New Mexico is

maybe my all time favorite place on planet Earth...especially northern New Mexico up around Taos. It is an area that is almost magical in terms of the way the beauty of the sky and the desert and the mountains affect me. The sky there is a blue so deep and rich that it almost sparkles.

Our two main goals for a trip were to catch the Aspens and Cottonwoods around Taos as they turned golden in celebration of Autumn and to visit the Acoma Pueblo. We were fortunate enough to manage both.

entry roadway to Acoma

I borrowed the photo from the wikipedia entry about Acoma Pueblo...it shows the road that leads up to the location of this settlement. Up on the mesa where the houses of the traditional Acoma village are located is situated a catholic mission. I also borrowed the photo below that shows the structure.

mission at Acoma

Some time ago I had read a bit about how that building came to be located at the Acoma village and because of what I knew I didn't go inside although the tour includes visiting the interior of the building. I maybe will write about that in another post...it's a sordid and ugly tale as are most that have to do with the European invasion of the western hemisphere.

This post is mainly about one of the three fur people that live with us because in order to make the trip they were kindly cared for by Jeannie (the director) out at Heartland Rabbit Rescue.

Luigi, Jr and J.J.

The fellow on the left who has the dark hair on his nose is Luigi, Jr. He's one of those bunnies that staggers you with his cuteness...his brother is called JJ...who is no slouch in the cuteness department either. I wrote earlier about their coming to live with us.

Mr. Luigi's reaction to being dislocated from his home for a few days was rather dramatic...and for Jeannie...painful. When we returned and everyone was back at home, Jeannie asked me if Luigi was a "biter". He had no history of such and when I told her this she explained that she had asked because he had inflicted several painful bites on her while he was staying at her place, once he bit so strongly that he drew blood and was hanging from her hand while she tried to get away from him.

We had explained several times to the boys and to Gwennie (who also stayed with Jeannie while we were gone) about our trip and their going to visit Heartland while we were gone. Well...explaining with human words doesn't remediate distress and upset. Gwennie reacted by being rather withdrawn and depressed while we were gone and Mr. Luigi reacted by taking out his upset on Jeannie. I'm presuming JJ watched Luigi's aggression and let that serve as a proxy for whatever feelings he was having about being away from his home.

All three are back home now and seemingly happy to be so. Luigi is eager for headrubs and so are the other two and all seem to be settled back into their usual routines. Gwennie immediately cruised around her area in the living room when she got home and asked to be held a couple of times and then passed out for a long long nap. We speculate that the stress of change had worn her out and she needed some recovery time.

Luigi behaved differently (aggressively) than usual even though our intent was not to upset him. The impact on him, however, was upsetting...if his aggressiveness is an indicator that he was upset. Luigi doesn't speak the human English language but he speaks a language common to all Earthlings...behavior. There's an old saying in English that addresses this truth and I bet most of you have heard it at one time or another: Actions speak louder than words.

Yup, that's right, there is a universal language common to all Earthlings...it's called behavior. It can be difficult sometimes to comprehend nuance in terms of what factors produce or motivated the universal Earthling language or even what it means...but...it is a language shared by all of us living beings here on mother Earth.

It overrides and is more potent than human languages and should be given more credence than vocalizations and/or writing because it is what our words or writings reference. Humans can lie with their behavior, so can other Earthlings but...in general...it is much easier to detect lying with behavior than it is lying with human words and it is also generally more difficult to lie with behavior.

Luigi evidently didn't like what happened and he "spoke" with his behavior. impact is more significant and meaningful than intent...all Earthlings speak the universal Earthling language called behavior. Ignoring or misreading one or the other or both will mean you are being oblivious to reality or erroneous in terms of your apprehension of reality. Operating this way, obliviously or erroneously, can be disastrous for others or yourself or both.

Intent is only vaguely (if at all) connected to impact and human words carry little or no import when compared to actions. Two truths that we human animals rarely spend much time emphasizing.

Think about this...given that behavior is a universal and powerful language that is more important than any species specific vocalizing...how much time did you spend in your formal schooling studying this universal language versus studying human languages? I suspect most of you spent much much more time learning about the meanings of human vocalizations and writings than you did learning about the nuances and meanings of behavior.

We humans can believe ourselves to be "educated" and yet have little or no structured or formal explicit learning about the language spoken by all Earthlings. But...that doesn't prevent us from proclaiming ourselves to be the "intelligent" species. Curious, eh?

Apologies to Luigi, JJ and Gwennie...and most of all apologies to the injured innocent one...Jeannie.