Opposites disintegrating

Old Sol and Southerlies have begun to move the morning clouds apart as I open the mailbox . . .

Yesterday was the 144th anniversary of Will Rogers' birth. “America’s Cowboy Philosopher” was born in what is now Oologah, Oklahoma – then part of Indian territory – in 1879. The high school I attended in Tulsa was named after him.

Senator Barack Obama became the 44th U.S. president, yesterday in 2008, while in 1980, Ronald Reagan became the 40th.

Today is Guy Fawks day in England, the anniversary of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, a protest against the persecution of Roman Catholics by the authorities. Led by Robert Catesby, a group including Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up Parliament in the hope of bringing down the government, and they almost pulled it off. To mark their defeat, bonfires are lit and an effigy of Guy Fawkes is burned. Traditionally in England, Halloween pales in significance compared to the more popular Bonfire Night.

The opposite of patriarcy is not matriarcy – that's just another myopic classification that serves only to separate. The opposite of civilization is not an idealized return to Paleolithic hunter/gatherer. The opposite of our current predicament – climate collapse, extinction, solastalga, genocide – is, in fact, the disintegration of opposites altogether. We are increasingly aware that even mushrooms are sentient. Everything is both/and. – after Sophie Strand in The Flowering Wand.

Speaking of traditions from long past:

. . . how silly it was of us Franciscans to think we brought religion to New Mexico four hundred years ago! . . . I only know enough to know that I don’t know much at all . . . As in every religion, there are times, places, and people who “get it”—the mystery of divine/human union—more than others. – Richard Rohr from Praying with Nature.