I have always loved nature. Admired, been with it, tried to capture it, everything nature and I could do. But it had been just that, nothing more. I was enjoying the nature, trees, rivulets, fishes and occasional cuckoo sound. I never had any time to fully analyse the nature, look at the fishes deep enough to see their behaviours. How do they move with their flock, how do they act when they are not with their flock? Same with birds. Suddenly today, I had this extreme urge to watch birds, and see them, deeply, understand them, feel them, vibe with them.
It’s weird that being from a country where extremely unique animals, birds, fishes, trees, plants, herbs, and insects, I never found time to look at them. If I wanted to see an Rhino(one horned), which is considered extremely rare, I could do it within few hours from my house, or even go for jungle safari. I have seen an elephant once, chained, never touched it, saw it from far enough.
It’s not that I did not have any interest on them, but for me, those were costly vacations. And that usually is, in Nepal, most of the people going on a safari don’t actually care about the animals or nature. It’s just that they want to see an animal, or take a picture, or they have a bucket list of doing something.
Elephant is a majestic animal, very huge, strong, but compassionate. It could easily kill and crush humans, but it does not do that. Even in the wild, unless some elephants became aggressive, they rarely care about harming humans, or any other animal for that matter. I feel like they have some divine wisdom, that we are incapable of understanding. Though I have never seen them, the credible sources say they mourn for dead ones, they are gentle with other animals, because they know they are heavy. I want to see them, feel them, understand them and become them. Understand their mystical and magical presence, feel the energy they carry.
Wild or domestic, I want animals to be free. They will come to me, if I love them, or care for them, otherwise they will avoid me. That’s my philosophy. But freedom is an absolute necessity, freedom to do anything they want. A caged bird gives me the worst of sorrows. A dog, chained and treated badly also gives me the same feels. These days, every-time I eat meat, I feel the animal that went through all that, to get killed by a cruel animal.
The point is, I want to see birds, animals, fishes in the wild. I want to experience them, understand them and be them. I want to feel the gentleness of a deer, fierceness of a tiger, calmness of an elephant, and swiftness of a bird. All these feelings came today because a dove made a sound outside our window early morning.
Or maybe because, I always felt like I was born in this world to observe animals, including humans, understand them, know them and recognise them. Maybe I’m done understanding humans, its time for me to understand other animals. Or maybe this is a parallel course, that I am learning and will be able to connect learnings from different courses with each other. I don’t know what it is, but I will be watching everything, that comes in front of me.