Butterflies and Human Existence

Posted on September 1, 2021 Leave a Comment

Greetings valued friends,

We are experiencing an exciting upsurge of readers from around the world. We reckon that some have missed some of our favorite blogs ergo, we will revise and repost a few of them. Thanks for supporting Biodesign Out For A Walk. LY

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” Maya Angelou

Never before in human history has there been such a wealth of knowledge that has allowed man to contemplate the great panoply of mysteries and miracles including, the origin of The Universe—Life—Human Spirituality. Anthropologists suggest that the first faint stirrings of human spirituality began about 100,000 years ago. Perhaps this is why anthropologist Loren Eiseley wrote in The Immense Journey:

“The story of Eden is a greater allegory than man has ever guessed. For it was man walking memoryless through bars of sunlight and shade in the morning of the world, sat down and passed a wondering hand across his heavy forehead. Time and darkness, knowledge of good and evil have walked with him ever since.”

Eiseley is tacitly alluding to the origin of human values, consciousness and free will and not so tacitly suggesting that modern men (including scientists) still have very little understanding of their origin. He leaves us with two tantalizing mysteries.

When was the “light” turned on in human beings?

Who were the first humans with a soul?

Is it not logical to assume that, before the emergence of consciousness, our ancestors were totally controlled by instinctive behavior? The mere fact that millions of life forms have succeeded for approximately four billion years by instinctive behavior suggests that there was no need for consciousness or self-awareness. In other words, there was no need for modern man to evolve.

If people are unable to fully appreciate the changes every butterfly must go through, perhaps it is because they simply cannot fathom the billions of cellular/molecular modifications involved. They are not alone. Anthropologists are at a loss to explain the symbolic (and spiritual) importance of the Eden story and trained entomologists are basically clueless about the instinctive biochemical process of butterfly metamorphosis.

In simple terms, after the moth spins a cocoon or the butterfly secrets a chrysalis, the larvae dissolve themselves into a cellular/molecular “soup.” All of the larval structures are dismantled and molecule-by-molecule reassembled into a moth or butterfly. This means that even the larval brain dissolves and is reconfigured into a totally different creation with radically different functions including directing the miracle of flight.

As a biological process this may be extraordinary, but it does not threaten us. However, when metamorphosis is used as a metaphor for spiritual growth, it can become terrifying and reason enough to not welcome the changes necessary to achieve a higher awareness.

It should not surprise us to note that the words metamorphosis and metaphor are similar. Metamorphosis= ‘transform, change shape,’ and metaphor= transfer the meaning of a word into a figure of speech. When people feel internal “butterflies” it is highly likely that they are experiencing spiritual stirrings involving love or fear.

This is fascinating because human childbirth just may be the closest example of metamorphosis, whereby each infant leaves a “saline marine ecosystem” and becomes an air-breathing land mammal. From the infant’s perspective the ordeal of birth must be traumatic and may explain why many newborns scream in protest.

Little wonder it is called, “The Miracle of Life,” and why females all over the world (regardless of race, religion or ethnicity) often share an innate awareness of human spirituality that is associated with motherhood.

Intriguingly, R.W. Emerson (1803), Henry Thoreau (1817), and John Muir (1838) were born within 35 years of each other. They all became literary giants who championed the emergent spiritual philosophy of Human Transcendence. In an interesting paradox, transcendentalism proposes that in order to become fully human, people must “transcend” their physical and mental limitations in order to be “reborn;” metamorphosis!

Emerson, Thoreau and Muir all believed that people contemplating nature, especially wilderness areas, increase their odds of “born again” experiences.

Either that, or perhaps they can take a cue from Maya Angelou’s metaphorical butterflies and muster up the courage to become “spiritual soup” and embrace the changes that they must undergo to become more sensitive and enlightened beings.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

Photo credit: Joseph Lacy, Natalija Mislevicha

Foxes And The Art Of Playing

Posted on July 21, 2021 Leave a Comment

“Surely all God’s people, however serious or savage, great or small, like to play. Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small mischievous microbes – all are warm with divine radium and must have lots of fun in them.” – John Muir- The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, (1913)

Native Americans hold a deep respect for animal life, especially birds and mammals. They are often celebrated in their art, legends, totems and folklore. Many shamans believe that animals provide a window into the spirit world. They also provide a source of allegorical humor as in the case of the coyote that chased his tail so fast that he ran right up his own rectum. The story reveals the Indian’s awareness of the foolishness of circular logic and the danger of avoiding opportunities for spiritual growth.

