Pregled posta

Marketing

This is the face of Failure.
My failure as a poet to inspire empathy.
The failure of other men to know truth.

This was not done out of necessity, either for sustenance or self preservation. This was not a sport as both parties did not know they were involved in the deadly game,
and the odds were impossibly stacked against the nobler creature, despite its superior strength, sight, hearing,
sense of smell and natural grace.

This required no great skill, no great courage.

And it is highly ironic and absurd that an invasive, cancerous
non self regulating species of over 6 billion should claim the need to 'control' the population of other species, even as they kill 150 species a day, and utterly devastate the life supporting
ecological net which supports themselves and all other things
on this planet.

Don't think I haven't asked myself "Who am I to judge?"
I am me, that's all I can say. I'm not judging primarily. I'm thinking and feeling.

I could quote the bible and the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" and say 'you're going to Hell"but I don't really believe in Hell, except the one we create with our own thoughts and actions here. And anyway, someone would just quote back at me our right to 'dominion' over the creatures of the Earth as quoted in the bible. Although I don't see how we can 'rule' over all the creatures of the Earth if they are all dead, and if eventually our own species is dead.

Even if you believe that the bible is the word of God, we are still left with many choices of interpretation. Furthermore, the bible and any other text claiming to have come from a deity above originally came from a man who 'heard' the deity. Why should I listen to the words of a long dead man who claims God spoke to him 2000 years ago, if God spoke to me yesterday? And told me very clearly "this is wrong, this is sad, this is contrary to my will." Unfortunately, I can't definitively say I heard the voice of God or angels, the voice in my head is my own, as far as I can tell, but who knows.

I consider the Bear to be my spirit animal, so it may very well be the spirit of the Bear trying to come through in these messages. I don't know of anyone who could claim that the Bear was happy or agreed with what happened Saturday, no matter how you rationalize it. If the bear had spoken and begged for his life, I'm sure he would not be dead now. At the very least the hunters would have thought some idiot was out in the woods in a bear suit, or that they were on some sort of Candid Camera episode. In any case, I claim the right to speak for the bear.

After taking my dogs out for a walk and looking down the hill at everything living far and near, nature shrouded in fog, and mountains basking in the sunshine, small figures of humans and other animals moving down below, I think of my father and the way he looked when he died. He looked dead. Empty. Devoid of the animating force of spirit.

Witnessing the death of a human being in this way illuminates the miracle of life in a way nothing else can. As amazing as seeing the birth of a human or other animal, something suddenly there, alive where there was nothing a moment before. So too is death amazing. We see something alive, full of spirit and consciousness turn before our eyes, into a THING. I couldn't have been more amazed if my father had turned into a chair or a table at that moment. The difference between living and dead is that profound.

The point is, I'm not trying to take anything from the hunter. I'm trying to give him something.
The miracle of nature lies in the life it contains. The fact that spirit inhabits things, and gives them the power of motion, of thought, of desire, of happiness and sadness. The miracle is that the inanimate becomes animated. Like Pinnochio changing from wood to flesh. The miracle to me in nature is the love implicit in life. To watch a living animal, and know that it is purely different than me and yet kindred in an amazing mysterious way. I can never know the depths of it's mind and soul, except by observing it, and feeling the energy it puts forth.

To watch an animal in the wild and to share its freedom and enjoy its aliveness is a gift of incalculable value, a true miracle. To kill the animal is to take that particular miracle from the world forever. But it is not the bear in this case that loses. That spirit will go on, will return from whence it came, wherever that is. Perhaps to reenter the world somewhere else. It is the hunter that really loses in this instance. He was in the presence of a miracle. A living creature, mysterious and free. And he took the gift away from himself, leaving only a cold dead thing. A large piece of meat and hair. It is the hunter who lost. The bear is free and always was. It is the hunter who is enslaved.

or as William Wordsworth put it in Oh so fewer and more succinct words:

This beast not unobserv'd by Nature fell,
His death was mourn'd by sympathy divine.
O

Woke up at crack of dawn and met Rachel for our 5k test run through the Virginia Highlands. We ran the path of the June 6th 5k race we're participating in. It wasn't bad at all. Well, there were many hills and I wasn't able to run straight through without stopping a few times, but anyhoo...it was great and I have 4 more weeks to prepare for it. Came back to Trent's and slept for 3 hours. Went to Trader Joe's and did some shopping and bought some delicious foods. Came back and Trent, Shane and I played Scrabble. Then we watched 6 episodes of the L Word cuz I was trying to finish up Season 1..which we did. It was soooo good. Then I played with Trent's iphone and checked out Rose Cousin's music on Pandora! neat. I didn't feel like snapping a photo of me cuz I was ready for bed. So you get to see Rose's album cover via iphone. ;)