She’s dead, Jim. (I have built a home of death.)
Today I spent close to an hour and a half outside. If she was around she would have shown up at my presence.
So I walked my perimeter and into the woods, smelling. Last I saw of Lea (my cat by my younger brother) was on Monday. After five days I should be able to track her by smell or sight of birds in the sky. Nothing.
She was most likely dragged off by a fox or random dog. I haven’t seen either in months.
Vayne is sleeping, still. He’s been in the house since Friday night and hasn’t gone outside and I haven’t pushed him. He simply sleeps. I think he notices the absence just as he did when his brother Zork died Jan 19, 2004.
The stray cat was also missing Wed, and Thursday nights and I thought the same thing might have happened to him but he showed up on Friday. A friend from work will take him when she gets back from Vegas at the end of next week. I won’t take in any more animals.
I read The Book of Five Rings and took a page of notes. Here they are:
The Earth Chapter
“… with weapons, just as with other things, you should not make distinctions or preferences.”
“Going too far is the same as not going far enough.”
The Water Chapter
“Be aware of the rythmn in all things. The flow of rythmn is crucial to action and victory.”
“In using the eyes, do so in a large and encompasing way. There is observation and there is seeing.”
The Fire Chapter
“… taking the initiative is surely at the heart of gaining the victory.”
“Ferrying Across” This one is to remember the concept of Ferrying Across. It refers to a state of mind where when traveling you move through villages, towns and across streams and oceans to reach your goals, without distractions in the travels. The concept of Ferrying Across is simply a means to the goal.
“… nothing is going right, nor is there progress, be of the mind to throw off your former intentions and start entirely anew.” - the concept of Renewal.
The Emptiness Chapter
“In Emptiness exist Good but no Evil.
Wisdom is Existence.
Principle is Existence.
The Way is Existence.
The Mind is Emptiness.”
The last is a philosophy of Buddhism but with a twist in applying it toward war and sword fighting specifically. It refers to a state of mind where by the mind must be empty in order to be free. If you begin to think of leaping, your mind moves toward leaping and loses its potential for reaction, you loose focus and what ultimately happens is the mind stops, when that happens the body stops.
When you are free of thought, only then are you free to move anywhere.
Like I said it’s a philosophy of thought taught in Buddhism. Something the author Miyamoto Musashi (who was undefeated in over 60 sword fights, many against multiple opponents at once) was well aware of but claims no direct link with his Way of sword fighting.
To my mind it relates to his thinking of “make no distinctions or preferences”. The idea that you limit yourself if you favor something over another, each has its place and in that place is equally valid.
Although this is probably overly simplistic and would most likely be bashed as naive by anyone who actually has studied Five Rings for any length of time and didn’t just read it straight through over a few hours on the weekend and then wrote a blog post about it.
Perhaps. Time to move on.
……
I’m sorry to hear that bro. I thought you were getting a fence up someday? It’s been years.