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In Indonesia they found and are keeping what was reported to be arguably the largest snake ever recorded, a nearly 50-ft. reticulated python.

Click on the picture to see an enlarged view of a Large snake.

I have mixed feelings about this. Like, I'm very glad I got to see the snake, if even in pictures. I mean, I didn't know they got that big; even if it's not fifty feet--and some swear up and down that it isn't--that animal is just majestic. It has a true presence in that photo; look at the way that It Gazes Also. It truly is a Being, and it's no surprise that a tribe considered the snake its spiritual leader.

But that's the problem. That snake has a true presence. And that presence is in a cage. I feel as though this is the sort of thing you have to earn to see. And this is not like a raised-in-captivity snake--it's life is in the jungle. It has lived its large, long life in the jungle, and that is why it is so magnificent.

You should hear about this snake as a rumor. A rumor, and you travel to a small town, where you make a friend who has a friend who knows where the snake lives and goes to eat; and then you spend hours, maybe days, threading your way through the jungle to see it draped over branches, reclining in the shade. You ought to wonder at least once, in coming to see and finally meeting the snake, whether or not you would die.

Sigh. She does not deserve to die in captivity. And we, what, are we intending to keep it? KEEP it? AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

Frankly, I do not hold with the idea that we are allowed to capture wild animals and hold them for our viewing. Tame them? If a wild animal chooses to be your companion, well done you. But to trick or tranquilize another living being to spend the rest of its life in jail is a shame on us, a crying shame. If there is anything that living with Tantra has taught me, it is that animals are people too (and vice versa if you prefer). They just have different ways. If you wouldn't do it to another human being, don't do it to an animal. And that includes putting a god among them in a cage for no good reason other than we want to see it.

In the time I've been writing this I've imagined how differently we would do things if we adhered to that principle. And I don't think we'd be the worse off for it. Probably better. I could go on, and on, and on; ideas and systems are welling up inside me, forming stories of how we could do things if we so chose. It would take little actual effort, we just have to change the way we think of things.

The telling of it is not for here and now, methinks. It is the sort of idea that asks to be organized and developed so that it can be seen with respect.

---

I took a bellydancing class tonight with Jill Parker, the director of Ultra Gypsy, this amazing dance troupe from the Bay Area. I first saw them at a Crucible event, and they were the hottest thing I have ever seen. So I got this email about a new class in the East Bay, and I was like, YEAH! It was excellent. I will continue with this.

10:44 p.m. 2004-01-22�

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