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like people, sometimes, and hands. watch them jump!
sometimes, once upon a time, in the world, our person would leave us alone for the weekend. we'd munch the extra food greedily and then wait...and wait...and wait...for something to happen. she'd often leave the tv on for us, so we got to see/listen to all of the home improvement shows while she was gone - odd, because she is the one who LIKES that kind of stuff. if i were a real whiz with my teeth, i might be able to make my OWN improvements. i never thought about it before, though. instead, it was just this gnawing addiction - wood is best, rubber second best, ripping up cardboard is an eh...removed third. perplexing to our person who was happy to have us chew cardboard, and not so happy about how tasty we found the furniture. it wasn't even taste, really, just a certain texture and hardness...mmm...felt good on the teeth. sometimes you just have to bite something to know if it's, er... biteable.
i bobbed and wobbled, i glided, i flew until it was quite dark. then, i circled over our fire, and landed just outside of the light, hoping everyone was asleep. i touched down lightly, surprising, since i haven't had all that much practice... and it seemed no one was awake to witness either my flight or my landing. good. the g-pigs slumbered, and i joined them.
next day...
so sore. unbelievable. i guess flying uses different muscles. i thought all of this traveling had toughened me up. i am a bit chagrined to learn i am still a cream puff in the skies. oh well... i tried to hide most of my aches and pains, but i think everyone noticed me lagging way-waaaaay behind. they don't know why, perhaps, but i bet they are wondering what it was i'd gotten myself into. what would they do if they knew? much bravado in this bunny flying in the deep dark of night.
some of the g-pigs look concerned about the heights as we continue to climb. while i've been able to convince myself there is nothing to fear, they do not have the same resources i do. spread your bunny wings and fly away. i could fly away, but where would i go? mental shrug. here is as good as anywhere on this planet. HERE, at least, no one is probing me for answers. my depths are unfathomable. my thoughts are the only ripple in the stillness of my inner pond. ohm.
i faced my fear. i learned to soar. no, i mean it. literally, soar. twilight fell, the g-pigs went into the nightly huddle, i retraced our steps back around an outcropping of rock, and descended a bit. the sky was this lovely turquoise deepening into a rich midnight blue, with tiny stars beginning to appear. i backed up a few steps and hugged the mountain at my back, then gathered myself and leapt into the new night. i should have screamed, but the silence was so much a part of me now that my throat didn't even make the effort. i jumped out in an arc - up and out - then i started to feel that vertigo there's nothing under my feet feeling, and i nearly panicked. but, then, my body remembered...and i was floating.
i had jumped out away from any jagged rocks, and i was floating gently, sometimes able to rise on hot currents in the air, or just by exaggerated hopping motions. i could see our little encampment, the sleepy pile, a small fire. if g-pigs could fly...well, how about rabbits? my fear suddenly disappeared. the mountains could be lovely without being terrifying. and here i was making use of those "forbidden" powers. it was about time. about time i did something to feel like i deserved my exile.
i am not a rock beast. i am thrilled by these mountains, but something in my genetic material is freakin out. i guess that's my way of saying i'm afraid of heights.
beautiful mountain standing tall
tho, i am rabbit, somewhat small
into your heights i meekly crawl
looking over sheer rock wall
i tremble when i dare at all
to think of how i'll surely fall.
You're Watership Down!
by Richard Adams
Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
the master has begun meeting with the g-pig initiates individually. one of us goes to him every evening as the stars begin to come out. i do not know how they know to go to him. i do not know what he says. he does not call me. i don't even know if he will. no one speaks. i watch the ones who have been with him, trying to see if there is any discernible change in them, something that would tell me...something. but i can't see anything special. if they know something i do not, they are no different on the outside for knowing it. they are exactly the same as far as I can tell. i don't know if wisdom or enlightenment would show like i expect it to. isn't there some inner glow or peace? doesn't the knowing make everything easier? do they know something? do i know it too? how will i know if i know it?
it takes longer to reach them than i think it will. they stay on the horizon forever, and we seem to cover no distance at all. at first i am so amazed by them, haunting the horizon, guarding the distance. then, i am tired, my head drops to my paws every night as we pause. soon i am in the moment again, and the movement is what orients me, my mind wanders out and off somewhere, and my body keeps on moving, i hop. and so it surprises me one day, when we wake up and see the sun rising above those peaks. because there they are, right in front of me. i could bump my nose on real mountain rock. i could sink my toes in the rich soil just at those mountain roots. as the train of g-pigs begins to climb, i press my side against the side of that mountain and feel my heart beating wildly for a moment in my chest. i'm like an amoeba trying to snuggle up to the sears tower. everything feels crushingly huge and i'm dizzy. as those g-pigs get smaller, i panic a little, and hurry to catch up with them. my breath is short, coming in gasps, my nose is going like a motor...and i finally look back, look down, and the view is like nothing i've seen before. oh valleys, oh land that remains unspoiled. oh g-pigs how rich your world is! my eyes are blurred with tears, and i don't know if it's beause i'm crying - do rabbits cry? am i that human? - or if it's the wind. and i decide it doesn't matter because what i feel is so powerful, what does it matter? the feeling remains even if the tears belong to the crocodiles.
