To
Be Humans Again
The salt of the
Earth. That is what a man who loved people called us. And it seems
to me we have fallen so far from that role it staggers me to imagine
how did it happen?
A truly dedicated
man who was somehow still playing the role originally assigned to all
of us, Salt, who was named Sebatsiao drew pictures of us with a
light box which enabled him to see through a lens what most of us
cannot or will no longer see to show us to us, that man, taught me
something true. It was in watching a documentary of the life of this
man and his loyal wife that it was possible. For more than twenty
years I have been trying to understand what I saw in an hour or two
one day in the studio of a stone carver in Austin. I realized then
that the trade of stone mason arose at the time men slaved to build
pyramids. But why? I asked myself, would any human being
willingly spend their one life in such a way? And no answer came
except, well, they did...and the do still.
I have slowly seen
that even in the lives of very adventurous humans who go into the
unknown regions of reality as brave and lonely explorers at the
behest of some calling...or some kick in the pants from
behind...which? Both. Depending on what is needed at the moment. Oh,
yes, I did not make a complete sentence. So what? I'll continue as
of it is perfectly as it should be. Even in those lives, the
explorers lives, one finds a point where the trailblazer vanishes
into the stone mason chain. Have you seen that? Yet?
The photographing
holy man I spoke of earlier became so sick of what he drew with his
camera that he could go on no more living at all, unless, he found
something else to behold to take him away from the Hell he had
displayed so boldly before us. And he did.
Know what that
man...one man, who listened to his wife ask, why don't we replant the
forest that once was your home and is now a barren wasteland, did?
As impossible as the idea seemed to him and others who heard it, they
began to replant trees, tiny little plants. In 15 short years it had
become a magnificent green forest again. You can go to Brazil today
and tour it. Or, search it on the internet with the aid of
sat-il-light and look at pictures drawn with the light there that are
meant to depict its glory.
The man was restored
himself. He who gave so much he almost died lives as whole man, Salt
Man. Not just the great forests can be restored, humans!
Johnny
Smith,
traveler
to this land
longing to be human being
p.s. And the new
forest in Brazil? Why, that is no longer owned by Sebatsiao's family
that is a dedicated public park.
