador, where they were placed in a notorious mega-jail known as the Cecot Terrorism Confinement Centre, infamous for human rights violations, including slave labor and torture. When I first saw this image, while thumbing through my social media feed, I thought it was a close up of an ear of blue corn. Fitting because, like the endless rows of brutally displaced and enslaved genetically modified corn that have been forced to grow now throughout the world, many of these men are innocent, they were violently removed from their native homelands for no reason other than empires incessant need to take everything, instill fear and forever be in control.

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I’ve be grappling again of late, with the notion of place. What is my relationship with the ground beneath me, with these rubber trees and palm trees and pineapples that have all been forced to come to these shores, enslaved botanical beings who likely yearn too for a place that is no more? What does it mean to be “of a place” in an era where all land can be bought and sold to the highest bidder, without any permission being asked of the soil or the local gods who likely grapple too with how to recognize and re-member geographical myth-making under the hum of cell phone towers, lawnmowers, and other various tools of modernity that drown out the memory of tiger roars, elephant stampedes and the mystical whistle of whales?

Some overly nostalgic part of me just wants my daughter to play in those snowcapped mountains that mean so very much to me. Where the Slate River carves still a particular place of importance within a younger, wide-eyed me, haunted now by an overly developed place-of-retreat-for-the-worlds-most-uber-wealthy. This place once deemed sacred by the mighty Ute, where the erotic sounds of bugling elk are now drowned out by the obnoxious roar of arrogant 4-wheelers and drunk backpackers. That holy place where I first learned to ask permission, how to wait and how to listen. Before they built a multi-million dollar home over my sit spot. Before it turned into another scenic backdrop for “making deals”. I want to show her, while she is still young, where I first fell in love, not with mommy but with Her, She who gives life to the power moving through the very glaciers that carved these hills. This sacred place where I first learned how to pray. Before I realized that sometimes the trick is to let it all go. Before I first learned what it means to have a broken heart. This Place. Where I first learned how to be kind to a bear. And speak in the language of Water. Where I first learned what it means, to be good kin.

I want her to meet my friends, all grown up now, with children of their own. But nearly everyone I speak to from there is afraid. In one way or another. Well, everyone that is, but Nate. Nate’s never afraid. How can that be!? What’s his trick?, I wonder. So cool and calm. All the time. May we all be blessed with a friend like Nate! Ah, but then there are the others... Worried about civil war, about recession, about the rapid rise of an authoritarian state. They tell me now isn’t a good time. “It’s too scary”, they say, “In four years things should be better.” Maybe their fears are valid. Maybe it’s best for me to play it safe and stay as far away as possible, where no one carries a gun eggs sell for only a couple of pennies.

Everything seems like a movie these days. Hard to know what’s real and whats fantasy. But in four years their babies will for sure have all grown up. And who is to say who will still be able to play with the older kids anyway? Time eventually eats us all. Another thing those mountains taught me.

I remember you every day Adam, Dan, Sarah… ⛰️

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My dreams of having my daughter play with my friends’ children in those rolling hills of purple lupine and silver sage, the mighty ones that taught me about generosity and how to move slowly are like glistening guiding stars, bright at dawn and clear as grief.

Life sometimes has other plans than simply giving us what we want. And often what we are given is far better than we wanted in the first place. I have indeed been very blessed. When I take time to stop complaining and look at what is right in front of me, the beauty is overwhelming. Above all, life has gifted me with a family And we aren’t just living, we are thriving. Oh, not by any narrow materialistic definition of “thriving” as understood within the corridors of empire. Hell, we long ago veered so far from modernity’s definitions of “normal” that most look at us as if we were a family of talking narwhals. No, we are not surrounded not by fancy things we bought but by a wealth of simple, wonderful friends, lots of good seeds and oceans of wisdom.

Our currency is honest intention shared among people from all walks of life, from all over this beautiful, complex world. We have no expectations of anyone. No tariffs. Just an open invitation to come as you are. We cook meals for each other and listen more than we talk. That’s all. That’s it. We listen. And we feed. This has made us rich.

Where we are now we swim and catch fish with Muslim brothers and sisters on a tiny island in the emerald waters of the Andaman sea. Last month we walked peacefully with dear Buddhist friends in Vietnam, through lush green mountains that once set the stage for another one of Americas pointless wars. Soon we will meet with friends from Israel to discuss how best to forge a “worldschool”, a place where friends from Palestine, Myanmar, China, Tibet or anywhere else in this breathtakingly magnificent world are free to come and unlearn together. A type of homeschool for kids and adults alike, who have opted to exit the Matrix, where the goal isn’t so much to learn as it is to re-member. Nothing new really. Just how it always was before we fell asleep.

