Tag: The Wild

The Scout

Last time I mentioned the need for broad attention in The Wild.

Often there’s a lot going on and even those who’re trained in situational awareness techniques need help from their friends.

In The Wild, this often takes the form of scouts.

Any predator species which recognizes group identity sends out scouts who report back what’s going on where. Doesn’t matter if it’s ants, bees, coyotes, wolves, …

Group survival requires a pooling of knowledge, of information, of what happened where, when, and if possible, why.

Humans, for the most part, do not employ scouts. We call ourselves a predator species, we like to think of ourselves as apex predators, and that’s an amusing deceit we employ. Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine percent of the population doesn’t know how to monitor situations beyond what’s for dinner, what do you want to watch tonight, how’s my job going, who’s picking up the kids when, …

These are nice, yes, and hardly qualify as survival issues.

Unless you’re under fire or threat.

Repeatedly.

Ask someone who’s a war zone, or works undercover, or in espionage, or intelligence.

They well know the value of scouts.

And as a species, as we learn more of what’s in our universe, as we discover more potential threats real or imagined, the number of scouts multiplies.

Until everyone is a scout.

Scouting on each other.

Ala 1984 or McCarthyism or … umm … (and dare I say it?) … Trump?

 

An Attentive Lad

To survive in The Wild, one must pay attention.

Two-Legs pay selective attention. We devote the majority of our neural resources to whatever interests us at the moment.

Which is why we – the modern “we” – don’t do well in The Wild.

Pay too much attention to any one thing and some other one thing snatches you.

Pay too much attention to any dozen things and some other dozen things snatch you.

One learns to be broad-minded, accepting of all information, in The Wild.

It’s a survival thing.

 

An Erasmus Sighting

It has been a while since we saw Erasmus.

Ever shy, ever watchful Erasmus.

Knowing the expected lifespan of Coyote in The Wild, I know he doesn’t have many seasons left with us.

We are here for just a little while.

No matter how long one lives, there is always something older, me thinks, to mourn our passing.

Back in my preaching days, I realized there were few pains greater than a parent outliving their children.

Although not genetically linked (unless you go way, way back), I tend to think of all The Wild as my children.

I’ve learned so much from them. Not sure what they’ve learned from me.

The Old Ones‘ first lesson is to be wise and, seeing the world around me, I doubt many willing to learn that lesson remain.

I will mourn the passing of my children.

Who is there who’ll mourn with me?

Who will be left to mourn me?

A Tale of Two Pups

Last week it was Rabbit, this week it’s Coyote.

Probably because it’s that time of year.

The Wild wakes (not that it ever sleeps) and everyone comes out parading their young.

Kind of like an Easter parade, don’t you think?

And Easter…that christian new life/resurrection thing, that coming out of the cave, out of the earth, out of death, the big sleep as it were…

Why do you think the church decided Easter coincides with Spring?

Everybody honors The Wild even when they don’t mean to.

The Bunlet

Rabbits – at least the kind we have here in southern New Hampshire – are not good parents.

At least not good mothers.

At least in human terms.

Wild rabbits here in southern New Hampshire neither warren nor den. They spend their time above ground and out in the open.

Their young, likewise, are born above ground and in the open. If anything, they may have a cushion of leaves to lie back on.

But not grass. Grass is food to rabbits.

Rabbit mothers leave their kits (baby rabbits are called “kits” or “kitties” and “bunnies” in the vulgate) unprotected while they go off wining and dining and such.

We’d call Family Services if that happened.

Maybe we would.

People have a habit of minding other people’s business and ignoring their own when it suits them.

Back to Bunlets (our term for tiny little baby bunnies).

Thank goodness for their dun coloring.

Good camouflage, that.

And we must also consider that The Wild has perfected rabbits to survive.

At least for now.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

I mean, what if The Wild is doing the same to us?

Just think of all those Family Services people without a job…