The Peaceable Kingdom

In my Archetype/Barn Swallows' Dance stories, I write about the Peaceable Kingdom.

The Peaceable Kingdom originates with a passage in Isaiah 11:6-8, where the author writes about the animals, predator and prey, sitting peacefully together: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." 

Edward Hicks, a Quaker painter, painted a series of paintings known as The Peaceable Kingdom in a somewhat primitive way, incorporating William Penn's treaty with some Native American tribes in some of the paintings. 

The Peaceable Kingdom is obviously a metaphor, because we can't expect the lion to literally lie down with the lamb (as popular renditions of the Isaiah passage conflate), except perhaps in children's play. Perhaps that's why the passage evokes its sense of peace with such strength. 

Barn Swallows' Dance, my fictitious ecocollective in central Illinois, is my Peaceable Kingdom, or at least a noble experiment in such. Based on principles of right living, stewardship to the land, and pacifism, the collective has collected a variety of people who, like the wolf and the lamb, would not be expected to dwell together.

Imagine two National Guardsmen coexisting with a legendary draft resister. Or a real estate agent dwelling with an anarchist.  A gay conservative rural Southerner living with himself. Barn Swallows' Dance brings disparate sorts together to muddle their way through to the Peaceable Kingdom.

Because the Peaceable Kingdom is an ideal, the members of Barn Swallows' Dance never quite make it there. They face conflict, they bicker, sometimes they fight. On rare occasions, someone commits evil out of their xenophobia. But the collective has pledged to create the Peaceable Kingdom, and they never quit trying.

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