The Tiger.

Proverbs, parables, stories. I read these sometimes, displace myself…. And dream my way to bettyland.

Kudos to a dear friend who gave me this one particular parable and commentary by Buechner that is incessantly unwavering in beauty and metaphor. So overwhelming that I couldn’t help but share—

Sri Ramakrishna, the great Hindu saint of the nineteenth century, told a parable regarding a grass-eating tiger:

“Once a tigress attacked a herd of goats. A hunter saw her from a distance and killed her.

The tigress was pregnant and gave birth to a cub as she expired. The cub began to grow in the company of the goats. At first it was nursed by the she-goats, and later on, as it grew bigger, it began to eat grass like the goats. Gradually the cub became a big tiger; but still it loved and ate grass. When attacked by other animals, it would run away, like the goats. One day a fierce-looking tiger attacked the herd. It was amazed to see a tiger in the herd eating grass and running away with the goats at its approach. It left the goats and caught hold of the grass-eating tiger, which he began to nervously bleat and continued nibbling at the grass.

But the fierce tiger dragged it to the water and said: 'Now look at your face in the water. You see, you have the face of a tiger; it is exactly like mine.' The tiger refused to recognize the similar reflections. Next the fierce tiger pressed a piece of meat into the grass eating tiger's mouth. At first the grass-eating tiger refused to eat the meat. Then it got the taste of the meat and relished it. Finally as he ate and ate, the truth gradually became clear to him. As he forcefully dug his muscular claws into the ground, the young beast raised his head as he unleashed an exultant roar that trembled the Earth and flooded the jungle with awe.”

That was the shortened version. So there seems to be this idea that all the religions in the world recognize the simple basic understanding that humans in how they exist now are not what they were created or even evolved to be. The tiger is not really a goat at all—he is actually a tiger--- but perceives himself as a goat. Just like the tiger, maybe the image we were to reflect never was clear, or invariably distorted. Maybe here we get insight into the tiger’s problem and so it may be: the human condition problem. If the tiger who thinks he is a goat could convert himself into an actual goat, everything could be fine. But I mean come on, what do we do with ourselves when we find out we’re really another type of species other than we thought? Besides piss our pants in disbelief? IF we even find this out? We may even realize that we are tigers but just keep a nibblin’ the grass because we don’t know what the hell else to do, or how the hell to start to living like as a tiger. We eat the grass. We bleat well. But by God, Heaven knows we feel the roar inside our bones. But some say, “Oh just accept what you know!” because maybe this was what was to happen and that goathood is all we are supposed to know. And maybe this is true and right but sometimes still the deep cries out from the deep…

Others rage “Might as well get living as a goat! Enjoy it, try new grasses, drink crazy kinds of water. Get cute little luxuries to make you feel warm and tingly and nice.” But maybe the ache, the intuition of the waking up and life within as yourself, as a tiger, remains.

And then our stomachs really begin to ache because we know. God, we know! We have seen the Tiger—the terrible roaring mighty fella who people call Jesus—this explosion of a man, this explosion of Life itself into actual life. We can only glance up for a fleeting moment from our grazing to see what a real human being looks like. And if we aren’t terribly paralyzed or pissing our pants in rolling amounts of fear, then the rippling painful tide of contrast becomes inevitably clear.

Speechless. “Oh shit,” we think. “If this is what it means to be human, then what am I? If this is what it is to be alive, am I even living?” The thought lingers--that terrible quality of full life that resonates from that magnificent being—--what will it do to us?

We could all just feel miserable and sub-par and be grumpy groany goats and feel like the way of that Tiger is ultimately the way of despair.

But the beauty of this Tiger, of this Christ, of the many thousand names that all just try to convey so messily and beautifully is this: that this man has power to give. To give life to the half-alive. To give tigerhood back to the tigers. “To them I will give a white stone with a new name written on the stone”—and this new name is the life, the self, that in our moments of truth we as humans yearn, above all else perhaps, to find. What he gives us is ourselves. What he tells us is our names and who we really are—our brother’s keeper, God’s children. And he offers us food and drink to warm our blood and make us drunk with the mystery and joy of it all.

--Buechner (though semi-edited with curse words and questions by yours truly, :D betty)

When Harry Met Sally--SCRATCH..When Betty Remet Larry

It's late Thursday afternoon. Right after I woke up, it came to me. I needed some action. I'm talkin' some mighty wrist action. (Mind out of the gutter here, people). Wrist action = overly excessive waving and greeting by me, betty, yours truly. What do you think of when you think 5:30 p.m.? Time to start fixin some grub, catch the daily news, lil nappy nap nap..or something of the sorts??? You know what I think? I get all tingly inside and gooey feeling with a fist pumped scream, "IT's GERI TIME." Time to get to the street. Time to embrace my sweet street geris.

