Being Safe
Learning From Basil
Maybe whatever we need to learn needs to detour from our frontl lobe, which our species has raised to a sacred point. Since the dilemmas we create for ourselves come from trying to think our way through, which, as we’re experiencing as a nation, end up deepening the ditch we dug to shelter ourselves, what if we were to turn to fellow species?
Many humans have a non-rational, if not irrational, fear of snakes.
23 foot long Anaconda. With someone not afraid.
When you consider the primordial Genesis story about what caused Adam and Eve to be expelled from the lush Garden of Eden, you have to wonder if fear of snakes may be written into our DNA.
God told them not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, because then they would know good from evil. In other words, they would lose their innocence, which we imagine as a treasured life.
Being human, they (we) couldn’t resist when the snake seduced them.
“You won’t die, you’ll be immortal. Like God.”
“How cool! Become like God. Instead of a charmed existence, let’s opt for an existence, in which we make our own choices, rather than passively waiting for choices to be made for us.
You could call it growing up.
Thing is, we’re still afraid of snakes. Of the primordial beast that lurks in our unconscious. Whether an Anaconda, or an Iranian mullah.
Unlike God, who considers no one a throwaway, we think we have to destroy the snake, to be safe.
Sometimes Basil retreats into his safe place
for reasons mysterious to me. He has a set of senses, far more acute than mine. I trust his senses even if I con’t share them. So far as I know, he doesn’t have the capacity for irrational thinking that my “advanced” mind does.
I have found that when I go to my desk, sit quietly, work at my keyboard, meaning, when my mind and central nervous system become more settled, unruffled, Basil will often come and lie quietly on my feet.
I sense that he feels safe. As a result, it may be the safest moment of my day.
I’m not well enough tuned to Basil to understand just what caused him to come out of his hiding place, and lie on my feet. His warmth travels from my feet to the rest of my body. Even my mind, chronically on the edge of panic, relaxes.
Gas is still $4 a gallon. Our unconscionable bombing of Iran hasn’t stopped. The president’s private police force is still harassing people seeking the shelter we have promised them.
It feels as if the anaconda is loose among us.
Take a look at that man, calmly holding the snake’s length. The snake understands that he means it no harm. We know what happens when we decide the snake and I can’t both survive. Perhaps we needn’t slay the snake, but welcome it as a fellow creature. Seems a risk wirth taking.
Whatever reassures Basil, means to reassure me. When Basil comes to warm my feet, everything about the day changes. He’s not 2 years old yet, but he is becoming my teacher.