....4.50am, a new day coming, and a slight stirring in the
cool air, remnant of yesterday’s stronger south westerly wind – in the distance
I can hear the faint growls of traffic passing on the N2 highway, heading for
Umtata or East London – it seems the heavy
trucks prefer to travel at this early hour...
Also some distant barking, and crowing of cocks – can only
be from 4 Winds, who occupy a hill about 1km away to my west
Today I must again slither under the rear of my bakkie, to
tighten some bolts & nuts that hold the rear bumper onto the chassis – I
did that about a week ago, and almost lost my left eye, when a spanner
dislodged from it’s nut, and came straight at me, one of the open end points
piercing the skin above my left eyebrow and causing some bleeding – it could
easily have pierced my left eyeball , one inch away – so I will be more careful
today, and very soon I will take my prized bakkie to my mechanic, to have it
serviced & other various things replaced & tweaked – I call him ‘my
mechanic’ when I am only an occasional client of his, but I go to him before
any other mechanic in East London, because he doesn’t overcharge me, he gets
whatever the job is, done, and I’ve seen him take the tools away from his
appies and do the job himself, on a Friday afternoon when they aren’t doing it
fast enough – I’ve also played a game of pool with him, about 2 months ago, at
a local pool bar that he & his number one appie introduced me to – I think
it was a Wednesday afternoon, after they had driven 20/25km from their workshop
in EL, to come help me get Bertha started – that was after I had run out of
diesel in her tank, for about the 5th time, and in a probably
revengeful mood Bertha had developed an airlock somewhere in her fuel line, and
just refused to start – all one can do then, is to loosen the fuel pump, upend
it, and then pump the airlock out with your free hand, while another person
cranks the motor – easy if your mechanic explains it to you, and then sits in
your driver seat & turns the ignition key, while you stand with both arms
in the intestines of your car’s engine, avoiding the spinning fan and other
dangerous moving parts – so, having started Bertha, and relieved [me] and
congratulating each other at having rescued Bertha from the bush near the river
where she had chosen to dig in her heels [tyres], They
decided to visit the local pool bar, their workshop in town being very
much further away, and there being no work they needed to get done
I remember telling my mechanic, many moons ago, that he reminded
me of the quintessential ‘grensvegter’ in the years gone by – or one of the
grease-monkeys who would have been somewhere in Angola, seeing that the Ratels
were running smoothly – I think he
smiled and had that faraway look in his eyes – a likeable and capable man, and
one I’d like to have with me if ever I was in the trenches, beside our seized
or stalled Buffel or Ratel....
Frontier days, years, when so many young men & women
were damaged, or obliterated, mostly innocent pawns in the armies & states
of their leaders – this has always been a Frontier country – which means, like
the American West, it has a history of a land that was taken by force from its
nomadic/pastoral original tribes, by white men with guns, who came from industrialised and colonialist countries – hard men, who
survived by knowing how to shoot, and who cut their swathes into virgin
country, killing and dispersing animals & humans in their paths &
sights, that threatened their own plans or lives, or came back into their camps
in the dark to steal their food
Its still frontier country out here – local farmers and
their friends still go out and shoot buck & warthog & lynxes etc, for
biltong & meat & fun, and to protect their domestic livestock, and I’m
meeting a bunch of them through a friend who might be one of the best fishermen
in these parts – they are a brotherhood, they know each other by reputation,
and they mostly have a generous amount of testosterone coursing about in their
bodies, which are often full bellied too – a sign of much beer drinking and
eating of much protein & carbs – I’ve been sent in the direction of salads
& raw veg by the food gurus in my circles, either friends or online experts
– who have also alerted me to the acid vs alkaline food table, and the sanctity
of all forms of life – I am also a little saddened each time I must remove a
beautiful field mouse from my mouse trap – but mice & rats are very
destructive to clothing and any other things they can get their teeth into, so
until all my things are safe inside a mouse-proof structure, I must use my
mousetrap, and hope there are enough left when I put it away, to repopulate the
bush around me, and to take their place in the food chain of eat or be eaten –
in this case, the eagles overhead being the overlords
Frontiers & frontiersmen & women – and eat or be
eaten – still some bush & coast scavenging going on around these parts,
while our city cousins do only the supermarket thing, and must rely on a very overstretched
and unwilling police force to protect them against various hustlers &
thieves, not having learned to use their own fists & guns & mostly
verbal warnings and beady stares and set mouths – which finally brings me
semi-full circle, back to what I think is the leit motif of this overlong song
– energy fields & circles – how we surround ourselves with either love or
hate or anger or joy, and how being out-in-nature can afford you the best
chance you have of living in a love/joy state, if you’re not mostly busy
shooting & killing
So, today’s reminder, to myself & anybody out there, is
to make your home mouse-proof, to grow your own salads, and to walk gently and
reverently and gratefully on your patch of Earth, and to say your mantra – my
best one thusfar, from Deepak Chopra, being ‘I am limitless potential, of
Knowing & Bliss’ – and Peace & Respect to all other sentient forms
around me, which include trees, plants, and all things having legs or fins or
feathers – as Jesus & Buddha said – be guided by Love & Humility, and
never lose your sense of humour J
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