Born Again

Not in the biblical sense. Although other sayings pop into my head that follow along those lines. When God closes a door he opens a window. God has a plan for you.

But I however do not believe in a Christian God that pays attention to the inner workings of our day to day lives. Our reason for existence and the meaning of life are both unanswerable questions on their own, yet put together they answer each other. The reason for existence is to search for the meaning of life in your own way. And the meaning of life is to find your reason to exist. That love that drives you, that passion you have inside you that breaks through when you live at your fullest.

Love lost forces you to start anew. Born again, if you will.
So what do you do when that love that drove you before no longer wants to be a part of the ride?

City Wildlife

Elephants and birds have an interesting bond. Birds will rest on the huge creature's back and tag along for a ride, and other times they will just fly along with them. Egrets walk along side elephants because the vibration of the massive beasts make the insects on the ground visible because they bounce up and down.

Pigeons have formed a similar respectful bond with us humans. We feed them our left over fries and bread crusts and they grace us with their constant cooing and public defecation. The more populated the city the braver the birds. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate their presence. I enjoy the dependability of feeding the pigeons at Seattle Center and  the mini wild life shows we get every day on the sidewalks. And when you are sitting at Westlake Station waiting for the bus they make perfect avian models. 

Big Man, Little Man

Bull elephants are as egotistical as men. They use their large statures to dominate the group and demand attention. The larger the tusks the more important the bull. Men have their own appendage that makes them mentally superior.  But for some they over compensate with expensive extravagant boats, houses, and cars. Perhaps that is what I came across on I-5 heading into the city.

New Growth

An elephant's tusks never stop growing (although you might not believe me since you don't see elephants with huge tusks anymore, but the average size of tusks has decreased over the past hundred years because ivory poaching has resulted in making the ‘big tusk gene’ extremely rare). I've heard that our ears and noses never stop growing either, but I'm not a hundred percent on that. Even so, I like the thought. It makes no sense that our mind is the only thing about our bodies that is in constant growth (well, for some of us). I understand why we can't grow vertically forever, but we are never done growing, learning, absorbing our environment. So why is it that our bodies grow to a certain age then crumble and whither away?

I wish I was a tree. Their life cycle is a lot like our own. They start very tiny enclosed in a shell. They push through the dirt to uncover the light of sun much like our our journey to learn to speak. Once we have communication the light of learning can be seen bright and clear.  As the tree grows taller it can see more and more of the world surrounding it. As humans age we understand more and more about our surroundings. I would want to be a Sequoia tree. Tall and proud, living for centuries.

 I don't know what type of trees these are that I found sporadically lining the Ave in the U District, but I loved the way their delicate new growth proudly persevered through the rough bark of the trunk.  

Like-Minded Folk

Elephants are social creatures just like humans. They travel in herds with a number of families. Babies play together and mothers and sisters graze and gently watch over the group. The males wrestle and fight and argue. And when they get thirsty they gather with sometimes hundreds of other herds to drink.

When a person finds another person that shares their interests it is a beautiful thing. It could be as simple as a glance at the same thing on the menu that unites them or as obvious as wearing the same band tee. When two people find a third it's a crowd, and when that crowd finds more crowds of like-minded individuals you have a lovely community. Not everyone has to agree, but if everyone can find at least one thing in common with everyone else it's harder to hate.

The Breakup Is No Place For Dancing

 Funny how a song can parallel your life :

I wish that I could have been warned 

Yet I was, so many times, by so many clues and voices.

To warn them and let them all know what's in store, 

I just wasn't going to listen. I seem to always have to learn on my own. 

I can't tell you how much I'd love to take back every word I said, 

So many things I blew out of portioned almost equal with the amount of things I shouldn't have let go of so quickly.  

So I waited patiently as long as I could

I would have waited forever... 

Fought so hard for a girl, that I loved

After so many hardships and long distances

But who later turned out to be someone I hardly knew. 

Hiding feelings that should have come out a long time a go. 

Spent a lot of my time trying to make this alright, trying to make this alright

 I plan to, nothing worth having is easy.

Alone now, I hope this is all that you wanted 

I do hope you are happy, honestly. 

Cleanse

Water is essential for life, that's rule one of survival. Elephants drink 3 gallons at a time by sucking it up their trunk and spraying it in their mouth. They do not drink mud or sip tree sap to get water. So why do humans avoid the organic and opt to gather water through diluted, and often harmful ways? Alcohol, soda, energy drinks. None of those things cleanse as they hydrate, and some could argue if they hydrate at all.

Embrace the overwhelming evidence that water is important. The earth is more water than anything else. Our bodies are even more water than they are flesh and bone. Water is the purest cleanser. It rids the body of toxins and bad feelings. When badness overcomes your life, swim your way through it.
Stay hydrated.

Age of Innocence

Perhaps I am drawn to that special sparkle in their eyes or the whimsical way they live their life an octave higher than the rest of the world. Either could be the case, still I find myself in a constant game of peek-a-boo in my day to day life. At the grocery they beg me to make scrunchy faces at them with their enlarged eyes, and on the ferry I am silently coerced into a staring contest over the booth seats.

I envy their passion. Their relentlessness. Their tenacity. I want to live my life with that same hunger for knowledge and creativity. I crave that giddiness that comes along with the blissful newness of life.
I often daydream I have a child of my own to observe and study at my own whim and will. Or that I am somehow transported back to that precious time to relive and review my choices and decisions.
Babysitting is perhaps the closest I can get to either of those at the moment.

Fear

Elephants don't fear mice, or pig squeals or Indians. But fear can be important for survival. Elephants often walk right through Death's door, fearlessly presenting themselves to poachers. But in general I respect their philosophy of fearlessness.

My fear is buses. So I took a mini adventure up to the U District with a friend to help conquer this irrational childhood fear. In this economy I can't afford to fear public transportation.

Welcome!!

Let me start with a fact; Elephants are highly intelligent animals, and are capable of emotions, such as grief. There are instances where elephants have collected the scattered bones of fallen comrades, and assembled them into a single pile, as though they understood that the bones used to be their friends. They have also been known to caress the lifeless bodies, and take time to say good-bye and pay their respects, as humans would do over the loss of a loved one.

That is enough to make me respect (and revere) them. I recognize humanity in them and I love that even and animal as wild as the elephant has compassion. If they can hold on to their morality why can't we?

So I embark on a journey to link the area.