“It’s mine. I built it. You bump it down, I’ll be at the window with a rifle” . . . “It’s not me. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll lose my job if I don’t do it” . . . “Who gave you the orders? I’ll go after him” . . . “He got his orders from the bank” . . . “There’s a president of the bank, a board of directors. I’ll go after them” . . . “The bank gets their orders from the East. The orders were, ‘Make the land show profit or we’ll close you up.’ ” . . . “But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don’t aim to starve to death before I kill the man that’s starving me” . . . “I don’t know. Maybe there’s nobody to shoot. Maybe the thing isn’t men at all.” (John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath)
It was on a foggy day a little while later that the old woman sat thinking about The Cow Who Ate Eggs. She often talked to herself, and on this day, she said, “You know, I can’t get my mind off that Cow. Do you think there’s anyway to help her?”
And Self, who often obliged by answering her, looked thoughtful, and agreed that it was of concern. “It is a problem because of the Farmer who owns the Cow. And then of course there is the Land that owns the Farmer.”
“I wonder who owns the Land,” mused the old woman, and Self became rather excited.
“Mon Dieu! I think you have asked the Question that will solve the problem. It is a Riddle. Who owns the Land who owns the Farmer who owns The Cow Who Eats Eggs?”
“Maybe if we put all the pieces in a bag and mix them up, it would come out all right in the end,” the old woman said, perhaps in jest.
“H’mm. It’s worth a try,” said Self, and they threw all the pieces in a bag and mixed them up, and then laid them out every which way. And they studied and studied and studied the question until they grew quite tired of studying it. Finally they had to stop puzzling over the riddle and have A Little Something, some bread and chocolate for the old woman, and just-bread-thank-you for Self.
After quite awhile, the old woman said, “Self, I have to tell you something. The only thing that is in my head is a picture of a large teat.”
And Self became very excited and lifted a few feet off the ground. “That’s it!” Self said. “The missing piece, the Great Teat.”
“Self,” the old woman said, looking down her nose a bit, “when I was a little girl, it was a Bad Word for us to even say ‘teat.’ Maybe this conversation is deteriorating.”
Self looked at her as if she were a particularly peculiar bit of debris, then turned as if remembering that It was, after all, fond of her, even though. . .
“I shall explain it to you,” Self said, rather patiently. “The Great Teat Just Is. It is available for the Land and The Farmer and the Cow to use for good or ill. If the Land and the Farmer use it wisely, all is well. If the Land is greedy, then so is the Farmer, the Great Teat reacts accordingly, the natural order of things is disturbed, and the Cow ends up confused. So the Great Teat holds the potential for both good and ill in it, and all of Life has the potential to return either good or ill to it. See, it’s a Circle!”
“Self,” the old woman said, “this may be very Profound.”
“Yes,” Self returned, “or Not.”
After they were tired of trying to decide if it was Profound or not, the old woman said, “Have we solved the problem of how to help the confused Cow?”
But she found she was only talking to Self’s rump, as upended, It groomed a particularly delicate area on its bottom.