Remembering those who've Passed....

This has NOT been a good year, in terms of cat losses. We knew we were going to be losing some, due to age and time and attrition, we have an aging population, and there have been 5-6 of them we've had growing concerns about; cancer, chronic illness and aging end of life issues. However, the past few months/weeks have been a perfect storm of loss, as four of them have passed away one right after another due to these issues.

We lost Legba to old age and basic health issues....the last of the grey and white band of brothers living with us whom we have loved so much....

Legba, curled up asleep on the futon....

Legba with a very young Firedancer....

And then there was Tanis, our regal, elegant grey cat, very much Dreamweaver's cat, period. I was grudgingly accepted as useful, since I would bring food. It took years before he would deign to let me pet him.

Tanis, much loved and missed....

And then we lost Rascal on October first to asthma, which had never been diagnosed correctly. He was our orange loving cat who would jump into your arms and give you hugs. He was only about 8 years old and we were shocked to lose him. However, that was about a normal life span for a cat with asthma, we found out later. He and Tanis were avowed enemies arguing over who got to sleep the closest to Dreamweaver....it took years, but they grumpily evolved finally into buddies who always slept together.

Rascal, our sweet hugging orange boy....

When Rascal was wrestling to breathe with the asthma,
he hung his nose over a jar of Mentholatum and it seemed to
truly help his breathing!

And then we have been shattered just two days ago by the fourth loss - our little one-eyed "pirate cat" Xian. She was 13 years old, and had cancer and other end of life issues, so her passing was not entirely unexpected...except that there never is anyway to "expect" something like this, for any of them. We love all of our cats and lavish attention on them....but every now and then there is one or another that is just....special. Precious. And Xian was one of them. Xian's passing leaves a hole in our lives and our hearts that is so painful. And yet we rejoice in the 13 wonderful years we had with her and her sweet loving heart that never met a stranger. I promise you, she loved EVERYBODY who walked through the door of our house...it was "Hi, glad to meet you!" and Xian in their laps, "Pet me, pet me, pet me!"

Xian, the wonderful one-eyed "pirate cat who loved to ride
shoulders....

So. It has been one hammer blow after another, even though we knew we would have these losses soon, we never expected them back to back to back like this. And yet, there is comfort in the memories, and love shared with these precious cats, and in knowing we cared for them and loved them, were with them in their last moments and let them go with love and comfort. 

Legba, Rascal, Tanis, and Xian....
Go before us into the Summerlands,
Join those who have crossed before us....
Run and play and find us when we join you ourselves.
What is remembered, 

Lives!

Blessed be! 

Finally!

Brief explanation here - I haven't been able to get into my blog  for awhile due to password etc difficulties...have been about to go nuts over it.
I'm back.
Blogging will now proceed forward again. Whew!
And many thanks to Dreamweaver for being the wonderful geek who straightened it out!

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001 as all the world remembers, four coordinated terrorist attacks occurred here in America. Four planes, flown by the terrorists on collision courses caused the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York, damaged the Pentagon, and due to the resistance of the passengers, the fourth plane crashed into a field, killing all aboard. The attacks resulted in the deaths of 2,996 people, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims. The victims included 246 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,606 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. Nearly all of the victims were civilians; 55 military personnel were among those killed at the Pentagon.
I'm already seeing memorial posts sprouting all over the place on the internet. Some are patriotic, with symbols like the American Flag, or the Bald Eagle. Some pictures are linked by inflammatory text to the current Syria crisis. I'm also seeing posts and articles saying its time to move on and forward and stop all the heavy mourning.

I think that first of all, mourning is a process. Its not black and white, it doesn't have a time limit on it and the expression of our grief takes many forms. It takes as long as it takes, be it an individual or the collective heart and soul of a nation. Those that need to post memorial posts or talk about it, really *NEED* to do so, to express their hearts, to process the pain and memories. We need to respect this process, to understand it, whether or not we need to participate in it.

Secondly, the remembrance needs to be unhooked from the political polarized debates, raging rants and divisive arguments. I know the current international issues hit very sore nerves that are connected straight to the events of 9/11 and the years that followed. And people need to be able to express that, too. But honoring and grieving and remembering who died and the horror that gripped the nation and the world should just on one day, this day, be free of political dialog and manipulation, rhetoric and demagoguery. It should focus on those who were lost, and those who remain, on the collective soul of the nation as we continue to work our way out of the emotional pain and damage of those days.

