Nature's
Truth
“Nature
tells the truth as it is; it has no euphemism.”
Bangambiki
Habyarimana (Book of Wisdom)
As early summer sets in,
life here in the Deep South is filled with nature. The air, as thick
and musky as molasses, sticks to human skin like dew to flowers.
There is enough green to rival the Amazon basin, and the wildlife are
enacting the ancient fertility rites of their species.
I have mentioned before
that a feral cat lives on my front porch. His owner died half a dozen
years ago and her daughters sold the house and left the cat to roam
the neighborhood. I feed him, as do others. His original owner named
him Satan, but I call him Catnip. Satan is a more fitting name, but I
just couldn't deal with anything named after the devil living on my
porch. At any rate, there he is. He won't come inside, and even if he
would, the dog pack here would likely not be amenable to his
cat-self. It's in their nature to abhor hissing cats, and this one
hisses.
This spring, a
mockingbird has made it his life's mission to torture the cat every
minute of the day. Catnip hunkers down as close to the ground as he
can get, while Mr. Mockingbird dive-bombs him and squawks his
fiercest curses. It is in the nature of birds to defend their nests,
but this is a great demonstration of their dinosaur ancestry. And it
is in the nature of cats to kill birds, but most certainly, Satan's
winged terrorist has the upper hand. This cat will not get his
babies!
There is a delicate
balance in nature. When it's upset, things go badly. What I am not
seeing this year is bees—neither yellow jackets nor honeybees. I
don't mean that I'm seeing fewer—I'm seeing none. I have tomato
plants that are flowering, but the flowers just fall off because
there are no pollinators. It is estimated that when we lose our
pollinators, we will have only two years before we, too, will
disappear. Humankind has become so distracted with ideology and
technology and power that we are oblivious to the real threats to our survival.
We can argue gun rights, and immigration, and trade wars til the cows
come home, and all of it will mean nothing if we cannot feed
ourselves.
We humans represent a
single track in the great cycle of creation—the only one with the
power to support or destroy the rest. Will we wake up in time, or is
it in our nature to ensure our own expiration date? The jury is still
out on that. Today, check in with the natural world where you are.
What is there—are there fireflies, butterflies, bees, moths? They
too are tracks in the same cycle and every bit as essential as we
are. Do whatever you can to support the life that they represent
today.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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