After last night's debate I feel like this little bee ... that I've been put through a cold wash and left on tumble to dry. I just don't get it ... or rather ... I just don''t get the behaviour of a certain politician. I have to be honest, I was so put off that I didn't make it that much into the debate before concluding, not much of value or insight was going to be offered.

I clicked off to maintain sanity and reason and avoid nightmares. I chose instead to tune into the hi-lights ... yeah, not much of those.

There is talk about who won the debate. I find this laughable. There were no winners last night. Most of all ... not the voters, and unless looking overwhelmed and/or bombastic and dishonest makes you a champion, neither of the politicians can claim a win either. There was attack and spin. Little truth and little value. One candidate did make an honest attempt to offer more, but faced with a deluge of refuge, one has to shovel it too, or get buried up to his neck in the excrement.

Personally I prefer the smell of flowers to manure. I prefer growth and cooperation, consensus building, to attack and feces flinging, but I have to remember, nothing helps Mary Mary Quite Contrary's garden grow more than some fertilizer at the right time, after the rains and before the sun.

Nature, creation, requires contrast. Painful at time, but just the way it is. We need a little of what we don't want to know and grow what we do want.

And boy did we get contrast last night.

The path was soiled, so we may seed the Way with care and productivity.

I can't imagine many on either side of the political spectrum, and certainly not those that inhabit the center, want much more of the nonsense we saw last night. We want a garden that grows and produces, not just a stockpile of semi-digestibles sound bites and propaganda-laden posturing.

To the warriors, social justice and all, it's time to become gardeners; it's time to get along, listen, and balance the land; so we don't lose it altogether.

We have built and accomplished a lot over the millenniums and centuries. We are getting somewhere ... always to a better world. It took differing opinions. It did. Neither progressives, nor conservatives can take full credit for the garden. We soiled, seeded, and weeded it together, and we can keep doing it ... and I would hazard with a little more respect and honesty than displayed last night.

Yes ... you can do it and even the other guy ... he can do it too. Those that can't ... well ... maybe they aren't the best choice for head gardener.

Vote with your head and your heart, not with fear or hatred, if you want the garden to grow.

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Words and Images are my own.

54 is published in 81, Poems from the Tao. 81 is available in paperback or digital through amazon and your local libraries and bookstores. Click on any title below to further explore and support my writing.