From the Slow Tarot, the Four of Coins; from the ROAR Oracle, Octavia E. Butler:
What had been a perceived threat, a lien in a sense on future human behavior, was quickly reduced to a historical curiosity. — Arthur C. Clarke
When there is a perceived threat - a subjective assessment of danger, even if that threat is not real or imminent - harsh laws, lockdowns and big walls are often a consequence. If that perception involves our possessions, the result is a withholding of mercy and generosity. It's a reactive response that can become hard to break. Octavia Butler, a science fiction writer with many honors including the notable MacArthur Fellowship, was raised by a widowed mom who was a housemaid. The extremely shy Octavia found solace in reading and writing stories. Discovering the wide-open world of science fiction, she learned to create herself as well a story. She would tell us that expectations and assumptions may wound, but we don't have to let them fester within us. The spacious mind can recognize the nuance of the present moment rather than assuming it is just like what we've encountered before. Lockdown might not be necessary.
On a long-ago Sci-fi group called Beyond Reality on Yahoo Groups, I read Octavia’s “Parable of the Sower” and its sequel “Parable of the Talents” and enjoyed them both. It was a great group until people stopped putting the effort in to read the selected book each month. So sad to let such things go, the promise of the Internet gets dashed again. (J)
ReplyDeleteI've been a member of a book club for about a dozen years, and the only time we almost collapsed was during covid when we had to go on Zoom instead meet in person. I think the internet makes it easier to abandon commitments.
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