“All plants are our brothers and sisters. They talk to us and if we listen, we can hear them.”—Arapahoe Warrior Adage
Ready for the Pop Quiz?
Question 1: On this morning’s commute, you saw
birds perched on telephone lines and road-signs, which way did they face?
Question
2:
What does the birds facing direction tell you about the day?
Question
3:
At which precise landmark did the sun rise over your home this morning? Even if
it were cloudy, you should still be able to ballpark the rising point.
Question
4:
Where will it rise over your home 6 months from now? And, how do you know this?
Question
5:
I want to conduct a night-raid this evening, is the moon conducive to cover for
this proposed raid—Yes, or No?
[Answers at the end of this musing.]
There is not an Indigenous Tribe on the face of the
globe that did not value wide-awake awareness.
Not lip-service awareness, but toes-in-the-dirt here-here-and-now
present knowledge.
This “Nature Awareness” was a key to survival, a key
to battle preparation, a key to beauty appreciation, a key to connectedness.
This sort of knowledge is not something privy only to
the past or certain peoples, it is a choice made by those who value knowing
over blindness, perceiving over seeming.
One such man who made the conscious choice was vaunted
tiger-hunter, [always maneaters and not mere big game trophies, so read that
Hero with a capital H] was Jim Corbett.
Mr. Corbett valued this Nature awareness, that he
termed Jungle Lore, not merely for his chosen service of maneater stalking, but
for the invitation into immersive beauty that it supplied.
To see the “bad”, the man-eating tiger spoor, one also
had to encounter the “good” the melody of birdsong, the scent of bougainvillea,
the riotous color of blooming flowers.
Let’s turn it over to Mr. Corbett, with a passage or
two from his 1953 volume, Jungle Lore.
“…the jungle lore I absorbed… has been a never ending
source of pleasure to me.”
·
Again, a man who can be killed by his
prey, alive and awake to beauty in the Arapahoe sense, the Apache sense, the Comanche
sense.
“I have used the word “absorbed”, in
preference to “learnt”, for jungle lore is not a science that could be learnt
from textbooks; It can, however, be absorbed, a little at a time, and the
absorption process can go on indefinitely, for the book of nature has no
beginning, as it has no end. Open the book where you will, and at any period of
your life, and if you have the desire to acquire knowledge you will find it of
intense interest, no matter how long or how intently you study the pages your
interest will not flag, for in nature there is no finality.”
·
The Lessons are not in an App, a guidebook,
a YouTube video, a blog post Pop Quiz.
·
They are Out There!
“And so, the knowledge you absorbed today will be
added to the knowledge you will absorb tomorrow, and on your capacity for
absorption, not on any fixed standard, will depend the amount of knowledge you
ultimately accumulate. And at the end of the accumulating period--Be that one
year or fifty-- you will find that you are only at the beginning, and the whole
field of nature lies before you waiting to be explored and to be absorbed. But
be assured that if you are not interested, or if you have no desire to acquire
knowledge, you will learn nothing from nature.”
· Here we have the promise of No End.
·
Worrisome to some who like nice tight
pretty packages where all trivia is tied into a pretty bow to say, “Here, learn
these things and you are a complete and finished Hombre.”
· This is the mindset of the dilettante.
·
It is an Everyday Classroom Corbett speaks
of.
·
We stress just such points in our Suakhet’u Program that asks for a minimum of 8-minutes of your day to become alive
and awake.
·
A minimum of 8-minutes is the foundation,
the beginning—not the end.
“I walked with a companion for twelve
miles through a beautiful forest from one camp to another. It was the month of
April, nature was at her best. Trees, shrubs, and creepers were in full bloom.
Gaily covered butterflies flitted from flower to flower, and the air, filled
with the scent of flowers, throbbed with the song of birds. At the end of the
day my companion was asked if he had enjoyed the walk, and he answered “No. The
road was very rough.”
·
We see what we choose to see.
·
Corbett, the hunter of “dangerous beats,”
saw beauty everywhere.
·
His companion saw boredom and hardship.
·
Who would you rather be?
“I was traveling, shortly after World War I,
from Bombay to Mombasa in the British India liner Karagola. There were five of
us on the upper deck. I was going to Tanganyika to build a house, the other
four were going to Kenya--three to shoot and one to look at a farm he had
purchased. The sea was rough, and I am a bad sailor, so I spent most of my time
dozing in a corner of the smoke room. The others sat at a nearby table playing
bridge, smoking, and talking, mostly about sport. One day, on being awakened by
a cramp in my leg, I heard the youngest member of the party say, ‘Oh, I know
all about tigers. I spent a fortnight with a Forest Officer in the Central Provinces
last year.’”
·
Corbet, a man who considered knowledge
never at and end, hears this causal pronouncement of “Complete Knowledge” on
his very own field of expertise.
·
An area where even he was never satisfied with
what he knew.
·
Where might we be as smug as the “Youngest
Member” of this party?
Well, what more can be said than that?
Pop Quiz Answers
Question 1:
On this morning’s commute, you saw birds perched on telephone lines and
road-signs, which way did they face?
·
My birds were and are facing west.
Question 2:
What does the birds facing direction tell you about the day?
·
Birds face into the wind to aid easier
takeoff. They are kindly acting as a weathervane for me letting me know wind
direction, approximate speed [they are unsheltered from the wind at the moment],
the westerly direction tells me an improvement in the weather from yesterday’s storms,
an expedition today would likely be a fine prospect, and…well, the birds tell
us much. If we see them.
Question 3:
At which precise landmark did the sun rise over your home this morning? Even if
it were cloudy, you should still be able to ballpark the rising point.
·
In a line with one of my Eastern Red
cedars and a hummingbird stand.
Question 4:
Where will it rise over your home 6 months from now? And, how do you know this?
·
6 months from now, in October, the sun
will have seemed to creep southward, rising over a string of Lombard Poplars.
·
The sun rises and sets with one degree of
difference each and every day of our lives.
·
Been doing it since before you were born.
·
Anyone awake to it, can tell you sunset
and sunrise today, tomorrow, a week from now, where it will rise, where it will
set with a fine degree of approximation.
Question 5:
I want to conduct a night-raid this evening, is the moon conducive to cover for
this proposed raid—Yes, or No?
·
Yes.
·
The moon is in a waxing crescent.
·
Not full dark, but close enough to allow
slight illumination for night-travelers sans light, but dark enough to raid
those who use artificial illumination or campfire.
Allow me to repeat Mr. Corbett’s Moral.
“[I] emphasize my contention that if you are not
interested you will see nothing but the road you walk on, and if you have no
desire to acquire knowledge and assume you can learn in a fortnight which
cannot be learnt in the lifetime, you remain ignorant to the end.”
To begin the Journey out of ignorance, might I
recommend The Suakhet’u Program?
Info here.
Mabitsiar’u Haits’i!
Resources for Livin’ the Warrior Life
The Rough ‘n’ Tumble Raconteur Podcast
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