Back to the woods

And what do I find? Cartridges and bones.

A rather nice rat skull.

Look at those teeth!

Makes me think of the little friend in my garden. And potentially in the roof. Jeez, it's not just crows who follow me around these days.

I was actually looking for lichens, mosses and fungi. Or a badger sett. Instead, a skull.

Arne Naess, following Spinoza, says that negative emotions are 'passive' in that they do not inspire us to fulfil our nature. Instead, we must turn them to active - positive - emotions. Well, I guess that for me all this negativity is transformed into something positive - which is curiosity.

I want the story of all this. Why those cartridges there? That femur (I think) and that skull? What was the shooter doing? How did the rat and the rabbit die - not by the human, who stood there with the gun. Is this a place where a fox feasts? Maybe the rat was an old chap who'd lived a good life and died of old age in the hedge, dreaming of his early ratling days, playing with siblings and feasting on grain from the field. Maybe he was not alone in his death. Next to him, his Crone-rat daughter told tales of distant places where rats lie down with cats, warming each other as the icy stars shine down from a black velvet sky and naming the constellations Rattus and Felix, Vulpes, Lupa and Mus. Maybe he imagined the soil embracing his flesh and making of it new life. Maybe he was happy.