Ordering

Peppermint Candy Flower (Claytonia sibirica)
in bloom among the lush bunch grass,
Idaho Fescue (Festuca idahoensis).
With the abundance of rain this year
at MuRefuge the easily reseeding
annuals have flourished.

"One hundred and eight counts make one cycle,

Constant turning creates all things. . . . 

Today is the one hundred and eighth day" [of the year,
well, actually today as the ducklings turn 4 weeks old
I realized I read this entry 8 days early, but the point is] . . . .

"Numbers are only symbols, a way for human beings 

to project order upon the universe."

Deng Ming-Dao

Recently during a conversation with my soul sister living on the Olympic Peninsula we were, as we often do, discussing our dogs and their behavior.

Upon reviewing our interaction I was struck by how we humans interpret behavior we see in other BEings as their effort to "control" their environment and others. Perhaps what we as humans see in other BEings is "ordering" rather than "controlling."

Definitions from The American Heritage Dic.tion.ar.y of the English Language fourth edition:

Order: "A condition of methodical or prescribed arrangement 

among component parts."

Control: "To exercise authoritative or dominating influence over."

So the former is a process which has the potential for fluidity. While the latter, to my way of thinking presently, is a behavior which is potentially static if one is not awake to this behavior and one continues to repeat it without awareness.

I am reminded, considering all this, of a behavior we witnessed of Shasta's. We were driving at night time as we returned from viewing the full moon rise over Mono Lake to our cabin at Twin Lakes, California, North along Highway 395. I could feel Shasta becoming terrified so I unfastened her seat belt so she could climb onto my lap which she immediately did. Her whole body was shaking as she looked out the window at the rapidly passing reflector lights on the highway posts. Once we drove into the parking lot of our cabin she stopped shaking and relaxed. The following day in the daylight we drove along the same stretch of highway and she looked out her window at the same posts. I could see her visibly taking in the posts and attempting to "order" what she had seen the night before that had been so terrifying. Her process, to me, is so instructive of how one BEing attempts to make sense of her world.

And here the ducklings, now named BE BEs, are looking out
of their quickly becoming too small house,
making sense of their world and its inhabitants.

This afternoon's foray into the vegetable garden was cut short since it is overcast, blustery and spitting rain. The BE BEs are not fully feathered so are susceptible to getting chilled from the damp, cool temperature. Dwight, however, did get some good photographs of our brief outing.

The two pictures below are the ducklings getting hand fed young chard leaves which they gobble down more rapidly than the feeder can tear the leaves into bit sized pieces.

Notice the fawn coloring of their breasts and around their eyes
as well as their upright stances.
They are developing into stellar representatives of
their Indian Runner heritage.

Wiggling mass of not happy ducklings
as we returned to their garage "house."
Their distressing noises clearly upset Shasta,
whom you could "see" trying to figure out
what she could do to relieve their distress
to restore "order" for these two MuRefuge inhabitants
and herself as well.

Observing the Pipevine at this time of the year when the seed pods, evident in the picture below, are just emerging from the pollinated flowers, I am aware of the order: Pipevine only develops seed pods if there is the specific insect to pollinate the pipe bowl shaped flower. Many a devotee of growing Pipevines for the Pipevine Swallowtail comment that they have never had seed pods develop on their vines. The natural order is synonymous with "whole ecology" where all that is needed for the full cycle is present.

As we consider our process of ordering our world and let go of our rigid control, may we