we press on. there are mountains now, looming ahead. great piles of rock, touched with just enough earth to grow some trees with bended gnarly trunks.
death thoughts. "Faithfulness, he talked of madam, your enduring faithfulness. Now tell me truly, when you found out he was gone, did you get engaged to your Prince that same hour, or did you wait a whole week out of respect for the dead?" -- Princess Bride.
i wonder if the fake us-es back in the world formerly known as "ours" are still in action, or if they're scheduled to expire naturally at some point leaving our person with just bodies, which won't be examined for clues, because how often are pets autopsied? i'm sure no one will suspect foul play, at least not of the space alien guinea pig variety. i never asked the g-pigs what would happen. i guess i was too busy thinking about other things. but it would be the easiest thing for them to just stop working after being rather robust up until that moment. and the death, while shocking and possibly painful to our person, would dispose of the "evidence" in a rather effective manner. no one would be the wiser. no justice for us. it bothers me to think about this cover-up and all of the lies involved. it bothers me that no one knows. it bothers me... but would anyone care? i mean, yeah, aliens, okay, probably a chance there that SOMEONE would care, but the issue, i think, would so quickly move beyond the abduction of two wise-ass rabbits...and it would quickly become about HELLO there are aliens who land at will on our planet - PLANETARY security...which at least might bring the rather contentious peoples of earth together in a united sort of front to stand against the perceived THREAT. yes. the threat of peace-loving, let's not rock the boat, grass growing guinea pigs from another planet. but you know how THAT might be portrayed. WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION! THEY WILL TAKE OVER OUR GENES! WITH THEIR FOREIGN SOIL THEY WILL POISON ALL OF OUR CROPS! THEY WILL UNLEASH BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS ON US ALL. it's not like it hasn't happened before.
*sigh*
and this thing about death has me wondering about mourning. i mean, these g-pigs, although they seemed to be saying goodbye to their fellow recently passed beyond the veil of this life friend, they were also joyful in a way that i haven't seen before. i mean, people say that yes, s/he's gone to a better place when someone dies, but it's not like they always believe it, and it's not like it doesn't hurt so much that they don't feel the pain of it for years after that person dies. maybe forever...their lives are changed forever having lost that person. do these g-pigs feel that? maybe i'm just stodgy and have bad "human" habits, since those are the only intelligent life forms i've known up until now.
i also have this weird curiosity to know whether our person will mourn us when we're gone. even if what she's mourning isn't really us at that point. and i have this weird sort of feeling about whoever comes after us (i suspect this is a luxury only the living can indulge in!) - it's an odd envy/jealousy/sadness/curiosity. like, in some way i want us to have been so special and to have had such a profound effect on her life that she never would want to have other rabbits - they could never fill our shoes...er, thumpers. but i also realize how silly that sounds. and besides, what will it matter, really, once we're gone? if we do go to a better place, won't we have better things to think about? right now it just feels painful because i'm stuck here, and she doesn't know what's happened to me, and to all appearances I AM STILL THERE. and i HAVE been effectively replaced. death will be different, though. then, it will be honest. finally.
still, humans in particular, have issues about grieving. there is way of grieving and a period of mourning that is deemed "appropriate." if one should appear to be happy or to enter a close physical relationship before that period elapses, then society looks down with a scowl. how DARE you. our person's mom had a pet guinea pig once, and when he died, she wanted to get another g-pig right away. and some people said that she was too hasty. i can see the concern, i guess, if the person who is in mourning is trying to replace the person/pet who has died with the same thing over again - and has the same expectations of the new pet - you must be EXACTLY like the one i lost. that's never realistic, and it's unfair to the one who comes after. i dunno. in some cases though, isn't it really just that there are so many people/animals to love? and can't you just start sharing that love with another person/pet as soon as possible? my person used to say that a lot when she worked in the animal shelter...there were so many animals there that needed good homes, so many good dogs, cats, rabbits, and others wasted and wasting away in kennels and cages. didn't they deserve love too? how can humans create *companion animals* and then deny them company? so sad. so many good bunnies...i am such a good bunny. why can't i go home?
today we stayed with a group of g-pigs in a small enclave. we observed our silence, and they observed our observance. but i did see lots of physical greetings taking place - rubbing noses, nuzzles. it's the first time that there's been this kind of interaction on our journey.
