FoodLove: Celestial Bodies in Chaos
Social Justice Spoken Word dedicated to Loida, painting and photography by Rufina
Celestial Bodies in Chaos
Dropped from the sky
not Adam but atoms
bouncing in excitement
at the freedom of bursting out of dark matter
into known space
A playground of Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, reaching for each other,
bonding but needing Oxygen
To breathe
Needing the white of Phosphorus
To glow
Needing Sulfur to waft
The stench of humanity’s waste
In life
To keep us humble
In our evolution and
To remind us that it isn’t just dust to which we return,
But star dust.
Star dust that
We do not remember.
We cannot remember.
We must remember, even if slowly.
Something in my bones knows another something eternal,
Neurally networked first in sea,
then in sky through the lightning amidst the ether,
underfoot in forests among the fruitful mushrooms,
causing intentional decay,
Great Gaia’s macrophages eat at just the right moment,
while taking shape,
molded out of the earth from what was deep in the ground,
Adam, a mad man, a mud man arose
in his intelligence.
But what of his celestial soul?
Not far from the campfire glow, I stand.
Maybe I can feel my other brethren’s intelligence,
Micro-thumping and pulsing that attunes my heart to
synaptic sensory messages between trees
made of salmon eaten by bear, creating forests
Lightning speed qi traveling to and fro
In the story below the understory to
tell us we’ve forgotten that
we are celestial bodies,
that we are all connected kin.
How our faulted memory hurts
Now that this brother is broken, underfoot, under knee,
this one’s run gunned down,
these sisters shot, blood spilled,
bullet-riddled in the day and night,
without warrant,
Reminders of the dark matter son hog-tied,
“voluntarily” river drowned
in front of his Father,
because the boy simply loved
from the core of his celestial being.
He was radiant light too bright for marauding Adams.
I don’t know why the whole world isn’t crying.
Our neural networks in isolation fail us.
My boy asks, what was the first color of the universe?
Black, because it absorbs all of the energetic frequencies—
Becomes the container for all things not yet felt or dreamed.
Even the scientists keep waiting for nothing to happen,
To detect with secret desire the capture of dark matter
Deep in containers under the earth where no light shines.
But the darkest matter is already in hearts bound to this earth
And it is easy to see in daylight.
I stretch my neck up and arch to see the whole obsidian night dotted
By a multitude of celestial lights,
Encircled by the towering council of Douglas firs around me and this portal,
Pointing the way back.
I wonder at a sky so ordered in its brilliance
Taking light years of time to produce
This one moment of impermanent connection
To the constellations telling stories
And in this I see how small I am
No matter how grand the touch of this beauty, this limited awareness
Of the beginning and of eternity.
Mother Tree tends to my need for comfort in
my inadequacy to hold the light and the dark together
here in the woods,
not the lone Madrona standing guard
by lovers of and in Alexander’s Castle
On this earth
In this skin I’m in
To feel part of this cosmos
To know that he is me, and I am him,
The trees feel me and I them,
The wind becomes the shadow of my breath,
Shades of the same celestial bodies beyond light
Pure energy.
Did those whispers of yesteryears’ light stay in the sky when the time came to choose?
Did they sense the loss and pain to come from forgetting what we really are?
When we look up, are they laughing at our folly?
When we fall from grace
Out of the lightness of being
Into
Gravity,
Depravity,
and chaos of misremembering, dismembering,
owning, controlling, each other,
in forgetting that we are all made up
of dark and light matter,
Let go the darkest matters of your heart.
Stay fireside with me, celestial beings,
Know we belong together
Radiating light for each other
Out of the cosmos that birthed us
And into the future we birth.
©2021 Rufina C. Garay. All rights reserved.
Some notes that may be helpful for the references above:
This article references the idea of common composition among stars, star dust, and human bodies. There is talk from one of the authors of the book featured of the “impermanence of our bodies” which is something I have been thinking about with the losses I’ve experienced of aunts and an uncle to COVID-19.
https://www.space.com/35276-humans-made-of-stardust-galaxy-life-elements.html This article provides the element list in common that I wrote about in the piece.
“Great Gaia’s macrophages eat” alludes to the idea of the planet earth metaphorically being a single cell that would have macrophages to clean out the detritus, like the fungi.
The reference to “neurally networked first at sea” is a reference to the networking of individuals to a collective through observations of behavior in schools of fish (murmuration in birds which I am slightly obsessed with)
I reference the ether which is an outdated concept (pre-Einstein) in relationship to light. The intention is to have people imagine a time when they could see something with their eyes like lightning and conjure up a story about the existence of ether that might change the speed of light. Einstein taught us that ether does not exist despite scientists trying to prove its existence at the time (that light travels at a constant speed means that no ether slows it down). We eventually gave up on this idea of ether, despite the romance of it. This is the anchor I put in sand that we could change indoctrinated false beliefs that contribute to racism, bias, and racially motivated violence.
https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/light/a-new-view-of-light
The following link and the movie Fantastic Fungi explain how fungi communicate information in the network of trees and are the basis for the lines about “lightning speed qi traveling to and fro in the story below the understory”
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet
“made of salmon eaten by bear, creating forests” is the acknowledgement that the forests of the Olympic Peninsula exist as “salmon forests” from bears eating the salmon and dispersing the remains of what they have eaten. The trees are composed of the nutrients from salmon and entangled in the health of the salmon population. As the salmon population is suffering the overfishing by people and environmental harms, we must recognize the intricate complexity of the relationships among all living things. Listen to the FoodLove podcast with Jessica Plumb to understand more. https://www.recipeswithrufina.com/foodlove-podcast/foodlove-10-jessica-plumb
“other brethren’s intelligence” refers to how species within the forest communicate, and “Micro-thumping and pulsing” is the imagined sound of the fungal network at work communicating information.
