“He joined the Special Forces. After that, his methods became…unsound.”
In the movie, Apocalypse Now, General Corman is briefing Captain Willard, who is being sent into Cambodia to assassinate a legendary and decorated Colonel, William Kurtz. The quote above is how he begins to convince Captain Willard of the “soundness” of his own assignment: to kill a ranking officer in his own army. The reasoning is that he’s crazy and has to be eliminated.
The other day I was taking a morning walk and I saw the line of trees pictured above. In case it’s not evident by the photograph, there are about 15 trees along a particular stretch of walkway whose roots have been cut to make way for a water line. Evidently, the maintenance crew manager or ownership or whoever felt that grass was needed so badly that it was worth weakening or killing the trees that line the busy road—the only road into or out of this particular part of Tomahawk Island. If you look carefully, you’ll see that the trees were already leaning towards the road. You might also notice that the cut roots are themselves the size of trees. Some of the trench passes within a foot of the trunks.
What do you think is going to happen when a storm blows in after months of winter rain—something pretty common in northwest Oregon? That’s pretty obvious.
I mention this episode, not because it’s rare, but because it’s not.
I’m not going to talk about the intellect of the people who dug the trench. I’m not calling names because it’s not helpful. They’re not without fault, but they personally aren’t the issue. Worse yet, as a very tricky monkey, my own ego gets a kick out of feeling superior, “oh-so-mindful,” etc.
What I am going to talk about is how endemic to our American way of being this event is.
The type of paradigm that spawns an order to kill old trees that eventually will die and fall over a road so grass can grow in a five-foot strip of soil between an asphalt road and a walking path now… this is what’s worth looking at.
Why?
Because this is a small illustration of a bigger problem, which is, as I said, the paradigm that values short-term gain with no significant thought for long-term costs. In other words, looking at this disaster in the making, I see Standing Rock and Monsanto, nuclear waste dumps and fracking, Vietnam, ISIS and the bulk of Christianity. I see politicians that are more concerned with towing the party line than in any kind of logical or courageous leadership. I see a President so narcissistic that he’s an embarrassment to narcissists and, with a 40% approval rating, the bulk of the country that elected him.
Sure, I can file a complaint at the City or whatever municipality governs this area. And maybe I should. Something temporarily meaningful may come of it. Best AND worst-case, legislation might come out of it. Best case, because less of this might happen in the future. Worst case, because legislating thought is not a decent answer or way to live. By definition, it limits freedom which is ours by right.
The real issue is simple: consciousness.
A conscious planner would have valued the tree enough to find another way of accomplishing the task. What was the task? It wasn’t growing grass. The task was landscaping. The preference was grass. The method involved endangering trees – and eventually, people.
What else might he have done?
He might have had his employees trench under the walkway to the other side. This, from my experience, might have taken 45 minutes in the kind of sandy soil we have here on this island. But then, to grow grass (which has to be mowed by polluting mowers by a person on a payroll for eight months out of the year), the water would have gone over the walkway. Maybe the solution was not to put grass there, but river rock. If it has to be a plant, it might have been something that naturally grows in this environment, like a spreading ground cover. This ain’t the desert … it’s one of the most fertile places in the world. Something besides grass will grow there that, after the initial planting, wouldn’t require constant watering.
Consciousness alone doesn’t make a good landscaper. There are other things at play, such as the talent of the planner, their ability to use native plants in interesting ways, connections with a good nursery maybe, and enough gumption to go against his superiors who want grass come hell or high water.
Of course, the issue is not about landscaping.
I’m talking about caring enough about Life to ask if there is any way to achieve a particular goal without marginalizing life. This is the question that dogs us, here in America. Because it is not commonly asked, particularly by people in power but also among the rank-and-file “landscaper”, we have the situation we have today: a military-industrial complex run amok, constant war, a corrupt political system and an environment begging for attention.
My advice to myself—and anyone with enough fortitude to get to this point in this dry little exposition—is to continue to work on our own consciousness. Because looking back, I see that I am, at times, every bit as unconscious as whoever ordered the trees to die so the grass can live. The difference is that I see it, my own pathology, and I have methods that are sound to help pull me out of the morass.
These methods—meditation and a shamanic ontological view—have been around for millennia. When applied, they work without exception. They immediately show us the “darmakaya” of our own minds, or inherent insanity of humanity; our own and that of un-awakened culture. They open a particular doorway for us to comprehend the absolute unity of all of Life – whether landscaper or tree, water, sky or stone, regardless of dogmatic identification or religious affiliation. They make us question assumptions, emotions and the genesis of our own thoughts.
The upshot is that, because of the nature of reality, the more of us that use these methods to See, the more able we are to create a reality more in line with Life; a reality that honors trees because they live, rather than strictly as a commodity, something in the way. Simply spoken, if enough of us employ these methods, the Apocalypse doesn’t have to be Now … it can be delayed.
Photo courtesy of author