I am a learner, and until recently neither Adam nor the furthest foraging pig had ever pissed here in this primordial meadow where I now stand.
The swineherd smells the wild pig smell of grass, and smelling it she learns the weight of time. Stretching, she reckons the burdens of a plighted troth to meaning, loneliness, mortality and mirth.
Then rising, she wafts away the fates and flies that fuss close-in around her. She convenes her charges, and hastens the herd toward a remote path she expects they will soon find.
the Porcine Oracle
Student, suitor and stranger. I remain deterred a while in the meadow of these remote lands, but it’s all provisional, and a proper pig knows when to root on.
Additional information:
- World Transformation Movement – writings on the human condition and theories about human progress
- Dukkha and the Four Noble Truths
From the Porkopolis Archive:
- Hale Chatfield explains how Porky Pig articulates our condition with an odd and awkward grace.
- Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin considers a retiring swineherd
- In a strange country… wild peasants driving swine
- Painter, Jacek Malczewski, includes pigs and swineherds among the symbols and allusions in his fantastic visions of Polish realities and myths.
- In his poem, Sooey Generous, William Matthews tells us that Emmaeus, swineherd to Odysseus, fattened pork with all the love and dignity that husbandry has given up to be an industry.