Category: Animals

The pier in Cayucos, California, six miles north of Morro Bay, juts 953 feet into the Pacific Ocean. The usual population of surf fishermen and their fish bait, pelicans, seagulls and pigeons share its heavy wooden planks. Visitors such as myself wander and gaze into fishermen’s plastic buckets, which are never full enough of today’s catch. We stare down a pelican perched on the railing, gaping at our presence. He reluctantly leaves, heaving himself into the air, working hard to gain altitude. Airborne, he will gain a perspective I will never know. Beating his wings against the rushing air, he will cruise and glide, unaware of my envy and also unaware of his gift of flight.

He will peer down on the beach and observe those in the yoga class beneath him who, through mental and physical discipline, seek a greater state of enlightenment. They pursue a way to break the limitations of physical bonds and a way to purify their minds from unworthy appetites. This platoon of practitioners sits in a sea of sand for long minutes, eyes closed, legs folded tightly. Intermittently, ever thoughtful, ever meditating, they arise, bend, and stretch one arm to the sand and one to the sky….

It is the same sky where, under watchful and wondering eye, our pelican hovers. The pelican above, the yoga practitioners below—the steadfast subjects of his interest. Sitting quietly and reflectively, then moving and stretching together, their bodies create a puzzling pattern to his eye.

His eye, however, is an empty one, staring to comprehend these earthbound mortals, while he, oblivious of their quest to be free, soars high and away.

Which is worthy of greater admiration—the driver who had the confidence to leave the dog in the Mini convertible with the top down (!) while grocery shopping, or the dog that trained its master to do the shopping?

When Blossom hears the bag rustle, she knows it can mean only one thing: almonds.

This is the last picture I have of her, taken on the final day that I saw her. She had dangled below a light fixture on an invisible trapeze of spun web. Each morning, she was there as I trudged to meet my Monday to Friday train to work. I chose to greet her from a short distance.

I have other pictures of her, but I prefer this one because it displays the bright hour glass on her abdomen warning unsuspecting bugs: “Your time is up!”

In human years, our relationship was brief. But in spider years—black widows can live up to 1-½ years—she would consider our association lengthy, if not intimate.

I knew nothing of her mate, the black widower. I doubt that she ate him. The fearsome reputation of a black widow dining at her mate’s ultimate expense is generally undeserved. More likely, she consumed most of her recent offspring, 750 eggs laid in a sack. Cannibalism thrives, allowing only one or two of the baby spiders to survive.

Now she is gone, and she has no memory of our daily rendezvous—no memory of me, even when I blew on her web, seeing which way she would scurry. It was always up, up into the safety of the light fixture.

• 

• 

The pre-dawn light left much to the imagination as I headed to work, trudging the two miles for my daily appointment with the 6:26 train. Headphones turned up, I heard little else. Until, that is, a bush suddenly — incredibly — hissed and snarled so loudly at me that it broke me mid-stride as I leaped away. The hissing, snarling, fierce bush spun me half around. I stared, disbelieving. Was there a mountain lion or bobcat lying in wait for me, hidden by the green growth?

I retreated, yanking the earphones out. What could this mean?

I hastened on my way, puzzled, and a bit shaken by the bush’s exploding ruckus. Where had I heard that ungodly sound before? Then I recalled — outside my back door one night, I exited to deposit garbage in the trash can. I had evoked that same hiss by shocking an opossum in mid-stride, rummaging for his dinner.

No, I had not discovered the burning, speaking bush that had appeared to Moses with the voice of God. Instead, I had been ambushed by an aroused and angry opossum, which I had interrupted from a deep slumber within the bush.

I thought back to an interaction with another opossum I had several weeks ago, while undertaking the same early morning walk to the train. I had come across an opossum, wounded, in the road, having been struck by a car. Largely incapacitated, he remained standing as best he could, staggering, jaw dislocated and face distorted from the impact with the car. I felt helpless, wondering what I should do.

At that moment, a pickup truck stopped. Out bounded a landscape worker on his way to the day’s first appointment. He asked about the condition of the unlucky marsupial. I drew a blank, over both his concern for the creature and his presumption that I should have a diagnosis.

Without hesitation, he carefully lifted the animal by the tail with one hand and gently cradled its chest with the other, as if this were his daily routine. He placed it, lovingly and out of harm’s way, by the trunk of a large palm tree. There, gravely wounded, it unsuccessfully attempted to climb the tree for protection.

Disappointed over my own indecision and lack of response, I had hurried onward toward my train, wondering all the while at the worker who had given his best to help the animal, for which I had no solution or comfort.

The lives of two opossums had invaded mine on two distinct and separate occasions. Several weeks ago, I had briefly met a dying opossum in the street for which I had no remedy. And today, the opossum-bearing bush had hissed angrily, scolding me, I imagined, over the demise of his brother. Their dying whimper and angry hiss are poor prophetic utterances compared with the awesome burning bush and the voice that spoke to Moses.

What do we make of such things? God had punctuated my workaday world with Mystery. If I could be so numb in understanding the workings of the world around me, how out of touch might I be to the world of people, and in responding to His concerns for each of us?

Life’s occurrences  can seem mundane. But beneath, there is that Mystery – the message within, if we pause long enough to search it out. The events are markers, meant for our ears to hear.