Paradoxically, one of the most important and least understood spiritual gifts is the art of playing. Stoic Charles Darwin had no clue where, why and how playfulness originated. The only explanation he and other scientists have offered is that it helps prepare youngsters for the task of hunting. Collectively, they ignore the fact that many young and adult birds and mammals seem to play, simply for the joy of playing and it has nothing to do with survival skills. Frolicking dolphins are the epitome of playfulness, river otters can spend hours daily sliding down riverbanks, coyotes are masterful pranksters, ravens and crows are notorious players and John Muir described the water ouzel as wonderfully playful.

Unlike cats who bury their scat and dogs who squat and poop at the nearest convenient spot, foxes seem to be more playful and creative where they leave their calling card. Favorite places on our property are on our redwood deck, at our back door and under our clothesline. However, they often choose large rocks that they have to climb to do their business. Some of these require a good deal of athletic ability to place the poop in just the right spot. Many of the pooping spots seem to be whimsical.

Whenever we have leftover chicken, pork or beef bones, my wife puts them on a familiar rock in our back yard and without exception one of the resident foxes will retrieve them. We often see them making their rounds, which include stopping at the “bone rock.”

Recently, an adult fox chased our cat across our back yard and up on our back porch. The cat scampered up a corner post and rested on a crossbeam. The fox stood on the porch and helplessly looked up. Our back door was open and the fox looked into our kitchen as if he were thinking about inviting himself in.

Great naturalists are often great storytellers. John Muir’s story of “Stickeen” ranks among the best “people/dog” stories ever told. However, anthropologist Loren Eiseley wrote a story about a fox pup that rivals the great naturalist raconteurs of the world.

He innocently selected what I think was a chicken bone from an untidy pile of splintered rubbish and shook it at me invitingly. There was a vast and playful humor in his face…Here was the thing in the midst of the bones, the wide-eyed, innocent fox inviting me to play, with the innate courtesy of his two forepaws placed appealingly together, along with a mock shake of the head. The universe was swinging in some fantastic fashion around to present its face, and the face was so small that the universe itself was laughing.

It was not a time for human dignity. It was a time only for the careful observance of amenities written behind the stars. Gravely I arranged my forepaws while the puppy whimpered with ill-concealed excitement. I drew the breath of a fox’s den into my nostrils. On impulse, I picked clumsily a whiter bone and shook it in teeth that that had not entirely forgotten their original purpose. Round and round we tumbled for one ecstatic moment. For just a moment I held the universe at bay by the simple expedient of sitting on my haunches before a fox den and tumbling about with a chicken bone. It is the gravest, most meaningful act I shall ever accomplish but, as Thoreau once remarked of some peculiar errand of his own, there is no use reporting it to the Royal Society.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

John Muir: Mystic Of The Sierra Nevada

Posted on September 23, 2019 Leave a Comment

According to Edwin Way Teal (editor: The Wilderness World of John Muir) Muir was a scientist, a poet, a mystic, a philosopher and a humorist. The mystic in him wrote: “No sane man in the hands of Nature can doubt the doubleness of his life. Soul and body receive separate nourishment and separate exercise, and speedily reach a stage of development wherein each is easily apart from the other.” John Of The Mountains.

Whether Muir was aware of 13-th century German philosopher/theologian Meister Eckhart or not, they had much in common. Like Muir, Eckhart was criticized for his visionary thinking. His teachings had a huge impact on contemporary theologian Matthew Fox, who envisioned the modern movement known as “Creation Spirituality,” a concept that formed the basis of Muir’s “theology.”

