The True Patriot

Although I am an avid weather forecast watcher from my cellphone apps and sky watcher from my home balconies, I do not want to talk about climate change or watch horror movies either. To me they are one and the same. Of course, I sort out my garbage and buy proper products when I can, however the totality of environmental concerns are really scary. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. (Genesis 6:12). This verse explicitly addresses the belief that man’s conduct has consequences for the fruitfulness of the land. He (She) wants people to “obey his rules and observe them carefully” and in return they will be blessed by “produce of the soil” and the divine’s ability to “ward off sickness”. (Deuteronomy 7:12-15) An ancient Kabbalistic text, The Zohar asks, “Why was it corrupt?” Pritzker Edition, Volume 1, at pg 350. The renowned translator of Aramaic into English, Daniel Mott worked on this book and commented in a footnote, “Immorality, especially sexual sin, contaminated the earth. The phrase corrupted their way upon earth is elsewhere interpreted as referring to masturbation (spilling seed on earth or crossbreeding.” (ibid. fn 77).

This defilement of the land was the direct result of human sin, biblically speaking. What occurred at Sodom and Gomorrah contributed to the The Flood and earth's return to a water-world. According to the covenantal relationship with God, people must embody ethical characteristics and a moral compass, along with observing religious sacrifices and ritual offerings. This behavior gets translated into the bountifulness of the land. Therefore, failure to obey the rules and laws, and unholy and immoral acts precisely endangered the earth's health and its “joy”. Today ultra-right wing evangelical and anti-LGBTQ#+ leaders still use this archaic reasoning to blame gay people for the severe weather we experience as climate change. However, in a system of righteousness you cannot pick and choose to condemn some conduct as “bad” while being in denial about other bad acts. Ie The bible's explicit ban on male masturbation or the “spilling of seed upon the land” was possibly fatal if violated but is now abandoned, and these days major polluters of our environment can be exempted and not held accountable for their bad stewardship of the land.

True Patriots are champions and defenders of their country. Their sense of self and the land are one and the same. It is recognized as equivalent in the phrase "dust to dust" (Genesis 3:19). In fact, the early American voting class citizen was required to own land in our nascent constitutional democracy and the provision strictly referred to males. In order to get the commoner, or non-landowner man to fight for independence from the British, the language of national patriotism came into use. Words such as, equality, freedom, and liberty embodied the ideals of a few men eager to define the borders of their new country, which contained millions and millions of uninhabited acres they owned. Some of these men were signatories to the Declaration of Independence, America’s founding document. Today, these patriotic words no longer connect a person to his county, rather they more define his or her political persuasion. Of note, the Constitution’s governing structure makes no reference to political parties.

The one dictionary which carries the weight of authority and cited in legal matters is the Merriam-Webster. It states the word patriot “signifies a person who loves their country and is ready to boldly support and defend it.” The dictionary expounds upon this meaning, “The years leading up to the American Revolutionary War further propagated the notion of patriot as a name for a seditious rebel against the monarchy. American writers of the 18th century, however, heartily embraced the word to define the colonists who took action against British control. As tensions continued to escalate, a new meaning of patriot came to the forefront, referring to a person who advocates or promotes the independence of their land or people from the country of which they are a colony. Benjamin Franklin provides an early record of this use. It should be no Wonder … if among so many Thousand true Patriots as New England contains there should be found even Twelve Judases.— Benjamin Franklin, letter, 7 July 1773”.

The President of Lithuania recently claimed fighting for one's country is not just a duty but an emotion. Here in America, it’s more likely a gun provides a person with their identity and emotional energy. The proof is the prevailing attitude towards the 2nd Amendment and how many Republican legislators hold this constitutional right as supreme, unbridgeable, incapable of reform. Meanwhile, the protections afforded under the 4th Amendment’s right to reasonable searches and seizures have been systematically eroded by numerous exceptions. Property rights are now tied up with gun rights. The rule that a man’s home is his castle which can be defended with deadly force intertwines one's identity with the land in the context of private property but there is no obligation to keep the soil healthy.

I am reminded of the tarot card, The Empress. She represents Mother Earth, creativity, nurture, a caring person. The traditional card depicts a woman surrounded by flowers and plantings. Some people feel a spiritual connection to nature more strongly. Others must plan a trip to the woods to be reminded of the bond. I heed the call to be with her on a daily basis. It empties me of stress. Worries wash off of me. Each walk is a green bath that delights me, as do the house plants in my apartment and on my balconies. We don't have to be in the wilderness to appreciate the landscape. The trees, the flowers, the birds and the bees were derived directly from God. There is not one degree of separation between them and the divine, unlike with Eve who was cloned from Adam’s rib.

A traditional tarot deck is numbered from 0-21 and The Empress is 3 or III in the Suit of Trump. However, I prefer the tarot’s association with the Hebrew alphabet that goes from 1-22. To learn more go to the Street Smarts page on this website. This card aligns with the letter Dalet and she is attributed to Adamah or man of the earth, humankind, and the ground, the "dust to dust", as well as the moist earth. She can also represent a “door” which is a solid structure unlike water. Dalet also means “poor”. Without mankind and our nurturing stewardship, the land can no longer be fruitful for us. Mother Earth cannot take care of us, feed us, and bath us on her own. God intervened in the wilderness at Sinai to feed the Israelites with manna and produced water from rocks. Our mother nature, represented by The Empress card, requires the cooperation of farmers and growers. We are co-creators with God’s feminine aspect. The first instruction in the Bible is to be a true patriot, a responsible steward of the land, otherwise the soil becomes useless. This was demonstrated by the 1930’s dust bowls in America's Great Plains region. They taught us a lesson, or should have, that husbandry for profiteering may have devastating repercussions.

"There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all successes. The fertle Earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And the children dying of (hunger) must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill certificates - died of malnutrition - because the food must rot (if not sold at a profit). . . and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." excerpt from John Steinbeck's classic, The Grapes of Wrath.

Street Tarot