A Lesson from the Animals

    One morning, sitting at my computer, glancing up as I always do to see what is happening in the world outside my window, I saw an animal that at first glance I thought was a big dog. It was coming through the yard on the east side of the cabin, and, as it got closer, I realized it was a bear. 
     I’ve lived in Colorado for more than 40 years and only saw a bear in the wild once before this (at Roxborough State Park, south of Denver) and it was on a high peak across the valley, visible only through binoculars. But this bear was in my yard, heading for the road, almost getting caught in a tangle of barbed wire on my neighbor’s property. It stopped to sniff around the tree and I was able to get a picture.
    I knew there were bears here, because the locals had warned me that I should never leave food out, even inside the cabin, that bears could smell food from five miles away and could tear down doors to get it (a fact that caused me to sleep less well than I might have). 
    One of the big pleasures of this cabin is all the wildlife. Up to that point, I had seen chipmunks eating out of the feeder next to my window; ground squirrels posing on my front deck; rabbits eating the wild grasses in the yard; and chickarees, the small gray squirrels, running on the fence posts and up the trees, chattering at me. And there were birds everywhere:  juncos, siskins, chickadees, the mountain and western bluebirds, and red-tailed hawks flying over the valley. 
    Watching the animals gave me perspective on my own life. When I first moved in, I was faced with a number of issues that I wanted to resolve as soon as possible. One of the most urgent was getting e-mail access for my business, and I thought it would be easy to set up a cheap dial-up connection at the cabin, but it was more complicated than I thought. And I needed  to get a new roof before the winter snows came, but that turned into a long and frustrating process. 
    In addition to the maintenance issues, I was feeling anxious about work. As a free-lance editor, I never knew where my next job would come from, and I worried that I would not be able to find more work—work that would help pay for all my bills, including the expenses for the cabin. Had I overreached in buying this cabin? It didn’t help that gas prices had reached $4 a gallon, so it was costing me $15 to $20 just to drive up here,  some 40 miles from my home. 
    I started to realize that I wanted everything in place, to feel secure about all aspects of my life. It’s something I know everyone does, constantly shoring up our defenses, making sure there’s as little uncertainty in our lives as possible.  And yet, from studying Buddhism, I know it’s futile to chase stability, because everything is in flux and impermanent: changing as fast as the river moves downstream and as slow as the trees that drop their needles and die, making way for new trees that will change the landscape.  
    But the animals I watch at my cabin have more precarious lives than I do. Will they get enough food to eat and not starve? Will this chipmunk who comes to the platform feeder and stuffs his face be suddenly carried off by an owl? Or the deer that came, trembling, into the driveway, be attacked by a mountain lion? The birds that come to the feeder or peck from the front yard are always alert for hawks patrolling these woods and fields. And the rabbits that look so cute don’t stay out in the open for long but scurry quickly underneath my car or the trees, out of sight from predators. 
    And that bear that walked through my yard, that looks so magnificent and powerful, could easily fail in its efforts to find food and starve to death or start raiding garbage cans and be killed.
    These animals live in a constant state of awareness, and yet it is not fear, as far as I can tell, that rules their lives but an awareness of each moment, of where they are and everything that’s around them. They don’t worry about tomorrow, because there’s only today, and a struggle for survival. It’s a lesson I could learn well.

Comments

[Maggie Risk]

What a thrilling event! For an animal lover like me that would make my year. Lucky you! I'm really enjoying your blog, Kathy.

--Maggie