Chinese mythologies tell stories about people as celestial beings or immortals. These stories are part of my heritage as a Chinese-Filipino-Spanish American and part of the Taoist studies in which I’ve engaged.
Questions about the “folly of the fall” reference these mythologies generally. See http://idp.bl.uk/4DCGI/education/astronomy/myth.html
“Now that this brother is broken, underfoot, under knee, --is a reference to George Floyd
this one’s run gunned down, --is a reference to Ahmaud Arbery
these sisters shot, blood spilled, --is a reference to Breonna Taylor and also to the Asian women in Atlanta who were slain by Robert Aaron Long (Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69; Yong Ae Yue, 63; Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/us/atlanta-shooting-victims.html
bullet-riddled in the day and night,
without warrant,”--is a reference to the hollowness of having a “no-knock” warrant in the Breonna Taylor case
“Reminders of the dark matter son hog-tied,” --is a reference to Willie James of Live Oak, Fl whose sweetheart feelings for a White girl led to his heart-breaking murder in 1943 https://www.the-journal.com/articles/our-view-caste-provides-lesson-in-black-history/
“voluntarily” river drowned — Read Caste to understand this story
in front of his Father,
because the boy simply loved
from the core of his celestial being.
A Columbia University professor has been conducting a search for dark matter with a lot of waiting and only small signs of possible discovery. Time will tell us if there is substance in dark matter or if it will go the way of ether. The “dark matter” is the hypothesized glue that holds the universe together. In calling Willie James the “dark matter son,” I am saying that his loving nature—beyond the boundaries of skin color—is the glue that we aren’t looking for but that might matter more at a spiritual level rather than a scientific level. His innocent love is reflected in Isabelle Wilkerson’s story of how he enjoyed the people in the department store where he worked and sent Christmas cards to all of them, including the White girl whom he admired and loved as a sweetheart. He could have been anyone’s son, just like George, Ahmaud, and so many others.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/science/space/14dark.html
I don’t know why the whole world isn’t crying.—This is how I have been feeling about the historical atrocities and the stories in Caste.
Our neural networks in isolation fail us.—This is my observation and a wondering about empathy and why we might be missing some of the connectivity that exists in other species like the schools of fish or the networks of mushrooms to see the urgency and devastation of this moment.
“What was the first color of the universe?” is a question my son asked me.
Black, because it absorbs all of the energetic frequencies— I answered him and realized that art makes its entry for me here in the thought that all colors are absorbed in Black. There is alchemy in art and poetry. The importance of Blackness and respect for darkness exists in so many contexts. See Rumi’s poem Searching Darkness.
Mother Tree is a reference to the work of Suzanne Simards. https://fantasticfungi.com/the-mush-room/finding-the-mother-tree-book-finding-the-mother-tree-suzanne-simards-new-book/
The juxtaposition of Mother Tree in the same stanza as the lone Madrona reflects my wondering about the knowledge that there is always a Mother Tree in any forest. I wonder if the Madrona that stands alone at Fort Worden outside of Alexander’s Castle is the Mother Tree there, because it is not partnered with another tree. Typically, Madronas are partnered with hard woods that provide an overstory without over shading the Madrona. In Fantastic Fungi, there is a description of how Mother Trees will throw off their offspring further away in the underground network of mycorhizzial communication if there is a feeling of being unsafe. Though I love Fort Worden, I realize that so much was lost for the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe and Coast Salish peoples in the building of this national historical park. I also wonder how many madronas were cut down to make it. I wonder how unsafe the trees began to feel as the different barracks and buildings like Alexander’s Castle were built, and whether the notable Madrona there stands alone for a reason.
The references to “depravity” and “dismembering” are references to lynching practices described in Isabelle Wilkerson’s Caste.
“in forgetting that we are all made up
of dark and light matter”—is a reference to the yin and yang of Taoism, the duality that resides in wholeness or oneness and within each person. It is also a recognition that we will need to confront ourselves to accept hard things, dismantle sacred things to some, and still seek and find joy.
“Whisper of yesteryears’ light” suggest the time lapsed in seeing the things with your eyes and the revelation of this time period over the past 400 plus years and a multitude of other ancient stories of domination, conquest, and slavery. The science of starlight and the relationship to time is discussed in this article.
https://theconversation.com/when-you-look-up-how-far-back-in-time-do-you-see-101176
The “campfire” is a reference to being outdoors in nature to begin to understand one’s place in it more fully. The circle of Douglas firs references the moment when I looked up at the sky in Oregon at a tribal reservation site when I felt held by the constellations and the universe despite the pain of experiencing personal outrage and grief over the burden sometimes placed on people to speaking about social justice issues in the face of allies who are not quite that. That moment of connection with nature was the night when this piece began speaking to me.
I’m grateful to Naomi Shihab Nye, Velda Thomas, Crystie Kisler, Wendell Berry, Walt Whitman, and T.S. Eliot for sharing their resilient world views and for the beauty and wonder within their poetry.
Their works, words, experiences in nature, and an encouraging friend like Loida, always help break the radio silence of struggle.
I’m grateful to be in dialogue at times with their words or them.
