CATERPILLAR AND THE FORGETFUL KINGDOM

 

My heart is longing for a four-legged friend to bring some spirit back into the house. It's not like there is a void in my heart. It's just that I miss Caterpillar all the time. It is becoming something I need to let go of, maybe. The love in my heart for Caterpillar is the same as when she was in the body. I can still talk to her. It's a matter of getting  used to the absence. A kitten is available colored like Caterpillar with yellow eyes like hers. The kitten stays in my mind. Another part of mind says I don't need to be jumping into a Caterpillar replacement right away. Birds galore, chipmunks and squirrels are regulars here every day. I've cultivated them, fed them to attract them for my visual enjoyment. I cannot bring a killer in on them. Plus, there is all that goes with a kitten. Like teaching it to stay out of the road. Plus, I am not done with the sorrow of losing Caterpillar. I'm assured the time was right for Caterpillar, the method she chose was right. It showed me she was in tune with her wild mind. Domestic mind was learned behavior like a second language. Wild mind was her first and foremost mind. I like for my cats and dogs to have access to their wild minds. Where I live gives dogs or cats access to wild mind.

 

 

 

Caterpillar's back legs gave out. She lost her spring, the only reason she could lie on the ground to watch birds and chipmunks and not snatch them. Years ago, I saw her jump straight up and swat a flying snowbird about four feet above the ground. She hit it like hitting a tennis ball overhead. She did not knock it out of the air, hit a wing. The bird's flight wobbled and caught its equilibrium in a hurry and was gone. I did not like the cats killing birds, but they ate them. That they ate the birds I took for the natural order and allowed it. When they ate the birds, the cats are not just killing for fun. They did not kill more than they cared about eating. The cats were well fed at home. They did not require many birds, just enough to keep the desire for the taste of blood satisfied. Caterpillar had not been a hunter for several years, which I was grateful for, though on account of her back legs losing their spring, which makes me sad. My feeling is that she grew weary of her back legs not working so well.

 

 

 

I would do best not to think about it. She had her reasons that were beyond reason. Intuition guided her, or so I suspect. She seemed too much like she knew what she was about. She had purpose. It was the most interesting passing of any of my pets. Some were killed, some died of age. It leaves no choice but acceptance for my part. I'm grateful to Caterpillar for saving me the agony of burying her lifeless body. That's the very hardest part. The blues I'm feeling will pass. Caterpillar's is not the only spirit in the house. There is also my own spirit that inhabits the place. I'm either fooling myself or I do indeed feel Caterpillar's spirit is still here. Not like a ghost and not like her soul, more like the spirit of her presence continues in the air. Or maybe I'm more engaged with memory rather than subtle perceptions.  I'll go on grieving, knowing simultaneously that Caterpillar, her consciousness, her soul, is doing fine. She's all right. I'm the one that's not. Can't help but think of John Crowe Ransom's poem, Janet Waking. The last two stanzas:

 

     So there was Janet

     Kneeling on the wet grass, crying her brown hen,

     (Translated far beyond the daughters of men)

     To rise and walk upon it.

 

     And weeping fast as she had breath

     Janet implored us, "Wake her from her sleep!"

     And would not be instructed in how deep

     Was the forgetful kingdom of death.

 

 

 

The forgetful kingdom of death. I will forget the spirit of Caterpillar's presence. Time erases memory. Therefore, I cling to memory and feel sorrow all the more, knowing this, too, will pass. This, the grief, the last little bit I have left of Caterpillar, the sorrow of losing her, I hold in my arms while her spirit is fresh in my memory. It has been another day of inability to shake myself into motion. Unmotivated. No motivation for anything. I like taking carrots and grain to the donkeys. Jack is braying. A car going by set him off. He is a good brayer. The spirit of the donkeys is very much here. About the time my sorrow loses its momentum, a baby donkey will enter my life. It makes me curious about Caterpillar's timing. Jenny's belly is growing huge by now. I'm wondering if she has a belly full of two of them. I won't hope or think about it. I'll just pray that Jenny's delivery be safe for all concerned.   

