There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
But if you go no one may follow.
That path is for your steps alone
- Grateful Dead, Ripple
In the backyard, standing at my outdoor sink, I was borrowing scenery from the small pasture across the canyon that separates us from our backyard neighbors. This is where I often flee to escape from the clangor of the stressful world. This was a particularly welcome spot last week when my household routine was disrupted by some minor indoor renovation.
Early Friday afternoon, I saw Charlie the llama being attacked by two vigorous pit bulls. Charlie is the name my sister-in-law gave to the neighbor across the canyon. He’d actually trot down his hill toward me when I said good morning, and silently watch me. I’d heard Charlie talk and call out before, but I’d never heard such a gut-wrenching sound before. Me and my Trusty Spousal Companion hopped in our car so quickly he didn’t bring his wallet.
After pounding on the front door frantically, I dashed through the carport into the backyard only seen from my house before. I knew Charlie was in a fenced enclosure farthest down the canyon, separated from house by a backyard garden and orchard, and by a gated fence. I grabbed a loose piece of ½” white plastic irrigation pipe slightly more than a yard long, and slightly less potentially effective than a balsa wood shack in a Force 7 Blizzard.
By the time I made it to the gate, Charlie was on his feet and silent. He was being stalked in perfect terrier pack instinct: the dark brown terrier trash talking right in his bloody face, while its silent companion stalked the llama’s rear. I loudly rattled the gate and waved my white sword in what I hoped wasn’t a laughable imitation of heroism. No way was I going inside.
Faithful Spouse finally caught me there, breathless. He’d stopped to pick up rock-hard lemons in each hand with which to defend me if I’d have been stupid enough to open the gate. The police he’d called came: three cars eventually, with two of the three officers carrying long rifles. Then animal control came. From where we’d returned in the bleachers of my backyard, we saw the animal control officers having a friendly tail-wagging encounter with the dogs. The dogs were “impounded”. Later, we saw animal control gently harnessing Charlie to be lead away to the large animal vet ER. That was Friday.
I left a note on the front door with my name etc and said we wished the llama well. We never heard from the owners, but Sunday, I saw the owner cleaning up the llama’s place with new straw and hosing out the water bucket. No sign of Charlie.
Today’s Wednesday. The other shoe dropped. Charlie was put to sleep over the weekend. The owners had returned by Saturday and made the decision with the vet. The reason I know this is that Officer H from Animal Control called and asked me two questions. First, did I actually witness the attack? Yes. And second, would I be willing to participate as a witness in any legal proceedings resulting from their inquiry over Charlie’s death? Also, alas, yes.
I find it no comfort at all that as Jack’s kid I’m supposed to be hard-wired not to care about animals. They don’t have souls, you know. Without realizing it, I’ve somehow learned (from K and my cats) that animals are people too. Some are valuable members of their communities – a llama can be worth $20k. Others are not socialized by their parents and become delinquents and murderers. It seems inevitable to me that the dogs will be punished for their owners’ crime: letting their terriers do what terriers are hard-wired to do – kill. The scene of the crime being where and when it is, I presume an expensive lawsuit will follow; and consequently, that our homeowner’s liability insurance will be red-zoned. All that makes me sad.
But not having Charlie to say good morning to when I am meditating on sunny summer days: that makes me sadder. I often meditate about how our universe balances the continuous karmic “chain reaction of cause and effect.” Somebody must have done some bad stuff, some felony violation of some moral law, to balance the hurt to Charlie and his family and friends.
I guess I do have a fitting subject for future meditation overlooking Charlie’s empty home. Sometimes, our roads lead us through the shadow of the valley of death. But it’s not a one-way journey. Think of it as karmic balance on a much grander scale than a single lifetime. Charlie, I hope we meet again on some future round trip. Some fragrant Spring day, I’ll say good morning, and you’ll stare back, silently knowing.
grabbing your gold plastic shoes.
On the day of the full moon, I discovered this white plastic bucket and the two flat pumpkin-like seeds – possibly zucchini – had been left in the basket in the shade and dry spot in the carport exactly one week earlier. Taken from overhead, looking down into the plastic bowl, I captured these leggy sprouts, eclipsing the plastic moon like a spare Chinese watercolor. I’ve planted them in a nearby planter, but I think they’re doomed by their early profligate ways. They powered this miraculous growth from potential energy within.
Whether or not you believe you have a soul and/or that it is immortal, I think Emerson’s words still resonate. He’s describing the “Universal Soul” that - regardless of where it goes after we die – is within us now. 
