The Queen of the Weeds Proclamation

"The Queen of the Weeds" Photo by A.J. Goodrich

"The Queen of the Weeds Proclamation" is part of a series from "The Flowering Prince's Garden of Stories" and was presented for the first time at Planet Queer: Close Encounters on Nov 19, 2012. It’s based on an experience I had in July while pulling weeds on Dirty Face Creek Farm in Iowa. It is dedicated all the wonderful people at the organic farm who are seeking to create a truly sustainable lifestyle that works in harmony with the land and have taught me many lessons about the value certain so-called weeds possess. It is also dedicated to Ian MacKinnon for all the fierce, bold work he does to Get More Gay and contribute to the Gay Art Renaissance in Los Angeles. In creating this piece I seek to present part of what I consider a channeled proclamation from a spiritual plant deity that occurred after uprooting one of her physical manifestations. Scientific studies are beginning to affirm what many cultures have known for centuries: plants are conscious beings and we can communicate with them (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/science/plants-may-communicate-by-sound-262406.html).

Photo by A.J. Goodrich (Travis Wood as Gardener)

In presenting this piece I understand that it is in opposition to the "conventional" farming practices used many people within my family whom I love and respect. Nevertheless the message is vitally important to be heard. I have the deepest respect for farming, but also the deepest concerns for how we MUST manage a transition from our current modality into a new, sustainable and environmentally conscious method that still allows for economic prosperity for farmers and a good, responsible quality of living. There are indeed some challenges ahead in how to make that happen.

Thanks to Travis Wood for participating as “The Gardener” and for all the support staff of Planet Queer and Akbar who make these type of wild performances possible to take place. We are indeed so blessed to be a city flourishing with creative energy in this way. I also thank the Queen herself for sharing this message and hope that this performance will serve to make all of us reconsider the relationship we have to weeds. It certainly is not an easy friendship to make, but it has many rewards and gifts as well. As she says “Pay heed to the weeds!”

Photo by A.J. Goodrich

PERFORMANCE TEXT

A gardener emerges from the audience wearing gloves and acts as if picking out weeds from the garden, wiping his brow from the heat, and making his way upstage to a large weed that emerges from the opening.

Gardener: So this is the story of my close encounter over the summer while working in the gardens of an organic farm in Iowa. It was a beautiful blue sky day of billowing clouds, with buzzing bees, fluttering butterflies, chirping crickets and twittering birds, in an otherwise brutal summer of record hot drought conditions that surely had to rattle the resolve of even the most stubborn skeptics of climate change. The crops were irrigated so they maintained a steady green growth, but that meant the same thing applied to the weeds. So it was my task to remove these intrusive and unwanted invaders before they took over the garden and choked out the crops. I noticed one unusually large weed right in the middle of the garden with sprouts branching out almost as tall as myself. I struggled to rip it out of the ground…it took all of my might…but when it finally budged I swear I could hear the most awful screaming and as I looked at the massive tangle of roots I could see a ghastly gnarled face with hair like medusa peering back at me. And before I knew it…the uprooted weed began to speak!

following photos by Ian MacKinnon

The Queen of the Weeds emerges from the opening and makes her way around the stage, confronting the gardener and the audience, as the gardener eventually drops the big weed he pulled and cowers in the corner as she speaks.
 
QUEEN OF THE WEEDS: Pay your respect to the Queen of the Weeds! For she is the one that you have for so long forsaken, and it is time for you to listen to what she has to say!  So pay attention stupid human and in particular all you queers (etc) of the world — we are connected: we the fringe and persecuted members of humanity and plant world. As much as you try to get rid of us, rip us up, push us down, stop us from growing, or stomp us out — we will endure. You must honor that what you call weeds have a right to exist! We weeds have something to say and it is time that you listen! Pay heed to the weeds!

A weed as you define us is a plant that grows where you don’t want us to grow. A plant in your opinion that offers no significant value but drains the resources of the crops you seek to grow. So you use that as your excuse to wipe us out. We have a right to be here too. Just because we are where you don’t want us to be. Who says this land belongs to humans? Humans think they can just take over this land like a plague and plant genetically modified crops and pump poisons into the soil without concern for all the other creatures that depend on the land. You spend so many precious resources to feed your massive populations and what do you give back in return? Pollution, corruption, destruction!  You are selfish and weak, and depend on plants for every second of your greedy needy feeble lives. We weeds have something to say about that!