 

 

light and shadow on white pine bark

 

photos by tj worthington

 



STILLNESS

donkey jen watches me arrive home

A day of feeling a loving spirit, clear mind, continuing to mourn Caterpillar, though not in the way that wrings my heart, rather gently, quietly, still within, unable to do anything. Carrots to the donkeys, seeds to the birds, squirrels and chipmunks, noting the squirrels and chipmunks don't run when I step outside. The birds don't fly as far as they used to. They tell me I am at peace with the world of the wildlife I live among. They know me and I know them. This morning crows lit up in the woods across the road when I went out with carrots for the donkeys. Next thing would be throwing seeds to the crows at their feeding station across the road near the mailbox. Doves, snowbirds, possums snack there too, anybody passing through, and the crows. It was comforting this morning to hear the crows, see the bird activity in the rhododendron and nearby trees, chipmunks scuttering just a few feet away, anxious for the two feeders to be filled. My neighbors have become my friends, Caterpillar's world. She did not bother any of them. She'd lie on the ground like a gray rock and watch. Birds would peck a few feet from her, her whiskers would wiggle and she'd make involuntary squeaks.

 

donkey jen

 

Coffee, French roast, or something like that. It's African coffee I imagine from a French colony. Talked with Carole awhile. From there on, all I wanted to do was sleep. Went back to bed. Once I lie down, missing Caterpillar comes forward. More than an hour of rolling back and forth from side to side, all that was happening was misery overtaking me. Got up, went to another room where I keep old photographs and found two big photos of Caterpillar, took them to the bedroom and pinned them to the wall so I could see them waking in the morning and at nap times. I allow the need to wallow in the grief, but don't let it indulge itself beyond satisfying the need. I can't suppress the grief. It would be a disservice to my love for Caterpillar to cut the grief short, bypass it, deny it, pretend I feel nothing. The grief is a part of it. I've been here before, know the feeling well. Everything is so different now. A living spirit is missing from the house. Objects are just stuff now. The interior of the house feels like it has lost its spirit. All that's left is the bones. Emptying Caterpillar's water bowl was a difficult moment.

 

jack nibbles his grain

 

Picked up the McCarthy book and read for quite awhile. Did not want to hear music or see any sort of video. Only wanted quiet and stillness. Slept for a few hours. Woke, went back to sleep for a few hours. Woke, back to sleep. Decided to sleep as long as I felt it. Awake til 4 last night unable to sleep for being miserable. About dark, I woke up and felt like staying up. All day I noticed a loving feeling within that went with all  my thoughts. People who came to mind, I felt a loving attitude toward. In this way it has been a beautiful day never leaving the house, but to take grain to the donkeys in the late afternoon. I've been concerned that Jenny's udder has not developed when she just has six weeks to due date. I googled pregnant donkey care and found right away the udder does not expand until about a month before due date. They recommended breeding donkey to deliver in early summer so baby donkey can be born in warm weather. I can't help but wonder about donkeys that live in wild herds in the Rocky Mountains and in the Andes. I don't think they program it to deliver babies only in the summer months. Jenny and Jack's baby will have to acclimatize to the cold quickly. Jenny and Jack will keep it warm.

 

donkey jack (l)  donkey jen (r)

 

I won't need a cat or a dog when Jenny has her baby donkey. I'll not push Jenny to let me handle her baby. I want it to be all hers. I know her jealous nature and will honor it. She will be supremely jealous with her baby, or so I suppose. I'll take my time getting to know the baby without giving Jenny any suggestions I want to control it or take it from her. I'll enjoy her with her baby, stay back and wait for the baby to come to me of its own will. I look forward to seeing Jenny as a mother. My guess is she will be a wonderful mother. Jack will be a proud daddy too. I will have a new friend to love. I look forward to knowing Jenny's personality as a mother. Since she fell in love with Jack, she has been quite another woman from before. The Jenny I know now is Jack's companion of the heart. Next, I'll know Jenny the mother, Mama Jen. Jenny in her maturity has become a beautiful donkey, Penelope Cruz donkey, silver-gray like Jack with the dark chocolate line running down her spine from the top of her head to the tip of her tail. They are African herd horses like zebras awfully much, even in a way like camels. I like having access to such a being, to know one, consciousness to consciousness, to learn how to communicate across the consciousness divide in silence without language. Donkeys have lived among humans as long as dogs and cats have, and much of that time more intimately.

