Jellyfish Returning To A New Home -A Fable

After seemingly endless travel, home was now in sight. Not that they had ever been there before. Home had called to them through the vast non-emptiness that lay between it and their planet of birth. The ones who heard the call found themselves leaving one day, sending farewell to their loved ones. They weren’t understood.

“What do you mean you are going home? This is your home. Here you have love and been loved, here you have been cared for and cared for others. In what way is this not home?”
“All that you say is true. I do love you to the depth of my capacity and yet there has always been part of me, as deep as my love for you has been that has stayed untouched, I didn’t even know that it existed until now but suddenly I have received this call and nothing else matters as much. I feel regret that I must now leave wyou  but I can no more deny this than I can deny my very being tho for you I would try.”

So the discussion would go, mirrored in each home, in each area where they had lived. They left neither unscathed nor unscathing but they could not resist that siren call. They rose off as one into the starlit night and began their voyage.
They left as mere shadow reflections of the planet that they had called home. As they travelled towards the beloved that called them, each of them took on distinctive form and colour, becoming more and more themselves.
Now the planet was in sight and the call within them became louder and louder. They started to resonate with the tone and with each other, tho there was no sound produced  in empty space, still there was vibration as each of them became attuned, their beings becoming  one  note in a vast universal chord.

This all along had been their reason for being and this becoming rang true.
Perceiving with senses they never knew they possessed, they knew that there were beings here from all over, all different yet now all one.

Poem Fragment found by a Rabbit Hole

Ever feel like your spirit
echos a sound that you
haven’t quite heard before

Like reading a book
a new character enters
that has always belonged

New ideas wafting
their way home
the nest having been kept warm

new directions given the prayer;
new games finding their player
no piece of the puzzle exists as just blue sky…

See you in Wonderland

Legends and Stories-Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby

This article start another occasional series on this blog. One in which I intend to either tell or reprint an old tale or legend. It seems to me that many of the old stories that I grew up with are being forgotten and anyway i have of keeping them alive I will. Especially if it illustrates a point.

I just spent two hours combing articles that would explain to me why this story might or might not be racist. Was it a story told by slaves in the American South prior to The War Between the States. From what I understand yes. Were the story later collected by a white man and presented to the populace as told by a kindly old former slave named Uncle Remus. The answer once again would be yes. However, I also would answer yes to whether or not the character that people hearing the story  was smarter and wiser than any other character in the story.

On top of that I can’t think of a better analogy for the way many people deal with questions of ego and negativity than this story. If any of you find it reprehensible that I tell this story, my apologies.

Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby

(adopted from a story by Joel Chandler Harris, itself adopted from African American folktales)

Br’er Rabbit was always playing tricks on the other animals and getting them to do what he wanted and Br’er Fox had had enough. He decided he was going to teach that rabbit a lesson if it was the last thing he did.

Br’er Fox finally came up with a plan. He got some tar and he mixed it with turpentine and he put it into the shape of a baby. He stuck clothes and a hat on it and put it right in Br’er Rabbit’s path.

A little while later Br’er Rabbit came hopping along.

Seeing a strange on his path. Br’er Rabbit said “Hey, what’s up?” The stranger did not reply

Trying again, Br’er Rabbit said “Nice weather, we’re having.” Still no answer

“Well ya don’t have to be so rude, if you don’t want to talk, fine, just move aside so I can pass”

Still no answer

Getting impatient and angry Br’er Rabbit pushed the tar baby, only to find his hands wer stuck.

He couldn’t move

“Let me go, let me go, or I’ll give you such a kick” and he did.

His foot got stuck too.

Br’er Fox came out from behind the bush. He was laughing fit to bust a gut. “Now what do we have here, you seem stuck.”

Br’er Rabbit looked a bit scared as he knew that Br’er Fox had quite a few scores to settle with him.

“Hey Br’er Fox, I don’t suppose you’d help me out of here”

“Are you kidding? The only thing I’ll help you to is an early grave.”

“OK I understand, but do it with your gun or pluck my fur out or something. Just please… please… don’t….”

“Don’t what?” Br’er Fox said, a mite suspicious but wondering just how good his revenge might be

“Please whatever you do don’t toss me into the briar p-p-patch!”, Br’er Rabbit shuddered and with his eyes he pleaded.

“Why would I do that?”

“No, No, you couldn’t be so cruel! you wouldn’t, to heave me into the briar patch, that I’m so afraid of stuck to this monstrosity where I’d starve”

Br’er Fox smiled and laughed an evil laugh”

“Heh heh heh, OK into the briar patch you go” He picked up Br’er Rabbit, Tar Baby and all and heaved him into the Briar Patch

Br’er Rabbit screamed and it was music to Br’er Fox’s ears. The music hit a jarring note a few moments later when the screaming turned to laughter.

Br’er Rabbit said as he ran past, “Thank you kindly, Br’er Fox, I was born and bred in the briar patch, born and bred and know it to be the perfect place to get stuff unstuck from you”

Br’er Fox just beat his head again the ground.

Whenever people start talking to me about killing off their egos or not dealing with their egos, ego bad, materialism bad, gotta get rid of it, I get reminded of this story. It seems to me that the things in ourselves that we fight against the most become our own personal tar babies, the more we strike out at them and try to kill them off, the more we attach ourselves to them in a negative way.
It is only when we focus on other things that we are able to free ourselves.

Stray Thought: I think it is a reasonable bet that Bugs Bunny has some common origins with Br’er Rabbit. I wonder how many of this contemporary Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons do also?