Now there are all kinds of geris out there...hospital geris, rehab geri babies, my singing dementia geris at the home, yoga geris, AND the infamous street geris. Best part about living in Fayetteville is that I can run to the top of the mountain from my apt, watch the sunset on the gorge overlooking the New River, AND bypass the 1950s and 40s housing on my way there. MEANING...who's outside relaxing in rocking chairs after a sweet homestyle meal of baked beans and cornbread fixins' and lawd knows, a pot roast at about 5:30 p.m.? And Lord, you'd think there was some sort of silent bell ringer, or internal clock, the way everyone congregates out of their houses at 5:30 p.m. It's the inherent "in" social programming still taking place after 70 years of ringing I suppose. (If it's 5:35 p.m, get back in your house!) We rock it on time, here, ladiesss.

So, one night on my run and delight of saying and waving howdy to the regulars... I noticed down the street a bit a new neighbor I had not previously encountered before. The screen door was partially opened with a wil lil being making his way out on the wheelchair. Cute, petite, a hawtie for sure, without a doubt. A strange, impartial hair line that was a cause for observing. Then, a shaking of his left hand to re- position the big fat chunky watch and I just about fell over. It was Larry. "LARRRRRRRRY!" I screamed. Oh my goodness, it was Larry, and he was wheeling himself out!

Now let me explain a little background about Larry: Larry and I go way back. Like 4th floor way back. In the dead honking middle of winter. (Name has been changed for HIPPAA regulations). Larry had been admitted to the hospital with severe SOB due to a collapsed lung, had a chest tube inserted to maintain oxygenation, and also had a bad case of severe crankiness (via my diagnosis), and acute renal failure. He was very, very sick...his body was taking a turn to either compensate at the cellular level or wipe out completely and not recover. Larry was in his mid-80s, had been a coal miner for over 55 years, and apparently, reigned as a King Rufio in the nursing home as he had his gang of misfits regularly surround him. Now as a nurse and depending on your level of stress during a particular shift, sometimes you can only handle so much crankiness. Larry was a raspy little thing and a wild man. He was king of raspy whining, "Nurrrrse. Water, water." Even when I was in the room, he'd yell, "nuurrrrrse!!!!!! nurrrrrse!!!!!!" He droned out the rrrrr for dramatic effects, he'd squint one eye open like a hidden pirate to see if I noticed him and when I saw him, he'd close his eye quickly and pretend as if he never tried to open it. Every five minutes, "Nurrrrrrrrse!!!!! I'm'a hurtin' nurse," he'd say. "Well Harry I gave you your large dose of pain medication already and am giving it to you every hour." Right back in my face, he'd scream, "MORPHINE NURRRRRRRRRRRSE." I thought I was developing a twitch, I wasn't gonna make it. Nerves were being shot. He was a master knot tie-r, contorting and tying his foley into odd shapes that you'd think he was trying to be one of those balloon animal shaper people. "Larry, please stop throwing your legs into the air and flashing those walking by." His reply, "NURRRRRRRRRSE." One day after I had had him for 3 days as a patient, and my nerves were tied shut after being in his room incessantly hearing nurrrrrrse more than I could mentally and physically handle, he said as I was about to go, "NUrrrrrrrrrrrrrse. I gotcha nurse. I GOTCHA." He squinted his little eye and half smirked in a delightful amused state of mind, loving this moment in all that it contained. He had won. And so, I replied, "High five, Larry. You just kicked my tail these past few days." A deep, fierce chuckle rang loud from that bed, shaking the grounds into the nurses' station. Larry had made me his bitch, and he had won.

So there he was again. Seeing him from a distance, watching him look out and still not see me was mind-blowing. Finally I ran right up to the porch to greet him in both secrecy and excitement.

"LArrrrry!!!!!!" I shouted.

He was silent for a moment, as I thought he wouldn't know me or forgot who I was. The man across from me grinned without his dentures, gums beety and red, eyes both open, squinty and gleaming.

"NUrrrrrrrrrrrrrrse."

For as much as I hated that sound, there was a special ring in his tone. A sound of remembrance, a sound of friendship, a sound of another chance to embrace life. And a sound that he had still owned me, and he still loved every ounce of it.

Ahhl Hail.

STEVE EARLE: KING OF THE WEST, the only real west according to downright West Virginians. Really, though, a classic as such should not be bypassed by any means. Forget your oldies, forget the kiddie soul train you thought was slammin', grab a damn beer, and rock it home to EARLE, baby.

Stumbled upon.

