The Free Radical

(Author Narration with musical accompaniment: R.F.D. by Quiet Sun)

Gosh, it must be twenty-two or twenty-three years now since all this began. And seeing how I’m pushing fifty, you might wonder what the hell was going on before that! Well, quite simply, I was a ghost, an animated something-or-other just going through the motions of ‘living’ and really understanding nothing of Life itself.

Twenty solid years of city ‘living’ had rendered me rather sophisticated and… well, urbane… in my ignorance. Something inside me screamed “This endless pretense can’t be the root or purpose of Life!”

So let’s say twenty-three years ago, maybe 1992, I found myself beside the river– Dutch Creek to be precise– on the Point. The Point is a place where the impassable shale cliffs protrude right out into the main current of the river. There’s a flat spot from where you can safely watch the unbelievable violence of the river slamming into the side of the rocks, only the spray licking at your feet. On the downriver side there’s a deep pool, good for fishing or a midsummer swim. God, I love that place!

(The Point is also precisely the place where my friend Jake left his body and his Life, one May afternoon while we tripped on ayahuasca. He was only 19 when his Spirit flew up in a moment of confused ecstasy, as his body fell away into the merciless river. But in 1992 that event was still nine years hence.)

My thoughts, on that afternoon in 1992, were with the planet. I had always easily accepted Lovelock’s hypothesis; of course the Earth was a living Being in her own right! I was in a bit of a funk, a lament. Although I was in a place of pristine wildness, where Life pressed in on you from all sides relentlessly, I had recently come from the city, where absolutely nothing made any sense beyond a pathological need for material gain. I felt the planet’s pain– borne mainly from generations of neglect. What could I do?

I laid my hand flat upon the shale slabs at my feet, and silently in my mind I talked to the Earth. I tried apologizing on behalf of my species, but a tiny feeling spoke back saying “It won’t help any to hate your own species.” Is that what I was doing? Yeah, in a way, I guess it was. I could only speak for myself. All I could think to do in that moment of deep questioning was to make a solemn promise. At the time it seemed pathetically inadequate, but truthfully, everything has proceeded beautifully from that very moment onward. (I’m sure even Jake would agree.)

I simply promised– a pledge with my hand on Earth’s own heart– that I would do whatever I can. That was it. It was enough. So much that is astounding, inspiring, enlivening has come forth in thousands and thousands of written pages, read now by many thousands, perhaps millions, of this species I once thought to hate…

But no! Human, I love you… in this slow but undeniable reconnection!