Current Notes on the Rabbitry

As we move into middle Autumn, mid-October in central, Pennsylvania the season of fruition appears---the rabbits' appetite grows sharper with the morning temperatures in the high '30s.

 What wonderful beautiful days God gives---it is as if the "lateness" of history renders the particular manifestations of beauty even more magnificent! As I see the sun setting on the West, I sense that the scintillation and spectral shading is sharper, and even denser as the days grow nigh.

Please do not try to tell me that the rabbits do not see God's world and perceive the Autumn beauty---they do and it is delightful to see their fur bristle when the wind kicks up and the clattering leaves fly to and fro around the corral. A yearling lop buck kicked up a storm today, and Silvio pounced upon him and they locked up in a territorial battle. Such deft leaps and kicks from mid-air! I guess rabbits possess black belt capacities in Karate and kung fu----instinctually.

Currently at Tiptoplops: Frosty (3 year old lop doe) is nursing three kits (another frosty, black and a new coat we have not seen at Tiptoplops). These bunny kits were born with fur, unlike the little newborn kit I tried to rescure and nourish after his mother (Prince Cookie) abandoned him and his three siblings. She simply scattered them and yet left the newborn orphan (Ali AlBoulah) to my care. He survived perhaps a half day past 48 hours, I think from inhaling the formula I administered. Long story short, when I saw Frosty's kits on their first day, and realized how full their fur coats were the thought occurred to me that Ali and his siblings were born prematurely, which would account for Prince Cookie's poor mothering skills. As a matter of fact, there was no nest, no fur plucking. Ironically Frosty did not have a nest either when her newest kits were born. It alarmed me at first, but then her excellent mothering skills went into gear and she plucked a considerable amount of fur from her belly and constructed a suitable nest. Nature has a way of giving back in cycles---the ebb and flow---all things must pass (George Harrison).  But by the grace of God some things return!

Frosty as a bunny (circa. 2011) 

Update on Churchill

Churchill is here with me as I write---he yearns for more attention---having become completely dependent for food and water and even cleaning! His organismic health is impressive despite having lost the movement of his hind quarters weeks ago. I have had to carefully consider his diet and adjust this on a day to day and hour to hour basis. Yesterday I discovered his penchant for onions (full bulb and greens)---moreover having eaten them, his gastrointestinal health improved greatly. Another ingredient in his diet as of late is yogurt---plain yogurt. The probiotics are absolutely required since he has not been able to access his night droppings to re-ingest which ultimately undermines the flora balance in the GI tract, and may lead to stasis.

My admiration for this fine specimen of rabbit has not diminished--he continues to teach me the subtle nuances of a shared lifeworld between two mammal species and the mutual communication and affection which is real. That is to say, he has no other rabbit to socialize with and depending upon me for nourishment and affection finds that I share and participate in his lifeworld as human because the mammal family allows interspecies communication despite what materialistic skeptics write about animals being incapable of such interspecies communication. Which leads me to consider the kind of 'intelligence' that must underly this type of intense interaction! An intelligence which is in 9/10 times denied to all animals upon the blank assumption that only the human species can think. Do you not realize that the rabbit sees this oak tree in the spectral shifting blue light that pours down at sunset the same way that you do? Is this perceiving not thinking? Moreover isn't perception itself the lionshare of whatever intellectual activity any sentient being may hope to enjoy? So now what do you say 'thinking' means?

Perhaps the truncation and exclusion of animals as sentient beings is a convenient manner of alleviating the ethical culpability which all humans share for having diminished the beautiful home which God has prepared for these little beasts and paid no heed to the animal's rights while 'homo sapiens' went about succeeding at the expense of every creature on God's green earth!
Species-ism to the nth degree---hey, animals are great, but the simply don't matter as much as people do! I find this to be a false assertion.Visit: HARM NO LIVING BEING

More Observations on Churchill (yearling lop buck w/hind paralysis

Churchill impresses me with his demeanor despite having been reduced to physical inaction as a result of this paralysis. The daily regimen consists in changing his bed several times per diem, applying Vitamin A and D ointment, and an antiobiotic ointment. The bed sores still bear an infection and are not healing. Keeping the environment aseptic proves difficult.
Oddly enough since he is paralyzed and evidently has no proprioception, he seems to be unaware of the sores. He is taking his final doses of the corticosteroid the veterinarian prescribed. His Spirit is strong but his body is withering.

Reflections on the treatment
I sense that antiobiotics are proliferating---even the baby wipes are antiobiotic--so commonly used in hand washing, all sorts of kitchen cleaners, medicines, hand cleaning gels, water treatment. What is the impact of such antibiotic agents with living beings?  I sense the saturation point may be reached or some other critical threshold whereby the downside of the antibiotics may prove detrimental.

