Monarch Sex

There are monarch butterflies all over my yard. Mine is the SE corner lot, and the boulevard is full of wildflowers. As are two flower beds in the yard. Of particular interest to the monarch are the blazing stars, of which I have three native varieties - meadow, prairie, dotted/rough - and the swamp milkweed, the common milkweed already having gone to seed. There is a large swamp milkweed outside the window to my writing desk. On it are three giant black hornets, more than an inch long. A "king of the insects" swoops in, lands on a hornet, the hornet flies to another flower and the monarch feasts.

Danaus plexippus. This is likely a third generation monarch, preparing to lay the eggs of the fourth generation. The first generation flew north from the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve, a United Nations World Heritage Site in the Mexican states of Michoacan and Me'xico, in the central highlands. The fourth generation will fly back to the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve, probably to the same tree the first generation over-wintered on, which was also the fourth generation monarch of the previous years generational cycle. The fourth/first generation will over-winter, hibernate on that tree with a few ten thousand others, amid a few hundred trees with a few ten thousand monarchs each. There are twelve such colonies in the central Mexican highlands, colonies that are protected from men with chainsaws, by men with guns.

I walk outside to watch the monarch. I count ten before I stop counting because I can't be sure if I'm counting more than one twice, they are fluttering from plant to plant so, from flower bed to flower bed. There is one fluttering here and there without landing on anything and then I realize, there is another monarch hanging underneath him. He is dipping and weaving, over the potatoes, through the corn, in and out the purple cone flower, over the house, brushing past the maple on the boulevard, back to the yard, up and down, again and again, propelling upward, giving way to gravity, for several minutes - while she is connected to him, hanging upside down, fully prone. I am exhilarated, watching them. Feeling a bit inadequate, really. What a ride! Who knew monarch sex could be so good?

Such is the effect of the Market, the power of Demand, that the monarch butterfly, one of the most cherished of North American species, must be protected by men with guns. If not for that protection, the monarch east of the Rockies, because they are so clustered through the winter, could go extinct in a single year, Demand being mostly indiscriminate and insatiable. The Market is the great hand of God, some say. Let the Market be, and all will be well, say the Market fundamentalists. If the Market were unchecked, there would be no monarch butterflies in my wildflower beds, or any other flower bed in North America, East of the Rockies. The men with chainsaws would have their way, and the forest that is the winter home for the fourth generation monarch that is also the first generation monarch for the next generational cycle would be lost.

What I wonder is, are the men with guns living in service to the monarch, in service to the Earth? Probably not. Most likely, they are in service to the UN, or the Mexican Government. I can not speak of the culture protecting those monarch colonies with any certainty, as I have not been among the people. I can only say what I know about men with guns in service to Government, of men with chainsaws in service to Corporations, sky gods or themselves, all of them more-or-less genuflecting before the Market, supplying Demand.

Having observed monarch sex, I am in service. If a man is to aspire to something, he need not be limited to the actions of his fellow men. It's best if he is open to the actions of species other than his own. Imperative, to be truthful. The actions of our fellow men are increasingly not for aspiring to, for those who aspire to balance, wholeness and healing. For those who want to feel awake and alive.

Delusions

So much for viral.

Home, watching video of my performance at the Riverview Cafe, getting drunk on the Frontenac wine I made last year (which is mellowing out quite nicely), I realize, holding a pair of deer horns doesn't make me a better dancer. There is some polite applause. Ho hum. I have to remember, I'm more shaman than dancer. The horns translate better in front of a fire. I brought the swords too, but I didn't pull them out for lack of time. Maybe in a couple of weeks.

I sent an email to a friend who has read my book, asking, "What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of my book? No filters please." He replied with a list:

Big
Bold
Authentic
Arrogant
Visionary
Service
Mission
Needs editing
Won't sell
Start a Revolution

It's all that. He forgot Purpose, which is a word I like in place of Mission. The "Arrogant" and "Won't Sell", are of particular importance. Reading through my manuscript for about the fifteenth time, recently, it came to me that a particular arrogance of mine is the idea that I might make enough money on the sale of this book to pay for this house, soon enough to prevent the property from changing hands. I forget that society is not in the habit of supporting revolutionaries, even peaceful ones advocating awakening and reverence for the Earth and all its creatures.