 

donkey jen

 

 

*

  

 



REMEMBERING MY SENSEI

        last leaves

Halloween has come and gone. No tricker treaters out here in the country where the nearest child is at least a couple miles away, down the mountain. I never have tricker treaters at the door, so I never prepare with candy or anything. It's just another day on the calendar. Next day, November 1, is All Saints Day. Who ever heard of that? In protestant Christendom, we don't do saints. Only Catholics do saints, and the saints are Catholic, so protestants don't have anything to do with saints. Must be a Catholic holiday, if it is a holiday. Just another day on the calendar. The fact is, I didn't even know it was Halloween until I turned on the computer and the date said 10/31. I don't keep track of dates much. I don't even start preparing for Christmas presents until a few days before, or after. The only thing the end of October tells me is it will be cold for the next 6 months.



It also reminds me that November 1 is Jr Maxwell's death date. It has been 2 years. Losing friends and other loved ones is one of the more difficult aspects of living on earth. Getting along in a world of money is very difficult as well, that is, for the 99%. Yesterday I saw a photograph of a cat that lived with me 40 years ago. A welling up in my heart brought back my love for the cat, Scobie, and the sorrow of losing the cat. My regret where Scobie was concerned was that I didn't get it that the cat loved me. I didn't know then about love. Didn't know animals, birds, fish loved. But they do. Now that I've connected with the love in the animals, I see it so clearly that their love is in silence. Remembering the end of Cocteau's film, Beauty and the Beast, where Beast says to Beauty, "I am a beast. The only way a beast can show his love is to die of grief." A powerful saying.



I've found in myself when I'm feeling grief that the grief itself is an expression of love. The longer I hang onto the grief, the longer the memory of the love will last. When I've lost a friend or a pet, I allow myself to feel the grief as long as I feel it. There comes a time after about 6 months that feeling the grief begins to feel foolish. Then I start letting it go. It fades of its own. And then it's gone. Then I miss the grief, like it was the last little bit I had to hang onto of friend. I hold Caterpillar, the last of my cats, look at her and know there's coming a time of sorrow losing her, very deep sorrow at the beginning. It makes me want to love her more so I won't regret not loving her as much as she loves me. If I were to abandon her or die, she would die of grief. TarBaby and Tapo have been gone almost 2 years and I still miss them like it was just a few days ago. The pain in my heart has lifted, but I still miss them. She's 14, was born here, my home is the only place she has known, and I am the only human she has known. She's met others, but I don't know if anybody but me has ever held her. She hides when somebody comes to the house.



On the first of November I'll visit Jr's grave and take a sip of some good liquor and pour it on the grave for the memory. Somebody told me that's a waste of good liquor, but I don't agree. And I'm the one doing it. If I want to pour a gallon of liquor on his grave, I will. And I won't ask permission. I miss Jr's spirit. It was his spirit I knew when knowing him. Somebody whose disposition was automatically easy to get along with. Nurses talked of how easy a patient he was. I even thought of him as something of a mirror everybody around him sees themselves in, something like a movie star with a featureless face the viewers can project their own faces onto. It did seem to me, somewhat, that a lot of people who knew him saw themselves in him, somehow. Perhaps his absence of judgment had something to do with it. His humility had something to do with it, too.



