[UA] Re: Gardener

[Chad Underkoffler]

> Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 09:28:39 -0600
> From: Greg Stolze <holycrow at mindspring.com>
> 
> Maybe a level of abstraction would help with this Archetype. 
> Its symbols and regalia are all vegetable, in the same way 
> that the True King's trappings are feudal.  

I was actually interpreting a lot of what people have been
posting about the Gardner as being essentially True Kings stuff,
myself. But then I considered: the Gardner doesn't primarily
lead, he shapes (and I see the TK as someone who doesn't
primarily shape, but leads). So I think that you're right, here.

> But as you can have a True King of the American Party or a
> True King of South American Communists, you could also 
> have "The Gardener of 67th Street" or "The Gardener of 
> Children" or "The Gardener of the Ku Klux Klan."
> 
> In this scenario, the attributes of the archetype are that you
> guide and encourage the growth of something, but you don't 
> determine its nature. That is, when I raise broccoli in my 
> garden, I try to make it the best, healthiest, most earwig 
> free broccoli I can, but I don't try to make it anything but 
> broccoli.
> 
> On the upside, the Gardener encourages you to become more
> yourself.
> 
> On the downside, the Gardener encourages you to become more of
> HIS VISION of yourself.

I like that. Hmmm, I'd also expand it to animal life (the
Husbandman). This archetype would seem to be one of the earliest
ones, tied to the shift from hunting & gathering to cultivation.

Of course, in the modern world, it may have been co-opted by the
Breeder (breeding new and better aminals/plants) and/or the
Genetic Tinkerer.

Throw some Mendel and Lamarck with a generous dollop of Darwin,
Crick, and Watson, then amp up the magick, and you've got
something freaky.

"The Gardner of the New York Occult Underground" -- what strange
fruit grows in the wasteland...?



=====
Chad Underkoffler [chadu at yahoo.com]
http://www.geocities.com/chadu/index.html
"But after all we must remember that 'art is art.' Still, on the other hand, water is water, isn't it? And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh - now you tell me what you know."
 -- Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding, African Explorer

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