 We weeds feed off the sun, the water, the minerals, and when we die, we give back to the Earth that gives us life. We weeds are strong, we weeds are hardy, we know what it takes to survive under any condition! We rise up from the cracks and we thrive in the harshest of climates. We have many benefits beyond your imagining! We have power!  We have strength! We have magic! Many of us contain essential medicines and wisdom. But you turned your backs on us and forgot how great our gifts are. A weed is merely called a weed because you think we have no value, because your view of value is so limited. But if you only took the time and opened your mind you would see what treasures and riches we have to offer! Pay heed to the weeds!

But no, you would rather meddle with your science and your progress that turns away from the natural world. You ignore our natural medicines in order to concoct a world so based on artificial chemicals you don’t even know what is natural anymore - you’ve tainted it all. You are utterly disconnected, creating poisons more devastating than any we have ever witnessed before on this planet. And you use them so adamantly against us. Weed-killers humans call them - ha! You might as well simply call them killers, for they harm animal and human alike. You pump your toxins so far and so wide you do not realize just how that poison comes backs to haunt you. And yet, for as powerful as you make them -- we weeds still exist! We keep coming back! You can’t get rid of us! Meanwhile you have destroyed so much of the land making it impossible for some of the weaker plants to grow.  Only we weeds truly know how to thrive in those conditions. You can set us back, but we will always be waiting for our chance to return, to grow and thrive in the hostile conditions you have imposed. You think you know what you’re doing, solving problems while creating more problems, resorting to the manipulation and mutation of natural plants, thinking you’re so clever. You create your own demise you create your own havoc and destruction. But we weeds will once again rise. Pay heed to the weeds!

 Maybe it hasn’t gotten hot enough for you? Maybe the storms aren’t big enough for you!? Maybe your pathetically genetically engineered crops you call food, aren’t modified enough for you!? You have removed yourself so far from the continuum of life and Mother Nature for you to realize that as you kill everything around you, you are bound to eventually kill yourselves. You think weeds are the problem! Humanity is the problem. So what about it queers? What part are you going to play? You know what it feels like to have a poisonous heterosexual dogma spewed upon you! You know what its like to be so reviled and so hated for your supposed crimes against morality! You know what its like to have gifts and magic to offer the world, only to have people turn against you for it! Why are we weeds and we queers so forsaken? Humanity is blinded by its greed and need, but we are all connected. This is after all, survival of the fittest. And oh, you can bet we weeds will live on. Perhaps we weeds and you queers, hold the key to that survival! We who know what it is like to endure the abuse and the misunderstandings and the failings of a f*ed up humanity! Our lessons, our gifts, our magic, our treasures, our wisdom, our medicine could be exactly what the world needs right now. You may think you’re doing your little part to solve the problem, but what more can you do? Are you doing enough? How far are you willing to go outside your comfort zone? How much sacrifice are you really willing to make and how much of your own blood are you willing to give? How are you going to fight back against the oppression? How are you going reclaim your value and repair the destruction of this world that we all call home?

So think about that humans! Think about that. For you can rip me up, tear me up, put me down, strike me down, do whatever you think is best to cast me out from this garden…but we weeds are survivors. We will return. You can’t stop us forever. We will eventually, inevitably, most certainly return and we will take over! For I am the Queen of the Weeds! So pay heed to the weeds! Pay heed to the weeds! Pay heed to the weeds!!!!!
  
TQotW disappears back into the opening, leaving behind the gardener who holds the pulled up plant in his hands gently, honoring the lesson she imparted. Lights fade.

The "original" Queen of the Weeds

View from the standing room only back of performance space at Akbar photo by Jamez D Palacio

 

Fools and Food

 

Say no to GMO’s - or at the very least we ought to have the right to know!

The recent vote down against the labeling of GMO foods in California’s Prop 37 once again goes to show how a little misdirection by big business and a little bit of fear about the cost of eating and the economic effect of things goes a long way in fooling the public. So unfortunately here is another perfect opportunity to discuss the nature of ignorance versus knowledge and how being a fool is different than being a Fool.

First though, here is the simple and challenging truth about your food: if you don’t know what you are eating, you are likely eating food laden with GMO’s and grown in unsustainable, chemically laden ways. The reasoning is that it is cheaper and easier for farmers to grow mass amounts of GMO crops loaded with pesticides and herbicides than it is to grow non-GMO’s organically.  But it doesn’t need to be that way — it’s merely the way things became over time, it’s the business model that took off and took over in recent decades. Scientific research brought about some new discoveries and with a growing population there was a need to meet the public demand for more food. However we really don’t have proper impact studies to gauge precisely what the full impact of GMO’s are on the environment or our bodies.

