Hermits and Hotdogs

In the fifty-odd years I've worked with pets and farm animals, I've learned that anxious and abused ones often fear men – but women, not so much.

Some of this gender-specific apprehension may be down to the fact that we're bigger, louder, and maybe don't smell as nice. But a lot of men also appear to believe the world is an action movie, of which they're the beefcake.

They hurt everything that doesn't meet their approval, usually while shouting. And those guys create dread and disconsolation in many creatures.

Catch enough of that, and any sentient being learns mistrust.

You can accomplish a great deal with their victims by just sitting nearby, not reaching out, speaking quietly or not at all. It takes steady patience, but often eventually works. Perhaps the target simply concludes, based on available data, that we're not really "men". (Or maybe that we're just not failed men, which would be accurate. Brothers barging around hotdogging for the camera snatch the lion's share of attention, which is why we non-gnawers of scenery tend to fade into it.)

I was put in mind of this recently during a night sit in the back yard. First, a coyote stepped into view 30 feet away. He seemed unconcerned, not just with the intense human habitation all around him, but even the intense human right in front of him. I hissed, and he ducked away.

Then not one, but two squirrels almost climbed into my lap, in the course of whatever before-bed routines they were pursuing.

As a Zenner who sits outdoors whenever possible – it's a form in my hermit practice – I've had countless similar experiences with wildlife. I've also used this technique intentionally, with lost or traumatised cats and dogs; nervous horses; and at least one refractory laughing dove.

The grace of these encounters never ceases to thrill. For a brief instant I'm freakin' St. Francis.

Very brief, to be sure. But a flash of kensho all the same.

And a reminder that true warriors are silent and watchful.


(Photo of a true warrior courtesy of Wikipedian Petr Novák and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Draught horse team

(Belgians waiting to compete in the driving event at the Northwest Washington Fair. There are other breeds here as well, but for reasons I don't understand, Belgians seem to be the regional standard.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Grave Advice

One day Nasrudin was walking down a country road when he saw a group of horsemen riding toward him at great speed. Fearing bandits, he quickly jumped over a nearby wall and found himself in a graveyard.

"Where to hide?" he cried. Looking desperately about, he spied an open grave.

Meanwhile, having seen his troubled behaviour, the riders dismounted and followed Nasrudin into the cemetery. At length they found him trembling with fear at the bottom of the hole.

"Ho, fellow traveller!" they called down. "We were riding this way and saw you flee something. Do you need any help? Why are you in this grave?"

"Well," said Nasrudin, "as to that, simple questions often have complex answers.

"About all I can tell you is, I am here because you are, and you are here because I am."


(Photo of Adolph Schreyer painting courtesy of Sotheby's and Wikimedia Commons.)

Forging the Chain

Haflinger horse.

Here's a fun little experiment:

1. Load any Wikipedia article, about anything.
2. Click on the first link in the main text of the article; links in (parentheses) or italics don't count.
3. Click the first link in that article, again avoiding parenthetical or italicised links. Then click on the first link in that article. And so on.

In most cases, no matter what topic you started on, you will eventually wind up at Philosophy. (If not, you probably either clicked on something that was in italics or parentheses, or somewhere you encountered a WP article whose first link took you out of Wikipedia. But this is rare.)

To test this claim, I started with the article on Haflinger horses. (I don't remember why.) Sure enough, after many clicks, I ended up at Philosophy.

I was curious to know where else the technique might lead, so I clicked on the first link there, too. That took me to Reality, then Reality to Existence, Existence to Awareness, Awareness to Consciousness, Consciousness to Quality (hello, Robert Pirsig!), Quality to Property... and then back to Philosophy; I'd finally pi'd out.

So there it is: our Big Bang. Human awareness itself originates in the perception and judging of Property. (A Quality, let us recognise, that only exists in our minds.)

Fellow Zenners, at the risk of being a Paine, I'll say it right out loud: our chains are forged.


(Photo courtesy of Jon Shave and Wikimedia Commons.)

Bright Blows the Broom

When wilt thou, thou bonnie bush o' broom.
Grow on a foreign strand ?
That I may think when I look on thee
I'm still in loved Scotland.

But ah ! that thought can never more be mine,
Though thou beside me sprang ;
Nor though the lintie, Scotia's bird,
Should follow wi its sang.

O thou bonnie, bonnie broom !


Thus did songwriter Robert Gilfillan sum up his love of this flower, a year before he died. Broom (Cytisus scoparius; Gaelic: bealaidh) is as emblematic of Scotland as heather. Like that other heath it’s the blazing cry of spring itself, setting whole hillsides afire and burning off the dreakie humours of winter. And like the other, broom dyes Scotlands' famous yard goods, flavours Scotland's famous ales, and holds a hero's place in her folklore. A broom of broom is believed to sweep away bad luck, and in times past, a thorough housecleaning with such a one was a rite of spring.

Here on the North Coast this scrappy wee didgie has taken our own countryside by force of arms, turning much of it to Ullapool this time of year. In British Columbia the culprit is said to be one Captain Walter Grant, British Army, who planted two shrubs either side his Vancouver Island door in 1850. (Coincidentally the year of Gilfillan's death, having perhaps nothing more to say.) But I've heard equally specific charges against another Scot in Washington. Fact is, broom was well-established in the east of this continent when we got here, so the likelihood that every plant on the coast descends from a single (and intentional) introduction is not great.

However it arrived, broom is hated here, with a passion not inflicted on other, less beautiful, invaders. There is certainly little enough reason to celebrate; it crowds out native species, contributes little to the soil, and is mostly worthless to our wildlife. As if that weren't enough, horses get drunk on the tender tops and stop caring about riders' commands. And much of our dry forest and gravelly prairies, the best riding terrain, is infested with it. Broom is also fingered for exacerbating hay fever, though experts say that's bosh.

From birth I've had a reflexive love of outlaw flowers; if they're Scottish too, it ferments into fanaticism. Thus I celebrate the great busting-out of this flag of my fathers. I love the look of the stuff, and the end-of-school smell of it; I'll often stuff a great armload in a vase and smack it bang on my table, to the horror and contempt of fellow North Coasters.

So to all those not fortunate to share my genes, let me assure you that I'm not alone, just far from home. Not for naet have Scotland's greatest poets bent their art to this beautiful bush. By way of proof, I offer the following hymn, penned by Traveller writer Betsy Whyte. For the rest, I'll just say I agree with every word.

After all, we're all Travellers, whether we've courage to live it or not.

Warning
Several of the "broom" images in this video are actually gorse [Genus Ulex], an evil, malevolent weed entirely unworthy of the confusion. And at least one other is heather [Calluna vulgaris]. Don't hold either against Ms. Whyte or the noble Cytisus, nor indeed The McCalmans; none of whom were consulted.

WW: My cowboy grandfather, Crooked River, 1918

(Far left, holding his horse.)