The 235th year anniversary

[I]When [we the people]…assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle [us]…[we] declare…these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….[/I] —The Declaration of Independence, July 4 1776.

From the prolific pen of Thomas Jefferson would flow sentiments reflected in our abridged portion of the 1776 Declaration of Independence, now enshrined as one of the iconic political documents mostly revered (save its archaic “all men” to Erica Jong) and more than reviled across the planet.

The Continental Congress of 1782 adopted the sea eagle, a venerated Native American bird of religious significance, as a national symbol appearing in most official seals, calling the white-haired one “bald” as was customary at the time. That would be tantamount to calling Ray Mafnas and Stanley McGinnis Torres “bald,” which I am not willing to do since I am only slightly behind them in the bleaching of the mane department. However, we know Ray to be a faithful warrior, and Stanley a defiant one, which only shows that both the consent of the governed and the dissent of the concerned are protected rights in this 235-year political experiment in the land of the bald!

The image of the powerful bird of prey has in its talons 13 arrows to symbolize might, and 13 olives and leaves to designate grace and peace among the original 13 colonies that comprised the original Union. The paradox of contradictional dialectic, e.g., between might and right, separate and equal, Armageddon and creation, inter alia, has followed American history from the beginning, issuing in the catastrophic devastation of the Civil War of the mid-1860s and its unresolved issues catching up in the equally intense struggle for Civil Rights in the mid-1960s. In my time, the Eagles have landed both in the tarmac of Grenada and the rough landscape of the Moon!

The “Laws of Nature” and Nature’s “God” have also proven to be unwieldy images in the American psyche. Treating Nature not as a subject but as object of speculative and exploitative commercial value has led to the creation of what is now emerging to be the globalization of phantom wealth in our financial markets; more insidiously, in our increasing knowledge of the processes of nature, we abuse its regenerative secrets as a means for commercial gain over population that could use the healing but can not afford the cost, riding its catalytic powers to rearrange atoms and enhance awareness to be in the service of our hedonistic pleasures. Negligent in preserving air and water, and the ecological diversity of its flora and fauna, we have defied the laws of nature with impunity that the Mother Earth of our birth has become the Darth Vadar of our death and destruction. We could declare that “all creatures are to be treated equal” since we already recognize the need to protect endangered species.

Nature’s “God” remains contentious, primarily between those who posit an intelligent designer outside of the processes of nature and those who would very well leave the Unknown unknown alone, acknowledge and celebrate its awe and mystery, and go on with the processes within the limits and possibilities of the human domain. The assumed “objectivity” of Science, happily, does not resolve anything since within its own methodology was discovered that the act of observation itself already alters the nature of the observed. It’s the subject, not the object, that counts!

“God,” of course, is a recent European coinage from the German “gott” and the Anglo-Saxon “good,” which, given its usage emerging from the Latin tradition, harks back to Mt. Olympus’ Zeus, Koine Greek’s theos, Rome’s Deus, derived further from the Babylonian ilu, the Canaanite el, and the Arabic illah. I grew up with YHWH, “that which is, IS.”

Et Pluribus Unum (Out of the many, one) affirmed the oneness of reality, enshrined as the nation’s de facto motto until Congress anglicized it with, “In God We Trust.” Were we to second-guess Thomas Jefferson and the guys, I do not think they meant by the One the super grand Papa out of Krypton. The term “Creator” denotes like that understood in our time, process and development. “Evolution” works but that’s too subversive to many. In Reality we trust! The task of Independence would then be more than separating from England as it is liberating the native and local talent to create new life, to go “where no one had gone before.” Of course, intention and practice are two distinct actualities!

We are still in the tail end of Queen Maria Anna’s reign since CNMI Liberation Day focuses on the crowning of its Queen and her court, commercialized with the sole ascendant criteria of tickets sold, but if the many who write on this page have their way, creating the means, methods, and pathways toward self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and self-confidence could very well be the focus of the islands’ liberation and the nation’s commemoration of its independence.

In a conscious time of glorious diversity, in the planet, in our nation, in our islands and in our minds, a declaration of interdependence would be appropriate. A focus on the Many, as much as it is on the One, is in order.