In response to Matt’s use of the umbrella as a symbol, a reader asks if the umbrella could not be seen as a crutch or shield against nature, when in fact we should welcome nature, not fend it off.

Matt responds:

Being human, we always look for metaphors for thoughts that are hard to put into words.  How can you talk about love?  Some people talk about how they love puppies.  Others talk about their first love.  So with “first love,” does that mean their first kiss or first sexual experience, or the first time they looked at their mother as a baby?

I’m always looking for some sort of everyday object that reminds me of some part of our hidden nature.

I happen to believe we’re material and spiritual.  We are two particularly different people.  As far as I’m concerned, when I speak, I speak of myself as two people, and I have to feed both parts of my nature. I have to eat.  If I don’t, I’ll die of malnutrition.  I must also feed the spiritual being inside myself.

To some people, that may sound crazy, but in my philosophy, perception is reality.

Therefore, I look for objects and metaphors to help me understand the misunderstood or misunderstandable part of my being.  I know the physical part of my being.  We have to eat, breathe, have sex, all that kind of stuff.  I never read a book that said you don’t have to breathe or eat or pee or sweat.  All of those are universally accepted.

But when it comes to the other part, the spiritual part, there are all kinds of prescriptions about what you should be doing.  That’s the “mystery” part of life.  It has to do with protecting us from ourselves as a species.

As a species, we are not just a bunch of cows under a tree.  We have competing notions.  We argue about everyting.  We debate, we love, we hate, we kill, we nourish, we are very nice and very mean, we’re silent, we scream.  There are many different aspects to ourselves, which is really the manifestation of our material and spiritual sides.

So to me, the umbrella has nothing to do with rain.  It has to do with the fact that the umbrella is worth nothing unless somebody picks it up, opens it, and holds it.  They become a symbol of gathering and protection.

And whether it be from the sun, rain, verbal abuse, the hitting of each other, or intolerance, it’s a gathering place where we can come strictly as a loving, kind, understanding, caring species that will nourish each other when we need to be nourished.

We can talk about our differences but not kill each other.  That becomes what our home is really supposed to be:  a place where everyone—even the idiot son, the spaced-out mother, the drunken husband, the intolerant grandparents, the barking dog, the ugly daughter, the garbage that needs to be thrown away—everyone is always invited back in.

The umbrella is universal because in every culture, people know what it looks like, what it does, how it feels.  In many cases, they probably have one in their home.  It’s an everyday utensil.

I suppose you could use a saucepan for protection, but you couldn’t get many people underneath it!   In many cases we use a teaspoon because we’re the only one underneath the damn thing.  For me, the bigger the umbrella, the better. 

Thanks for the observation,
Matt