It was dark when the two bob cats crossed my path on the way home this week.
Ga hay is the word for wildcat in Cherokee, and they are known for always being hungry. In our world now, they seem rare. Many people have never seen them. But they help us clear away the little varmints, the mice, the rabbits and such can keep them fed but when they are scarce, chickens disappear from farmers' barnyards but fewer people keep chickens in their backyards now. And those large poultry houses filled to the brim with chickens truly have them guarded from predators. As a country dweller, the fewer mice in the field means the fewer in my house, and as a gardener, the fewer rabbits the better the garden.
These bob cats were in a hurry. It is bobcat season in Oklahoma and a hunter is allowed as many as 20. They could have been pursued, but I had the feeling they were the ones pursuing this time. But seeing two at once, the same size and coloring brought to mind during this season the 2 girls Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible who went missing from Welch. But their missing now twenty years, and knowing the grief of the families is ongoing, I feel now for the family and friends of Mark Rogers of Miami, OK who was reported missing recently. Just gone. As the bobcats rushed by. Where do they go? And where on earth are our missing persons?
My brother Clark Frayser came to visit and brought 2 prints by Murv Jacob an artist who illustrates the culture of the Cherokees and the landscape of the southeastern United States. I love his work and have one of his rabbits rowing a canoe bedecked in fresh water pearls and carved shells hanging on the wall above my newly updated lab at the office. While Clark was there I was able to show him the beautiful turquoise his friend Steve Ray had dropped by the LEAD office as a gift. Steve and his wife were married over 50 years and had the kind of happiness he appreciated every day of their lives together and more so now since her death. Steve and Clark became friends during the production of his play, "The Panther and the Swan" as a bi-centennial project held in the Quapaw's Beaver Springs Park, and have remained friends ever since.
Anyone who has been around me as I prepare to leave a building knows that moment when I have to search for my keys, coat, even my shoes to get to the bank or the post office before they close for the day. Those moments of missing these type things pass, so very quickly, but imagining the pain of waiting, for missing the person living away, incarcerated in some manner, or those waiting for the truly disappeared people in our lives to return, our best hope, but to be found in whatever manner a peace might come. The bobcats I had seen had somehow triggered these thoughts, and reminded me of the bobcats' search for food or sanctuary.
The feelings of lost and found with the objects in our lives is so very superficial compared to the losses we experience when losing a loved one, whether that be for a 6 month period, a deployment, a job that takes one away for a season and then that deeper feeling of true loss through death, or that yet unidentified loss of never knowing what happened and where and how to make sense of it.
As human beings the extent of our feelings range but it is this ability, gift or curse as that may be, that make us human. It is experiencing these sensibilities when we prove to the Creator we are human and the Creator's gift to us has been to show within each of us the resilience we need to proceed on undaunted though wounded or scarred.
The American Psychological Association recognizes seven basic human emotions, including joy, surprise, sadness, fear and contempt, anger and disgust are expressed throughout all cultures and considered universal.
We have our basic needs as described by Maslow in his hierarchy of needs beginning with water, food and shelter, proceeding upwards to safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. And we all are in our own ways hungry for love, enough so, we find songs with that title.
In the U.S. there are laws to ensure we can have Clean Water AND Clean Air! Our human rights for all peoples and all nations have been laid out by the United Nations in their Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The art we have to develop is to know our own rights and then take that farther to accepting we all share those same rights and getting on board to protect ourselves and our teammates on this earth we inhabit together. Be kind, keep learning, speak out for wrongs and help us protect the precious resources that sustain us all.
Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim
Ga hay is the word for wildcat in Cherokee, and they are known for always being hungry. In our world now, they seem rare. Many people have never seen them. But they help us clear away the little varmints, the mice, the rabbits and such can keep them fed but when they are scarce, chickens disappear from farmers' barnyards but fewer people keep chickens in their backyards now. And those large poultry houses filled to the brim with chickens truly have them guarded from predators. As a country dweller, the fewer mice in the field means the fewer in my house, and as a gardener, the fewer rabbits the better the garden.
These bob cats were in a hurry. It is bobcat season in Oklahoma and a hunter is allowed as many as 20. They could have been pursued, but I had the feeling they were the ones pursuing this time. But seeing two at once, the same size and coloring brought to mind during this season the 2 girls Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible who went missing from Welch. But their missing now twenty years, and knowing the grief of the families is ongoing, I feel now for the family and friends of Mark Rogers of Miami, OK who was reported missing recently. Just gone. As the bobcats rushed by. Where do they go? And where on earth are our missing persons?
My brother Clark Frayser came to visit and brought 2 prints by Murv Jacob an artist who illustrates the culture of the Cherokees and the landscape of the southeastern United States. I love his work and have one of his rabbits rowing a canoe bedecked in fresh water pearls and carved shells hanging on the wall above my newly updated lab at the office. While Clark was there I was able to show him the beautiful turquoise his friend Steve Ray had dropped by the LEAD office as a gift. Steve and his wife were married over 50 years and had the kind of happiness he appreciated every day of their lives together and more so now since her death. Steve and Clark became friends during the production of his play, "The Panther and the Swan" as a bi-centennial project held in the Quapaw's Beaver Springs Park, and have remained friends ever since.
Anyone who has been around me as I prepare to leave a building knows that moment when I have to search for my keys, coat, even my shoes to get to the bank or the post office before they close for the day. Those moments of missing these type things pass, so very quickly, but imagining the pain of waiting, for missing the person living away, incarcerated in some manner, or those waiting for the truly disappeared people in our lives to return, our best hope, but to be found in whatever manner a peace might come. The bobcats I had seen had somehow triggered these thoughts, and reminded me of the bobcats' search for food or sanctuary.
The feelings of lost and found with the objects in our lives is so very superficial compared to the losses we experience when losing a loved one, whether that be for a 6 month period, a deployment, a job that takes one away for a season and then that deeper feeling of true loss through death, or that yet unidentified loss of never knowing what happened and where and how to make sense of it.
As human beings the extent of our feelings range but it is this ability, gift or curse as that may be, that make us human. It is experiencing these sensibilities when we prove to the Creator we are human and the Creator's gift to us has been to show within each of us the resilience we need to proceed on undaunted though wounded or scarred.
The American Psychological Association recognizes seven basic human emotions, including joy, surprise, sadness, fear and contempt, anger and disgust are expressed throughout all cultures and considered universal.
We have our basic needs as described by Maslow in his hierarchy of needs beginning with water, food and shelter, proceeding upwards to safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. And we all are in our own ways hungry for love, enough so, we find songs with that title.
In the U.S. there are laws to ensure we can have Clean Water AND Clean Air! Our human rights for all peoples and all nations have been laid out by the United Nations in their Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The art we have to develop is to know our own rights and then take that farther to accepting we all share those same rights and getting on board to protect ourselves and our teammates on this earth we inhabit together. Be kind, keep learning, speak out for wrongs and help us protect the precious resources that sustain us all.
Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim
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