Cougars Just Wanna Have Fun

                                                          Image via Wikipedia


Are there cougars in Pelham?

Ha!

If you google that question you will find out that not only are there cougars in Pelham, there are cougars everywhere.

 And they are all looking for a date.

It used to be that you only had to worry about cougars jumping on your back and ripping your jugular open.

Now they want a bit of fun first.

I was walking on one of the trails in the Short Hills Provincial Park yesterday.

The Park is made up of many short, steep forested hills that were gouged out during the last ice age.  

 Flynn the dog was off her leash and trotting along in front of me.

I stopped when I saw something streak down one of the hills and disappear into the bush on my left. 

Short Hills is normally populated by white-tailed deer and coyotes.

This was different.

From a distance of maybe a hundred feet, the animal appeared about the height of an Irish wolfhound but sleeker and heavier.

Its speed was astonishing.

I have never seen an animal move that fast and my impression was that I had seen a dark shadowy premonition, a phantom, something not real, perhaps a Dean Koontz character that had escaped from one of his books.

It was an unnerving experience.

A twig snapped as Flynn and I stood there.

I did a full turn but we were alone in the forest.

 

Now that I have read about cougars, I wonder if I should have looked up into the trees.

Eek.

Some people believe there is enough evidence to prove that cougars have returned to southern Ontario.

That is good news.


 But, jeesh, I hope their dinner dates all order the venison.

Related articles

• Aggressive cougar follows 2 men near Hoquiam (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• More cougars sighted, this time in Deschutes River Woods (bendbulletin.com)
• Squamish mountain-biker weary after brush with big cat (theprovince.com)

How It All Began

These are the first wild flowers I found this spring
in the Short Hills Provincial Park.

Spring! At long last.

Rebirth. Hope.

Creation.

Here is a lovely Chinese story that explains it all:

Let it be told of a time when there was nothing but chaos,

and that chaos was like a mist and full of emptiness.

Suddenly, into the midst of this mist came a great colourful light

and from this light all things that exist came to be.

The mist shook and separated,

that which was light rose up to form heaven and that which was heavy sank,

became solid and formed the earth.

Now from heaven and earth came forth strong forces

and these two forces combined to produce

yin and yang.

I actually had to hunt to find anything that wasn't yellow. 

Soon though, these delicate wild flowers will carpet the forest.

Picture yang like a dragon

- hot, fiery, male, full of energy.

Imagine yin as a cloud

- moist, cool, female, drifting slowly.

Each of these forces is full of great power.

Left alone they would destroy the world with their might

and chaos would return.

Together they balance each other and keep the world in harmony.

I love the play of shadows in this clearing.

So still and quiet.

This then is yin and yang

and from them came forth everything.

 

The sun is of yang and the moon, yin.

The four seasons,

winter, spring, summer and autumn

 and the five elements,

 water, earth, metal, fire and wood

 sprang from them.

 

So did all kinds of living creatures.

This trillium was growing on the Steve Bauer Trail.

Evidently it isn't against the law to pick our provincial flower.

But who would want to?  They are so beautiful and hard to find,

most people are content to let them be.

So there was the earth,

floating like a jellyfish on water.

But the earth was just a ball without features.

Then the forces of yin and yang created the giant figure P'an Ku,

the Ancient One.

P'an Ku, who never stopped growing every year of his great long life,

set to work to put the earth in order.

He dug the river valleys and piled up the mountains.

Over many thousands of years he shaped and created

the flow and folds of our earth.

I love this picture. It looks as if the trilliums are growing

between the toes of the tree.

But such work took its toll.

Even mighty P'an Ku could not escape death

and worn out by his struggle, he collapsed and died.

His body was so vast that when he fell to the ground

 his body became the five sacred mountains,

his hair the plants

and his blood the rivers.

From his sweat came the rain

and from the parasites living on his body

came forth

human beings. 

This is how it all began.

*

According to the Educational pages of the Hampshire Count Council,

http://erros@innovationslearning, the belief in the balancing forces of

yin and yang lies at the heart of

the Chinese philosophy and influences the way the Chinese people

 treat their environment.

They see the earth as a living being which

must be cared for properly and kept in order, so that the powerful

forces of yin and yang are kept in balance. 



Think of the BP oil spill, 911 and nuclear power plant accidents

as things that happen when the yang is unchecked.


Women have been learning to use the yin 

by speaking, by voting, by boycotting, by protesting,

 by organizing, by supporting, by representing. 



I believe the yin and the yang may at last be

 starting to move slowly towards a healthier balance.

Contemplating January

"Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer."

- Plutarch, Moralia

Imagine that! 

Frozen words caught in tree branches, or piled up at the side of the road by snow ploughs.

In January a person could literally 'trip' over his or her words.  

"... People hit the sauce in a big way all winter. Amidst blizzards they wrestle unsuccessfully with the dark comedy of their lives, laughter trapped in their frigid gizzards. Meanwhile, the mercury just plummets, like a migrating duck blasted out of the sky by some hunter in a cap with fur earflaps. "

- Amy Gerstler, A Severe Lack of Holiday Spirit

Or they go skiing like this fellow with the fancy dancy pajama bottom  pants, and ignore falling ducks in January. 

"There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest clothed to its very hollows in snow. It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray, every blade of grass, every spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance."

- William Sharp


Not much I can add to that. 

Sunday was a sunny day and although it was a January finger numbing cold, the park was beautiful.

"Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope; winter alone reminds us of the human condition."

- Mignon McLaughlin,

I found these two girls at the Swayze Falls viewing platform.  They were laughing and taking pictures of each other.  Sometimes the human condition isn't so bad, even in January.

"To shorten winter, borrow some money due in spring."

- W.J. Vogel



If you are not in danger of being kneecapped by the local loan shark in the spring, during the middle of January it may seem like a long, long time before the water at Swayze Falls will run free again and cascade to the rocks below.

"When the bold branches

Bid farewell to rainbow leaves -

Welcome wool sweaters."

- B. Cybrill



Or a fancy new plaid January jacket. 


***

Autumn Thoughts



"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."

- Albert Camus

It doesn't seem to me that there are as many oak trees as there were when I was a child.

In my memory, they shade every sidewalk.

Walking to school in the fall was prettier and way more fun than walking politely past rose gardens in spring.

"You can't hide your true colours as you approach the autumn of your life."

-Anonymous

If only my soul looked like this! 

Or my hair.

 

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the

landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.

Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."

- Andrew Wyeth

Americans like the painter Andrew Wyeth, may feel reassured that something lies beneath the autumn path, some hope of spring.

In January, Canadians, who have a million miles of tundra hugging their backsides, aren't so sure.

"Come said the wind to

the leaves one day,

Come o're the meadows

and we will play.

Put on your dresses

scarlet and gold,

For summer is gone

and the days grow cold."

- A Children's Song of the 1880's

They surely do.

 

So buckle your seat belts eveybody, we're sliding into November!

***

Soul Work

Yahweh is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

In grassy meadows he lets me lie.

By tranquil streams he leads me

to restore my spirit.

He guides me in paths of saving justice

as befits his name.

Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death

 I should fear no danger, for you are at my side.

Your staff and your crook are there to soothe me.

You prepare a table for me

under the eyes of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup brims over.

Kindness and faithful love pursue me

every day of my life.

I make my home in the house of Yahweh

for all time to come.

Psalm 23