WE WILL NOT BE BOUND
WE WILL NOT BE BOUND: When I was young, I lived in a world of possibilities, as did many of my generation. The nation had survived the horrors of a world war against fascism/nazism/authoritarianism. We had survived a Great Depression. There seemed to be new scientific and technological discoveries every day. And despite the threat of communist totalitarianism from the Soviet Union, the universe—or our little part of it—seemed to be unfolding/expanding in a way that almost mirrored the expansion of human minds. Human possibilities. Human connections to one another, to our planet and to other species. Our understanding of old religions and spiritual traditions was expanding as well, where we were less bound by walls and rules and ethnic identities, and more open to the possibilities of other ways of thinking, other worthy traditions and ways of understanding the world.
When I went off to college and studied the religions and literature, music and art of the world, that feeling of opening and expanding only deepened. The arrival of marriage and a young family, the building of a career, meant less time for simply absorbing and ‘daydreaming,’ but that feeling of the opening of understanding never left me. I continued to read widely, my work took me far and wide, and I met many interesting people, often guiding them through the vast wilderness of the North Woods. Again, although folks would have had very different specific experiences from mine, I suspect that this continued feeling of possibility, even through disappointments and loss and personal difficulty—even tragedy—was largely a common one. Because we lived in what is called a ‘liberal democracy,’ where the widening of thought, and progress, and growing wisdom and understanding, and empathy, are all encouraged. Are indeed, a large part of ‘why we are here.’
The ‘here’ where we are is not like that anymore. Or at least, we are confronted by a group of humans who are doing everything in their power to see that it is not. Instead we have more walls. More fear. More anger. More ‘rules’ about what is ‘allowed’ and what is not. More books banned. More voices silenced. More terror and cruelty, intentionally created. More ostracism and exclusion. More fundamentalism in religion and thought. More shrinking of the possibilities of life, so that it must be completely defined by the most shallow of politics. By cultism. By ignorance. By stupidity. By hate. And never by… openness. Understanding. Empathy. Inclusion.
Sometime in the middle of my life, I wrote a ‘children’s book’ called Old Turtle. It was about seeing ourselves, even seeing God, ‘in one another, and in the beauty of all the Earth.’ The book became an international hit, and confirmed in me that essential feeling of a growing connectedness and understanding. Its success allowed me to write more books, in which I continued to explore many of the same themes. Our relationship to one another and to the wild and natural world. To the universe itself.
I still believe in that book. In that ‘old turtle.’ In that message. I will continue to believe in it. I will not be bound, or be limited, by ignorance, fear, and stupidity. All the good things I am aware of gradually and unceasingly move toward openness. A tree spreads its branches to the sun, reaching for the light. A water lily opens to the sky as well, and the stream on which it floats flows and opens into the sea. Children open their minds as they grow and learn. Our species grows and learns and opens, beyond fear and ignorance and superstition, toward its destiny.
I do not believe that destiny, for ourselves or our country, lies in greater ignorance. Less wisdom. More cruelty. Less empathy. That’s not the way human beings work, over the long term. Not the way the world works. Not the way the expanding, unfolding universe works. Not the way any true religion or spirituality works. Do I know the timetable or sequence of events to come? No. But I know what will, and what won’t, end up on the ash heap of history. I know who and what will live forever in infamy and shame in the story of our nation. I know who has hope, and who is hopeless.
We will not be bound. We will not be ‘made to fit’ into a stupid, constricted, backwards, dead-end approach to life on this Earth, or in this country. We will not. We will survive, and we will grow. And we will return to a decent way of life.
(This is my latest Substack post. You can follow/subscribe to me there at Notes From The Cmpfire@douglaswoodauthor)