Dot one
The United States is at war
With itself.
(It is also at war with Russia
By proxy in Ukraine.
It is also at war in Congress.
It is at war in townships
And states
From sea to shining sea.)
Maybe in its heart too.
Maybe in its soul.
Do you get what I’m saying?
Dot two
I was listening to a webinar yesterday
That really got my attention.
There was an herbalist
Talking about how his life changed
When he stopped eating meat.
That seemed to be the catalyst for him.
He began to change
Little by little, and then
By a lot.
It felt like something let loose
Like a log jam,
Something that was stuck got unstuck
And he experienced a flow in his life
For the first time,
Like a spring thaw.
He attributes this shift
To his turning to plants.
It turns out that plants
Have a lot more to offer us
Than just nutrition.
When you let them in
They begin to influence how you think
And act and feel about yourself
And the world!
Don’t imagine that your diet doesn’t
Do this to you – program you.
It does. And it has.
Men, for tens of thousands of years
Were hunters,
While women were gatherers.
Women were plant people
And men were animal people.
This herbal guy was saying that
Men still think they need meat!
They are still on the hunt.
I didn’t say that,
He did.
Dot Three
Oh, look outside.
There’s a big doe grazing.
Where do your thoughts go?
How beautiful she is? Or
That doe would fill my freezer.
I feel like asking
That, now, archetypal question,
“Why are we in Vietnam?”
Why are we always fighting each other?
What is at the heart
Of the need to make war?
I am not the dot-connector.
I don’t want to be.
We are.
We have to be.
Dot three is diet.
Dot Four
Endless war.
Final thought
There might be some dots in between.
We have our work cut out for the New Year
If we really want the new year
To be better than the old year.
What are your dots?