Saturday, May 09, 2015

Blue Jays, Karma, and Reincarnation


When I was a kid my father, a career Marine and Viet Nam veteran, taught me to hunt. He taught me stealth (a lesson that took years to stick). But no matter how quiet you were, blue jays always seemed to give away your position and warn the rest of the critters in the woods of your presence. They are nature's self-appointed sentinels.

Now it's confession time. As a teenager, I went after blue jays with rocks, wrist rockets, BB guns, .22s, and shotguns. I have very little remorse for these sins. I've spilled the blood of many noisy forest animals. I've cooked them. I've eaten them.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had a run in with karma. Possibly reincarnation. In the video below you will witness a blue jay with other-worldly courage taunt me and chase me out of his temporarily assigned territory that just so happens to overlap my daily three mile running course.

You reap what you sow.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That's funny stuff. I used take revenge on bluejays also. But as of late I've been feeding them. I'm working on getting a bluejay to take a peanut out of my hand. I think that maybe with another year of work I will succeed. :)
Thanks for sharing the video, Brother. :)

Unknown said...

Bryon, I get what you mean, but, as a pastor/ teacher type and former eastern religions pursuer, I'm compelled to point out something.
The law of sowing and reaping is biblical, but is not the same as karma & reincarnation. I know, you're just expressing it in its pop form, but I'm concerned about how many people really don't know the difference, or see any difference.
With God, the law of sowing and reaping can be interrupted by his grace, but karma is an endless cycle of reincarnations that are supposed to end in nothingness (nirvana). So, it's like comparing hope with hopelessness, or oranges and bluejays.
I'm pretty sure there's forgiveness for killing blue jays, although I'm not sure about mocking jays, and then there's PETA to contend with, oh my.
Maybe if you wore a pyramid hat when you jog the planets would go back into alignment, and the blue jays would leave you alone?! It's worth a shot.
Sorry, I had eye surgery yesterday and a m still a little dingy and bored ;-)
Trip

Bryonm said...

You're trippin', Trip.