Went to bed early, arose this morning later than usual, and am still feeling groggy. Was it the gelato serving last night? I recall intense dreams that I didn't record soon enough, now they have mostly escaped my consciousness, except for little bits and pieces. I do know that Ralph never got in bed with me last night, but Pepe did, and he crawled up close and slept right against me. I'm guessing Ralph is jealous and is protesting, expressing his hurt feelings at not being the cat who gets ALL the attention anymore. Still, he very much likes Pepe. In some ways their behavior can easily been seen to parallel that of humans. About my dreams last night, I do know that upon awakening I had a bit of a sickened feeling in my gut, seeing the birth of some many litters of kittens with no one to feed them or care for them, so to the shelters they go and are lucky if they make it to a no kill shelter, even luckier if they get adopted. And then my thoughts go to the mother racoon who lives nearby, and how very hard she worked to care for her young, how protective she was, but when it came time to let them go, to push them out of the house so to speak, they seemed barely able to walk, such tiny and fragile little creatures, unable to even climb any of the water fountains to drink. Survival is rare and the chances of reaching adolescence is rare, adulthood even rarer, and becoming a racoon senior citizen is indeed to a few. And so all the baby racoons have probably died even though I'd like to think they moved on to another location and are doing well. Statistics don't lend much credence to that hope. I love Annie Dillard's books and how she can write so beautifully on topics that many of us don't particularly enjoy thinking about---the animal kingdom and insects and reptiles devouring one another daily in predatory hunts, bites filled with poison, webs that trap the unsuspecting, bloody kills and the ripping away of muscles as the prey stuggles to get away and dies slowly, in what appears to be such agony. The world is filled with so much *violence* as species after species devours one another as they are supposed to do. In accordance with their very natures. Nature, so beautiful, mysterious, magical, and cruel, raw, devasting, murderous, cannibalistic....
We drove to Wimberley yesterday and picked up my nephew who said he'd like to stay with us for 5 to 8 days. This fall he enteres 5th grade. I have a difficult time entertaining him, so I need to just let that go and let him find much of his own entertainment. We did go shopping for clothes/shoes yesterday, and although the stores were packed with mobs of people, it was easy to find what we wanted. For lunch they both had hamburgers and french fries while I came home and had my sprouted seed bread and peanut butter with honey and fruit.
I'm enjoying reading passages from Ezra Bayda's Saying YES to Life (Even the Hard Parts) and look forward to reading Wherever You Go, There You Are, Mindfullness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn. My reading list grows far faster than my reading.
The armadillos have dug up much of the dirt that Dale carefully spread out, then covered with big, flat pieces of Arizona flagstone to fight the erosion that takes place in the *dry* creek bed each time we have a torrential rain (a distant memory!)...and the water rushes up over our driveway taking away the crushed limestone. Those armadillos are merely searching for grubworms, trying to survive. We are all trying to survive as best we can, I think. We are indeed pilgrims on a path and no matter how much comfort we may take in believing we know our destinations, do we really? I think not.
Time for breakfast and off to Focus on Form class.
We drove to Wimberley yesterday and picked up my nephew who said he'd like to stay with us for 5 to 8 days. This fall he enteres 5th grade. I have a difficult time entertaining him, so I need to just let that go and let him find much of his own entertainment. We did go shopping for clothes/shoes yesterday, and although the stores were packed with mobs of people, it was easy to find what we wanted. For lunch they both had hamburgers and french fries while I came home and had my sprouted seed bread and peanut butter with honey and fruit.
I'm enjoying reading passages from Ezra Bayda's Saying YES to Life (Even the Hard Parts) and look forward to reading Wherever You Go, There You Are, Mindfullness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn. My reading list grows far faster than my reading.
The armadillos have dug up much of the dirt that Dale carefully spread out, then covered with big, flat pieces of Arizona flagstone to fight the erosion that takes place in the *dry* creek bed each time we have a torrential rain (a distant memory!)...and the water rushes up over our driveway taking away the crushed limestone. Those armadillos are merely searching for grubworms, trying to survive. We are all trying to survive as best we can, I think. We are indeed pilgrims on a path and no matter how much comfort we may take in believing we know our destinations, do we really? I think not.
Time for breakfast and off to Focus on Form class.
