Horn of Plenty
Racing down the freeway on the wrong side of the road
with an Afrikaner at the wheel, who happened to be grumbling about the other
drivers and the poor state of affairs that the country had fallen into, was an
interesting, to say the least, introduction to South Africa. We had just come
out of the Botswana bush, visiting Zambia and Zimbabwe to see both sides of one
of the natural wonders of the world… named for Victoria. We had just camped in
the bush of Botswana with elephants ripping trees, hyenas sniffing, badgers
digging, and lions roar-mumbling through our camp of dome tents. It's hard to
recall every experience, but, while in Zambia, I do recall a large group of
baboons robbing a train of its tubers and fruit while it waited. They just
ripped open the plastic tarpaulins of the open cars and feasted upon what they
found. I remember the falls, too. Even with low water-flow due to drought they
were magnificent. I remember the French tourists with fancy luggage that didn't
have enough US dollars to get from Zimbabwe to Zambia. And I remember the hippo
outside our tented room at night, munching methodically across the lawn.
At the time I had no idea that at the back of my mind
lurked an armored cow with an Eastern horn of plenty. This creature of mythos
and grandeur was filled with patience, it seems in hindsight. As we barreled
down through the paper-pulp forest, as explained by our guide behind the wheel,
we found it necessary to put up with the hauntings of so-called reality, as
usual, but knew deep down that we were waiting for the real world to violently split
the butt-seam of our waking world. Rhinos existed in the wild, but, so, so
sadly... not for long. We asked our mad driver, but he replied with cryptic
references. We didn't understand, yet, that he had been instructed to do so by
the social fabric of the eco-tourist board of directors. We just felt that we had asked impertinent
questions about rhinos… in the wild. I began to feel set upon, and immediately
began to question if this was an anti-Israel thing, or at least an
anti-American one. We had arrived back into the civilized world from the bush
of Africa and were greeted by awkward conflagrations and suspicion. Or… was it
just my own mind playing its tricks on me...
Arriving at our destination in Kruger,
the Sabi Sands, we were greeted by some very interesting people, one, in
particular, a large man that was introduced as the son of our madman chauffeur
and proprietor for the next week. We witnessed this son only one more time,
sitting around the South African campfire behind modified grammar school desks
and eating our plates of food, while they watched, one leg up on the fire pit
between us. I ordered a beer: everyone else…? Yes, a mineral water or soft
drink. I felt that they had me, at that point, right where they wanted me, but
I wasn't playing their game, now, was I…? They didn't know how to categorize
me, after all. Was I from Israel or the US? Was I a Jew or a Goy? Was I an eco-tourist or an ego-tourist? There were many questions that I perceived
circling the enclosure, swirling in and around that fire pit…
It wasn't until the next day that we
realized something was terribly, terribly wrong. We seemed to be at the wrong
camp altogether. I mean, it had a different name and everything… So we moved. I
was so pleased to see our new guide once we arrived that I completely forgot
about the round South African good-ol-boy standing to the left of the mad
driver proprietor, part of the trio that night around the schoolyard campfire. The
new folks were awesome, actually parting with information about the rhino
problem in South Africa: There were human beasts lurking in the woods around
us, we were told. These beasts were the ramifications of a world gone mad, a
world embracing chaos. With up to 90% unemployment in neighboring countries,
the rhinos were easy pickings for the desperate survivalists that had been
forged within civil war and abandonment. Poachers prospered, but the middle-men
made a killing selling their wares to the East.
Big East business deals were toasted with
the stuff, this horn of plenty, in their champagne flutes. The horn of the
rhino meant more than just an animal's useless appendage. It meant wealth and
status. It meant human ego. And, it was a sign of the destruction of our little
blue world floating in space. It signaled the end of all we call us. But, I'm
getting ahead of myself, it seems… Suffice it to say that when I finally
arrived back at my home base on the planet, I was able to see through the fog
and put some of these pieces together. There was a war brewing… no, not brewing…
underway.
We see it as only dark and light, black
and white, but that is so, so wrong. It's not about our limited senses as it
comes to our physical environment; it's always been about the spaces between,
the electron subterfuge that permeates quantum physics, the mystical stop and
go haunting our waking dreams. I speak to you now as an almost 53 year old adult
male that has spent his life seeking the unknown reason for existence. I am a lost
soul, a lost spark, separated from the truth of our existence. I seek, every
day, to find a path back to this awesome reality. I seek, but only find window panes,
door cracks, and effervescent half-understandings of the truth. I am alone, but
ironically I am One with all of creation…
The terror attacks that have been fomenting
chaos all around me, back in my home base of Israel, seem to be the same exact phenomenon
as the rhino poaching problem in Africa. The haves have, and the have-nots
want. These terrorists are being paid, whether it is an eastern business man,
or a middle-eastern father of 3 with an extra kitchen knife. The worth of the
physical outweighs the worth of the truth; a depressing inevitability, but sadly
one that rings true. When it comes to survival, emotional, psychological,
physical, the truth is unrequited and unwanted: we are utterly alone.
May the fallen find refuge in the world
to come, may the bereaved find solace while still in this world, and may mankind discover the real truth of our existence: that we are all ONE!
Shavua tov.
