MY LIFE IN THE THRILL KILL WORLD

donkey jen

It is a moderate time of winter this week. A few days of sunlight and cold. The sun makes the cold feel better than cold under dark clouds. By chance, I saw a weather report for the next week. It looks like every day above freezing and every night below freezing. It's not bad. The floor is not quite so cold. After maybe four winters with two bird feeders, the bird community has worked out a flow that works for all concerned. Blue jays, one black and white woodpecker with red on top of its head, and other big birds go to one feeder. Chickadees dart in for a seed between the big birds. Snowbirds, nuthatches, chickadees, the smaller birds use the other feeder. Cardinals go to both. The birds have an understanding among themselves, something like the way animals of the African plain gather around a watering hole in peace. The family of red squirrels that live in the pines around the house use the feeder the small birds go to. Gray squirrels from the trees across the road use the one the big birds go to. The squirrels don't take everything. They eat what they want and go on. I throw seeds on the ground for the squirrels so they won't go to the feeders so much. They're not a problem, but the birds have to wait when a squirrel is at the feeder. I see the birds in peace with each other, the whole variety of birds, big to small. The blue jays are not aggressive with the smaller birds. They wait their turn when another bird is at the feeder. They perch on the rhododendron branches waiting for next opening. They live in peace. The feeders are the communal station for nearby birds. The hawks know the feeders are here. Among the tree limbs and rhododendron is not an easy place for a hawk to maneuver. They wait outside the grove of trees to nail birds coming and going. I suspect one is living in a grove of white pines up the hill behind the house. I hear it from time to time. I've seen a sparrow hawk fly in here, but it didn't do any good. The birds scattered. The hawk had no reason to wait, perched on the bird feeder, and flew. 

donkey jack

At first, I didn't like the idea of the hawks invading my bird sanctuary. It wasn't long before I caught on. The feeding station is here to feed hawks too. They're birds, they live here, it's communal, they're welcome. They're part of the balance. I once saw a Cooper's hawk land just beyond the window, a big bird with impressive wingspan. It looked in the window, saw me and flew. A red tail lives nearby. I see it sometimes sit on a wire or sail by. It is Justin's hunting buddy. When he was using his tree stand, he said the red tail would fly up and perch on a branch uncannily close to him. Soon after, a deer would appear. He learned the hawk knew he was hunting. The boom of the rifle did not make the bird fly. It stayed in place, just a few feet away. The hawk knew Justin was a predator too, who went after the big animals the hawk couldn't handle. The hawk knows Justin's truck. I think of the thousands of years the Indians lived in peace with mountain lions, rattlesnakes, bears, wolves. Europeans discovered the world was round and went looking for gold. The age of discovery on one hand---the age of genocide on the other. They not only annihilated Indian civilization on two continents, but killed about everything else too. Killing became American tradition unto an attitude pervasive all my life I trained self away from: if it's living, kill it. Buffalo Bill's genocide of the plains buffalo made his name, got him fame and fortune, ostensibly to starve the Indians into submission. Someone I know heard something on the deck in the night. It was a possum. He went and got his gun and shot it. And I say within, Wha? I wanted to say, It was only passing through. He knew. Something to kill. Easy target. Hear the gun go boom. Nailed the sucker. Good shot. By this time in the life, I have emotional, as well as physical, reactions I suppress from view hearing somebody tell about killing something. I'm not a good actor.

