I’ve finished my September book already; City of Refuge by Starhawk. I devoured it over the Labour Day weekend as it simultaneously clawed it’s way inside me. It became a part of me and now I don’t know what to do with myself. Sometimes books are like that, and I get a sense for it before reading, setting it aside after scanning the back or a page or two inside. ‘This is going to hurt. This will be dangerous. There is Truth in these pages and once you know it, you’ll never be the same.’ For a year it’s sat in my room on my shelf with the first book in the series, Walking to Mercury, waiting for me to pick it back up. I haven’t read Mercury yet but someday I will. In between the two was the first one Starhawk wrote, The Fifth Sacred Thing, a book I can only bring myself to read maybe once every few years. City will be like that; a reopening of old ground, planting new seeds, sobbing through pages while smiling fiercely through others.
Ryan didn’t understand why I would read something that would upset me so much. How can I explain that it’s reading both the present and the future? How can I make him understand it underscores my greatest fear and that which I’ve already lost? A world brought to it’s knees by exploitive capitalism and fundamentalist Christianity, but hope on the fringes because some brave people say No with love and water and fruit trees? There’s a place for you at our table if you’ll choose to join us. All debts are erased, all sins forgiven, if you’ll work for your community and do your part. A city of folks of every stripe and colour and faith who can work together because they fundamentally respect each other as parts of the Four Sacred Things, as Children of Gaia, as fellow people first.
The Fifth Sacred Thing and City of Refuge are visions of horror and beauty, what’s possible from the depths of fear or love. In one or two generations, where will we be? I know where I want to be, where I want my kids and grandkids to be; in places filled with clean water and good food, schools that nourish their minds and bodies, where everyone gets the care they need regardless of any other factor, where the elderly are cherished as the story keepers and knowledge sharers they are, where everyone is encouraged to follow their heart, regardless of what that might be. Where there’s room to try and fail and it wont mean the end of your family because suddenly, you can’t pay the bills. There wont be any bills. Food, shelter, water and power, education and healthcare; these are basic human necessities and rights. In the City of Refuge of the book, Madrone and Bird travel deep into the heart of old Los Angeles and show people there’s a different way to live, one of dignity and grace, sharing and love. They don’t have to be afraid any more; not of their neighbours or the police or the government.
Books like this are dangerous. They can spark a revolution. I hope it does.