Muir’s struggles with finding words to describe the Sierra Nevada Mountains resonate with Eckhart’s description of words:

“It is the nature of a word to reveal what is hidden. The word that is hidden still sparkles in the darkness and whispers in the silence. It entices us to pursue it and to yearn and sigh after it. For it wishes to reveal to us something about God.”

The human struggle to unravel the mysticism of Nature has challenged scientists, sages, poets and prophets for thousands of years. Muir’s contemporary and fellow transcendentalist R-W Emerson wrote:

“The whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.”

While traveling through California’s redwood forest, John Steinbeck wrote:

“No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It’s not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know; they are ambassadors from another time.” ~John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley In Search of America, 1962.

About the same time Muir was exploring the Sierra Nevada (with 2 trips to Alaska) fellow mystic/naturalist, John Wesley Powell became the first known human to successfully navigate the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. After a 3-month perilous journey he emerged to write:

“The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.”

And in a “Neo-science” era, when scientists were swapping God for Darwin, anthropologist Loren Eiseley challenged the movement by claiming the Mystery still exists. He correctly pointed out that scientists dismissed the “Creation Story” as an unprovable myth, only to replace it with the “Big Bang Theory” which is equally unprovable. Not only that, in order to accept the Big Bang Theory they have to reject the long-standing law of conservation of matter/energy. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. If matter cannot be created, the Big Bang Theory is a myth. If it can be created, it must have been created out of nothing, which is scientifically impossible. This is classic circular logic and intellectually flawed.

There is a legendary story that on his deathbed, Albert Einstein smiled and mused, “But I still wonder how nothing can become something.”

Eiseley ends his masterpiece book, “The Immense Journey” with a profound summation:

“Rather, I would say that if “dead matter” has reared up this curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows, and wondering men, it must be plain even to the most devoted materialist that the matter of what he speaks contains amazing, if not dreadful powers, and may not impossibly be as Hardy has suggested, “but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind.’”

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

John Muir—Loren Eiseley—Annie Dillard Playfulness—Bio-spirituality

Posted on June 26, 2019 Leave a Comment

One of the primary reasons that John Muir, Loren Eiseley and Annie Dillard were celebrated as major mentors in the Biodesign Class was their respective genius in describing playfulness as a quintessential component in the biology of Planet Earth.

Dillard described dolphins frolicking in the water around the Galapagos Islands. I suspect that she would ascribe the same term to the 1000s of dolphins that demonstrate their propensity of playing by body-surfing on the bow-waves of ocean-going ships.

In an early morning, chance-born event, Loren Eiseley put an old chicken bone in his teeth and tumbled in the grass with a fox cub. He later described the experience as: “The gravest, most meaningful act I shall ever accomplish, but as Thoreau once remarked of some peculiar errand of his own, there is no use reporting it to the Royal Society.”

Muir’s splendid description of an event that he and his wonder-dog
“Stickeen” shared on an Alaska glacier, revealed the dog’s huge capacity for play. The account is widely considered one of the greatest man/dog adventures ever told. I read the story annually and every time I expect “Stickeen” to leap off of the page, onto my lap and begin licking my face.

Thoreau’s mention of the Royal Society refers to the inability of hard-wired (left-brain-dominant) scientists to identify or explain the reason for playfulness. There is simply no scientific model that will work; no pragmatic or utilitarian facts exist. Darwin’s theory is useless. Millions of plants and animals have survived for billions of years without playfulness, so what value is it? Or perhaps more importantly, where did playfulness come from?

If scientists have utterly failed in this regard, many theologians and religious leaders haven’t fared much (if any) better. In fact, many may have made matters worse.

Buddha described the human condition as “inherently miserable.” For over 2000 years of Christianity, there have been overt and subtle ways of observing the pathetic aphorism, “smite thyself thy wretched worm.” John Muir’s father epitomized this twisted logic by daily whippings of his son to beat him into memorizing the Holy Bible. It is no small miracle that Yosemite and the mountains healed Muir’s emotional wounds. “The galling harness of civilization drops off, and the wounds heal ere we are aware,” JM. It is an even greater miracle/irony that Muir emerged with such a playful soul.

