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Chapter 12. Brute Neighbors

#51: July - Aug. 2008 (Non-Fiction)
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Thomas Hood
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OK, Lawrence, let's kick in the afterburners and ascend to a
high-flying transcendental altitude. Don't try to bail out on me
by shouting "Eisegesis!". Make sure your oxygen's good and
let's fly. What is "Brute Neighbors" really about?

The Lost Meditation of "Brute Neighbors"

At the beginning of "Brute Neighbors" Hermit is interrupted and loses
track of his thoughts as did Coleridge in composing "Kubla Khan."
After taking thought, Hermit recovers sufficiently to state the
question of his meditation:
"Why do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has
man just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing
but a mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpay &
Co. have put animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of
burden, in a sense, made to carry some portion of our thoughts."
This questioning is followed by a list of animals. Questions are
often followed by answers. How does Hermit's list answer the question
of his meditation?

Hermit, bless his sly Yankee soul, has left us a trail of clues. He
is surveying the boundaries of a world, he is going to heaven, it all
involves a list of animals, and these animals carry all the aspects
of the human self. Only one object satisfies these conditions: the
zodiac. Hermit, like an Adam in an Eden of animals, is defining the
zodiac in terms of the beasts and birds of Walden.

There are, however, fourteen animals in Hermit's list instead of the
obligatory twelve. Why should he make it too easy for us? Phoebe,
robin, and partridge all fall in the single category of small, highly
maternal (Taurean), domestic birds. The details of this category
concern only the partridge.

So considered, the list of animals is:

1. mice
2. partridge (and phoebe and robin)
3. otter
4. racoon
5. woodcock
6. turtledove
7. squirrel
8. ants
9. dog
10. cat
11. loon
12. ducks

The mouse (Rat: Aries), the creature of beginnings as Thoreau builds
his house, is the first animal of the Chinese zodiac, the
constellation looking as much like a mouse as it does a ram; the
partridge exhibits the maternal care of the cow (Taurus); the otter,
as playful as a boy, has the mecurial quality of Gemini; the racoon
seizes as does a crab (Cancer); the protective woodcock has a large
brood ('Increase' is the property of Leo and the Fifth House); the
turtledove represents the Virgin (Virgo); the squirrel balances
(Libra) on the boughs; ants sting like Scorpio; the dog hunts like
Sagittarius; the cat ascends like Capricornus; the loon is a water-
bringer like Aquarius; and the Piscean ducks evade human contact.


Tom
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DWill wrote:
For him, the word doesn't signal inferiority, even though he does recognize that animals are not spiritually developed.DWill
I often think of this . . . how do we know whether animals are spiritually developed? The consciousness of an ant, is just as big as our own consciousness is . . . to the ant, I mean.

Am I saying that right?

When you watch an ant colony at work on the walk, it makes you wonder of that.

My cat goes bananas when she sees that 'puddle' moving along the walk.

But if you study books on the topic - for me it's 'How Ants Work', a book I have in the office and open every once in a while.

They have 'worker' ants, 'guard' ants . . .

I don't know if an individual ant actually has anything we would call a brain - I doubt it. But they must have a consciousness, that enables them to work together 'as one'.

(Forgive me if I've written this somewhere else in this thread - I tend to 'forget' and speak twice)
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DWill wrote:
The scene with the loon is marvellous, too.
DWill
Yeah, it is . . . I remember once Jeff and I spent a whole afternoon by Grenadier Pond trying to get pictures of what we thought was a loon - it did the same thing as Thoreau's telling us about - dived, disappeared for a few minutes, then came up.

We watched, determined to track this bird. But I think what we were watching was actually a 'cormorant'.

They are also interesting birds.

Image

Not one of my greatest pictures. I think Jeff has some good ones somewhere, some recent ones he did. When I come across them, I'll put one here.

We missed a photo opportunity a few weeks ago - usually when we hit an area where there's lots of birds, I have my digital camera out of its case, set and ready to go.

We were going over a bridge on our bikes and there was a cormorant sitting on the side of it . . . it was strange, because those birds rarely come that close to humans.

It flew off as soon as we approached, of course.
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