The only thing to do at this point is finish the book and make it available as a PDF, for free. Everybody loves free stuff. A suggested donation, if you think it worthwhile, helping me keep writing. The second book is taking shape. It will be considerably more accessible than the first one, if more direct and no less compromising.

My last hope, that video, for keeping the house. An absurdly long shot, and it missed by a proverbial mile. Damn. Service to the Goddess and to the Earth is no simple thing, in a culture that can't conceive of the first and sanctifies the ongoing exploitation of the other (they really are the same thing, the Goddess and the Earth.) Making money is a grand difficulty when you see the bulk of Trade as legitimized plunder. A true art form, which apparently, I do not excel at at all.

Joplin, MO

We are camped at the KOA in Joplin, MO, surrounded by Interstate Highway, Industrial this and Retail that - Anywhere, America. The roar of traffic is incessant. It blends together in a way it did not at the AOK Campground in St Joseph. Here, it is a dull mono-tone, no vehicle but the occasional motorcycle standing out amid the cacophony.

Lights are all around, sometimes blinding even from a quarter-mile. I block certain lights with certain trees as I dance. I'm in the middle of the campground, dancing to the sound of tree frogs, about ten thousand of them within hearing at various distances. I key on one and then another. Sometimes an underlying rhythm compels them all and I am caught, as by a wave.

I stop dancing to hang a tarp above the tent. Val Kyrie is showering. A group of men are milling around a rentable trailer between the campsite and the shower house. It occurs to me that Val has been gone a long time, longer than seems necessary, and I begin to worry. There is a code to get into the shower house, but the code is the same for the men's and women's showers. An abundance of discomforting images fill my head as I walk to the shower house to check in.

Every so often air pressure is released, suddenly, behind a fence, truck and trailer air brakes maybe. It sounds like a giant animal snorting aggressively, maybe a dragon. Thinking about my fear, this fear of men, of what men are capable of. Where does it come from? Why should I be afraid for Val?

Thinking of St Joseph, four gigs in two days and a strange paradox. Exceptionally well attended, as library gigs for Val Kyrie go, yet so many attendees just sitting there, staring, vaguely hostile in some indefinable way, as if predetermined not to be open, not to enjoy the performance. Val, at one point in the last performance, a bit exasperated - from the heat, humidity, and overall unresponsiveness to her words, to her music - mentioned corn and soybeans. It was clear, many in the crowd had never given any thought to mono-crop corn or soybeans, or what they mean.

The energy, the vitality of a landscape funneled upward and elsewhere, the land poisoned and polluted, local community destroyed and the people made fat, listless and angry. I see the name Jesus everywhere, and yet this tour through the breadbasket has been a strong reminder - in America nothing is sacred but Hierarchy, and the Market.

Who are the men who have brought this fear of mine to this world? Who are the men who maintain it? Walking through this campground in this small but very busy city, revolving security on golf carts patrolling the grounds, I realize in some Nations, I could not say the things I say. In America, we are allowed to say almost whatever we like. We think that is because we are a democracy. I say it is because we are fat and listless, and in our fat listlessness we do not threaten the men who rule this Nation. We are angry too, though we blame everything but hierarchy, and the expectation that we must bow down to the Market. Sky gods telling us hierarchy and the Market are inevitable, that they sustain us, the only reason we do not live like apes.

I can say what I say because there are only about five or six people listening. If there were ten million people reading my words, then sky gods would have reason to be afraid for hierarchy, and the Market that sustains that social pyramid, which they benefit so greatly by.

Val is fine. She is flossing her teeth as I knock on the door and call her name. I walk back to the campsite and continue dancing to tree frogs channeling the Divine. All around us are the tones of Empire, the mad machinations of the Market, the crass, grasping, insatiability of the Machine. Yet even here, the rhythms of the Earth are calling and I know, there is a greater power inside me than any I can be given; I need not bow down to anyone, or anything.

And a message to Deerslayer, who set the tone for this whole tour with a violent criticism of Val Kyrie, in a public forum, though he would not take full responsibility for his words:

I have renounced the gun. What can you say for yourself?