Tag: Raccoons

A Healthy Young Lady

First, my apologies.

I begin this video mentioning a young lad.

Not the case, as I realized while I continued videoing.

A young lady, this.

Gender in The Wild is not as fluid as it among Two-Legs these days. At least in western-based cultures.

Many cultures across the globe have more than two gender identities. Note: gender, ie the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles. Gender identity is what an individual believes themself to be. The latter deals with self-recognition and ever more now meaning a surgical self-recognition.

It’s that last part I still have challenges with.

Do you want to know them? Happy to share if you’re interested.

First, it has nothing to do with the self-recognition part. To thine own self be true. Go for whatever makes you happy and comfortable.

When I was a boy, I did boyish things. When I became a girl, I gave up boyish ways.

 
The Wild has many children who switch gender (reproductive role). The gender switch is accompanied by an identity switch. That tends to be the way it goes in the The Wild; gender leads to identity, not identity leads to gender. To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, “When I was a boy, I did boyish things. When I became a girl, I gave up boyish ways.” Or vice versa.

(can’t you just see the evangelicals preparing crosses to burn?)

In The Wild, lots of factors can cause gender switching to occur. Environmental factors, usually. All too often human pollution plays a role. Climatic issues.

In cases where humans didn’t screw things up, the switch occurs to increase species reproductive flexibility. Too many guys? Everybody on the right, switch to gals. Too many gals? Everybody on the left switch to guys.

Simple enough.

And as noted above, many cultures recognize more than two gender-identities. Cultures recognizing more than two identities afford such wonderful individuals special status. “Special” here means “respect, honor, love, …” Not cross burning. I’ve met quite a few in my travels and have always found them wonderful company.

Specific to western-based cultures, I wonder if some of the factors increasingly found in The Wild are at work among Two-Legs.

Do climate changes play a role? How about human pollutants? Are we affecting our genetic structures to decrease reproductive flexibility?

I mean, those who chose surgical sexual transformation are (to my knowledge) unable to reproduce (do let me know if I’m mistaken here). Caitlyn Jenner (one of my heroes) can’t bear children.

So my challenge isn’t with people making gender-identity decisions in whatever direction they choose (although I am concerned when individuals less than thirty or so years make such a decision because their neural topography isn’t yet up to making such decisions. Or so science tells me). It’s with my wondering how much western-based cultures have contributed to the increasing prevalence of something once (and probably still in many places) considered evil.

But then that’s the kicker.

Cultures which have multiple gender-identities don’t consider such individuals evil. To them, evil is forcing someone to do something they don’t want to do.

Like carrying a child to term when you don’t want to or can’t (for whatever reasons).

Budda-boom!

Way to go, Two-Legs!

 

A Different One Sees the Moon

Another video from the deep of a southern New Hampshire winter and the raccoons are at it.

This is both a good and an ungood thing.

Good – there’s food for them. Ungood – they shouldn’t be out in this weather. They should be doing the Raccoon equivalent of hibernating. I mentioned in The Bluebirds of Keith Jarrett that signals seemed a bit off.

WinterMan walked through (as mentioned in Enjoying a Little Opie Butt) and it seemed some signals were still catching up.

Truth is, we do see raccoon in winters. Mild winters. Not deep, snow heavy winters. They don’t maneuver well in deep snow.

And you haven’t lived until you see a pair of raccoons ice-dancing across a frozen pond.

I mention in this video about another raccoon. There was a video. It was all black. Next time I’ll wait until the lights are on.

But many raccoons came out on this night. Perhaps to sing praises to The Moon.

We did.

Wouldn’t you?

 

New Year’s Eve Kits

How do you celebrate the judeo-christian, western mindset New Year?

I’m sorry.

Did my prejudices show there?

There are so many new years. Christian/western, Hebrew, Chinese, Souix, Mayan, Tcetzwtl, Celtic, calendrical, meteorologic, astronomic, …

Take your pick, really.

Us, we tend to celebrate the “natural” ones.

What are the “natural” ones, you ask?

And when are they? And what do we do?

Full of questions today, aren’t we?

Consider that any and all “new year” is a point-of-view determination and you have it. The determinants are sociological, then psychological, and finally, most deeply, neurological.

What we celebrate and when is based largely on our culture and language. I mean, you’ve never seen a native Norwegian celebrating Día de Muertos, right?

And why did I select that holiday above all others as my example?

Because it correlates roughly to the christian All Hallow’s Eve also known as Halloween, and which itself was taken from the Celtic New Year celebration where one empties the streets and stays inside so all who died the previous year may travel unhindered to their eternal rest.

Hence be wary of who you open the door to when they come a’knockin’.

Once past culture and language, individual choice – psychological – comes into play, as in a native Norwegian may simply like Día de Muertos and chooses to celebrate it.

Good for them and all involved, right?

The last is neurological and is deep in our genes. Our bodies bear the tides of our evolutionary journey as do the bodies of all other things on the planet.

We are tied to the flux and flow of both nature and Nature in ways you (don’t want to) comprehend.

So celebrate when you will and how you feel best doing so.

And pay attention to how the oceans of blood and memory move in you, take a moment to appreciate which celestial shore they wash against, and celebrate your origin.

Mother is watching.

 

Oaps Likes Grand Funk

We are often intrigued by The Wild‘s musical tastes.

It is eclectic to say the least.

And it would be one thing if musical preferences followed some kind of Old One differentiation, you know?

Something like “All raccoons prefer Bach, all Opossum prefer modern jazz, skunk are heavily into acid rock (thank goodness they’re not!), …”

You know, some kind of differentiator so we could see who’s come to visit and put on something to suit their musical tastes.

No such luck.

Each’s musical leanings are as individuated as, well, as they are.

Food.

That seems to be the commonality.

Not only across species, but individuals, as well.

Set out a good table and they’ll gather.

It’s a good thing.

 

Oaps Pays Attention to Traffic

In the cool of the night…

(feel a need to due homage to Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger here)

In the cool of the night, the Opossums come to dine.

Don’t remember seeing an Opossum during the day. Unless it was deep in the woods, heavily in shadow, and usually peeking out from underneath something.

Opossums are skittish at the best of times. We’ve seen them dining with raccoons and, the moment some raccoon gets a tad too close, you can hear Opossum say, “Beware my piercing teeth.”

That’s their own name for themselves, by the way.

In OriOrinda, the Opossums’ native tongue, their name translates to “Beware my piercing teeth.”

Good to know, that.

Good to know.