I am certainly not a Bible scholar, but in nearly 900 pages of the Old Testament there is a paucity of references to playfulness.

Zechariah 8:5. “The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”

Jeremiah 30:19. “And thanksgiving and [the] sound of merrymakers will come out from them, and I will make them numerous, and they will not be few.”

Jeremiah 30: 4. “I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful” (playful).

Psalms 104: 25-26. “There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number—living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.”

I am somewhat more familiar with the New Testament, however, Google does not show any teachings of Jesus or St. Paul that could be considered playful. The only example might involve Christ’s first miracle at Cana. Did he turn water into wine because he was concerned about the wedding guests losing some of their jocularity (playfulness)? Or is this what he meant when he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”?

And then C.S. Lewis appeared. In his wonderful series; The Chronicles of Narnia, written for children from 5 to 95; he wrote in: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe:

“’Oh, children, said the Lion, ‘I feel my strength coming back to me. Oh, children, catch me if you can!” He stood for a second, his eyes very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail. Then he made a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the Table. Laughing, though she didn’t know why, Lucy scrambled over it to reach him. Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began.”

Although Lewis does not invoke the word playfulness, he brilliantly infers that it is an essential part of the Creation Story.

He seems to suggest that if God truly made man in His image, playfulness must be a part of the equation. And just maybe, that is the crux of our dilemma? Many African cultures seem to understand this concept by exclaiming (when they experience extraordinarily tragic or joyful events); “God is playing with us!”

However, I doubt that less than one in a million people (regardless of race, religion or creed) would include playfulness in God’s job description. If so, citing C.S. Lewis, it would be a very sad commentary on the human experience.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

Silver Bridge-Mules and God in Grand Canyon

Posted on April 3, 2017 9 Comments

“This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” Charles Darwin

Fifteen Biodesign Classes were blessed with the privilege of walking across the “Silver Bridge,” which connects Grand Canyon’s South Rim to Phantom Ranch. They enjoyed watching the Colorado River flow beneath the grated deck they were walking on. The same cannot be said about mules. Mules refuse to cross the bridge because the flowing river below spooks them. People may scoff at their behavior until they realize that they are just as prone to be spooked by spiritual wisdom or events that eclipse their limited mental capacity.

“They distrust, it would seem, all shapes and thoughts but their own.” Loren Eiseley.

Grand Canyon is a wonderfully real and symbolic enigma for man. In addition to its mind-boggling immensity, breathtaking beauty and infinite array of kaleidoscopic colors, it is the greatest page of biological history on planet Earth. There is nothing on Earth that it can be compared to. Simply put, it is too big for people to wrap their minds around.

While watching the water flow beneath their feet, students often struggled in vain to comprehend the fact that the water has been flowing for 1.8 bil’li-yon years (Carl Sagan intonation). Walking along the bottom of Grand Canyon was typically an intensely humbling experience, which often left students with a wonderful hodgepodge of feelings of awe, trepidation and delight. But mostly they expressed an overarching feeling of gratitude for the privilege of being alive at that moment in time. Loren Eiseley expressed a similar emotional awakening on one of his trips into canyon country: “It was a great day to be alive!”

They looked and pondered, looked some more and pondered, but there was no resolution. Little wonder Carl Sandberg wrote; “There goes God with an army of banners” and follows with “who is God and why? Who am I and why?”

As for the mules; their behavior is heavily influenced by instinct, which does not allow for coping with moving water 50 feet below their hooves. Humans however, have been endowed with the gift of “free will,” which includes freedom of thought. However, this freedom also allows for egoism, arrogance and the foolish misassumption that man is smarter that the Creator that fashioned him.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

Astronomy—Theology—Evolution

Posted on April 25, 2016 Leave a Comment

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

This is a wonderfully interconnected triad that gifted naturalist Annie Dillard would regard as a “bright snarl.” Without a Creator there would be no “astronomy” or evolution. Without evolution the universe would be oxymoronically stuck in the first nanosecond, before time began, with no cosmos. And with no cosmos, humans would not have evolved with the ability to contemplate the works of the Creator.