We have very little money. We live so far below the poverty line that when we look up at it, it seems like a cryptic stream of trickling satellites steadily soaring across the heavens, interrupting our awareness of how blessed we actually are, how abundant life already is.

My cool headed friend Nate suggests I just come home for a quick visit. Surely that wouldn’t be too risky, he says. Maybe he’s right. It would of course drain our bank account completely. But our biggest concern is not regarding the high cost of eggs stateside, or even how people might be acting towards each other in this “divided” time. My little longed for mountain shire is certainly a rather friendly place, even with its occasional quirks. What concerns us most is what could happen upon arrival. TSA wasn’t so kind to us even under the supposedly more “woke” Biden administration. My beautiful, beloved brown wife has never been so scared in all her life. Forced to separate from her husband and infant child for hours, for no reason whatsoever. But from the sound of things now, it’s gotten worse. If you aren’t white, without tattoos and financially well-off, well, my “home” doesn’t seem to want you around.

Leviticus 19:33-34

“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. ³⁴ The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

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I totally understand why so many people nowadays are choosing to not have children. When ones own government makes it hard to bring ones family into our borders, or forces out from our borders people we dearly love, it has a trickle down effect, making it feel as if they don’t want us to bring family into our world at all. And that’s no fun. When on top of all this, one can’t afford to buy a home, has no option to build a meaningful relationship with any “place”, is made to feel unsafe and unsupported for any number of reasons, feels nervous and judged by the state, etc. well, bringing a life into this world seems irresponsible at best. So intelligent, well-educated people are having less and less children while dumbasses in power, some of those that work forces, the same that burnt crosses (*see below), are still busy birthing lots of little ones, raising them up to be just like them.

Saving seeds in this time is an extraordinary task. It seems all odds are against us. For life asks us to not only to save seeds, but to plant them and nourish them well. To keep them alive. But how infertile now are the soils of life. How sterile and streamlined is it all becoming. And without the myriad textures of culture that make life strong, we risk universal atrophy. A courageous thing indeed to be a parent in these monocultured times. Whether one has their own child or not. To boldly take on the noble task of raising the future is the work of a seed saver to be sure. The most important work of all. It takes tremendous courage and my hat goes off to you.

Little ones struggle for life all around us. Outside our little shack here in Khao Yao Noi, lives a small family of hornbills. The momma just gave birth to a few beautiful chicks only a couple of days ago. But just as the wee ones woke, some asshole republican crow swooped in and forced them out of their home. I guess they didn’t have the right papers, had too many tattoos, was too vocal about the deforestation of the old growth trees that have been replaced by palm and rubber. Hard tellin’.

He cawed away like a mad man and poked them with his terrible baton beak and scared the hell out of everyone near and then ferociously, as if he had been afforded some kind of divine right, he just moved right in! Maybe all this is natural? Natural Law. What do I know? Not much. To be sure, Gaia isn’t always as compassionate as we’d like to believe. How bizarre it all was. Yet all so familiar somehow!

And yet. The most remarkable thing! As that hornbill family scrambled to find a home, my neighbor here, an old gentlemen who spends most of his time smoking weed and spinning poi, built them a new home. He literally built them a new home! He found some old discarded wood and from it gracefully constructed a cozy abode for this new feathered family to reside in comfortably. And he did so rather quickly! It was as if it was an effortless gut reaction, a symbiotic reflection, as natural as compassion, as necessary as empathy. And now the family of birds is content and at home. One spontaneous act of radical kindness! The crow was a bit shocked of course, but in the end didn’t seem to mind, seems rather grateful in fact to have some company around and I daresay he appears to be feeling a bit remorseful for his shameful act. No reparations have yet been made as of yet, but it’s looking like something might surface soon. But ya know what, I could have sworn it looked like the hornbill poppa was gently nudging at his grumpy neighbor to stop over for a bite of worm. Nah! Couldn’t be. Surely that wasn’t the case. But I swear…