Thirdly, I do think that as the healing process continues, that looking forward *is* as important as looking back. That remembering what happened and what we learned in those dreadful hours and days should spur us, today, to current compassion, critical thinking, and honorable behavior. But moving forward and looking back occur simultaneously. The cannot be independent of each other. We cannot make them exclusionary of each other. We cannot say "we have to stop grieving and carrying on and move forward" - it doesn't work that way, and that can be a painful statement for someone who still has grief and pain to live with and work through. Whatever our personal processes, we need to be respectful of how other people need to work out their grief. Even, after what I said above about unhooking it from the political, even if it isn't how I or you or the other person needs to express themselves. I admit, the distaste I feel about the politicization of current issues coupled with 9/11 is a *personal feeling*. I feel strongly that I have good reasons to feel that way...but I'm not going to be un-friending, if its Face Book or some other social media, or publicly criticizing anybody for their posts tomorrow, even if I don't like or agree with their contents. It may be how they work out *their* grief and anger.

May all those who grieve and mourn the events of 9/11 

still be comforted by their communities, 

by their faiths, 

by their philosophies, 

and by finding ways to express their hearts. 

Even as I am doing right now. 

For all those who died, 

may they be honored, 

remembered, and their loved ones cared for and comforted this day. 

What is remembered, lives.

The World's Not Owned But Held In Trust

Buddha at the Bodhi tree (Sri Lanka)

Here, to the oldest living tree
Pilgrims have flown, sailed, crawled and bussed
To feel its shade to know its strength
The world’s not owned but held in trust

It never withers, fresh shoots grow
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Does not apply to such a tree
The world’s not owned but held in trust

Buddha, in this tree’s motherland
Had conquered self and fear and lust
Now every seed the message gives
The world’s not owned but held in trust

Treasures you covet, things possessed
Silver and gold all turn to rust
Others will claim your home, your land
The world’s not owned but held in trust

Your little self’s a puff of smoke
To every living thing be just
Power brings responsibilities
The world’s not owned but held in trust

The fluttering leaves eternal tell
Man’s not immortal, die we must
Live a full life but live it well
The world’s not owned, but held in trust

(Author: sheena blackhall)

The Question To Ask....

F-5 Tornado tears into Moore, Oklahoma, May 20, 2013

When tragedy like the tornado of May 20th in Moore OK occurs, we hear the question why. 

Why did God let this happen? 

And we see people run to provide quick answers - some I've heard so far have been "people didn't pray hard enough to prevent it" (seriously, heard that one) or its "God's judgement on sin" (that one too.) 

And of course its God's judgement on gays, Islam, pagans, abortions - go fill in the blank. 

Running into all those too. Its as though we are so desperate for answers that we will take any answer and hug it to us, and trumpet it loudly - however negative or abusive it may be. 

Answers make us feel safe. 

Particularly answers that create an "us/them" dichotomy. 

If it could happen to "them" because of __________, then it cannot happen to "us" because we are righteous and not like them. "Therefore we are safe." 

How tragic. 

How negative. 

How fearful.
I don't have any answers to the "Why!?" question.
I'm not that wise.
What I think is needed is a different question....a "What..." question.
A question that can be posed and answered by anybody, be they Christian, or Islamic, or Pagan, or Jewish, or agnostic or atheist. A question that is powered and driven by love and compassion. 

And tears and depth and pain. A question that is not shallow or quick to seek easy solutions and then walk away. A question that expresses all things regardless if the person's belief is in God, or the Gods or the intrinsic moral depth of humanity in the face of tragedy. Whatever you believe...
The question is -
"What can I do?"
What can I do to help? 

What can I do to alleviate suffering? 

What can I do to make compassion and love real in the face of suffering and shock and pain?
And then you go do it. 

Whatever it is, however small your part is. 

You make it real.

There are still some remaining in Asia, but the population is considered to be below 10,000. I am very much afraid we are going to start seeing a faster and faster trend of this sort of thing in the next few decades. And its really breaking my heart.

Extinction - the Demise of the Western Black Rhino...

Western Black African Rhino....now Extinct.

There are some moments in the world that one just does not wish to be present for. I remember as a young child, reading through the wonderful countless books my parents had on animals and wild life. These books inspired me deeply in my love and fascination with nature and wildlife, and the entire universe for that matter. I remember reading this line - clearly, word for word - from one of those old books:

"Extinction is a natural process - the current rate of extinction is not." 

Go back and read that again. Slowly. "Extinction is a natural process - the current rate of extinction is not."
A definition of extinction reads as follows: 

A species becomes extinct when the last existing member dies. Extinction therefore becomes a certainty when there are no surviving individuals that are able to reproduce and create a new generation. A species may become functionally extinct when only a handful of individuals survive, which cannot reproduce due to poor health, age, sparse distribution over a large range, a lack of individuals of both sexes (in sexually reproducing species), or other reasons. 