Two gifted writers have properly suggested that “Mystery” reigns supreme and only egoism and arrogance motivate scientists and theologians to assume that they have all relevant answers. Robert Jastro, former director of the National Aeronautics And Space Administration (“Until The Sun Dies,” and “God and the Astronomers”) acknowledged the limitations of “The Big Bang Theory:”

“At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Jastro was a self-described agnostic, yet he used candor and levity to describe the inadequacy of his own thought process.

In an equally terse self-analysis, Fr. Robert Capon, “Hunting The Divine Fox stated:”

“Theology therefore is fun. The inveterate temptation to make something earnest out of it must be steadfastly resisted. We were told quite plainly that unless we became as little children, we could not enter the kingdom of heaven, and nowhere more than in theology do we need to take this message to heart.”

The “Big Bang,” the origin of life and the eventual evolution of human beings remain three of the great, unsolved mysteries of planet Earth. Anthropologist Loren Eiseley concluded his work, The Immense Journey with:

“Rather, I would say that if “dead” matter has reared up this curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows and wondering men, it must be plain even to the most devoted materialist that the matter of which he speaks contains amazing, if not dreadful powers, and may not impossibly be, as Hardy has suggested, ‘but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind.’”

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

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An Abominable Mystery

Posted on March 16, 2016 Leave a Comment

“Everything You Need To Know Is Contained In a Flower.” Buddha

Excerpt: “The Immense Journey” [How Flowers Changed The World] by Loren Eiseley.

“A little while ago—about one hundred million years, as the geologist estimates time in the history of our four-billion-year-old planet—flowers were not to be found anywhere on the five continents. Wherever one might have looked, from the poles to the equator, one would have only seen only the cold dark monotonous green of a world whose plant life possessed no other color.
Somewhere, just a short time before the close of the Age of Reptiles, there occurred a soundless, violent explosion. It lasted millions of years, but it was an explosion nevertheless. It marked the emergence of the angiosperms—the flowering plants. Even the great evolutionist, Charles Darwin, called them “an abominable mystery,” because they appeared so suddenly and spread so fast… The weight of a petal has changed the face of the world and made it ours.”

Living 600 years before Christ, Buddha lacked modern geological and botanical knowledge. However, his wisdom about flowers rings just as true today as when he proposed it.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

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Frog Eyes—Human Eyes—Did We Come From Outer Space?

Posted on February 9, 2016 Leave a Comment

South American tree frog By Milky Way Scientists Fb — South American tree frog
By Milky Way Scientists Fb

In, The Great Evolution Mystery, Gordon Taylor explains why Darwin’s Theory of evolution does not account for “organs of extreme perfection.” This includes the human eye. Human eyes contain over 100 million cells that all must function in perfect synchrony in order for people to see properly. Although ophthalmologists know much about eyes, it remains a total mystery as to how the light image, focused on the retina, can be converted into biochemical data and transmitted via optic nerves to the brain. How the brain decodes the data and displays it as a visual image is yet another mystery.

Anthropologist Loren Eiseley agrees, however, he expanded the mystery to include the origin of life, which he pointed out Darwin also failed to explain. Eiseley contended that it doesn’t matter what we call the mystery, only that we are aware that it exists. Furthermore, he opined that those who fail to acknowledge “The Mystery” are in danger of ceasing to be fully human.

Albert Einstein agreed, but expressed a more forceful position: “He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”

Contemplating frog eyes, and lacking a time or place for the origin of life on Earth, Eiseley alluded to the possibility that life may have come from somewhere across the “pond of space.”

“Yet whenever I see a frog’s eye low in the water warily ogling the shoreward landscape, I always think inconsequentially of those twiddling mechanical eyes that mankind manipulates nightly from a thousand observatories. Someday, with a telescopic lens an acre in extent, we are going to see something not to our liking, some looming shape outside there across the great pond of space. Whenever I catch a frog’s eye I am aware of this, but I do not find it depressing. I stand quite still and try hard not to move or lift a hand since it would only frighten him. And standing thus it finally comes to me that this is the most enormous extension of vision of which life is capable: the projection of itself into other lives. This is the lonely, magnificent power of humanity. It is far more than any spatial adventure, the supreme epitome of reaching out.”

