Wild Like Flowers, Chapter 1: To Jump Means to be Firmly Put

"The paradise that was invented and built by human industry eradicated the very utopia it sought to construct—and still seeks to construct."

This is Chapter 1 of my second book, Wild Like Flowers: The Restoration of Relationship Through Regeneration. You can buy the book here. Or, you can read it here.

Chapter 1

Stories require context—who is doing what, where and how might they be doing it, and for what purpose? Imagine Frodo lugging around a Ring of Power through downtown Manhattan and a taxi driver pulling over and yelling, “I can't carry it for you… but I can carry you!” Climbing in the taxi with scooter-riding constables close behind, Frodo declares, “Mount Doom, please!” The camera then pulls up and pans back to reveal hundreds of taxis honking and scooting and yelling their way forward inch by inch through the narrow city streets. The taxi dumps Frodo at Central Park and, among the lovers, walkers, and bird-talkers, his journey concludes on the shores of the lake. How do I know he loves me? How do I know he’s mine? echoes in the distance, for the park was double booked today. Because he’ll wear your favorite color, just so he can match your eyes. Enchanted, Frodo looks at his eyes in the water and decides that they look tired and colorless, and so he treks back to his trailer to take a nap, his fingers fumbling with the Ring in his pocket as he walks.

You see, Frodo’s story is not about a Ring or a journey, for if it was, then narrow city streets and taxis would suffice to carry the narrative. Instead, the story is about Middle Earth and Orcs and Power and Heroes and simple Hobbits who want nothing to do with any of it. Perhaps J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is not really about Frodo at all. Perhaps, Tolkien’s story is about the Shire’s small-statured Hobbit named Samwise Gamgee standing on the banks of a calm and safe Middle Earth and waving goodbye to Frodo, who peacefully drifts toward the Grey Havens. Tolkien’s context is friendship, and his canvas is Middle Earth. Separate them and you have a new story altogether.

The context of our narrative is the living gifts of Being and our canvas is that of our Wildland—it is only combined that they form the story we are about to tell. But before we can jump into the pond of this narrative (chapter 2 and beyond), we must first plant our feet firmly on the shore. We must understand our context.