Through the years I knew Jr, I was amused that he didn't go to church, drank liquor all his life, getting drunk on weekends the pattern, played music for dances, liked the company of the criminal minded, trusted nobody, was sometimes unfaithful, cussed, and the Churchists looked down on him as an unrepentant sinner. The more church they went to, the higher up they looked down on Jr from. He didn't care. He knew how they were. He knew who was fucking who and who kept liquor hidden. His humility was true, coming from inside himself. It had nothing to do with drawing attention to himself for being a humble man. He kept it to himself. He lived it, didn't show it. Judgment I don't believe I ever heard him speak. He didn't believe he was high enough or smart enough to look down on anybody. He told me once, not bragging, but explaining that he held everybody higher than himself. He looked up to everybody. At the time he said it, I took it for exaggeration, like that beats all I ever seen, but as time passed I saw it was his way of life. He did, indeed, look up to everybody around him.



On the day of the morning he left the body, the question came up among the people who came to the surface, the ones who cared the most about him, asked if he was saved. They asked me and my answer was that he'd told me where he'd been baptized, in the Little River where the bridge is now on Pine Swamp Road in Whitehead below Liberty Church. That set phone calls in motion to find the church records for the date. The tradition is that when you get saved, you get baptized and join the church. I think he was about 12. If he was baptized, he was saved. A rush of relaxation ran through everyone concerned. I already knew, so I was happy to be able to give them assurance his soul was all right. I didn't need to know about baptizing or getting saved. I knew his soul was right before he told me about the baptizing.



In matters of the spirit, I believe he was sent to me by God to be my teacher in a spiritual way. In the martial arts he'd be called sensei. Teacher. I learned so much from listening to Jr Maxwell for 7 years, I can only call him my teacher and be honest. So I miss him a great deal. The grief was over some time ago, but I carry a sorrow that he's gone daily, will carry it the rest of my life, however long or short. It's ok. I carry a great deal of joy as well from the years of knowing Jr. It's a balance. I cared for him at the end as the Master himself, in truth. I knew I was sent to Jr by then. I assisted my sensei in his passing. What greater honor than to be able to do that? I needed his teaching and he needed help in his helpless time. I've been wondering recently what listening to the voice of God in your heart means. God doesn't speak in words so much as sets up moments toward lighting our way, putting us in touch with people we need to be a light, and we are lights for them. I believe the voice of God in my heart guided me to Jr to be my sensei and give me an opportunity to serve the Master in spirit. Maybe I do know what the voice of God in my heart might be. One of many possible voices. Like finding the face in trees.



*

CONUNDRUM

tapo

cleve gray 1918-2004



This picture of Tapo is my photographic version of a painting by Cleve Gray. The picture was not taken with this composition by Gray in mind, not even subliminally, because I didn't see it until today. The composition of the picture of Tapo brought Cleve Gray to mind, so I googled him, clicked on Images and got pages of paintings by him. I find his eye for composition is similar to my own, though far more advanced. I have a book of his paintings that I love to flip through to see his amazing colors he puts in relation to other amazing colors. To my eye, he has mastery with color the way a bluegrass fiddler can be said to have mastery with the fiddle. I tend to like his abstract figures in a space of subtle color shades. If you'd like to see some lovely abstract images, google cleve gray artist and click on Images in upper left.



This picture of Tapo catches her the way she sits, the way she looks at me when she's sitting on the floor or anywhere. Her roundness is visible here too. Tapo and Caterpillar have been in a blue funk the last week or so. It's like they've caught on that TarBaby is not coming back. For about 6 weeks they acted like nothing was different. Lately they've been morose, feeling lonely. They sometimes sleep next to each other now. One can walk up to the other without being hissed at or swatted. They went from apparently intolerant of each other to a closeness that seems to be catching on it's just us. I wondered if they would ever feel sorrow from TarBaby's absence. It has struck them. They act like all three of them acted after Aster the dog died. She was their protector. The outdoors was not safe anymore.



