FOUR-LEGGED FRIENDS

tarbaby 17feb10

The forecast for today didn't come true. Got maybe a dusting of snow in the night instead of 5 inches. Forecast for tonight is same, 5-6 inches. I don't pay much mind to forecasts now. It's always snow and below freezing cold. Instead of dreading it days in advance, I wait now and groan just once a day when the snow and ice descend. I'm at a place where it almost doesn't matter anymore. Maybe I'll get so exhausted from it I'll fall into a trance and flop around on the floor like a fish. I'm about there.

Earlier today I saw 2 nature documentaries made for tv, funded by Reader's Digest, that good ole Rupert Murdoch right wing organ. It used to be the mind of Ozzie and Harriet. Now it's the mind of Rush Limbaugh. But the films were free of propaganda, unless it would be the capitalist propaganda of survival of the fittest. The films were spectacular of God's creation, the animals we call wild, and fish of the sea. Film of creatures of the wild using their fullest intelligence in their hunting skills. Seeing a closeup of a leopard's leading foot when it was stalking, I thought of TarBaby stalking a mouse. All the movements the big cats made I've seen at home with the 3 felines.

It was all beautifully photographed. A lot of it was done in such a way I wondered how a photographer could do that. Among the first scenes was a closeup of a lioness stalking through tall grass. It was filmed by a camera that was not more than 6 feet from the lion's right side. I could see the distance between cat and camera in the thin grass, wondering why the cat is ignoring this machine moving along with it, not far to the right, a swat of the paw could get photographer and camera in one swipe, but it kept on stalking the gazelle like this thing moving beside it wasn't there. Good footage. I expect the photographer who got those images was very well paid, having a ball making good money doing what he/she loves doing.

There are pictures of monkeys in trees jumping all about, chimpanzees eating termites on a stick, running through the jungle, living their lives, up close and personal. It has film of tiny jumping spiders doing what they do, like jump on preying mantises and bite them to death. One spider went after another spider and touched it one time, then sat back and waited for it to die. A Steven Seagal move. Different monkeys have different alarms for different occasions. The snake alarm is one sound, another alarm is another sound, like they have a vocabulary, limited, but there it is. Monkeys, as always, were hilarious. The monkey part of a zoo was the most fun. I could look at them and they'd look at me. We'd look at each other across that divide of consciousness and see that while on the one hand it's a tremendous leap, on the other hand it's just a step. I wanted a monkey pet in childhood, but they are way too raucous to keep in a house. They don't toilet train. I've heard of people that have monkeys living in the house, but everything in the house has to be made for it, like places to swing besides drapes. It would have to be a monkey gym.

There is something special about a friendship with a non-human. I have found cats and dogs not far away at all in consciousness. All it takes is paying attention to them. My animal friends taught me we don't need to be talking to communicate or be in touch. My talk to them amounts to little more than their names and short phrases of endearment, like, 'TarBaby's a good jumper!' He is good at making spectacular jumps, like from the table I feed him on to the top of the refrigerator and not skid more than a couple inches. When he was young and hyper athletic, I saw him jump all the way across the creek down in the woods where it was at least 10 feet across. It was a beautiful leap. He studied it a moment, standing with front toes to the water's edge, and sprang suddenly into the air. It was such a long distance he let all four feet hang down relaxed while he flew through the air. When it was time to land, just a slight movement of legs and his feet touched down the other side of the water.

These are the joys of pets for me that makes them worth buying all their food, giving them shelter, and paying their vet bills. They keep me in touch with what I think of as real. My species is bent on self-destruction, and, by God, we're takin ever'thing else with us. I like it in the mountains where that mind is not in the mountains themselves. It's just fleas to the mountains. They were here when we came here and they'll be here when we're gone. Like Ralph Stanley said of them, 'They keep you humble. They put you in your place.' That's about as good as it can be said. I like having little people for my friends who are closer to the spirit than I am. They live by the spirit. Say, 'Mao,' to the giant and he feeds them. Don't worry about getting a job, find a warm place and curl up for a long winter's nap.

They're closer to in tune with themselves than I am. We share the same shelter, they've lived here all their lives, 12 years. We understand one another pretty well. They know me way better than I know them. We pay attention to each other. We're family, actually. They don't want to argue and fuss and threaten and lie and take trouble with them wherever they go. They want to stretch out on my lap when I watch a movie or read. I like it too. We have a bonded friendship that is family. Of course, they were born together. I adopted them and raised them, making me their adoptive parent. It's a relationship I value. I see their level of consciousness about the same as the deer that run for the trees when I drive by.

Sometimes I look at a deer and know that individual is a unique personality among deer as TarBaby is a among cats. I see herds of deer and they all run, making it difficult to imagine how individual each one is from the others, just like people, just like cats, like birds and so on. In the herd are ones that like each other and ones that don't. I know they feel love, like all the other animals. Life is love. Love is God. No need to look on the other side of the clouds for God. Life is going on in abundance here on earth. My automatic mind wrote heart there for earth and it looked right, then I realized the 2 words are made of the same letters. Take the h from the back and put it in the front. It's that too. Curious I'd never seen that before. Maybe I had and forgot it.