“If you look at zero, you see nothing. When you look through it, you see everything.” ~ Antoinette Pienaar (paraphrasing Robert D. Kaplan)
When Leo began to experience trauma in his mouth from the tumor pressing into his soft pallet, he stopped eating his regular dry food. We switched to wet food so the little guy wouldn’t starve to death. Now he complains the moment his bowl empty. I caught him mid-squawl in this shot, now an all-too-typical scene. (It may technically be spelled “squall” but what Leo does is more akin to a squawl.) So I think to Leo, in the spirit of today’s quote, “Is your bowl really empty, or is there life?” He doesn’t understand me. He just wants more food. But the quote came from Maggie Jacobs earlier this week when she sent a very inspiring independent film about Antoinette Pienaar. It’s worth eight minutes of your time to watch it. At times Pienaar seems a little out there until you hear her out, especially when she starts talking about how she learned about love, and how to love herself, from animals, her dogs in particular. She writes and studies herbs in a region of South Africa that I’d never heard of called The Great Karoo. It’s about 400,000 acres and looks to be situated south central in the country. The terrain and vegetation remind me of the high deserts of the American southwest; wild and beautiful in its desolation. I can understand why she lives there. She’s a really interesting person (she even has a website!) and I love her philosophy of life. If only Leo understood that his empty bowl was a good zero.
Leave a Reply