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playfulness

Foxes And The Art Of Playing

Posted on July 21, 2021 Leave a Comment
Photo credit: reddit.com

“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.

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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.

Photo credit: Laury @laury33_

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.

Photo credit: www.tumbler

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.

Photo credit: wildonarran.blogspot.com

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’s “The Star Thrower,” he described an encounter with a fox pup that rivals the great naturalist raconteurs of the world.

“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.

Photo credit: motherearthnews.com

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

Posted in: Reflections | Tagged: Biodesign Out For A Walk, foxes, John Muir and Stickeen, Loren Eiseley, playfulness

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

Posted in: Reflections | Tagged: C.S. Lewis, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir vision, Loren Eiseley, playfulness

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