In treating this small mammal I am gaining knowledge concerning the healing and integrity of Churchill's organism, while also gleaning some lessons concerning mammal health overall and hence reflections that bear upon human life.

Have we taken for granted how much of the natural environment that we thrive upon is equally valuable to the life of the other mammal species? For example, clean air, water, beautiful fields, wildflowers---how often have a I been able to wonder at an ill rabbits' reanimation when placed in an open area out of doors with clean sunlight and fresh air, to leap and play along with the pretty birdsongs!

It is nearly axiomatic at Tiptoplops rabbitry that health is a "circle of life"---which begins with eating fresh greens and wildflowers, and then fertilizing new vegetative growth thus generating oxygen which cleans the environing land further. Health extends far beyond the individual and the treatment of symptoms toward an entelechy of harmony in the greater whole organism.

Black Lop with Rear Hind Paralysis (an update)

Once again the rabbits species demonstrates its vital dignity in the case of a rabbit I am treating currently with rear hind paralysis---cause as yet unknown. The nobility of the species is evident in the courage that this rabbit displays. As I must leave him alone for hours at a time during the day; this fine buck who once maneuvered like a champion through space, leaping and turning; now dwells in patience until my return, pawing at the floor with his front paws. His bottom is wet, a most unnatural thing for the ultra-clean Cuniculus Oryctalagus lop buck.

One of the first behaviors one sees with bunnies even as early as two weeks is the grooming move with the front paws.

To novices, this behavior certainly appears as 'cute' but how many have carefully studied the exact rhythm and manner with which the rabbit first strikes the interior sides of the front paws in a clap, and then drawn the timing to a 'ritard' only then to resume with the initial timing of the move as if in a carefully choreographed gesture which in its own way surpasses even the finest dance moves of a master like Michael Jackson or Mick Jagger? How many more have 'kenned' that this clap reveals a dimension of natural law? Rabbits who often dig and paw in the earth must first of all shake clean the dust from their paws before initiating the grooming gesture which is obviously 'hard-wired' genetically---to use an expression au courant, and on par with the latest scientific paradigm. A better term is 'orthogenetic' which is a term Teilhard uses to describe the fact that mammalian behaviors are not willy-nilly but have anchors in natural laws. This ultra-cute clap is in no way gratuitous but is essential to this little buck's health.

Now imagine that you had this God given gift to dance and leap in perfect rhythm and then were to lose it all at once in a paralysis. Well, this is exactly what happened to our yearling lop buck last week. And no, there were no accolades given for this young rabbit's excellence, no citations of virtue and no one weeped about health care or felt sorry for this grave immobility. All the while, this rabbit's movement and elegant behavior is superior to any dancer or athlete of the human species, but because it is a rabbit, a non-human species, there is no kudos given by the novice observer for such stupendous feats of maneuver through space. But had it been a football match in Brazil, or some dancer in New York, then the ritual would have been quite regal indeed. 

Bottom line is that humans for the most part only care about human things, human concerns. It is a rare bird indeed who would spend hours in careful observation of the nimble quadruped. Be that as it may, I have carefully studied rabbit behavior and as a result have been honored to glimpse from a new angle members of this noble species. What I am looking at with this paralyzed buck would break my heart if it were not for the noble pose this buck strikes whenever I return to his side---such elegant behavior which inspires me not to assume the pitiful gaze but rather awakens within my soul and mind an awe. I also realize that he will hang in there as best he can and if he indeed loses his thirst for life that nothing I can do or say will resuscitate the 'will-to-live'. I am grateful that his thirst yet lingers.   

I know what the critics are thinking---ethics is the domain of human beings not rabbits. This habit of describing rabbit behavior in terms of virtue is somehow unbecoming! But I can assure you, it is not!

Are rabbits (and other animals) aware of God?

This may seem like a strange question, but let's put it in context! First of all, only a human could ask such a question. Why? Because humans have the conceit that God is their own, that they somehow possess God. The reason that this happens is that humans think of God in their own image! The term for this is 'to anthropomorphize'. God is Mighty, Powerful, Intelligent, Just, etc... Anthropomorphism in every epithet! So as Xenophanes said, if a cow were to describe God, God would exemplify the superlative degree of cowness.  So too, human beings project their humanness onto God. Isn't this idolatrous? You betcha. The actual true nature of God cannot be put into anthropomorphic virtues, no matter how superlative---Almighty, All Wise, and so forth.

