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CwHD
87
The Dogs
At The Gate
photo
by Molly Simoni
For
most of us, life is a continuum. We divide this continuum arbitrarily
with age and occupation and other divisions; and these divisions,
these nooks and crannies in which we fit our selves, may be
considered and selected either objectively or subjectively or, more
often, randomly. Infant, toddler, youth, teen, adult. Student,
worker, retiree. Bold. Meek. We are shaped by our environment:
physical, mental, and spiritual. If we were born and raised in
Calcutta, we would likely be beggars. If we were born on the Diomede
Islands, we would feast on whale blubber. The nature-nurture
discussion continues thousands of years after its inception with no
clear resolution in sight. No matter. None needed.
For
most of us who are immersed in the immense cultural flow known as
western civilization, possessions come to take precedent. We are what
we own. In many instances, our possessions come to possess us.
Fences, locks and electronic surveillance are sure to follow. This
insistence on owning land, houses, cars, gadgets, dogs, cats and
what-not, includes, unfortunately, owning people. An economic
argument suggests all this possessiveness, including slavery, is
necessary. This premise, like all based on economics, is both tedious
and specious.
Distinctions
between owner and owned can be cut rather fine. A hair's breadth. The
lead photograph, 'The Dogs At The Gate', is not about possession; but
rather about protection. These dogs are not 'owned'. Their 'owners'
abandoned them. For two of them, neglect and abuse was their lot. Old
dogs often suffer the same fate as old people, they are discarded.
This is an interesting corollary to possession: If it breaks, don't
fix it. Throw it away. Get a new one. A better one. A bigger one.
Such is western civilization.
Perhaps
you disagree. Perhaps you think that much too broad a generality.
Consider: Two pillars of this civilized culture are religion and
politics. The Ancients created gods to explain what they could not
understand. Arguably, the Greeks of Socrates and Plato established
democracy. Science and the recalcitrant leaders of organized
religion, have put paid to many belief systems. Americans have ended
democracy. Western religions cultivate ownership. We are all god's
children, they tell us, and batter us with the alms basket. They take
the vow of poverty, but it is the people, historically, who have
suffered the grind of poverty. And both archbishops and
industrialists, popes and kings, know that needy people are more
manageable.
Just
for good measure, it might be noted that Eastern religions, in
general, have no such inherent need for possessing souls, for
erecting monuments to the glory of ephemeral beings, their
innumerable gods and goddesses. But Buddhists and Hindus and
what-have-yous become possessed by possessions as easily as those of
us in the West. And the politics and and religions of the East are
inextricably intertwined. For every Gandhi or Nehru there are a
multitude of Maos and Lon Nols and moguls and maharajahs, Taj Mahals
and Summer Palaces.
The
ruling cliques, both lay and cleric, drive the legislation that
erects ephemeral boundaries and quotas, restrictions and tariffs that
guard the 'national interest' and which profits only the members of
the cliques and those who empower them. The military gets fat on
weapons. Industry gets fat on the military. Insurance companies get
fat on premiums to protect are possessions. Pharmaceuticals get fat
on drugs to enhance and preserve our bodies and what remains of our
minds.
No
matter. These are not revelations. The preceding little diatribe is
just a snippet of a discussion that fills book after book, if one
cares to pursue the argument. Or read history. The gist of course is
that power emanates from possession. And wealth is the outward guise
of power. Economic arguments abound, rationalizing all this
business. As a species, we are rather adept at rationalizing.
Roger
Payne has spent a lifetime studying and defending whales. In his 1998
book, Among Whales, he
wrote:
Using an economic argument as if it
were the soundest basis for judgment is, of course, at the root of
the tragedy of our times. One could hardly find a clearer example of
what such reasoning leads to than the present state of whales. Simply
stated, putting economics first is the myopia of this the most
shortsighted of all civilizations; it is the view for which our era
will be remembered the longest, the addiction for which we will
someday be judged more harshly than the most prejudiced medieval
society. The ultimate expression of our madness is that we revere as
wise those who put economic considerations above all else and sneer
at those who see the madness of such a system of values, labeling
them as unrealistic. Meanwhile, we spend all of our children's
inheritance to maintain ourselves in the myth that what we are doing
is viable. I would offer that this is the most deeply flawed, most
expensive belief ever adopted in the history of our species.
We
are driven by our desires, and all too often neglect that which we
need most. Payne suggests that it is our 'wild' selves we need most,
and one cannot but agree. That word 'wild', however, has too many
connotations and fails to convey precisely the point he tries to
make. Humans are animals; that is the reality. We are born from the
wilderness as all animate creatures are. Only humans deny their
origins; only humans feel a need to civilize the wild. Yet, the
attraction remains. Payne wrote:
Remote and imperturbable, the lives of
whales are somehow enough to match any fantasy humanity can create.
