Bloodless Ecosystems

What are You Doing Here?
Reflections on Clomp Expansion


Sometimes we refer to something as God’s sense of humor. Dogs reveal that fairly well. Some men buy Pit Bulls. Then they seem to intend on making believers of all of us that the breed is a horrible mistake. Others take one of the same breed and enable it to demonstrate the capacity of that breed to be kind and gentle and loving as no other breed seems capable. Then other men, or is it their wives, buy Chihuahuas or miniature toy teacup Poodles or Pekinese and expect us to understand their love.... I play with a Labrador. He responds to a multi syllabic name. Ambrosius. If you say it just right it is the sound he makes when he talks. Brosie has many nicknames. He always knew the game fetch, instinct, I guess, but he is getting better at it(intelligence?). He carries big rocks around and then barks at them for hours when they drop. Did it bite him on the lip? Did it get tired of going and jump off and now refuses to continue? Is it supposed to grow wings and fly? Ambrose knows birds. He knows that the geese are supposed to stop by and visit, he invites them and the ducks to do so, emphatically. He loves the grackles because they do. They go for romps together. Ambrosie should have been a greyhound, he has a big backyard, sometimes, legs churning, he resembles a Dust Devil as he motors from one end to the other. Before I had a fence I had an Afghan/Whippet, Sirrococo, Sara, running was never so smooth and easy. And fast. She is still chasing that last rabbit, that last rabbit is still running to get away. It was an amazing sight to watch, rabbit in the lead, hound ever gaining, rabbit stops then darts a turn and light-footed hound, tongue lolling, scrambles uncharacteristically to regain the momentum. Grace on paws. On and on and on, minutes become segments of time, the rabbit was Grandaddy Jack, he was savvy and crafty, father of many, seemingly involved as the hound by the game, finally, abruptly, they lay down together, to Rest, in the bar ditch, next to the road, you know. They loved to run, I’m sure they still are. Now I have a fence.

But before Ambrose, the fence, and the rabbit fetcher, and others, was BB. Beatrice Brandywine A German Shepherd of Royal Dutch lineage. Five Pages of Royal Dutch Lineage. Big, long, tail swooping the ground, head held in a neck protecting swag. Regal. I think she spoke High Deutch. Her owner gave her to me when she was about a year and a half old. She kept lumbering the wrong way off, and ended up at the KOA quite often, on her wrong way back to him, her previous owner. Or maybe she was just free now and going away in a direction we didn’t recognize as viable. Finally, the previous owner stopped by and put her on the only leash Momma had, that skinny little wimpy, braided plastic Chihuahua leash, and walked BB to the corners of our present yard, they were alone, at each corner, Larry was standing there, that funny looking leash drooping between them as she sat at his feet, to the side of course, minutes became segments of time, they returned, and she would never leave the grounds again unless Momma took her, or she dutifully followed the tractor, I could not drag her away, I could call but she did not come, she would follow the tractor and stay with it during Dad’s coffee, until Dad returned, I could feed her and brush her but....She loved her new home. Used the many cats for pillows at night, preeners at sabbatical and warmers in the winter. Remember that image-Dogs and Cats at Peace. Not so Scruffy. Scruffy thinned the cat population like snapping flies out of the air. I was glad to see him go to his real home with my sister. She thinks dogs and cats are supposed to fight. She and I are kinda like dogs and cats. I’ll talk about Mutt some other time. And Spot and Snowball and Bullet and Verinne.

The thing that got this post started was the statement of a principle within the paper I was reading in Compton’s Encyclopedia about Ecological Principles. Environmental influences on the life pattern. Consider the Dogs and Cats at peace image from above. The scientists of this article suggest that there are three kinds of members of a community--Producers-Consumers-Decomposers. The writers posit, if there are no consumers, here defined as carnivores and herbivores, the biosphere will continue indefinitely however adaptively with just producers and decomposers.

Now obviously it becomes difficult for even a scientist to hypothesize about conditions for which there is little or no empirical evidence, but I wonder if we can twist the implication of this principle just a bit and consider the Biblical story of creation and re-creation imaged in Genesis where God said that all animals would use plants for meat. Then, waiting until Noah had landed the Ark in safety to state that now animals could be used for mealtime repast by man and animals for the first time. Not that animals had not substituted for meat before, but it is that then is when He first said it was okay to dine on flesh. Is the inspiration of the stated image in Revelation of the Lamb at rest with the Lion, the source of Isaiah’s Bear and goat, Wolf and lamb, Viper and Children, found in a prehistory as well as in revelation of the time to come? How should these thoughts, loosely configured from the Written Word of God, effect a philosopher’s attitude toward philosophy? How do they reflect the direction scientific endeavor will follow? If life systems(communities) reflect the physical parameters in which they are found, as influenced by competition and suitability, and disturbance and recovery, do we, as higher intellects also reflect the mental environment in which we live. If so, at what point and does the mind then embrace the spiritual affectation of its physical existence as something other than a pre-existing physical or otherwise conditioned(result of nature) response to the bowl in which we reside?

I am wondering why science seems, here, only to be able to posit that life could continue without animal influence and tacitly to imply that without plants(producers) or microbes(decomposers) life will not continue. All this, when science is continually working, though not so much by intent, to support many of the precepts found in the Bible. Would there be some method by which to measure the portent of a change in the menu of all carnivores as to exclude flesh and adapt vegetation. Would this so systemize competition as to allow the Lion and Lamb to Rest in Peace?

Pass the Peas Please?!