JMELCHIO@VUNET.VINU.EDU on thu 8 may 97
Back to the fact that we are all so busy creating art that we don't have time
to grow the food, cook it etc. IT is this--not the art/craft thing--that is
the big environmental, social, feminist challange. In the past, "entropic"
work--that which is consumed or repeated on a daily basis--was done by either
women or slaves. (See Gerda Lerner's CREATION OF PATRIARCHY or Riane Eisler's
CHALICE AND THE BLADE). Now that women (rightfully) are demanding a share of
the work that shows more lasting results, including making art, we seem to be
leaving the food growing and preparing, the child care, etc. to a new slave
class. Big chemical spewing corporations, for example, are taking over the
production of almost all the food we eat. (You'd never eat turkey or chicken or
the "other wite meat" if you saw how it was factory farmed, slaughtered, and
processed. Even most vegetables are grown in intensively chemical, factory
ways.) Those who do these jobs, factory food workers, waiters, babysitters,
etc. are not valued. They are paid minimum wage to work to work in deplorable
condition--increasing numbers of them are immigrants. They aren't valued--
their work isn't valued as much as art (or surgery or legal brifs, or business
deals, etc.) and they are essentially the new slaves. Until we can value all
work as being equally necessary to our growth and maintanience, both physical
and spiritual, as a culture and as individuals were in trouble. Saints and
mystics of all paths have routinely chopped wood, carried water, prepared their
own food,made their own clothes, etc, because they knew that this is a good
to live on this earth. I don't know the answer, but I suspect that it exists
within our collective unconscious. I too am a sinner who often neglects basic
and real things to make one more pot. But this morning, I was late to work so I
could fry up the one giant morel I found yesterday in the woods behind my
house. It was wonderful to eat it off the celadon plate I just pulled from the
kiln yesterday. I hope I'm not the last generation to walk in the woods and
freely find food that I know how to cook so that it tastes really good. I am
blessed. And blessings and thanks to everyone on this list--my world has
expanded because of all you. May we all find the balance.
Jeanne Melchior jmelchio@vunet.vinu.edu
| |
|