Today I was attempting a sincere day of focused productivity. Life in rural Appalachia is somewhat on a different wavelength-- time is slow, nights often are quiet, small town bustling occurs at lunchtime around the local U.S. post office. I live near the town courthouse where the sheriff and the cops and city lawyers congregate in the building with heads stooped to the ground at 9 a.m. and then dismiss themselves with eyes and heads a wablin' around 4 p.m. Even Ben Franklin, the arts and crafts store deemed to stay alive by the community despite it's adversary- the grandose Walmart- sparkles with people throughout the day. People know each other by name..."Judy! Didn't I just see you in here just yesterday?" The definition of a regular. They don't go to shop, they go to be welcomed. I particularly cater to it's fabric section, where i slowly gravitate so each different store worker can reel me into the world of quilt-making. I can't sew great, I just secretly want to hear them speak about their passion, their roots, their love of quilting. Sorta like finding the spark to the fire, and then sharing in its flames. The few eclectic restaurants that exist come alive around 11 a.m, when the older, post-retiree coal miners and wives decide which cafe will subside their hunger for midday. The young, progressive workers at the restaurants take frequent smoke breaks. Always in groups-- they stare at me as i walk by, i return their kindness with a way-overtly widened smile. I know names, but nothing past the friendly hellos. We are fashionable, well-acquainted regular greeters. Nothing in common but our daily passing-bys. The outdoor enthusiasts with kayaks and rock climbing gear nestle their way to the Outdoor store, adjacent to the courthouse. They,too, are regulars. The one stop light to which the town revolves is a people-watching magnet of a haven. People praying, hoping they land on red light so for a moment, they can see the world unravel itself.

Have you ever seen such a thing unfold?

“I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” -Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry is just another common man with some enriched revolutionary sort of heart and mind. He is known as a notable leader of the agrarian movement, detailing how the recovery of agrarian principles is a form of redemption to us and a fresh breath of cultural renewal and well-being. I got into him real good while out at Buckhorn, but I feel like my understanding of everything he stood for had no face to it. Finally about a month ago, I got to go with the ma and pops out to Oregon in an attempt to let them see what I saw, feel what I felt, breathe the air that I felt released me into the family of things. I ended up getting super enriched by their wisdom, and especially their willingness and earnestness to relate with me in this stage, era, whatever of my life. My mom got to tell me about her liberal arts program her first year of college-- a program- which only 35 years later, she had managed to still have ALL her books from that program. One of her monumental books was "Let US Now Praise Famous Men." It's a book written in the late 30s about three tenant families who worked farms in Alabama. It reminisced the daily tasks, ordinary duties to which these men gave of their energy and time on the land of the deep south. Some of the speculation and observation was dull, with somewhat pointless rambling-- but I think that was maybe a subconscious intention. Not a make the book, "interesting" or overtly philosophically and ornately beautiful sounding, because it's not. It's rough. It's raw. It's their lives. But this is where a book is a book. The pictures of these famous man are paper, bound together that sit there on the shelf. Their lives are not perceivable by mere perception. Who really are these men? Is that education? To read, read, read. This is the call to me and the rest of my generation-- with public causes of the environment, technology and human rights--- to put down our damn books, and see the lives of the people around us. Let our movement be the culmination of all the past movements. Not just as Berry puts it, a "public" cause, but let it penetrate deeply, let it encompass in our private lives, daily life. We know the familiar voice-- to go deep, we just have to be willing to tread the land that brings us there.

My friend Mollie is one of the most fun, clever, nonsensically magical genius artists I've ever known. SHE IS ALMOST THERE WITH LYNDA BARRY. Which, dear God, if you have not experienced the work and writings and super remarkable ride of Lynda Barry, you have not lived. Mollie is a Wisconsin-ite (derr) and she grew up on a farm with Amish neighbors. She calls this "The Evolution of Man". INKKKK. I inked myself... (If you get this, genius..ness is calling your name). LOVE LOVE LOVE

amen, and amen.

Just take a look at this brilliant creation and ingenuity. It's called the Neo Nurture Incubator.



Every year, 4 million babies worldwide never live to their 1-month birthday. Healthcare specialists believe that 1.8 million babies could be saved if they could be kept sufficiently warm. Kangaroo care would alleviate this mother-to-child problem, but the problem exists that more than half a million mothers die from child-rearing complications and many more unable to provide consistent care. Regular incubators roll in an average pricetag of $30,000. Utilizing a surplus resource, old car parts, reliable incubators can be made cheap and designed geniuosly. Get this: Headlights provide heat; a dashboard fan circulates air; a door-chime and signal light system is recreated into an alarm system that alerts users when troubleshooting or haywire details get awry. Funny, as we're going goo goo for gadgets all over the place, we may have a repurposed purpose for remembering that we're here to stay for a while,.

i love that word: design. It's different than create. Sometimes creating things becomes this inert doing, unexpected, something where you supply the resources, and your inner parts craft their doings. "To design" sounds like this lifetime of intentional creations that make a daring journey out of uncertain parts. It's an elongated source of making it up, improvising, and being willing to follow the path that leads... moment by moment. Well i'm gonna take this moment and go work on my bird feeders-- made out of sticks and old tea cups... well sorta. Today, bird feeders. Who knows? Tomorrow, a flying saucer powered by solar energy that detects other earths in other universes. Life is exciting in this way. Gracias my BFF, UNCERTAINTY.