Learning from and with our environment and the nonhumans who occupy it.
Our kitty pal Elvis has left the building. He passed away a few weeks ago. The other two cats are fine. They learned to adapt to Hawaii. They learned not to slap at wasps and carry centipedes around in their mouths. They probably learned it by watching Elvis foolishly think he could conquer the critters […]
Cats. I’ve written a bit about them in these webpages. About how observing our house cats’ everyday behavior can illuminate something of human behavior, which, if you’re keeping score at home, indicates a global, if not universal, consciousness. Mainly, I’ve concentrated on how Carol’s and my three cat buddies have spontaneously changed their behaviors in […]
Is compassion nature or nurture? I’ve written about Carol’s and my new life together with three cats, Gracie, Elvis, and Oscar. Oscar is the cuddle cat. He loves a good lap. Prior to moving here, and Carol would add, prior to meeting me, Oscar was shy. He didn’t much care for strangers and he didn’t […]
Why do we nurture children and animals and show babies unconditional love? We know how steam from our core wafts to the surface to become subconscious and conscious reasons for where we direct our affection. But what is the core? Wait. Actually, what did I just say? Let’s go…. We appear to be individuated beings, […]
My friend was no swimmer, so he took lessons before embarking on his snorkel journeys with me in Hawaii. He built up some basic knowledge and confidence to match his courage. He really, truly wanted this, wanted to swim the open Pacific, face down, trusting his breathing apparatus and his ability to handle the current. […]
The cows have come back to our fence line. There is a farmer with a lot of property on the other side. No, not a farmer, he once corrected me, a rancher. Cattle rancher, to be exact. How we love and marry our titles. The rancher rotates his cattle so they can eat the tall […]
Have you ever had the opportunity to observe chickens interacting with each other? Roosters are beautiful, goofy little people who walk around with their heads held high and their chests puffed out. Their whole job in life, it seems, is to have sex and protect hens. Pimping, in other words. But, to the human eye, […]
You cannot master the unknowable. Just ask a fetus. A fetus may think it’s got the whole world in its newly formed hands, but on that magical day of its ninth month of development, BOOM! It dies an agonizing death to become a baby. A mouth breather. A completely differentiated creature of time. Of course, […]
Oneness and separation are inextricably linked. Therefore, oneness is the case that transcends and includes separation. Prove it, you say? You are the proof. Consider…. We’ve talked about how becoming the 1st-person point of view of oneness is the human gift, or human destiny, if we get there. Not thought. Not feeling. Oneness. No-Thingness. As […]
Two feral piglets, abandoned by mother, making their way in the world. With no authority to guide them, they figure out what to eat, where to sleep, when to run from a creature and when to embrace. We think if that was us on our own like that we’d be scared out of our minds. […]