The Spirit of Revolution
We Are The Garden And The Gardeners

The Spirit of Revolution isn't something you ‘tap into’ —even if it seems that way, because there it isn't something to tap into at all; there's no external thing one must immerse one's self in called ‘Revolution.’ Revolution springs from you, it is you, and you give it form. It burst forth from your heart, your gut, your brain; it manifests through your hands, your actions, and your thoughts; it is you in the most beautiful sense of the word.

There's no potion to drink, no regalia to don, no well to bathe in.

There's no muse to invoke, no patron, no dictum.

It's you, it's all of you.

An Anarchist in an interwoven and interlocking web of oppressive logics can't ever be but an Anarchist. But the defiance stands against this.

Revolution is mundane, it is built of all the little actions of love, of care, of intimacy, of beauty and serenity that is friendship. These little actions are ripples but they create waves.

There's no order to friendship. One can't inculcate love, one can't force another to harmony. We find these things in our passions, we have them —embody them— or they don't exist.

It isn't beautiful because there's value or a set of virtues ‘out there’, but rather because we make it so. Because we forge it so.

And we forge it in every caress of the cheek, in every embrace between lovers and friends. We forge this relation in every iteration of relations we assert our love independently of dictums, traditions, and external impositions.

Now, it stands that we can't at all times assert our mundanity, our passions, or love; in total, our selves, our individualities.

So we defend this, and, in turn, defend ourselves as ourselves. Because only in being ourselves can we continually evolve ourselves and not be stuck in the mire of stagnation. Only like this can we grow with our friends; our neighbors, with our trees, flora and fauna, gaining the ability to appreciate them as they are instead of mourn what they were. Is an acorn any less beautiful than an oak? Is it not simply beautiful differently?

We are not misers of dead things, or worse, of stagnancy.

Every breath is a celebration of our ability to assert ourselves, in this way we are free. And every breath shared with a loved one absolutely invaluable.

So we defend this, realizing this.

Perhaps with small token gestures at first, but, again, an acorn is only beautiful differently.

But an acorn needs space, shade, water, and fertile ground. So do we, and as a miracle of evolution have we hands and brain to craft it so, together, finding ourselves, our passions, with others in the only meaningful manner possible, free from obligation to others.

We are the garden and the gardeners.[1]

[1] “Any gardener who should attempt to raise healthy, beautiful, and fruitful plants by outraging all those plants’ instinctive wants and searchings, would meet as his reward—sickly plants, ugly plants, sterile plants, dead plants. He will not do it; he will watch very carefully to see whether they like much sunlight, or considerable shade, whether they thrive on much water or get drowned in it, whether they like sandy soil, or fat mucky soil; the plant itself will indicate to him when he is doing the right thing. And every gardener will watch for indications with great anxiety. If he finds the plant revolts against his experiments, he will desist at once, and try something else; if he finds it thrives, he will emphasize the particular treatment so long as it seems beneficial. But what he will surely not do, will be to prepare a certain area of ground all just alike, with equal chances of sun and amount of moisture in every part, and then plant everything together without discrimination,—mighty close together!—saying beforehand, ‘If plants don’t want to thrive on this, they ought to want to; and if they are stubborn about it, they must be made to.’” – Voltairine de Cleyre, “Modern Educational Reform”