“…those pure chalices that Kentish men
“When I was younger
I’m trying to decode the seasonal mysteries. There’s not even the most self-defeating or seemingly contradictory sign to mark seasonal change. Like this unwise street sign in my neighborhood, some things are better hidden then others. At what exact moment does summer leak out and autumn creep in? It must be at night. 
As autumn begins, ancient Wiccans used to celebrate Lammas night when the sun enters his old age, but is not yet dead. On the eve of August, people would marry for one year and a day, as a way of acknowledging the impermanence of all seasons of our lives. 
Hungry tomato plants and wilting squash vines. The high summer, and things are beginning to die. The garden is having that late middle age crisis and beginning to burn with doubt about Spring’s exuberant promises. Naked ladies bloom in autumn; ghostly whispers of spring amid ageing blooms, past their prime, but refusing to go quietly. Winston Churchill said it was not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning.
What fun! After some manic joy, I am now relaxing and enjoying having “the kids” a mere 2-hour drive away; crossing over borders no more threatening than the border between San Diego and the Inland Empire: where the direst warnings are about transporting fruit potentially infested with pests to threaten neighboring harvests.
The grapes at the Veggie Garden have ripened since this photo was taken, and the sweet fruits have mostly been harvested by birds. They tend to make a mess when they eat, dropping at least as much as they eat, and staining the brick patio beneath the vines in lovely shades of green to purple grape. To make matters worse, we’ve deliberately avoided pruning the vine – and in the process, permitted it to produce too much fruit – so we can later harvest the grape vines to make baskets. The final insult was that the two canvas director’s chairs furnishing this once inviting and shady pergola beneath the vine have finally rotted through. Taken together, that corner of the Garden looks like the long lapse of ages – and the birds – have been the only gardeners. 
This species of fig is edible and the fruit never turns the brownish purple of other types of fig. As we shared a tart green fig from the broken branch, MH informed me that the fruit is pollinated by a wasp that crawls inside where the flowers are, and then dies there. So, eating the fig means I probably ate the dead wasp. Mmmmm, protein. 
You can travel the wide world over and not understand what you see until you come home. Sometimes, you can hide in your garden while you try to understand. You can drive a Prius and pay a carbon tax on your airfare as you jet through the vanishing ozone to your next misery-tourist site. You can cry when you watch the evening news, and you can donate on line to the latest celebrity benefit concert using your Pay-pal account. 
You can pray for peace – but silently, so as to not embolden the terrorists. You can plaster your SUV with multicolored magnetic support ribbons, speak clearly into the hidden microphones, smile up into the hidden cameras in the skies. You can shake your head sadly that the primitive people blowing each other up over there are so unenlightened and barbaric. You can lament the sad failures of the Last Great Superpower attempting to make the world safe for democracy, and still savor the delicious irony that in the attempt we actually accomplished the opposite. 
“Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand – that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us.”
My kitchen floor is mostly done, my refrigerator is back home, my patio is swept and watered. What a relief order is. My sensory paths through this past week have trailed miserably through a cacophony of input that exhausted me. 
Gardens, real and imagined, are for me, first and foremost, a sanctuary. My back yard isn’t exactly an enchanted medieval old-growth forest, with trees shaped like tortured Norse warriors. No magical forest creatures haunt the twilight like ghosts composed of blowing Spanish moss. My Spanish moss, imported from Savannah this past Spring, is enduring what must be a long nightmare of climatic apocalypse in its new home in my parched back yard. Even the gourds in the Veggie Garden are looking thirsty and tired. It’s a good thing that while I cultivate a garden, the garden cultivates me. No matter how tired and thirsty I return from outside, I also feel sublimely refreshed.
In the backyard, standing at my outdoor sink, I was borrowing scenery from the small pasture across the canyon that separates us from our backyard neighbors. This is where I often flee to escape from the clangor of the stressful world. This was a particularly welcome spot last week when my household routine was disrupted by some minor indoor renovation. 
I left a note on the front door with my name etc and said we wished the llama well. We never heard from the owners, but Sunday, I saw the owner cleaning up the llama’s place with new straw and hosing out the water bucket. No sign of Charlie.
But not having Charlie to say good morning to when I am meditating on sunny summer days: that makes me sadder. I often meditate about how our universe balances the continuous karmic “chain reaction of cause and effect.” Somebody must have done some bad stuff, some felony violation of some moral law, to balance the hurt to Charlie and his family and friends. 
