A break in the thread: this is not an entremes

Cloud-seeding, mining, and letting go of the Western frontier (anonymous).

Something about the tribe of Israel. The wandering in the desert and learning the principles of patience. Waiting without wanting. Wanting to dislodge oneself from any sense of purpose from oneself and be part of something bigger… a collective body of arms and legs and burning hearts…something bigger…something that walks forward without second-guessing that leaves a footprint bigger than insular I can. Walking without noticing how far---how great the expanse behind---and how far forward. No, it is not a question of must. Neither is it a discernable experience. There is nothing that says to us that this day is today and it is put in a category outside of all of the rest. It is day day day, and it is also not a question of remembering or forgetting. We are one with the land and there is sweat and dust on our brows. Some have more wrinkled skin than others.

This land, this flatland knows not why it is flat and knows not why it is forever infertile. The faith and the frenzy have led us, the search parties out there, and clawing into a soil without substance, arms raised…extending one link and joint to another chain-like and longer than any one forearm and open palm with nerves exposed could stretch out toward the sun…send down send down the rays and let the corn rise up and produce soak in the rays over and over and over until the harvest of endless fields of the goldest sweetest corn you have ever seen is at our feet. At our feet is so much of heaven and joy and fruit of the earth we cannot contain…we cannot save for another day…drought, plague, who knows why? We have learned not to ask these questions. Manna will fall down from the sky while we sleep at night. And that is the thought that lets us close off this day, say thank you and that is enough, drift off, and usher in another.

A break and watch (to you who read-that means pay attention), don’t confuse this with anything else that came before. This is me now speaking. I am someone who was born already knowing about the great dust bowl, why it happened, the black storms that fought back pushed back the throngs of people who shook their fists at the western horizon and said this is our land and with God as our witness we will make it germinate. This is me being vaguely aware of the struggle of the determination of individuals and individuals whom I will never know but can sense. Who saw what I call the heartland and knew on the other side there was something…mountains perhaps…a great glacial rift that would thrust, pierce into the sky and then become still…a natural setting where a higher court than they could see with their eyes through the dust…higher up the court would convene, and give them the discretion to name it and call it theirs.

I profess this faith too, I really do. But digging into it and bringing up out of the earth the substance of life is not a simple question of digging, mining, however else you want to see it. You see, I like to think about it as adaptation. Frankly, I have already atoned for my future sins, I have accounted for that space around me that I have sucked all of the vital air out of. Surely I have burnt some bridges or will burn bridges, will chop down trees on the periphery to bunker down and garrison within. Is this so entirely different from the fence or the moat? I don’t think so. But with this I have given wind to my wanting and have said ok, this is my inclination and this is how I feel about things, and I don’t have any reluctance to sell this image of myself. I don’t doubt that adaptation will allow me to conjure up more substance than is naturally available. For me and for all else who looks back to see the burning fixed glance and gasping beneath rags or handkerchiefs or what have you, there is a solution to all of this and it is as simple as cloud seeding.

A final thought: "The frontier is not out there; it is within, deep deep within."