Extinctions occur for numerous reasons - Genetic pollution wherein breeding is affected by inbreeding, cross breeding and colliding with species that are more numerous, or simply dropping below a sustainable amount for a breeding population. Then there is co-extinction, when the loss of one species negatively affects a co-existing species that is dependent on the interaction of their habits and life cycles. Then there is habitat degradation, predation, competition and disease. And of course we are all familiar with "Mass extinction", so well known from the ending of the dinosaurs due to a comet strike that changed the earths climate on a wide scale. However, the rate of extinctions has been climbing at an alarming rate since the beginning of the 1900's...

This past Thursday, 

April 25th, conservationists announced 

the extinction of the West Black African Rhinoceros.

Now, there are other Rhino populations - the White Rhino, the Indian Rhino the Javan Rhino and the Sumatran Rhino. About 275 Sumatran rhinos are believed to remain.and as of 2009, only 40 Javan

Rhinos remain in Ujung Kulon Conservation, Java, Indonesia.The Camaroon subspecies of Black Rhino was declared extinct 2 years two years ago, and 3 other subspecies remained critically threatened. But now the Black Rhino is totally gone. And it is gone because of poaching...its horn believed to be of medicinal value in some Asiatic countries, Rhinos have been slaughtered for years, with increasing clashes between the conservationists, the game wardens and the poachers, some of which have turned ugly and fatal.

Poaching  for their horns has
contributed overwhelmingly
to the loss and extinction of the Rhino

Greed is the ultimate bottom line - Rhino horns fetch incredible prices on the black market; an average sized horn can bring in as much as a quarter of a million dollars. Countries in which traffic for the horns runs high, have made it illegal, and are assisting conservationists and game wardens, but nothing appears to be slowing poaching down in the slightest. And even the game wardens have turned for money and aided the poachers, which contributed to the loss of the rhino. 

In other words...we did this. 

Us. 

Humans. 

This did not happen slowly over time as natural extinction processes  occurred. This occurred abruptly, brutally and for nothing but human greed and cruelty. And the Rhino is scarcely alone in being threatened or having gone down to death....

the Irish Elk, 

the Yangtze River Dolphin, 

the Quagga, 

the Japanese Honshu Wolf, 

the Great Auk,

the Pinta Island Tortoise (the last of whom died last year)

Stellar's Sea Cow, 

Moa and the Hastian's Eagle 

(the Moa's hunted to extinction by man, the Hastian's Eagle died out because of the loss of the Moa, its primary food source.)

The Thaylacine

 The Carolina Parakeet. 

The Passenger Pigeon. 

The Dodo.

The Dutch Alcon Blue Butterfly. 

The Round Island Burrowing Boa Constrictor. 

The Spix's Macaw. 

The Javan Tiger. 

The Pyrenean Ibex. 

The Tecopa Pupfish. 

The Madeiran Large White Butterfly. 

The Zanzibar Leopard. 

The Golden Toad. 

And on...and on...and on....

And on. 

And every single one above went down because of man...our greed, our consumption of habitat, our poaching, our total lack of concern for this world we stand in stewardship to...whether to God, or the Gods, or simply to our higher human conscience if we do not believe in a Deity. 

We have saved some. The White Rhinoceros, one of the remaining species of Rhino, has an estimated population of  20,000 in the wild. But it will also be hunted by poachers still more as the over all population of the Rhinoceros declines. 

Another success story is the Przewalski's (pronounced shə-val-skee) or Dzungarian horse.  

Przewalski's Horse is a rare and endangered subspecies of wild horse native to the steppes of  Mongolia. At one time it was considered extinct in the wild (the last wild Przewalski's horses had been seen in 1966). Through careful breeding of the only 9 remaining Przewalski's horses in the world in captivity. It has since been reintroduced to its native habitat in Mongolia at the Khustain Nuruu National Park, Takhin Tal Nature Reserve, and Khomiin Tal. Maybe, if there are any captive Black Rhinoceros anywhere, something may yet be saved. Also, though cloning has not had a high success rate, still it may be possible to redeem an extinct species at some point through the processes of cloning. Until then however..

At this moment however, one of the last of the great giants of the animal kingdom - a holdover descendant of the giant mammals that used to walk the earth before the last ice age is gone and has passed from us. Remember. Do not forget. And give every thing you can to conservation efforts. To saving what remains before we lose any more, before any more drop below unsustainable breeding levels. Before our destruction of the biosphere brings about the destruction of all, ourselves included. 

  Remember forever the Black Rhinoceros. 

And use that memory to effect change!