What can the humble Rhubarb plant teach us?

What can the humble Rhubarb plant  teach us?

 

Do you like rhubarb? In a pie? In a jam? In a tart? In a cakes or cobbler or crisp or pavlova or chutney? I do. In fact, as a kid, I ate it raw – fresh from the plant in our back yard. Yum!

When I was a kid it seemed like every back yard had a rhubarb plants. Why not? It grows like mad. Needs no care. Produced like mad. It freezes well. You can use it a filler for all kinds of pies or jams or…

The important bit is this: people did things to make themselves as self sufficient as was reasonable and rhubarb was one of those things – like muts – that never cost anything because everybody had some.

No more.

Few people grow rhubarb. How do I know? Besides asking… I note that 1 stalk of rhubarb is usually sold for $1 !!!! That is crazy – at least for me because I grow it and because it is something like the air we breath – its free and not “monetized”. Yet.

Exactly.

That’s the big word: monetize.

This foray about rhubarb is not really about rhubarb – it’s about how those smart guys making all the money has successfully turned us into consumers instead of folks who make and fix their own stuff. We are no longer like the folks who grew up in the depression or were hungry in WWII.

They could replace the engine in their car or darn socks and of course made all their food “from scratch” – no ultra-processed food for them!

How far we have fallen from grace.

Instant this. Instant that. Convenience. Speed. It’s easy – just pop it in the micro-wave. Amazon will deliver free of charge an item in a big box that is very small from the other side of the world – gotta love it – right to your front door? You don’t even have to get off the sofa as you binge watch 4 seasons of your favourite show on netflix!

You know what I mean.

Boy – those smart guys in charge of the big companies have done an amazing job of monetizing just about everything – even rhubarb, the weed that you could always get for free from your neighbour who was being over run by it.

The problem of course is that when things you needed for a good quality of life were either free or shared or were fixable or it was something you do yourself for much cheaper than from the store you were [at least partly] the master of your own ship. When you replace the brakes yourself or make your own jam or even build your own cottage like my father in law did you gain a huge sense of self-respect and pride and sense that “I am capable. I matter. My choices matter. Folks can look at me and see a person who has his SH– together.”

With today’s marketing and today’s technology that is now much more difficult.

I have an electric car – I can’t really fix it.

My daughter wants to make her own clothing for her kids – but the material from the fabric store costs multiple times what a finished product from Asia costs.

My farmer friend wants to fix his tractor – but cannot because there is often software involved which only the company can deal with.

I want to change the battery on my cell phone – but its glued in so I cannot.

So I feel inadequate.

I feel like I am not in control of my life.

I feel like a pawn.

I feel like I don’t matter.

And it turns out that in the new world order you don’t matter.

The wealth, and thus power, are concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people.

The algorithms know what you like before you do.

AI has taken your job.

You live in a sacrifice zone where the natural gas extracted by fracking has poisoned your well water so know you have no water to drink and your home is worthless. 

So what do you do? Follow this advice:

The obstacle to action advances action.

What stands in the way becomes the way forward.

Marcus Aurelius

So what can you do?

Grow rhubarb! Know that you are not merely a consumer. You are not a pawn – but ONLY if you make that choice. Work with friends and build community where together you are more or less in control of your lives. Accomplish something that matters to you and bathe in the self respect that you are entitled to. Help your neighbour and he or she will help you. Remember that we’re in this together and you are never alone. Turn off your newsfeeds and social media for a few hours each day. Walk aimlessly as you watch the geese return from the south and honk loudly as they proclaim: We live! We are here! We matter! Read some Mary Oliver poetry – like this one entitled Wild Geese.

 

You do not have to be merely good.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

And laugh a lot at the absurdity of the world. At a deeper level it really is rather funny. I leave you with this wisdom from a 6 year old as you enjoy the gift if this day.

6 yr. Old: I’m smart.

Adult: How do you know you’re smart?

6 yr. Old: I’m smart because I don’t argue with people who are wrong.