When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden‘s green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mud;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till theDevil whispered behind the leaves: “It‘s pretty, but is it Art?”
Rudyard Kipling
The Conundrum of the Workshops

There is a family of red foxes that lives in the woods near our home. Some while ago, our neighbor saw one of the kits calmly trotting into her barn. The next morning, she found the fox in an empty horse stall, curled up against one wall, as if asleep. But the fox was not asleep; the fox was dead. There was a wound on one leg that may have been the cause of death. The game warden said it is not unusual for foxes to select a barn as a place to die.

But here’s the thing. The evidence at the scene suggests this fox died calmly and easily, as if it considered death as natural a process of life as hunting field mice, feasting on wild blueberries, or prancing down a country road. There are no signs of frantic digging, scratching, wall climbing, or other desperate behavior. This fox was not trying to escape its fate, and it did not struggle against it. Instead, it seems that this fox realized somewhere within that it was about to die, and so it found an appropriate site, and, without any fanfare, it simply did so.

What is the difference between us and the fox? Is it that we perceive death as the opposite of life, and so we struggle against it; and the fox recognizes death is the opposite of birth, and so takes it in stride.

See also here.

Editor’s Desktop

“Schoodic Point II” by Nancy Russell Nadzo
The cartoon that was here is here

Imagine a production of William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. On the stage, a great drama unfolds, shaped by prejudice, youthful beauty, romance, joy, delight, love, , anger, despair, faith, death — the stuff of all our lives. But none of it is real. None of the characters is real, none of the emotions is real, none of the action actually occurs.There is no such person as “Romeo”, there is no such person as “Juliet”. They were never born, they never loved, they never died. It is all an illusion. The only reality in that context consists of Shakespeare as author, the actors as players, and ourselves as audience. All of those know the play is an illusion, and that all that is real is themselves. But still, the play is performed again and again, and again and again we laugh and we cry. As if it were real. Likewise, what you and I each call “my life” is thoroughly an illusion. Here, we do not truly know what is Real because each of us has taken on the identity of “me”, the principal character in “my life”. And just as neither “Romeo” nor “Juliet” can know Shakespeare, neither can the separate, separative (“I am me, and you aren't”) self of our lives know our Reality. For that, we must transcend the character, and recognize and resume our True Identity in and as and with (choose a preposition) the Author, the Source, the Supreme, the One, Brahman, Yahweh, God (choose a label). That is the spiritual process, transforming our current sense of identity bit by bit until finally it is transcended altogether, and we “Remember I Am”. Then, we Realize we never were the character, that we have never been born and cannot die, and that What Is always was and always will be. In a word, Reality destroys illusion.

If you give your life to God,
then it is no longer yours.



· Selections, Sources, and References ·



Editor’s Desktop
this & that



In the beginning there was nothing.
God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light.
There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.
Ellen DeGeneres & Genesis 1:3

Credo
My spiritual practice.
This used to be here.
But what was intended to be just a few sentences,
evolved into a full page.
So it's here now.





The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
Leonardo da Vinci



WORDS I USE
and what they mean



· Search ·
The Zoo Fence



The Universe is a Portrait of God
perceived by us as a landscape
composed of you, me, places, events,
planets, stars, galaxies, dreams,
latitudes, longitudes,
past present future,
genders, races, groups, associations,
religions, nationalities, philosophies,
thoughts, beliefs, expectations,
decisions, intentions, regrets, and
other unimaginable unspeakable infinite stuff beyond,
all of which to us,
who confuse appearance for Reality,
is many, and to God is One.



God’s Gender



A friend's death …



Dearest God
Most Precious Teacher
have patience with me
a frequent fool.



Finally this: Don't try to learn this stuff. Nothing here is like a classroom course with stuff to memorize. It is reality, Reality. What Is. Ingest it. It will do what is natural and necessary. On its own. It will become you. Think of the spiritual process as God invites you to dinner. Eat what She puts before you. Most of it is sweet; some of it seems sour. Like chocolate and sauerkraut. All of it is nutritious. Lean on Him. The rest will follow. Truly.



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DISCLAIMER:
Inevitably and rightly, there is a lot on The Zoo Fence about scriptures considered sacred by various traditions. As you read those comments and observations, please understand that nothing written here is, or is intended to be, an academic consideration. I am not a theologian, biblical scholar, or historian. I am not an expert. In the context of this website, my interest in sacred writings is solely as a spiritual seeker who has undertaken a personal inner journey for the Truth of who and what and where I am. I know that many of my statements, and perhaps even all of my conclusions, will not reflect, and perhaps may even contradict, current orthodoxy, theology, and history. I mean no disrespect by that, but it does not concern me, for again I am not an academic, and this is not an academic undertaking. For me, the scriptures of the world’s spiritual traditions are a guide and a tool and a vehicle which can facilitate and accelerate my own personal passage along the spiritual path only if I understand their message to me. Therefore, I take it to be my duty, even my sacred responsibility, to discover and understand their meaning to me personally, to decipher what the Universal Teacher intends for me to see in them and to do by them. Here, on The Zoo Fence, I share that with you, and I ask that you read it in that spirit.