donkeys and their shadows

I've noticed my hunting friends like to watch my face while they tell me about a kill. I do my best to keep a poker face, which gives me away. I've heard some stories that make me want to cry. The hardest time I had keeping reaction from showing in my face was the time my friend Jr told me about shooting a hoot-owl out of a tree at a hundred yards, watching my face to see me hold it. One of the great ironies of my life came the night of the morning Jr left the body. Parking at home, when I opened the car door to get out, I heard a hoot-owl in a tree so close my first thought was, why didn't you fly when the car drove up? Next thought, It's Jr telling me he's all right, saying hi and thank you. I wondered why he chose an owl to speak through. At the house I looked up owl in Jamie Sams' book, Medicine Cards. I already knew the wisdom part, but wanted to see what else the book had to say. Owl fit Jr. He was the one I call the only man I've known all along the way who had true wisdom. I found the owl is also the deceiver. It flies on silent feathers and sees the unknown. Both these aspects of owl point particularly at Jr. I was not the only one who knew him to see the deceiver, but knew I was the only one to see his wisdom. I mentioned to two of his friends of many years, separately, a few weeks after he'd been gone, "Jr was the only man I've ever known I'd say without hesitation had wisdom, the real deal." I knew neither one would allow him wiser than themselves. Also knew neither one would see wisdom in him or anywhere else. It's a bible word with no meaning in the now, like prophet or king. It's not a word you hear much on tv. Both men without much school education, though both with PhDs and post-docs in experience, answered after a pause of a few seconds in the same words, "Jr did have some wisdom about him." I took it for affirmative, knowing neither one had seen wisdom in Jr, consciously, and knew both had seen it unconsciously. I wanted to bring it into their consideration to add a new dimension to their memory of Jr.

found on a maple

I personally do not like guns, though had two that were given to me, didn't want either one. After several years of catching dust, I gave them away to get them out of the house. I'm of the belief that guns attract guns. I also believe I'd rather be killed than kill, though haven't had a chance to test it and don't want the chance. I do not believe I'm safer with a gun. A possum wants to sleep under the house, you're welcome. A coon wants to eat leftovers at a bird feeder in the night, you, too, are welcome. It's communal. Coyotes come around in the night, I don't need to kill them. I step outside and yell big and loud, GIT. The giant's left his barn. The coyotes leave. My reputation as a human precedes me. Everything is afraid of humans. The animals left in the wild tell their babies the humans can kill you just by seeing you, they go boom and you're dead. A wild animal weaned by its mother cannot be tamed. A wild animal brought up from birth by humans is easily tamed; it hasn't been trained by mother who knows to avoid humans, rule number one in the wild. They'll kill you just for living. American cops kill three people a day, one of them an unarmed black man, woman or child. It's not safe to be a human in America either. Then we have the homicides and all the other -cides. My way in this world is to go in peace. Merely having a gun in my mind is not peace. Some friends taught me to fill half gallon plastic fruit juice jugs with water and blow them away. I had a .45 that shot magnum hollow points. I went out one day and blew holes in a few. Never touched it again. Hot dang, blew up a plastic bottle. I liked the balance of the weight in my hand. I liked the feeling of power when it went boom. OK, I experienced it, now what? I'm suspicious of "power" so readily available. As for the balance, a brush feels better in my hand. I'm of the belief that guns, like money, create more problems than they solve. A gun is an instrument of hate. I don't trust hate either.    

yard art

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KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING

 

        sonia delaunay

 

Fall is gradually coming on. The leaves that yellow are the first to turn. We haven't had a cold snap yet to turn the orange and red ones. My understanding from a biology class was that a night below 32 degrees closes a membrane between the twig and the leaf's stem. It shuts off nutrients; the leaf dies and falls away. Last year and this year I am wondering why the yellow leaves turned and are falling when the temperature has only touched the upper thirties. That explanation does not hold up for me anymore. About all the leaves fell last year before temperature went down to 32. I won't dispute the explanation from biology class, because I believe there is something to it. After a night when the temperature drops below 32, leaves start changing that day. Now leaves are falling with temperatures in the 40s at night. The explanation that the membrane closes at 32 degrees probably has something to it. But something else is happening too.

There is an interesting zone between thinking I understand a process in nature and not understanding. Like I think I know about why leaves change colors, but it doesn't hold up completely. I think I know the sound of a chickadee when it is making clicking noises. When I hear a chickadee, I see one in my mind's eye, and often look for it in the trees. When I hear a song I can't fit with a particular bird, I see nothing in my mind's eye and wonder what the bird is, but not enough to investigate. I learn a process that has to do with the changing colors of the leaves in autumn, and I think I know something about it. Then a winter comes along where the rule doesn't apply. Like the saying, Rain in May makes good hay. It's true. I remember a year when there was little to no rain in May. The hay was still good. So rain in May is not the source of good hay. It's just a saying that holds true, because it almost always rains in May. Then it doesn't rain in May and the hay is still good.