Yet several studies reveal that GMO’s could be responsible for the wide spread Colony Collapse Disorder that is killing off bees. Meanwhile health issues ranging from disorders and diseases, to cancers and obesity problems continues to rise. You would think that such concerns would make people stop and reconsider the situation, but when big money is involved, the lobbyists and corporate machinery churns on - at the entire world’s expense.

The big uncertainty is exactly just how much harm GMO’s and pesticides do to your bodies when you eat them. However we do know that such things harm the natural environment!  It is more important than ever that we think twice about what we shove into our mouths and bodies, and where that food came from and how it will affect our bodies, our immune systems, our entire well-being.

There are indeed other practices and methods of sustainable agriculture that are being developed to meet the needs of the masses, but big business profits really don’t want it any other way. Derailing Prop 37 was a rather simple feat for them - they merely had to outspend the proponents of the bill.  They created enough worry about what the economic impact of the bill could be. The economy trumps our concerns about our health, once again revealing that money is practically a god in good ol’ consumer America. In general we are all like ostriches, who would rather keep our head buried in the sand than wake up to the hard, cold truth that GMO’s are everywhere in the country. We’d rather stay ignorant than pay a bit more to be informed.

Somewhere along the line, wisdom became uncool. Perhaps its because as life gets more complicated, as we hurtle along in a more confusing and daunting web of complexity we are desperately yearning ways to embrace more simplicity. We think ignorance is bliss. We think playing the fool will help solve our problems, and while I say that is a good intuitive response to follow — we need to careful about what type of fool we’re playing, for there is a difference! The lower-case fool ignores facts, ignores reason, and ignores taking responsibility. The capital F Fool, is more about doing things that seem outrageous and thinking outside of the box, the Fool is more about taking risks and changing the paradigm, the Fool is more about cultivating an essence of holy innocence that is peaceful and sincere.

Those difference and many more elements will be explored in “The Happy Happy ReBegin Day Celebration!” on December 29th from 7-11pm. Mark your calendars - for it will be a very festive AND informative evening of performance art starring April Hava Shenkman and yours truly.

In the meantime, is it too foolish to hope that sometime in the next four years we’ll receive proper food labeling on a national level? Or will the administration do something completely Foolish and truly change the way our agricultural system works so that it is safe? It may seem crazy and seem like a bad thing to do for the sake of the economy, but in the long run it could be the wisest thing we could do for the long term health of our citizens and the entire ecosystem of the world.

We need more Fools!

Fools and the Science/Silence of Climate Change

The sacred geometry of Sandy

Mother Nature wants us to listen. For centuries we’ve ignored her. So she’s having to speak up louder and louder. Are we listening yet?

Yes weather fluctuates and comes and goes in cycles, but when the unpredictable forces are becoming stronger and wilder, it’s time to pay attention. After the vast amounts of evidence presented us, in the form of melting ice caps, holes in the ozone, severe nationwide summer droughts, so called 100-year and 500-year floods within a few decades, record temperatures, and now the Superstorm Sandy, I’m upset why this is still being questioned. But I’m really not surprised.

artwork by Faviana Rodriguez (www.favianna.com)

As a child when I did 4-H presentations about what was then called Global Warming, about CFC’s and methane gas from livestock, about water conservation and the like, I was quickly dismissed by several adults as just some silly kid sharing some silly alarmist stuff. Most people wanted to ignore it. And most people are still in denial and/or shock. Our human nature makes it hard to admit when we’re mistaken. We hate being wrong, we hate having to confess that what we do and what we have been doing for most of our lives is deemed wrong and bad. We have to try and forgo much of the judgment and blaming in order to move forward.

We’re all products of this culture which taught us how to be this way. It’s hard to recognize that the modern lifestyles we’ve come to know and love, that of consuming vast amounts of energy and resource, which  produces vast amounts of waste, could possibly be so utterly terrible and so absolutely necessary to make changes to. We’re addicted to our unsustainable lifestyles. And it isn’t easy to break an addiction. But we need more than just an environmental 12-Step program - we need a vast overhaul of our entire belief system, our education system, our business models, and the list goes on and on. The problem isn’t a simple fix. It’s a vast and complex issue that is definitely going to take a lot of genius to figure out. Or maybe a lot of Fools.

