Blessed Oblivion

Rafting down the Grand Canyon, I find myself ensconced deeply within the cycle of life, literally, a mile inside the earth with canyon walls towering above. Life abounds along the river and I watch brutal survival play out all around. We see Bighorn Sheep every day, majestically teetering on cliff edges. And if you look at the base of the rock wall, you see a pile of bones, a male shoved over the edge in the annual competition for the females.

One day, near the latrine, we happen upon a rattlesnake in full rattle trying to oust a foot-long spiny lizard from its territory. The lizard stands its ground, doing threatening push-ups as if about to race toward its competition. The lizard also inflates its red throat bladder in and out, a flashing stop sign. All these animal threats terrify me and I want to run, but I’m spellbound. I ask the biologist, Brad, why the rattler doesn’t eat the lizard, an easy way to gain the territory. “Doesn’t like the spines,” Brad replies. The energetic stand-off rages for about one-half hour until, at last, the snake slithers away, defeated.

On another afternoon, when we make landfall to set up camp about four in the afternoon, I see Brad and his brother, Oliver, an ornithologist, binoculars aimed upwards, staring at the sky, I had learned to keep track of Brad and Oliver; always tuned into nature’s excitement. I grew up in a rural area outside Seattle, crow country. Their hoarse caws and social gatherings were the background noise of my childhood. They always flew in straight lines, just as the proverb states: “It’s two miles that way, as the crow flies,” was a common way to give directions.

Brad and Oliver see me and point to a crow, high in the sky. I watch and shake my head in disbelief and look again. Unlike any crow I’d ever seen, this one flies in a strange crooked line, up a little, sideways a tiny distance, an abrupt drop, then diagonal, always in short, choppy stints. “What the heck?” I ask. “What kind of crow is that?”

“He chasing a bat. Here, take the binos,” Oliver says, thrusting the eyepiece toward me. Sure enough, I see the life and death drama taking place right above me, as if on a movie screen. At last, in a fatal finale, the crow grabs its prey, flies to a rock ledge and I see his head poking up and down as he eats.

“Oh gross,” I gasp. But this is life, right in front of my eyes.

The next night in camp, no fires allowed, we sit in the dark chatting, a few lanterns casting a cozy glow, attracting a few bugs. Bats fly in their erratic paths above us, friends since they eat insects. All at once, we hear and feel a quick swoosh right above our heads. Brad and Oliver grab their ever-present binoculars and report. A peregrine falcon is picking off the bats for dinner, practically in our faces. Insects eaten by bats while falcons dine on bats: we had created an evening eco-zone. Nearby condors and eagles eat unwary falcons. All around, nature enacts her eternal cycle of life. Why don’t I feel this urgency in my normal urban life?

Modern life insulates me from any thought that I might be part of nature’s life cycle. With a roof over my head, heat in winter and AC in summer, a warm bed every night. I feel safe, protected. I fully indulge in this delusion.

If any of life’s dangers approach, like a cancer diagnosis, I feel offended. How could this happen to me? Unconsciously, I seem to feel my life is the most precious one in the universe, immune from certain death every other creature faces. I love my blessed oblivion.

When I see the insects, bats, crows, falcons, rattlesnakes and lizards in their danse macabre, I must face that I, too, dance with them. My fifty years of feeling safe seem to be a huge indulgence compared to a bird’s, a snake’s, a small mammal’s few years.

But I continue my insulating habits. I love my illusion and don’t want to let it go. But in the canyon, I am part of it.

Cate Burns is the author of Libido Tsunami: Awash with the Droll in Life, in which she unearths the ludicrous in the emotional live traps surrounding us — in families, friends and disastrous romances. Get it on Amazon today.