TarBaby has been their protector since Aster. I didn't realize how much. The gap left by TarBaby is bigger than just 1 of 3 missing. The gap feels more like 2 of 3. Both Caterpillar and Tapo liked him. They just didn't like each other. TarBaby's absence leaves a great emptiness in the house. It's at about this time for me that I have come to accept he'll not come walking the door one day. For me, it's an extended sorrow, a period of suspecting, but not knowing, hanging on to hope while knowing better, and finally giving in. TarBaby and I had a mind/spirit connection I don't have with Tapo and Caterpillar. Their minds are not like his. And their minds are not like each other's. They're each one individual as we are, and perhaps more uniquely individual because they don't spend the first portion of life in school learning to conform, to be like everybody, whatever that means. It means don't be different, whatever that means.



Tapo is my baby doll who starts purring the moment my hand touches her. She could spend all day every day on my lap. She likes it when I watch a movie or read. Here she comes. At this moment, she's beside the keyboard on the desk. When she wants attention she puts her nose under my left hand and lifts it off the keyboard. She's cuddly, loves to be held, quiet and stays a long ways from my feet. She has a spot on the bathroom floor she catches sun rays at a certain time of day. If I walk into the bathroom, she jumps and runs to get out of the way of big human feet in motion. It doesn't do any good to tell her I'm not going to step on her. She's gone. Caterpillar is apprehensive about swinging feet too, but I can ease her mind when I see her in the kitchen when I go in there. She'll look for a place to get away from the feet until I speak her name. It tells her I see her, and she's suddenly ok. Not with Tapo. The only time's I've kicked them has been walking through the house in the dark.



Caterpillar likes to go outside now, but not far from the house. Tapo hardly ever goes outside. The random chance of a dog invasion is always present during the day. They've learned that after about 6 in the evening the dogs don't come around. Caterpillar goes out in the evening and the night. Tapo almost never goes outside. I have a feeling that if a dog lived here, she would go outside more. She has her different cushions she spends time on during the day and night. One thing about having cats that stay in the house is I have birds around the house again. I never liked the cats killing birds, but they ate them. If they didn't eat them, I'd have intervened, but following the code, eat what you kill, they do. I've seen Caterpillar sit among the jewelweed when it's full grown in flower, waiting. When a humming bird came along about 3 feet above the ground, she jumped up and snatched it between her paws and ate it. Now she's old and fat. She doesn't have the springy bounce she once had. About all she does now outdoors is keep the snakes from under the house. Cats are good for that. So are dogs.



I'm finding, too, now that TarBaby is gone, I gave Tar the most attention. I almost feel like I'm getting to know Caterpillar for the first time. We'd never communicated like TarBaby and I did. I've found she tries to communicate, but we haven't learned how. I've been paying closer attention to her, and working with her, helping her teach me her meaning. It turns out I've been the one slow to catch on. And she's not quite known how to communicate with me. We've been working on that. Much of the times she's been wanting me to pet her or pick her up, I think she wants out or wants fed. When she turns both down, then I get it. She wants me to hold her. Now I've caught on and I'll pick her up when she wants it. She never wants holding more than once a day. But she needs to purr once a day.



I've questioned a lot lately the nature of loving others and they die. Scripture says to let go of reliance on physical form, advises to see the bigger picture, that the spirit never dies. I'm ok with that. Scripture also recommends loving those around us. Then they die. And it hurts so much more where there is love. I understand that my friends continue as living spirits, but I can't see them. If they're here with me, I don't know it. I miss them. I suppose when it comes to how to balance a compassionate heart with the sorrow of losing a friend, we're on our own to figure it out. I've found that as compassion and love have opened up in my heart, the sorrow of losing friends is way deeper than ever before. I know they've gone to Gloryland and I'm glad for that, but it doesn't help the major gap I feel. At the same time, I don't want not to feel sorrow losing a friend. I even feel like the sorrow is a kind of honoring the years of friendship, evidence that I care. Expression of caring. Time passes and the sorrow gradually eases until it's more or less gone. Then I don't want it to be gone. But it is.



And weeping fast as she had breath
Janet implored us, "Wake her from her sleep!"
And would not be instructed in how deep
Was the forgetful kingdom of death.

---John Crowe Ransom
from Janet Waking