ON CAMP FOLLOWERS
The Parable of the Barley. The Parable of Hem We've met some of our best friends among tl camp followers. Some of them we married.
Camp followers are the maenads of the wild pai wild dancers that have fallen under the spell consciousness. They dance among us: on 01 garbage heaps and compost piles, and we notii them.
They are maenads or maybe secret agents. V watch their dance and we dance with them. V are both transformed. That's just what happe when plants dance with human beings. We st hear about it in the old stories. Metamorphosi
The plant changes shape in our arms. She ben and stretches, reforms herself to fit to the pre sure of our desire. We change her and the rel tionship changes our way of life. We take care her and she takes care of us.
APOIXO
We didn't always live like this. We used to 1 foragers. Of course, that life had its dangers ar its drawbacks also. It had an extremely long ar AND DAPHNE, EARLY l 6 T H C. evidently successful history, however — a long history than since we've turned domestic. Di mestic life is OK, but it still depends on the wild. Domestics sometimes forg this — always tragically. We are wild. We are part of it. If it dies, we die. The plant hunter learns to sharpen her senses. On the lookout: an alert. Are plant-walkers about? Soul-stealing plants? She tastes bitter healers, smells sweet-leafed herbs, finds fiber plants and grain plants, cold mornings, mammoth-skin huts.
So we slept with the daughters of gods, and they tamed us.