(1) AGAINST CONTROL . . .
Our attempts to control Nature—to build a dam, spray a meadow,
manage a forest—are as futile as trying to control a young child
riding a bike for the first time by shouting, “Stay upright!” In a
landscape littered with the detritus of our failings, why do we
not learn the intelligence of Nature’s way of going with the
flow of our falls?
(2) THE EAGLE OF FREEDOM
The Eagle of Freedom always has two wings: freedom to, and
freedom from. My right to own a gun must always be balanced
by your right to be free of my gun violence. The eagle only soars
above the austere, demanding peaks of democracy, when both
its wings are free to find this living balance.
(3) HABITS OF MIND
If life is a movement of energy, then habit is energy tied into a
knot. A mind caught in habit is like a horse in hobbles. The horse
can still rock from side to side, to be sure; but take the hobbles
off, and we’ll see its true spirit run free.
(4) DECOMPOSING THREE UGLY, BRUTAL FORMATIVE IMAGES
The one-eyed pyramid. The cross. The straight-line grid.
All images of subjugation. Of control. Of violent force.