Dear Titus,
Balance must be kept
This back and forth letter between Titus and me was written over the summer and so this piece will send you August vibes I hope. It smells of dried grass and hot wind.
This is part 2 of an ongoing correspondence between Jo & Dear Titus, an imaginary character living in a self-sustaining community somewhere off the grid in a close future. He is written by Samuél, one of the coolest living artists I know (you can read his short autobiography here) and one of the best young thinkers on Substack.
Titus was first introduced in this letter from Jo’s Epistolary called Honorable Harvest. The previous letter (letter 1 of the series) is here.
Dear Titus,
You live in the Kingdom of water while I live in the Kingdom of fire it seems. I walk around barefoot and cut-up stalks of dried out chicory and thistle bristle up beneath my feet.
The wind softly washes over the poplar leaves, in a hushed music of a million tiny voices.
It reminds me of you, when you used to sing to the river.
The soil is cracked deeper than I thought it ever could and the horses have no grass left. As for the fig tree... His bounty is gone for now. Birds must have come and helped themselves, for even the higher fruit is gone to the stem. Birds and mice and earthworms and moles, all are waiting for the rain just like us, even if we don't see them. To quench their thirst, they munch on our tomatoes, figs and mushrooms juicy flesh. I do not blame them, as I do not blame the wild boars that come and dig about some of the nights.
They are part of the balance and balance must be kept.
There are too many boars because of too many crop fields and not enough predators. Not enough predators because we have instead become predator-supreme. Like your little Napoleon and his stinking wife, we see the non-human (and even some of the human) as ours to take.
The forests we have made into our land.
The trees we have made into ashes.
Your elders say there are many ways to get sick. What is the way to get healthy?
We as a species are bringing changes to the web and must bear the consequences. My neighbor's consequence is that hunting season has started now and every quarter of a moon he marches at dawn, his dogs howling, to bring the numbers down.
The same wild boars come and feed on some of my Jerusalem artichokes. I do not blame them if they do. Their sacrifice needs a reward. And balance must be kept.
Hail and drought scares us because it is a threat to human survival.
Not a threat to Gaia.
What Gaia likes is balance, and balance will be kept. If that means floods and fire and a lot of wild boars to relieve pressure, then tough luck on us. So when we passionately call to Earth-saving, aren't we in fact just calling for a continuation of our reign upon nature?
I know your elders frown upon me and my kind since the Great Separation. All wrongs must be made right, but “remediating” nature now seems to me like just another way of staying in control. What do the Wise Books say to that?
We see the heat and the flood and the fire just as we see the weeds in our gardens - as things that go against our way.
I am unsure of what to do now that we have angered the balance, and seek your guidance Titus. You always know what I mean, even when I don't say it.
Love,
Jo
Previous letter, from Titus, written by Samuél Lopez-Barrantes.
First letter to Titus, the one that started this:
Other letters from Jo you might like:
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When the balance is gone, we fall - it's a simple fact of nature and physics...