The Green God and the Vehicular Vatican

I’ve been thinking about trees and trucks. Green Gods and big motorized vehicles. If I didn’t know that Satan was an invention of the Pope’s umpteenth century Madison Avenue ad firm… If I didn’t know that, I would call trucks Satan.

But I like Satan better than trucks. In the first place, Satan was modeled on a guy who I actually really love, who has variously been called the Green Man, Pan, the Horned God and some other stuff depending on whether you are Celtic or Sumerian. I like the Green God. It sums up most of what is important for me about the male divine. This is a pagan thing. Well, it’s a human thing, actually, to divide our gods into male ones and female ones. The system I use gives the female part all the usual stuff: Eternity, the source of Life. Basically the ability to go on forever, which might also be called continuous multiple orgasms of creation. 

I like this in a deity. 

Then her lover/son gets to be the principle of change, growth, death and rebirth. We don’t worry about the incest that might possibly be implied here. Not because we wrote memos to the bishops saying “Cover this up asap,” (Can you say, Ratzinger?) But because the male part is, like Jesus, born at winter solstice. Unlike Jesus, every year our young green man finds himself fucking by May 1 and dying old and decrepit by Halloween. (The Green God doesn’t mind profanity, for the record.) He is all men, all women, all humans that live and die. Plus, he has horns and moss in his beard, which I also like in a deity.

But I was talking about Satan.

You see the resemblance, though, right? The horns, in charge of sex and death… Whoops, I mean “sinful temptation and punishment.” Satan’s just a rebrand of the Green God. A way to bring the locals on board– in addition to the legions, that is.

(Have I mentioned that I can get on a little bit of a rant about the Roman Catholic Church? Ratzy in particular really sets me off.)

So. Instead of associating my feelings about trucks with Satan, which would be a bum rap for the guy with the horns, let’s go ahead and say “Vatican.” It’s really not about the individual. It’s the institution. The steamroller of power and incredible collection and consumption of resources that is not always but far too often used for bullshit purposes like killing bunnies and raping little boys.

There. I said it.

Thing is, the Fox loves trucks. All vehicles actually. Given how foamy I just was about the pope, it’s probably hard to believe that what I am about to tell you is true.

I am making peace with this. The trucks, I mean. I even have a little song about it. Want to hear it? Okay, sing along to Bonnie Raitt “I can’t make you love me if you don’t”

I can’t make you hate trucks if you don’t

I can’t make your heart loathe something it won’t

Dumptrucks will bang

Diggers devour

I can show you the books

Exclaim at flowers

But I can’t make you hate trucks if you don’t.

So, I’ve decided to use the principles of positive discipline and spell-casting, which are one and the same. (Put that in your Montessori pipe and smoke it.) Basically, it boils down to focusing on manifesting what you want. Today, this looked like going to the beach at Lincoln Park.

The parking lot is next to a wooded meadow. That’s where I put Alexis, our 11 year old semi-trashed minivan – friend Michele laughs every time she says “Ella drives A-Lexis.” And before you say anything, I get that I am part of the problem with my very own vehicle. Focus, please. We park next to the meadow. And we begin by saying “Hello” to Mr. Big Leaf Maple, a ginormous, mossy representative of the Green God touchable right now. He is in bloom, which is cool. Long, lime green boas of flowers swaying from gnarly 90ft branches, kind of like a Mr. Big Leaf Maple drag queen.

Then we walk down to the beach, and throw rocks and play with clam shells and the Fox ogles the biggest, baddest Vehicular Vatican around, because the Washington State Ferries dock right there.

The he chases crows. The other day he did this really cool thing. After asking me several times to make them hold still – “Mama!” Pointing at crow, “Down! Pet! Please!” ­  – he realized I was not going to make it happen for him. So, he walked towards a particularly glossy black character, put both hands straight out and said “Be Still!" Then he whispered, "Magic trick.” 

Maurice Sendak, anyone?

My heart just about exploded.

After the beach, we go back up the trail to Mr. Big Leaf. We sit on the mossy armchair his roots have created just for us and I get out the surprise, which is whatever dead crab, string of seaweed or cool rock I managed to sneak into my pocket down on the beach. This started out as a way to lure the Fox into running back to the tree because he weighs about as much as five bowling balls and I don’t want to carry his ass up the hill. But now it’s a little ritual. He sits in my lap, we talk about what we saw at the beach. I mention diving mergansers more than motorized boats and we soak up tree love and watch the grass daisies whiten the meadow like almost-May magic snow. I don’t know. I’m just not fighting the vehicle thing anymore. Ferries, trucks and buses. The arm of the Vehicle Vatican is long. But the reach of the tree love, the mossy, bossy smell of spring is right here, right now. This is older, wiser and stronger. This is magic that I don’t have to fight for. I just have to show him where the wild things are.