and then a sad thing. the g-pigs brought out a cloth sling and lying within the sling was a g-pig that had just died. our leader went up to the sling and hummed and churred over the g-pig within. it seemed like a prayer, but there were no discernible words, just the sounds. everyone watched as he did this. when he was done, he bowed his head and closed his eyes, and the other g-pigs raised the sling up off the ground and carried the body away. i didn't see if they buried it, burned it, left it out for carrion birds...(or evil flying carpets).
we slept in the enclave among the other gpigs, who left us near dawn and greeted the rising sun with a kind of keening noise. i related this to the death more than a daily sun salutation ritual. maybe the spirit of the dead rises in the east, or smiles down from the heavens? i'm not sure. i have no idea what religious practice this might have been - if indeed it was. it's a little bit frustrating to not know these things, and not be able to ask about them. sometimes i choke on this silence.
it's odd, isn't it, that i have these special powers, and i don't do anything with them on this journey. i'm funny that way. i think of my person who hiked part of the appalachian trail, who quit her jobs and her normal life with the intention of walking the entire thing (injuries prevented this). but the heart, the desire to do something like that and to not let other things intrude? maybe the purity of this experience is what i want to preserve. funny how i decided that unconsciously. i just went with the flow. i must have been right confused and upset when we set out. oh yes. quite cross, quite lost. earth people often talk about the distinction between something and "the real world." what is the real world, exactly? they say it when you do something *silly* like quit your jobs and wander around; they say it when you go back to school because academia is supposed to be some sort of sheltered safe place that *prepares* you for the real world. it's odd. are these experiences somehow UN-real? are they mediated in some way that makes them less than what the REAL world would offer? or is the real world this terrifying and difficult place that you need armoring against, protection, your best wits about you just to survive it? did i ever live in the real world? or did i just live in the suburbs?
sometimes i do think of other things besides myself. i think of pyong quite a bit. i was very angry with her when we parted. i am less angry now. no, not angry anymore, but numb. i still feel...i dunno, betrayed, or left out of something important. at that last moment, i felt we should have stood together against the will of all the g-pigs. a merry thought, probably naive. but to have struggled, to have showed solidarity in the face of...this...would have been something. it may not have made any difference, it may not have mattered to the g-pigs one way or another, but it matters to me. i have no idea what pyong is doing. i wonder, what could she have chosen? where is she now that i cannot follow?
almost two weeks have passed. my days are structured by this one activity - travel. must keep moving. getting to the end doesn't really factor in. my life is all about the movement. we rise with the sun, graze a bit and then continue our trek. there are brief stops throughout the day for water, sustenance, stretching, shade. then we move on. sometimes we pass other g-pigs, but they recognize what it is we are doing, and they do not speak to us. some stand silently as we pass them by. i am full of questions about this "religion," but there is no one to ask except the grass, the sky, the stars, myself.
sometimes the physical activity takes me out of myself. i find that i don't remember exactly where i've been, or what i've been thinking about. i am so lost or involved in the journeying, lulled into some other state by the constant movement, that something switches off or something else switches on and takes over. a powder-bun on auto-pilot. i hop. (take that and multiply it hundreds of times) i stop. i plop. i flop.
i think i should be better at this than any of these g-pigs. i was silent for years, sunk in my murky normal rabbithood. so clearing all of these thoughts away should be easy. emptying my mind should be simple. but it's not. possibly i'm scared on some level that all those brilliant thoughts will go away. that somewhere along this path, just as i've found "me," i'll lose me again. me, me, me. I, I, I! it's not a competition. i'm not seeing it as one. i'm just. struggling... i want to shout some days. just yell until my throat is sore, or laugh, or cry, or something noisy. i want to wrap my tongue around some words. sometimes i find myself mouthing these silent conversations to myself. they go on independently in my head. they help me sleep, if i can think that i'm talking to someone, and that someone is answering me. we sleep in a heap. a pile of warm fuzzy us with furry backs against furry sides. it's warm, and it's comforting. my body relaxes and feels safe, but my mind keeps turning and churning like an upset stomach. i have colic of the brain. wonderful.
the silence gets more comfortable. or maybe it's always been comfortable - because it's required. no one has to think of anything to say, no one has to respond awkwardly. what an odd experience. despite our silence, i am coming to know the habits of my fellow travelers, their g-pigalities (ha), as well as my own. no names have been exchanged, so i am beginning to make my own names for the g-pigs. it's a bit Seven Dwarves at the moment - "clumsy," "fickle," "sleeps-til-the-last-minute." maybe someday these will evolve into more elegant names, more american indianesque. but i like the reminder, anyway, that names CAN have meaning, and these doubly so, because i am doing the naming after i know the individual. i don't know how our guide knows who is supposed to be with him. but when he looks at us, each of us, it feels like a greeting. and when his eyes meet mine, it feels like he knows me. these are rare moments. i'm not certain what this exercise is teaching us, but i'm open to the experience.
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