That’s right - now more than ever we need a lot of FOOLS. And I’m not talking about the lower-case, stupid, idiot fools, I’m talking about capital F, Divine Fools, as in the archetypal Fool, who does things considered foolish and outrageous and so out of the norm from society. We need Fools to shift the paradigm, to challenge the way things are, to uncover new ways of being that to the status quo seem so strange but eventually will become the standard. History is full of Fools who did things so outside of the box that they were considered crazy, but eventually the path they blazed opened up new ways of being that changed the world and became the norm. Everything is a cycle. Every new venture is considered strange and unusual at first. It’s how evolution works, on both physical and metaphorical levels.

Naturally Fools are going to make mistakes. They’re going to stumble and fail from time to time. Some of what they do will just be plain foolish, but every so often what they uncover will bring such gifts. Fools by breaking through the boundaries are going to do things that shake up the way things are so much that they are bound to disturb the peace. Jesus was quite the Fool before he became known as a Savior. There are many instances where scientific breakthroughs came about totally by accident and Foolish mistakes. Over time the actions of the Fool become status quo. It’s a cycle; what is fresh and new eventually becomes old, and the system keeps turning and chugging along. The problem is that in a super creative society like ours, new technologies bring new advances AND challenges to our life. The systems and structure of society can actually halt progress and create stagnation, like a wheel spinning in the mud. While holding on to certain customs and traditions is indeed important for survival and identity, there are also certain elements of our culture and belief system that need to adapt in order for us to survive. The actions of the Fool are needed to break through that stagnation. Thinking outside of the box may come up with some wild and fantastical ideas, some terrible ideas, and some simply Divine ones as well.

The promised Hope and Change hasn’t manifested in the past four years as many of us would like, but is that really surprising given the fact that we’ve lived most or all of our lives in this unsustainable consumer culture and that there is so much resistance to do anything truly progressive to amend the situation we find ourselves in? Did we really think we’d get out of the situation in a mere 4 years? Life grinds on, bringing new complications and challenges. We definitely built ourselves a massive hole, but we won’t climb out of it using the same methods we got ourselves into it. And we won’t get out of it without collaboration and Fools to help pioneer the way toward new methods.

So if you find yourself in a situation where you hear of something or see something that seems so utterly outrageous, crazy, and downright FOOLISH — try to recognize that you are merely in the part of the cycle that is used to doing things a particular way, but a new Foolish way is required to get us out of the hole we’re stuck in. And if anything is to be done to put us back in connection and balance with the forces of nature, and allow us to live out a more sustainable life, it’s going to require giving a lot of Foolish endeavors a try until we find a way that works.

To find out more about the archetype of the FOOL keep checking online for more posts to come, leading up to  THE HAPPY HAPPY REBEGIN DAY CELEBRATION on Saturday December 29 from 7-11pm at the Spirit Studio Silverlake. The event will include video presentations and live performances by your Foolish hosts April Hava Shenkman and Jason Jenn. It will be a fun-filled exploration of the Fool archetype, paradigm shifts, calendar dates, the turning of the wheel, duality and much, much more!

"Bare" Witness to Veggie-Mama

 "Bare" witness to Veggie-Mama, goddess of Urban Alien Organic Garden at the Harvard Hive Alien Art Museum (etc.)! I’m still in awe that The Delusional Diva, R. Sky Palkowitz bared it all for my wild idea to use the remains of the summer garden as costume adornment on her body. And she's still in awe that she actually laid down in a plot of soil full of earthworms and insects I worked up in preparation for the winter garden.

So...it all happened when I pulled up the roots of the spent out plants. I realized I couldn’t let such beautiful forms go to waste! Something needed to honor them creatively, but also allow them to naturally compost. My mind has been on all manner of plant deities and ways to translate/morph them into human form (in a way creating my own form of a GMO). I'm developing a performance to don costume as The Queen of the Weeds on Nov 19, so it didn’t take much to make the leap for there to be also be a Veggie Mama.

It suits Sky so well, who has been a devout vegetarian for some 20 years. Gardening is an art, and certainly Sky’s endeavor in The UAO Garden reflects her spirit and honors the work that went into seeing the first season go successfully for her. And Sky is the type of bold, daring artist who really puts herself out there in the name of art.

Shocking? Well, what else would you expect from The Delusional Diva? Well, this Veggie-Mama is bound to make a future appearance and evolve over time. I'll be sure to have my own camera on hand, rather than the one I borrowed. We had a brief amount of time to do the shoot -- Sky naked in the front yard? Fortunately the aliens gave us a 15 minute span of time where nobody was around. It was simply divine. Now the garden has been "blessed" by the creation of art, and ready to plant the winter crop!

We’ll just have to see what happens next.
In-joy!

Urban Alien Gardening at the Harvard Hive Alien Art Museum (note Sky's new original alien art leg tattoo)