Exchange of Values

Exchange of Values
acrylic on board 48'X96'

"Structure of Color Perception"

"Structure of Color Perception"
48'X96' acrylic on board

Friday, October 21, 2022

The Passion of the Bees: Queens Colonies Death & Bitcoin; Deconstructing Paradise on Columbus Day. (Photo: Machine for knowing if Bees feel pain.) 

 “It does not seem to me that the Gospel is speaking of the firmament of heaven as some remote habitation of ̶G̶o̶d̶ ̶ because the divine is equally present in all things, and, in like manner, it pervades all creation and it does not exist separated from being, but the divine nature touches each element of being with equal honor, encompassing all things within itself.” St Gregory of Nyssa,

*(Re-)Telling the Bees.* A few years ago I posted about how some Bee-keeping cultures developed practices called, “telling the bees.” Bees were reckoned so important for human life-ways that significant events in a family/community were shared with their Bee colonies; for example the Royal Bee-keeper informed the royal Bee colonies of Queen Elizabeths II death. I’v seen no official response from the royal Bees but there are rumors/reports that some among the Queen’s hives have swarmed and absconded, especially among the newer species of “Africanized Bees” who have resisted royal domestication. Perhaps these anarchistic Bees were seeking more life affirming practices of solidarity than serving their colonizers interests and hope to live beyond binaries of colonizer/subject and as equitable members of an interdependent community of bee-ing? Colonizing/speculating/exploiting are practices that estrange us from an on-going work of Creation occurring around and within us, cauterizing our consciousness, numbing our senses, causing the kind of larval blindness that might come to ask terribly revealing questions about ourselves: “do Bees feel pain?” 

 “The word animal is a derivative of the Greek word anima, which also means soul.” Wikipedia.

 Now all Bee-life is threatened as the death-dealing global financial system and its neo-fascist discples metastasize and unseeing masters ignorantly pursue power/wealth stumbling and thrashing about the manifest world doing tremendous damage carelessly exploiting crushing any manner of Life beyond their understanding or compulsions—for the neo-liberal logic of markets/investors our living ecosphere is as lifeless as an abstracted bitcoin mined from the ether-world of captured soulless capital. ‘And so, with a boundless heart one should cherish and never harm any living beings for they are your brothers and sisters.’ Gautama Buddha. Among our machined-world and dematerializing ecologies of consuming liturgies only human agency as mediated through commodifying power structures enjoys any value beyond ‘use-value.’ Pain/joy/despair/fear/hope/desire/love are denied to beings other than human subjects/consumers. In the virtualized world of deified market-forces animals plants rivers oceans stars have no more personhood/agency than a lump of coal, a ‘Big Mac,’ or a melting glacier. As Rene’ Descartes explained (who according to wikipedia was, “Widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science”) the crying out of an injured suffering animal is of no more moral/spiritual consequence than a clanging bell or a squeaking door; for Descartes and much of contemporary economism only human feeling enjoys intrinsic (exploitable) value. David Abrams speaks about these death-dealing structures in his beautiful challenging work, “Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology.” 

 “Many long-standing and lousy habits have enabled our callous treatment of surrounding nature, empowering us to clear-cut, dam up, mine, develop, poison, or simply destroy so much of what quietly sustains us. Yet few are as deep-rooted and damaging as the habitual tendency to view the sensuous earth as a subordinate space—whether as a sinful plane, riddled with temptation, needing to be transcended and left behind; or a menacing region needing to be beaten and bent to our will; or simply a vaguely disturbing dimension to be avoided, superseded, and explained away.”

Understanding how societies are cultured into the contexts Abrams describes helps explain the afflicted reasoning that creates apocalyptic machines for knowing if other Being among the non-human world also feel pain joy fear consciousness love. There is abundant evidence that it is not Bees Flowers Trees Orcas Elephants or the whole of living Cosmos but our own souls that have become wounded numb and so deeply immersed in the trauma and empires of enthralling simulacrum that we humans are the beings most in need of questioning grace that may heal our souls. Obliged. _/\_ 

 *Post Script: For many years I engaged in works of ‘resource extraction:’ commercial fishing, logging, ‘land developing.’ Then it was common practice for Halibut long-liners to unthread the large hooks from Halibut mouths one by one, a slow hard process especially for the many swallowed hooks lodged deep inside an animal’s body. Eventually a technological solution was invested in—but not to determine if Halibut felt any pain. Merciless machines were fabricated that could quickly pull long lines of captured fish through an efficient contraption where each fish was firmly stayed then the large steel hooks along with any cheeks lips gills guts were quickly and efficiently ripped out through a fish’s mouth. I’v installed and operated several of these machines on commercial fishing boats, they’re called “crucifiers.” 

 **Post Post Script: Good news! Although threatened by destruction in many countries Bees are flourishing in Slovenia! Including a genus of tiny Bees identified as ‘Lasioglossum’ (sometimes affectionately called, ’Cabele Veronike,’ by religious Slovenes). Lasioglossum are among a family of Bees who can live on human tears. 

 ***PPPost Script: Veronike (Veronika) was the daring woman who wiped the tears from condemned political prisoner Jesus’ face as he carried the cross of imperial empire on Jerusalem’s, ‘Via Dolorosa,’ the way of suffering.

***PPPPost Script. Years ago I was privileged to have enjoyed many lunches and conversations with David Abrams when he was working/teaching here on Whidbey Island. Many blessings in your work.  _/\_