They are what we have lost, what we yearn for. They are in some ways
the last wild voice calling to the consciousness of terminally
civilized humanity, our last contact before we submerge forever in
our own manufacture and irretrievably lose the last fragment of our
wild selves.
---Roger Payne, Among Whales
Terminally
civilized.
But
perhaps Mr Payne has understated the case. As wildness is lost on the
planet we lose not just a last fragment, we become in fact
fragmented, not whole, become some unwholesome creation who knows
nothing but power and greed and corruption. Certainly, we are not who
we think we are; we are not unique; we are not singular. We are not
superior to the rest of creation. At various times our costumes
change. We adorn ourselves with different masks; but there is little
real change. And whether Catholic or Muslim or Protestant or Hindu,
Irish, Burmese, Chukchi, or Australian, we all suffer the same faults
and fates.
But
since we are not puppets dancing on strings, we can gather up the
shards of our fragmented existence and become, simply, one again (or
mostly so: see footnote on Charles Scammon). And just how might that
be done? From Aldo Leopold:
Samuel Whittemore Boggs, the
geographer, once spoke of "the wholesomeness of wholeness."
The wisest man is insufficiently conscious of the remedial quality of
mere presence in the wilderness when he first comes from the
marketplace of nerve-wracking half-truths and no-truths into a genial
haven of a whole ... and he feels himself becoming whole again.
Wholesome
and wholeness are often listed as synonyms. They might be, at times.
They are not always. Wholesome refers to that which promotes
spiritual or mental health or well being, an adjective. Wholeness is
a noun, and generally means 'not broken.' When one is mentally
fragmented, broken, it is necessary to find something wholesome to
help repair the damage.
And
so we return to the dogs at the gate. The companionship of dogs is
usually wholesome. Swimming with dolphins is often used as part of a
healing process for battered women. And whales, at least the grays of
San Ignacio Lagoon, have a miraculous (I have selected this word
carefully) power to transform the most nerve-wracked, embittered
human into one who is at peace with the world.
Photo
Merrily Simoni
The
dog in the photograph is Cowboy. So badly abused and neglected he
could not be groomed, but only shaved. The end of his tail was
amputated due to a gangrenous injury that had never been treated.
When Cowboy first arrived at our house, he made for the back bedroom
and lay down beside my wife's mother's bed. Laura patted the dog and
smiled. Largely bedridden, there were few pleasure's remaining in
Laura's life. Responding to the petting, Cowboy sat up and lay his
head on the side of the bed. Then, slowly, the old collie hoisted
himself up beside the old woman and lay down. And so they remained,
a comfort to each other, healing one and another, fast friends for
the time left to them.
Has
the case been overstated? Is this merely some modern day bit of
psycho-babble? Are humans guilty of reeking havoc on the planet and
its creations? From The Eye Of The Whale, a quote from Herman
Melville's Moby-Dick offers some insight:
eye
of gray whale, drawing by Charles Melville Scammon,
The
Marine Mammals of the North-western Coast of North America, 1874
What is it, that nameless,
inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and
master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all
natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and
jamming myself on all the time, recklessly making me ready to do what
in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare. Is
Ahab, Ahab?
* * *
NOTES:
Among
Whales (1998), Roger Payne at
your favorite local book store.
I am a heretic, using the internet to
debase the internet. From whatever perspective, the Internet is a
cultural wasteland. The immense quantity of data collected is beyond
manageable. This data poses no threat to the individual until someone
decides to seek you out. WWW is the new plague, and should be
avoided. Support human businesses, local venders. Visits to the web
should be as infrequent as television viewing. Stay off the phone.
Look people in the eye. Those who communicate by text message or
similar inanities have the least to say.
Eye
Of The Whale (2002), Dick
Russell. p633. The book focuses on the migration of gray wells from
Baja California to the Bering Sea. Charles
Melville Scammon, who
drew the eye of the whale, was a whaler who discovered the breeding
lagoons of the gray whale and was responsible for their wholesale
slaughter. He was also an excellent amateur naturalist, and his book
on marine mammals is still relevant. Scammon apparently had a change
of heart, and quit whaling to join the Revenue Service, a forerunner
of the Coast Guard, whose main function, ironically, was to apprehend
poachers.
A
Sand Country Almanac (1949),
Aldo Leopold
Moby-Dick,
1851, Herman Melville, is a classic everyone should read. The quote
is from the chapter 132 entitled 'The Symphony'.
Interesting read.
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