Oooooooh, I’m On Fire …

There’s been a boatload of information in recent years on how bowel flora can influence behavior in creatures who we think are far beneath us on the scale of how living things are ranked on this planet. Of course that’s our ranking, and we have no idea what theirs would be, since we ascribe little importance to the mental life of anything but our own species.

The idea that microorganisms could be doing the same thing to us, the ultimate in evolution’s grand progression, is not worth considering and can easily dismissed with a haughty sniff.

Perhaps rather too easily.

Here are a few recurring situations that are possibilities, perhaps you have noticed some as well.

• A person who has everything to lose has an overnight sexual dalliance when thinge chance of discovery is nearly guaranteed
• A person has already eaten way more than they should have and feels a bit ill as a result, their waistline is straining at their belt, and then they reach for one more shrimp. Or two.
• A person reads an article about someone using high colonics in a wackadoo health regimen and finds that they have a low opinion on such maneuvers even though they really don’t know what one is.

I think that we should look into the off chance that we are being pushed around on a regular basis by our bowel flora, just like those “lower” organisms are. I can tell you for certain that in my own case, and this has happened many, many times, a touch of diarrhea will routinely make me move toward the loo much faster than I had believed possible.

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From The New Yorker

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Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? And it was so early one morning at the South Fork Campground until a couple of small bits of burning pine jumped onto my fleece pajama bottoms and quickly burned two holes in the garment and one in my anterior thigh. Some, but not all of the magic went out of the moment as I flapped my hands to put myself out.

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Of all the Colorado rivers I’ve seen so far in this state which is filled with beautiful rivers and streams, the White River is my present favorite. I’ve spent a little time on both the north and south forks which join up to create the main river and brother, gorgeous just don’t do them justice. Here’s a couple of pix along the South Fork taken this past week.

We camped one night at the South Fork Campground, which is at the end of Highway 10. It’s a “primitive” location, which means fewer amenities. But the restrooms were well maintained, the sites were far enough apart, and it was right on the river.

We were using a two-person backpacking tent and I have to tell you that getting into that thing in the evening, with all of our senior citizen creakings and groanings, was hilarious. Once installed we were quite comfortable and slept well in 40 degree temperatures.

In the morning, as we sipped our coffees, two trains of pack horses passed through the campground carrying elk hunters and their gear up into the Flattop Mountains. Each train was about ten horses long. You could tell the outfitters from the hunters pretty easily, they were the ones who looked like they knew what they were doing. The others were dressed in brand-new camouflage clothing and did not appear to have been born to the saddle.

As they passed I sent out all the good wishes and karma that I could muster – to the elk. Essentially these guys were going to all this trouble to have a chance to shoot at a peaceful herbivore bigger than a cow while it was grazing and standing perfectly still.

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Today, while I was waiting at the pharmacy I saw a man wearing a cap with an inscription I hadn’t seen before – “I Miss The America I Grew Up In.“ At first I thought that it might be code for MAGA, but there is a wistful quality to this new one that is lacking in the Cluck slogan.

I miss the world I grew up in, too, but that was because I had it pretty good, while so many others did not. Some of the things I was lucky enough to enjoy back then:

• Riding bikes up and down the streets of my home neighborhood in Minneapolis where the elms formed a complete arch
• Walking a mile to attend Saturday matinees at the Nokomis theater without parents hovering over my every step
• Every boy I knew played baseball, owned his own glove and bat, and could be counted on to help get up a game at a moment’s notice
• Adults in my family who were adults, and we could take for granted that they had our back, every day
• Never going to bed hungry

Although I “miss” these things, I don’t really want to go back and relive those times. The charms of sketchy electrical wiring, unreliable indoor plumbing, no antibiotics, and car tires that went flat on every other trip would wear thin very quickly for modern me, I think.

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I don’t know how it is with you, but my spiritual side is a patchwork quilt, with pieces from time spent in churches, in hospitals, reading books, watching films … a basketful of patches retrieved from the ordinary messes of an ordinary life. One of those patches came from a phrase in a middling sort of movie, Beyond Rangoon. Way before I came across Buddhism, I came across this actor reading the line “Suffering is the one promise that life always keeps.”

Apparently I was at that moment fertile ground for this particular teaching, because it stuck, and slowly grew into a sort of acceptance. That this might truly be how life operated. Randomness. No one needed to be blamed, no one was being punished, no tortuous explanations were necessary. When bad things happened, they just happened. As did good things.

I began to appreciate more the varieties of suffering that always been around me, and I saw more clearly what my own path forward should be. To not add, if possible, to the sufferings of this world, and to help reduce it wherever I could.

I see these practices as ordinary tasks for ordinary people like myself. Not saints, not holy men or women. Just regular, everyday, unremarkable folks.

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From The New Yorker

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