The fossil record of frogs indicates that they began to evolve from fish about 400 million years ago. However, “modern” frogs emerged about 200 million years ago. Ergo: The eye you are looking at has undergone 0ver 400 million years of evolutionary change.

With a mystery like that, is it not a fool’s errand to bicker over Creation or Evolution?

Like the classic concept of “yin-yang,” both words may reflect a cybernetic mutualism in which one word cannot exist without the other.

This is precisely what Eiseley was suggesting in his classic book, “The Immense Journey.”

If you are feeling a little spiritually deflated, enlarge the frog image and concentrate on it for one full minute and see if you can connect with 400 million years of time and change.

Perhaps it will encourage you to Celebrate the Mystery!

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

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Turkey Brains and Other Miracles

Posted on November 24, 2015 Leave a Comment

There is a rural legend that domesticated turkeys are so dumb that they will drown themselves while looking up at the rain with their mouths open.

The term “birdbrain” emerged from the fact that, compared to humans, bird brains are extremely small. Most birds have pea-sized brains with the largest belonging to parrots. Ostrich brains weigh 41 grams, while human brains typically weigh 1,500 grams (3.3 lbs.). Bird brains lack the massive cerebral hemispheres, which enable human consciousness, memory, emotion, logic/mathematical skills, linguistics, music, creative arts, self-awareness and spiritual awareness.

It has long been thought that all (or nearly all) of avian behavioral and survival skills were controlled by the poorly understood, catchall term, “instinct.” In its extreme application, birds would be senseless living automatons controlled by instinctive behavior. It remains a mystery as to how much they are aware of who they are or what they are doing.

However, some recent studies with parrots ravens and crows have shown that, even lacking the neocortex, they are capable of cognitive skills and deductive reasoning that was never deemed possible. This will not come as a surprise to Native Americans who held birds in much higher esteem than Whites.

In Noah Strycker’s, The Thing With Feathers, he divides stories about birds into three categories; body, mind and spirit.

In the “mind” category, he writes about the amazing memory skills of the Clark’s Nutcracker. The birds depend on pine nuts to survive long, frozen winter climate. He noted that a single bird can stash as many as 5,000 mini-caches, which can contain tens of thousands of pine nuts. The caches are not marked and are typically covered with snow.

“It’s a radical mental feat: Nutcrackers somehow remember exactly where thousands of different clumps of seeds are buried without a single yellow sticky note, global-positioning waypoint, or silly mnemonic.”

In the “spirit” category, Strycker describes the courtship behavior of Bowerbirds. The males go through a process of creating elaborate “bowers” trying to seduce interested females. The bowers are made of attractive natural materials as well as man-made items that may be bright or artistic. They are not averse to stealing coveted items from neighbors in hopes of increasing their chances of attracting a suitable mate or mates!

Also in the “spirit” category, Strycker describes the amazing behavior of the Wandering Albatross. Although the birds live in solitude, they mate for life and mysteriously get together every two years to mate and raise their chicks. How they navigate or locate each other is pure mystery.

Arctic terns hatch in the Arctic region, mature enough in one season to be able to fly 12,000 miles south to summer in the Antarctic region. They obviously have a mysterious, internal biological GPS mechanism that allows them to navigate unknown territory.

John Muir’s story about his little dog “Stickeen” ranks among the greatest dog stories. Loren Eiseley’s story about a mated pair of sparrow hawks deserves a similar ranking.

Eiseley was on an academic assignment to collect animal specimens deep in “canyon country.” He successfully trapped the male partner and caged it in order to send it to zoo or ornithology research org. However, the next morning he had a change of heart and carefully released the bird.

“IN THE NEXT second, after that long minute, he was gone. Like a flicker of light, he had vanished with my eyes full on him, but without actually seeing even a premonitory wing beat. He was gone straight into that towering emptiness and crystal that my eyes could scarcely bear to penetrate. For another long moment, there was silence. I could not see him. The light was too intense. Then from far up somewhere a cry came ringing down.

