Its not an accusatory question. However, its just something to temperature check ourself on. Perhaps some of us have either heard about or seen the celebrating by a few thousand people who are reacting to Cuba's Fidel Castro, who is reportedly very ill. Its something to wonder about when this behavior is displayed in the "land of the free". A scripture comes to mind at Ezekiel 33:11, where its expressed by God that there is NO delight taken in someone's death. That is what I practice. And, for the life in me, its disappointing when the "celebration" reports are so vehemently circulated. Granted, freedom of speech belongs to anyone with a mouth. But what is being displayed is what it is. Send the energy of hope to those practicing such things.

"The profit of the earth is among them all, for a field the king himself has become served."

~Isrealite King, Solomon (ecclesiastes 5:9)


And from that I deduct that no single landmass of people has the right to monopolize the produce of earth. Earth is here for everyone's equality. Nations ought to be simply known as human beings, Janata. One people. Then it would be so easy to teach and take care of our feature rich extended family.

[betcha can't say the title 10 times really fast :) ]

While hammering away at a few of my personal writing projects, I sought to draw lively inspiration from the animal kingdom. Doing so without literally being in the thick of their kingdom [LOL]. And what better way to do so than having a backdrop of Discovery: Animal Planet playing on the ol' tube?

There's a saying "if you live long enough you see it all" (or something to that effect). I believe earlier was one of those moments. Heh, unbelievably, or im-hippo-possible-mus-ly, I never thought hippos ate any meat (other than a casual bite for defensive measures to threatening animals). I, ordinarily, would think it a myth if someone attempted to preach such gospel to me.

But I stood grossly corrected (in my den)! For this man (referring to myself) witnessed on reliable footage an adult male hippopotamus (with younger hippos around, later joining in) wolfing down a zebra that was just killed by a crocodile. The (free pun zone) hungry hungry hippo thwarted the croc's feast, scaring it away, and ate it's kill right in front of it. I mean, come on! A (ordinarily) "vegan" hippo wolfing down red meat?!!! Those omnivores foxes! (of course I'm over playing my surprise, but it's more fun this way)


(c) freefoto.com

What I learned is that on rare occasions hippos are willing to eat meat if its been freshly killed (as in the case above). Nature still seems to proclaim that hippos aren't ready carnivores. Yet it boldly seems they can have their moments of opportune. (the next airing of it is August 12th on Animal Planet)

Go figure!

Did you already know this?

And isn't this akin to spiritual growth? Embracing the unthinkable?

I want to announce a little request and opportunity. Pretty soon I plan on establishing an Odeo account. When I do, I plan on using the digital audio recording to read 7 poetic submissions from Zaadzsters. You might consider it a contest of sorts.

Lets see......what should I call it? Hmmmmmm...........ahh, how about the PoemPlay Contest. 

For the subject matter, choose one of our human emotions (doesn't matter which one). There are no length restrictions, but keep in mind the we'd like to have all the submissions read in a reasonable fashion. Can be any poetry style.

Everyone is welcome to submit a poem personally and originally written by them. Please be sure to keep it clean and tasteful. Only those I'm comfortable with will be among the chosen few. But I urge everyone to play along. For the more that participate the better the excitement, diversity, and representation will be.

Poetry considerations must be written by the person submitting. And soon after I've chosen which ones will be read, there will be a blog entry with an odeo player for all to finally witness my anonymous voice.

Of course, I will enact a date to end the submissions. But first lets see what kind of turnout will happen. If you're reading this, and would love this tiny little chance at Zaadz stardom (lol, or not), then start tapping into your creative mind and email me or post comments to this blog post with your poetic or prose works. Or you may post it as a blog entry on your blog and leave a link to it in the comments field.

And lets limit it to two poems per person, for consideration.

Never know. It could be YOU! :)

Game? I hope so.

Let the submissions began.
[feel free to ask any further questions]