The Flame and the Cypress: Models for the Green Revolution

by Kim, September 4, 2009 at 6:00am

Concluding this week's exploration of nature metaphors comes a poem from Israeli-Ukrainian poet Zelda. Revolutions have not always been easy on the planet. The industrial revolution sought to tame nature and exploit its resources more efficiently. The Cuban Revolution's insistence upon higher crop yields is at least in part responsible for the soil depletion the country is currently battling. Yet many of us think of crises like global warming as demanding nothing short of a green revolution. How can we be sure that this revolution will manage to temper the excesses of the revolutionary spirit?  According to Zelda, the answer seemsto be that we must remember that our urge for change --the flame-- needs to recognize itself in the apparently slow processes of the cypress--the rest of society and the rest of life. The flame represents a "silo" mentality, whereas the sypress is the ecological viewpoint.