I was young then and had seen little of the world, but when I heard that cry my heart turned over. It was not the cry of the hawk I had captured; for, by shifting my position against the sun, I was now seeing further up. Straight out of the sun’s eye, where she must have been soaring restlessly above us for untold hours, hurtled his mate. And from far up, ringing from peak to peak of the summits over us, came a cry of such unutterable and ecstatic joy that it tingles among the cups on my quiet breakfast table.

I saw them both now. He was rising to meet her. They met in a great soaring gyre that turned to a whirling circle and dance of wings. Once more, just once, their two voices, joined in a harsh wild medley of question and response, struck and echoed against the pinnacles of the valley. Then they were gone forever somewhere into the upper regions beyond the eyes of men.”

St. Francis of Assisi has been affectionately dubbed the, “Patron Saint of animals.” Perhaps this is justified because he regarded every bird egg, feather, wing-beat and heartbeat as indescribably perfect creations of the Creator of the universe.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

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Foxes and the Art of Playing

Posted on July 27, 2015 Leave a Comment

“Surely all God’s people, however serious or savage, great or small, like to play. Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small mischievous microbes – all are warm with divine radium and must have lots of fun in them.” John Muir- The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, (1913)

Native Americans hold a deep respect for animal life, especially birds and mammals. They are often celebrated in their art, legends, totems and folklore. Many shamans believe that animals provide a window into the spirit world. They also provide a source of allegorical humor as in the case of the fox that chased his tail so fast that he ran right up his own rectum. The story reveals the “Redman’s” awareness of the foolishness of circular logic and the danger of avoiding opportunities for spiritual growth.

Paradoxically, one of the most important and least understood spiritual gifts is the art of playing. Stoic old Charles Darwin had no clue where, why and how playfulness originated. The only explanation he and other scientists have offered is that it helps prepare youngsters for the task of hunting. Collectively they ignore the fact that many adult birds and mammals seem to play, simply for the joy of playing and it has nothing to do with survival skills.

Whenever we have leftover chicken, pork or beef bones, my wife puts them on a familiar rock in our back yard and, without exception one of the resident foxes will retrieve them. We often see them making their rounds, which include stopping at the“bone rock.”

Recently, an adult fox chased one of our cats across our back yard and up on our back porch. The cat scampered up a corner post and rested on a crossbeam. The fox stood on the porch and helplessly looked up. Our back door was open and the fox looked into our kitchen as if he were thinking about inviting himself in.

My wife suspected that we had a den in our area because she kept seeing adults passing by with rodents or rabbits in their mouths. Her suspicion was recently confirmed when, while returning with the morning newspaper, she met the mother, father and two pups trotting down our driveway.

‘The creature was very young. He was alone in a dread universe. I crept on my knees around the prow and crouched beside him. It was a small fox pup from under the timbers who looked up at me. God knows what happened to his brothers and sisters.His parent must not have been home from hunting.He innocently selected what I think was a chicken bone from an untidy pile of splintered rubbish and shook it at me invitingly. There was a vast and playful humor in his face…Here was the thing in the midst of the bones, the wide-eyed, innocent fox inviting me to play, with the innate courtesy of his two forepaws placed appealingly together, along with a mock shake of the head. The universe was swinging in some fantastic fashion around to present its face, and the face was so small that the universe itself was laughing. It was not a time for human dignity. It was a time only for the careful observance of amenities written behind the stars. Gravely I arranged my forepaws while the puppy whimpered with ill-concealed excitement. I drew the breath of a fox’s den into my nostrils. On impulse, I picked clumsily a whiter bone and shook it in teeth that had not entirely forgotten their original purpose. Round and round we tumbled for one ecstatic moment. For just a moment I held the universe at bay by the simple expedient of sitting on my haunches before a fox den and tumbling about with a chicken bone. It is the gravest, most meaningful act I shall ever accomplish but, as Thoreau once remarked of some peculiar errand of his own, there is no use reporting it to the Royal Society.”

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

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