The last Liberty Tree. Revolutionaries in the 13 colonies gathered around Liberty Trees to plan their acts of civil disobedience against the British and hang protest signs and mocking effigies from the branches. British authorities hacked down most of these potent symbols of natural freedom; but this one in Annapolis, Maryland, a 400-year-old tulip poplar, survived until 1999.
From Patriotism to Matriotism
Symbols that aren't backed up by honest words and courageous deeds become nothing but empty idols. It's not enough to stick a flag or a peace sign on your bumper and call yourself a lover of liberty sometimes you have to get out the streets and holler back at your leaders' lies. Sometimes you have to go further and work to push an institution that's trending toward tyranny back in the direction of democracy.
On
the day our national leaders wrongfully dragged America into a
war based on lies and greed, we along with hundreds of others
in our town added our voices to the largest international anti-war protest
the world has ever seen. After our
local law-enforcement authorities wrongfully attacked and imprisoned
us along with dozens of our fellow peaceful demonstrators,
we began working with officials, activists, and the media in our
town to make those authorities more accountable to the citizens
they are supposed to serve.
Democracy is something you do. And you have to keep doing it in order to preserve and extend it. We have learned from our study of history and from our own experiences as Wiccan activists that there is a secret to doing democracy successfully: Hold institutions to their own professed ideals.
Our revolutionary forebears worked to enshrine the values of "liberté, egalité, fraternité" that is, to be free, to be equal, to cooperate — at the heart of Constitutions and Bills of Rights here and around the world. The institutions of the world's constitutional republics are supposedly founded to promote these core democratic values. Sometimes their administrations need to be reminded.
No God, no government, no corporation can grant or take away from us these fundamental human rights. As the Founders insisted, they are inherent in our very nature. They reside in our souls. They are not "privileges" that some higher authority can extend or revoke at will.
Freedom? Even Christian doctrine acknowledges that each human heart has free will to choose between good and evil, and that even an all-powerful God cannot make that choice for us.
Equality? The Founders fought to make themselves citizens of a Constitutional democracy (= rule by the people) — not to be turned into subjects of a Christian theocracy (= rule by God) or a corporate plutocracy (= rule by the wealthy).
Cooperation?
"If we don't hang together, we shall surely all hang separately,"
Ben Franklin admonished his fellow revolutionaries. Too many free-spirits
sit around and mouth the noble word "community," but
get up and act only to help themselves — and soon snap like the
lone stick separated from the bundle.
We can reclaim the magical symbols of democracy as the heritage of all of us — regardless of religion, party, race, or gender — by re-animating them with their original revolutionary spirit. Years of rote, conformist "patriotic" pledges, parades, and salutes have drained that spirit out of them. We can restore it partly through our individual prayers and spells, but not completely. We also have to speak out as Americans, and sometimes to act out — always, however, in peace-promoting ways that feed and nurture democracy like a still-growing tree, the evergreen tree of liberty. Peaceful and creative revolution is the "matriotic" way.
Pine Tree Flag, flown 1775-1777
The Liberty Tree
"In a chariot of light from the regions of day
The goddess of Liberty came,
Ten thousand celestials directed the way,
And hither conducted the dame.
A fair budding branch from the garden above,
Where millions with millions agree,
She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
And the plant she named Liberty Tree.
. . . . . . .
"The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground,
Like a native it flourish'd and bore;
The fame of its fruit drew the nations around,
To seek out this peaceable shore.
Unmindful of names or distinction they came,
For freemen, like brothers, agree;
With one spirit indued, they one friendship pursued,
And their temple was Liberty Tree.
. . . . . . .
"But hear, O ye swains ('tis a tale most profane),
How all the tyrannical powers,
Kings, Commons, and Lords, are uniting amain
To cut down this guardian of ours.
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms,
Through the land let the sound of it flee;
Let the far and the near all unite with a cheer
In defense of our Liberty Tree."
(From Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, Vol. I, Ch. XX, by Benson J. Lossing, 1850.)
Latest update: 29 Jan. 2011