Now that the context is set, let us look at how God Might Be while putting the brakes on the tendency to anthropomorphize.  Thomas Aquinas wisely wrote that we know THAT God is (Being), but cannot know what God is ( without a)projecting, b)anthropomorphizing or c)using metaphors----examples: a) projection-God is angry at us for destroying nature through fracking, b) anthropomorphizing-"God is a patient Judge." And c)use of metaphor: "God is a Rock of Ages."

Is there any way we can address God univocally---that is directly to the essence? Throughout religious history several attempts have been made: a) to name God, to know the name of God (YWHW-tetragrammaton) is to command God's presence, b)prayer allows a direct speaking to God, c) As mentioned in Aquinas, God can univocally said 'to be', and d) as Jesus so clearly stated God is LOVE. There are some others: God is Truth, God is Beauty, God is Light (not metaphorically but somehow literally), God is ONE (radical simplicity). If we attempt to "think together" God as BEING< TRUE
So what are we aware of that is ultimately simple, full of being, beautiful and true? It is life itself. Now does a human being have a greater awareness of life than a rabbit? Frankly I do not see why that would be the case. The rabbit is just as intimately alive and aware of their own life as a human being. The fact that the human can reason about 'life' or discuss it in abstract scientific manner, does not really add anything essential to the awareness of life that is germane to all living beings. It is a conceit, the conceit of species-ism.

Because it is accidental that man's way of being in the world is 'rational' and a rabbits is not, actually makes no difference in the approach to awareness of God. The rabbit knows God in a rabbit manner, whereas men and women know God in a human manner.

What happens in truth is as follows---this is the path of knowing. First of all one must be in order to know. Secondly one must be alive. Thirdly one must be aware of this life and finally knowledge arises. At the first level all being coheres in the foundation of knowing. At the second level living be discovers an act of knowing. Thirdly a sentient being knows and is aware of its life (which is the essence of thinking: awareness of life---in its root and simple sense). Finally, if you will, man enters the scene and knows using a rational soul. What I am writing here is a paraphrase of Aristotle's De Anima.

The reason this has been a stumblingblock for so many thinkers for such a long time, is that God is conceived in a complex, manifold manner by the complex and manifold human reason. However, in truth God is as simple as can be---this is the whole import of the search for Higgs-Boson (another vain and futile anthropomorphic effort). That which underlies all being and awareness is God---radically simple, radically present (nay Presence itself). Man thinks in a complicated, dissected, analytical manner. That is the nature of reason.

The rabbit does not think in such a complicated and fragmented manner but thinks in direct awareness of God's green world (this dandelion in yellow profuse bloom, this puddle). The human also has the same type of initial, simple grasp of things that is direct knowing through awareness but later covers up the transparent knowing in a veil of words and concepts---again this is the substance of man's intellect---to abstract from experience to language in thought. If you are a rationalist you deem this act somehow as valuable or great. As for myself, a naturalist, even though I am human, I do not hold the conceit that my intellect is any great thing. What is truly great is my participation in BEING, then in BEING LIFE; then in BEING (SENTIENT) Awareness of LIFE. All of this is GIFT. The only greatness that I am aware of in man is that man is thankful for this GIFT---this thanking, not thinking, is the essential attribute of man. God alone is true, good, one, and Beautiful---man's goodness is contingent upon God's goodness, all that man has of any value is God's. And the only manner of possessing this goodness is to give thanks since the EARTH AND ITS FULLNESS BELONG TO THE LORD. In many respects contemporary man is as Dostoevsky described "an ungrateful biped". Ungrateful, conceited, specie-ist, vain, full of destruction, contempt for beauty and truth. How else could something as pernicious as fracking even occur to a mind full of thanksgiving? Such diabolic greed could only occur to man, never to a rabbit or to a chipmunk. The fact that man fracks in itself should divest the humanist of the wind in his sails, there is nothing good in man that isn't already in nature. The rabbit is not one iota less valuable in God's kingdom. Man is a vanity.

Krimpet: Sudden Death

Sudden death came to Krimpet, our beloved rabbit on Memorial Day (Monday). The day was wide open and beautiful.  Lisa and I had taken the horseshoe curve route to The Allegheny-Portage Site to commemorate our wedding anniversary. Temperatures rose to 78 degrees. Just lovely.

Long story short, returned back to the rabbitry to find our beloved Krimpet dead. No speculation at this time concerning cause of death. This came as a real surprise and quite a loss especially to Emily who has been doing a wonderful job raising Krimpet and Silvio. Silvio lives on and is now in litter training.