Boundaries

Holy Cow! Home Sweet Home! Look at this place.

 There are no lines drawn on this landscape. No boundaries separating the right from the left. Animals, birds, clouds, fish and insects move freely from one drainage valley to the next. The sun, the moon, the stars and even the rain shine or fall equally on this whole place. So why, all this division and hatred and infighting?

To borrow and alter a few words from the poet mystic Rumi, Out beyond good and evil or pointing fingers at the right or the left, there is a landscape. I will meet you there.

Out beyond the cavernous chasm called polarity separating and swallowing our country’s men and women, there is a place called ‘America’ that unifies us all. And who are we kidding, even beyond the idea of country, there is the world, the planet, the universe and life that really unifies us all even more beyond silly political affiliations.

Politicians benefit from dividing us and letting us fight. We fight so much amongst ourselves and are distracted by subtlest subtlety, while the 1% get away with billions and the rest of us, the 99% fight over their crumbs.

The only place I see lines drawn and grids mapped out are on physical maps drawn out by developers. This landscape has a few private inholdings but the majority of it is managed by two agencies who work for us. The National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service. Although, they are managed differently. The first is managed for scenery, wildlife and the future generations. The other is managed for multiple use. Either way, “this land is our land, from the redwoods of California to the New York Island.” It doesn’t say only for the wealthy but for all of us.

Cheers to open spaces, public lands, places that unify us!

This land belongs to you and me. Public lands are such a great idea.

As Mark Twain said so long ago, “The land is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing, the thing to watch over and care for.”
 

The government might manage these public lands differently but let us not forget the government is us and is made of people like us. Let’s not let the one percenters divy up, privatize, develop or sell these beautiful lands to industry. Future generations have a right to see, behold and cherish these places.

This land belongs to you and me.