It’s A Jungle Out There
And that’s the truth! Living in large cities, we have forgotten the real nature of this planet. Of course you can call the city a jungle, like New York, and it is, but that is not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about planet earth, the real jungle.
When I went into my kitchen sometimes, late at night, I could hear all the little creatures in Vrindavan doing their night time thing. Sounded like there were millions of little crickets or some kind of bugs all talking at once. I always thought doing that would be an invitation to dinner for the frogs. Maybe the frogs are part of the noise I was hearing. Maybe the bugs want to be eaten, or maybe God wants the frogs to eat. Their croaking invites the snakes to have dinner and the movement of the snakes catches the eye of the eagle who gets a mouth full and sleeps until the next day when the hunter walks by and shoots him with a bow and arrow and he falls from the tree.
When jungles were ‘torn down to put up a parking lot,’ thank you Joni Mitchell, or lets just say big cities, much of the food was gone for those animals living mother nature’s way. In Vrindavan or other villages around the country, that is not the case. Right on the edges of the village are all sorts of wild things, not just the monkeys. I definitely would not go trucking off into the middle of a beautiful field of blooming yellow mustard plants. I thought about it once to get my picture taken in the midst of the golden yellow glow, but changed my mind and simply stood on the edge of the field with the plants in the background. Shit! There are snakes out here, and who knows what else. Maybe the glorious peacocks with all their royal turquoise and deep blue feathers have those snakes as a snack, because peacocks are everywhere too, but I’m not going to take that chance.
In India there are tiger reserves in different areas of the country. Conservationists have made sure certain areas are not disturbed by capitalists who are looking for the next opportunity. I was happy to know these creatures existed and was glad they didn’t live next door to me. My point is, there was still a world full of wild creatures existing out there, all around me. Sometimes I forgot it when I lived in the gorgeous Marina Del Rey in Southern California, but I wondered what it would have been like to have lived many years ago in Kali Yuga when there was no technology and safe shelter and you were forced to look over your shoulder constantly to make sure you wouldn’t be the next one for dinner.
And don’t think it didn’t cross my mind what might have lived underneath me when I lived on my boat. If I failed to clean the bottom for even one month, I could hear fish nibbling at the barnacles in the late afternoon. What the heck is under the sea? One year the marina was filled with the most beautiful pink jellyfish. They were swimming all around the docks and looked like angels, gracefully moving their sheer bodies like wings as they moved up and down and in every direction. The bell-shaped body propelled them but their tentacles were reaching out to sting and capture their prey. In my mind I wanted to drop my hand in the middle of the water to feel that body that looked so gelatinous, but I knew those angelic looking creatures would be the cause of lasting pain. They were a beautiful site, but jellyfish sting! Small sharks were seen in the marina from time to time as well and didn’t care that you were human and are not supposed to be their daily meal. So it was a jungle down there too!
The description given in the Srimad Bhagavatam of Vrindavan when Krishna was on the planet was a jungle, but a charming jungle with honey dripping from the trees, fruit and flowers on every bush or tree with a fragrance so sweet they could be smelled from a distance and a taste so mellow that you smiled just thinking about that mango as your mouth watered from the thought. Wild creatures were in that jungle too, but they were more interested in seeing Krishna dance through the forest than they were in harming you.
The deer, the squirrels and the rabbits all went running to get a good look when Krishna and Balarama were taking the calves out to pasture. Sounds like the Bambi movie, right? Maybe it was or is like that. If I ever made it to that jungle, I prayed to never leave. In the meantime, I went in the kitchen late at night and wondered, what the hell is in that jungle out there!