The Philosophical Function of Creeks

Countless ancient traditions point out that evil cannot cross fresh, running water and so proximity to a river or creek is advisable when your thumbs are pricking. You know the line from Macbeth.

Most of us have thumbs broken and bleeding into raggedy splints at this point. Another round of slaughtered children, another demonic chorale of white male Republicans insisting that learning the truth about American history would be MUCH worse than being shot to death when you’re nine years old so get out there and buy more guns! I mean, who would argue with the crisp, impressive logic in that? Quick, let’s make sure every testosterone-addled adolescent male (of any age) can buy an assault rifle and plenty of ammo!

This is evil and there’s more. Voter suppression, gerrymandering Democratic districts out of existence, refusal even to acknowledge the looming nightmare created by global warming, the return of women to slavery in service to the interests of men, mindless arrogance in lieu of civic responsibility as a virus kills millions, everything about Texas.

The litany of evil is endless and it’s hum infects the weak among us, turning them monstrous in their fear of losing an imaginary identity that cannot support them now. I know that one only too well.

And yet there is respite from all of it in the song of creeks, some transcendent message that somewhere there’s something else. So I’m safe for a time beside an Appalachian creek in the hills around Asheville, just breathing. I wish I could stay, but this will do.

Photo by Radek Jedynak on Unsplash