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We all know we need to be directly engaging more. If my neighbor merely attended the local protest voicing opposition to the gangster crows forcing other birds to abandon their homes than it’s likely nothing would have panned out well for our dear hornbill friends. But knowing whats going on isn’t enough. Nor is knowing what’s wrong for that matter. We are all so well informed aren’t we?, forever filling our heads with “news” and exciting new ideas. We love making/listening to podcasts, obsessively keeping up-to-date on current events. It can almost be therapeutic at times, in a peculiar kind of way. Making us feel somehow, less lonely I suppose. And to be sure, it’s wonderful what Bernie Sanders and AOC are doing, giving us all a place where we can vent our frustrations, creating a lovely, albeit briefly lived, since of community. But ultimately we need to organize with the people we meet at the rally and get to work. Again and again and again.

We need to build some houses for the hornbills and invite the fascists over for dinner. A real nice dinner. With homegrown food and fancy wine we made ourselves. We need to act, with radical kindness, again and again and again. ‘Cause our posts on social media don’t mean shit to the Mexican mother whose husband was just stolen from her children’s home. Nah, we gotta do better. We need to turn off the Netflix, set aside our opinions, our convictions and even our precious identities, come to terms with our dreadful uncertainties and fears and muster up the courage to start where we are, building a more beautiful world with what we already have, which is more than enough. We gotta build homes for the birds, for the tigers and elephants, for the whales, for the beings of the unseen realms and those of a time yet to come. And of course, of course we must build beautiful homes now for our fellow humans of all shape and size, from all walks of life, every color and every song, regardless from whence they came. We all come from everywhere after all. Every one of us.

Increasingly for me, Home, in this terrifying time of cultural displacement and consumptive tourism, driven as it is by late-stage capitalism, white supremacy and ticky-tacky real estate addiction, seems more a way of being than an actual place. Home seems to be how we react to the forgotten, how we address the Sun at dawn, how we interpret the smell of Rain on Dust and make sense of a rotting dream. Home seems to be more about how we relate to the rising awareness that so much of what we once loved is now gone, and that so much of what we long to return to never actually was.

Will we lazily become the same life-devouring monster that killed the very beauty that once housed the villages we now so ironically long to return to? Or will we heroically rise to this grand occasion and, as my mentor, Martín Prechtel often suggests we ought do, as budding elders potential of one day becoming worthy of descending from, get to work building a “Time of Hope Beyond Now”? A place where mountains aren’t mined relentlessly for “resources” and “recreation” but are fed well enough ritually by our communal efforts to invest not in taking from Her but in keeping Her alive that it’s finally safe enough again to drink directly from Her streams, those life-giving streams that once flew in our veins, the ones that meander freely still alongside the vast singing fields of bear root and columbines in a parallel potential outcome. Who knows, if we all allow the spark in us to grow, maybe we could even sprout collectively again into a place of fertile, symbiotic resonance where children are surrounded once more by genuinely happy, properly initiated humans who know how to welcome new generations home.

Time will tell.

Let’s get to work!

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FURTHER READING:

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Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won't just send them all "home."

Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps readers see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer. Settler colonialism tried to force us into one particular way of living, but the old ways of kinship can help us imagine a different future. Krawec asks, What would it look like to remember that we are all related? How might we become better relatives to the land, to one another, and to Indigenous movements for solidarity? Braiding together historical, scientific, and cultural analysis, Indigenous ways of knowing, and the vivid threads of communal memory, Krawec crafts a stunning, forceful call to "unforget" our history.

This remarkable sojourn through Native and settler history, myth, identity, and spirituality helps us retrace our steps and pick up what was lost along the way: chances to honor rather than violate treaties, to see the land as a relative rather than a resource, and to unravel the history we have been taught.

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States Are Banning Forever Chemicals. Industry Is Fighting Back

As states legislate against products containing PFAS, the chemical and consumer products industries are deploying lawyers and lobbyists to protect their investments.

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Season II
Please, Come Sit By My Fire (Season II)

Martín Prechtel’s Audial Lecture Series
Talks from the Flowering Mountain

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…are you fired up? ready to go?

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THE FOLLOWING IS A DOCUMENT OF TRUE EVENTS

IT IS A FIRE ESCAPE FROM THE FICTION KNOW AS “WHITENESS”, A SPRING FOR DISCOVERY.

:::REMEMBER, THE CHILDREN ARE ALWAYS WATCHING:::

-RATM X UMMAH CHROMA

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#mayallbeingsbehappyandfree