“America’s road warriors can now go full military apocalypse, with the arrival of the Rezvani Vengeance. This souped-up SUV boasts bulletproof glass, blinding strobe lights, electrified doorhandles, and wing mirrors that can shoot pepper spray... ‘Vengeance is yours,’ trumpets the website, which details how the car can release a dense smoke screen to confuse people following you, as well as detect electromagnetic pulses from nuclear weapons,[1]” writes Oliver Wainwright of the Guardian.
A plague of violence and a militarized mind has overtaken the planet. I could chronicle it but all you readers gathered here can do it for yourselves, highlighting your own concerns and alarm. Even without the details, we can be together in the anguish. Maybe we don’t need the details and the next exposé. Maybe they have become another form of excitement, like the murder mystery that dominates the media and is apparently necessary as three words become more and more prominent in the vernacular: monetize, weaponize, militarize.
The base price for the Rezvani Vengeance is $285,000.00. With add-ons, it can come to about $710,550.00. There was no charge for the Fire Red Satin paint I selected, but the “military package” is an additional $125,000.00, and it includes military run flat tires, bulletproof glass and body armor, seven bulletproof vests and helmets, gas masks and electrified door handles. The “security package” is merely an additional $62,000.00, which includes the smoke screen, a steel ram bumper, blinding lights and pepper spray dispenser, but it won’t get you continual video recording or optional explosive device detection, which are all clearly necessary, as Wainwright indicates through the title of his Guardian article quoted above: “Pepper spray for the school run? The weaponized SUV set to terrify America’s streets.”
Dystopia is here. We can each speculate on its origins, how we have been captivated, and we will all be correct. No need to argue, which is a unique state of being in our increasingly hostile culture. What then? How to respond to such an iconic reflection of the times and a frightening concern for our children’s and grandchildren’s futures, up to the 7th generation and beyond.
I could despair, but that’s indulgent, or submit hopelessly to such a doom for all beings as the Natural World will not survive this vision. Without knowing the way, but determined, that the natural world and remaining true human beings survive and thrive, I turned to the I Ching. It’s the oldest oracle in the world—why not go to the ancestors for their wisdom?
I ask the question that comes from a broken heart: What might be the ways for us to meet these times and for the Natural World to survive and thrive?
Of course, I am afraid to throw coins and receive an answer—afraid for the future. Still, I must. The animals coins I use are, seemingly, ordinary quarters, but one has a Bear on it, another a Buffalo and the third a leaping Fish. You can find one with a Lake and another with a Mountain, so they are very well suited to our concerns. I hold the question a long time and pray as best as I know how for an answer that will guide us.
The answer is Hexagram 63 “Ji Ji Already Crossing.” [2]
Already Crossing: “Begun, already underway, proceed actively, crossing to the River-Mountain festival…We are in the world of manifestation now…surrounded by danger but secure within. The situation requires care and attention, co-operating with something already underway.”
There is one changing line.
Nine at the Third. …The High ancestor subjugates the Demon Country. Three years go by and he controls it…You are embarked on a great enterprise. It will take time to complete. Keep a firm purpose. Don’t listen to what others try to tell you. You will win in the end and realize your heart’s desire.
The Relating Hexagram is 3: Zhun, Sprouting.
The World Tree. “Begin, establish, birth pains, gather your strength to surmount difficulties.”
The response is so exact to the question and the situation we are in, I must consider it an answer from the benevolent beyond—call it what you will—ancestors, spirits, the Divine…
In three years, I will be 90. It will be a good age to look back and smile because we did what we could and what we imagined and what we dreamed to meet the times. And because there may be an indication that the Natural World and all her beings, might survive and thrive.
Surely there are a multiplicity of ways and approaches and, I think, all of them need to be activated. This means each of us takes on the one offered to us.
And so, this question, I offer to each of you: What are the ways? What is your way to meet these times so that the Natural World and its values can survive and thrive? Survive and thrive—that’s a useful mantra. Let’s keep it in our hearts and repeat it to remember.
Clearly, there are probably a multiplicity of approaches and all of them need to be activated. This means each of us begins, each of us takes on the particular way that is offered to us. And so, we contemplate, listen deeply, pray for wisdom, act upon, initiate what we always knew is necessary and ours. It takes a little courage, and hard work as the I Ching advises, also imagination and devotion. But all of this is so the beings of the Natural World can survive and thrive beyond the seventh generation, and hopefully we have learned, again, to include ourselves among them.
Deena Metzger is offering RECONNECTING, STALKING THE LIFE FORCE, A LITERATURE OF RESTORATION WRITING WORKSHOP from March 17, 2023 to March 19, 2023. Click here to join us.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/25/pepper-spray-school-run-apocalyptic-suv-reznavi-vengeange
[2] Thank you Stephen Karcher, once again, for your extraordinary translation. Total I Ching, Myths for Change, Ptarkus, Little Brown Book Group, London, England. 2003.
I can hardly believe this, I mean, I can't believe it. Even though it is true.
Survive and thrive, make Soul, sustain Soul. Grief, wonder, love, fierce love.
When I first started reading this, I thought you were speaking of a military vehicle we were sending to Ukraine. It wasn't until you said "I clicked on red" that I realized it was possible to order one of these monstrosities of violence for personal use. I was so appalled that I almost didn't read the piece to the end. Had to get up, pace in a circle, and breathe. And then there is the I Ching...the response from the Spirits that I held my breath to see. And now I cam crying, crying and looking out the window as the sun pierces the clouds and illuminates the oaks, maples, and pines and the birds at the feeders. I would do ANYTHING to see them survive and thrive. And then there is your comment about armed robots in San Francisco...do the times have to get so horrifically and absurdly violent for us to recognize the error of our ways....and look for other ways...take responsibility for turning the tide? The Spirits say that is what we are engaged in. May it be so. May we each find our place in the turning of the tide.