aaah... summer - or why the hell are you killing my elephants? (and whales and sharks and lions and rhinos and humans...) Part 1

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And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.

- Black Elk

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Trying times my friends, trying times. Hang on to your hats 'cause this shift is just starting to get interesting...

... or not. All is illusion. Matter does not matter. At least it must not because we have been such shits as stewards of our little globe of matter.

Over the decades I've fought many battles, stood with many of my relatives on this line or that. I've made great friends - and few enemies. I've managed to maneuver the morass that is this pit some call civilization with more than my share of luck.

  

And I don't like it. When I was a kid outside is what mattered. Lizards and bugs and birds and reptiles and all the critters and leafy ones. My curiosity kept me busy turning over rocks and peering into water and learning about the life around me. 

And I was lucky to have great parents and a world that didn't consider children walking without adult supervision a crime. We came and went. We rode bikes. We played games and sports. The school playgrounds stayed open after school... ice cream was a nickel a scoop.

Then one day I ran into civilization head on.

I was probably 10, maybe 11 and collected butterflies and other winged things. I knew their life cycles, their Latin names and where they roamed. I could draw them with skill and a knowing eye.

Until... the day I was discovered by 3 older boys while I was chasing butterflies in one of our local parks. I don't remember much other than I was scared shitless. I'd been picked on - heck I had an older brother - but this was 3 bullies. And they bullied me of my innocence, shamed me for my curiosity and study and they pushed me around for their amusement.

I never chased another butterfly. I stopped catching tadpoles and watching them grow to become frogs.

I mean in one sense it was ok, all cultures have their coming-of-age initiations. Mine was just not ceremonial, kind or honoring. But it certainly filled the bill for the civilization in which I would grow up.

to be continued...
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I would rather be a little nobody, then to be an evil somebody.

― Abraham Lincoln

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