I find a kind of comfort, like recliner kind of comfort, in not knowing what might be behind certain behavior or how rocks absorb water like sponges. I didn't know rocks absorbed water until a sweat-lodge experience where the leader recommended not using rocks from a creek to heat in the fire. The water in the rocks turns to steam and the rocks explode like grenades, shrapnel in all directions, pieces of sharp-pointed rock flying through the air like free-range bullets. Pretty much the same as tossing a handful of bullets into the fire. I saw some rocks explode and felt I understood the principle. Not understanding why rocks from a creek explode in a fire would be the same as nothing to me. It would make me curious about why. I learned long, long ago never to ask anyone around me for an answer to such a question. I don't know why a crow is a corvid and don't care enough to look it up. If I'd remembered it from biology class, if it came up, I'd feel like I had a little bit of understanding about a crow that I wouldn't have without it. But what does it matter? Not at all. But for some people it is simply enjoyable to feel like we understand certain processes in life. Those who don't care miss nothing, even feel good not knowing, not wanting too much useless information floating around in the head.

I have a mix of wanting to know and not wanting to know. Some things pull me to understand them, while other things do not. I'm satisfied I understand hydraulics well enough to to get it that pushing on the brake pedal uses fluid in the line to make the brake work at the other end. Incredible. I think that is a lot more interesting than just knowing you push on the pedal the car stops. Hydraulics is a very amazing principle, like controlling steam. It only matters to know it if I'm a mechanic. But one day I pushed down on the brake pedal, heard something snap, and the pedal went to the floor. Rust in a bend in the brake line weakened the line and pressure punched a hole in it. I didn't understand where the leak was, but knew enough about the principle of hydraulics to understand something broke and the fluid drained out when I pushed the brake pedal. It doesn't help anything at the time, but I could see in my mind's eye an approximation of what happened so when I drove into the mechanic's place I could give him an idea of what happened, instead of brakes-don't-work.

I look out the window at the birds around the birdfeeder, the birds scratching on the ground around it. This time of year mostly the rufus-sided towhees are in abundance. I call them the calico bird. Good coloring to be scratching among the leaves on the ground. Standing still, they're hard to see. I know nothing about them but their song and their coloring. That doesn't diminish my enjoyment hearing them and seeing them. It would probably be very interesting to do a little cyber research to see what I can learn about towhees. Feel like I know a little bit about them. But when I see one, what I have in my mind about them is nothing. The bird itself is the most interesting; information about the bird in my head is the same as nothing. It's almost like the more I "know" about the bird, the less living the bird can be for me when I see one. If I can see it as a soul in a lifetime with wings, that's when I feel like I'm getting to know the bird. Watching the bird's behavior tells me more about the bird than a paragraph in a bird book. The Indians knew the various life forms by their behavior. Civilization mind is more concerned about genus, Latin names, details about bone structure, details learned from dead birds. The Indians studied living birds.

It's a major difference studying a species of bird, say the chickadee, by watching its behavior closely over a period of time, and by its bone structure, it's beak, etc. A latin name does not help my understanding of the bird. I'm more of the line of thinking that wants to know a bird by its behavior instead of its physical characteristics, yet I see both are valid ways to know a bird and together are better than one of the two. Maybe. Indians didn't bring the earth to the climax of having to reject the human infestation on its surface. Civilization did that. Understanding a bird or a mammal or another human being, my personal preference is to observe behavior. On the psychiatric couch we talke about behavior not bone structure, vocal chords and guts. In behavior is how we know one another and the world around us. It's interesting to know why one car will go up to 140mph in a few seconds and another car could never go that fast. Interesting things to "know," but not essential. A lot of people can get through life never reading Faulkner and never miss it. Some people need to know. I've an idea we all live in the zone between wanting to know and not wanting to know. We take what we want to know for our "interest." Like I love Constantin Brancusi's art, so I want to read a biography so I can learn his behavior for insight into the spirit behind his sculptures.

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