Strange Visitor

“Don’t open the pool door”, said my wife. I was not paying attention as I was on the phone with my son. I was going to take Orion out to the pool area so that he could chase the lizards in the pool area. “Pay attention, I told you not to open the pool door”. I have not heard her giving such a strict instructions with a firm voice. This time I paid attention and stopped opening the pool door.

I told my son that I would call him later as there appears to be an emergency at home. I asked my wife, “What is wrong?” She pointed her fingers near the pool and to my shock and surprise, I found a black reptile waiting welcoming Orion and myself. At the same time, Orion found him and started barking at the reptile with all his strength. I picked up Orion, asked my wife to take him away and went for a long stick to push the snake away from the pool area. I also opened the door to access the pool from the yard to help the snake to run away. But my wife screamed loud, “Don’t go to the pool area. Ask Kenny to come and remove the snake from the pool area”.

I immediately obliged and called Kenny, the lawn mower. In the meantime, snake moved further away from the pool to find its way after seeing us standing in a threatening posture. It tried twice or thrice to escape through the pool screen not knowing that it is not an open area. Finally, it found the hole through which it came and escaped through the same whole.

Kenny told me that he was working on another yard and would visit us as soon as possible. I patiently waited and my wife decided to go for a walk in the beach as she was sick of looking at a snake for a long time. Orion settled down quietly in the couch as he was no longer threatened by the strange visitor.

Finally, Kenny came after 40 minutes and we both looked for the reptile inside the pool enclosure but could not find it. Therefore, we decide to look for the hole that allowed it to come inside in the first place. There was a water drain that was built underneath the pool enclosure for rain water to drain out of the pool area and there was a tiny hole between the storm water drain and the pool enclosure. We found that gap 4-5 years ago and plugged the hole with a newspaper. Due to lot of rain for the past 4-5 years, the paper got worn out and Orion somehow managed to bite and remove it from the hole. We took a fresh set of newspaper pages and plugged the hole and checked whether the hole was completely covered. Hopefully, the snake won’t be able to visit our pool area anymore.

When my wife returned after her walk in the beach, I successfully told her that there is no risk of snakes coming into our pool area again. I called my son to continue my conversation and told him what interrupted our call. He suggested to go to Home Depot and buy a rubber door stopper and cut it into the size of whole and plug it in so that I don’t have to worry about newspaper getting worn out again. I appreciated his suggestion and I am planning to now permanently fix this hole to keep that snake visiting us again.

I always wonder what makes all of us so scared of some of the creatures among many others. Because a few of them have a better capacity to make us sick. Sometime back, when I was listening to a discourse, a spiritual speaker was explaining having bad thoughts in our mind as equivalent of having a snake in our bed room. Everyone who was hearing that discourse got that point quickly across our mind as we were able to relate the situation very well. If we could not sleep having a snake inside our house, we should not be able to sleep with bad thoughts in our mind either.

What is the stick that we can hold to drive those bad thoughts away? That stick is called introspection. If we keep analyzing every thought in our mind regularly and find out the sanctity of each one of them, we can overcome the trouble of putting some of our bad thoughts into action. Introspection really disciplines our mind and we certainly escape from the fear of living with those bad thoughts. Instead of facing the consequences of bad action, we can eliminate it even when we feel the presence of those thoughts.

 

Dear Mrs.Jayasala:

What a delight to get the first response from you that too rich in content. I have read your systematic approach to eliminate the menace of mice earlier. It does not matter whether it is a dangerous reptile or mice, we need to get rid of them if they are uninvited guest as opposed to pets.

You are absolutely right about whether thoughts are major or trivial, they are bad for our well being. It might start off as a trivial bad thoughts and later become a habit to develop such thoughts. The mere existence of such thoughts are bad for our well being even if they are lingering in our mind with no action. Habits after all die hard. That is why learned people suggest our true character is what we are when no one else is watching. Again thank you for mentioning other smaller sticks such as disciplined habits, Satsang, listening to discourses, etc.

It is always a delight to read your posts as well as responses.

Viswa

 

Dear Sabitha,

A few days back, my cousin in Toronto asked me whether we have snakes in Florida and when I responded affirmatively to her question, she almost freaked out and told that she would never live in a place that has so many snakes. Well, they have a right to coexist along with human beings like any other specie. It is true reptiles somehow makes us feel very afraid of them and they do such actions only because they feel challenged by the human beings. We have plugged the hole into the pool area but that does not prevent snakes roaming around our yard. Orion chases things until they respond and once they respond, he gets very scared. Therefore, I feel he is safe and perhaps learned already not to chase snakes. His targets are lizards, squirrels and rabbits and sometimes peacocks.

There can't be better way to learn about ourselves than watching our own reactions. I still go back to controlling the receipt, reaction and response methodology. We can control what we receive, how to react to such information and finally decide how to respond. Reactions most of the times are from our emotions than our discriminatory faculty. Feelings that come from our lower mind are mere chatter whereas feelings coming from our heart are stronger with conviction. I always feel watching our words, actions, thoughts, character and heart gives us the strength to face adverse situations well. They are together know as WATCH.

Viswa

 

Dear Darmesh,

Believe me, we did a thorough search into the entire pool area kneeling down to see holes but there were none. This hole is between the storm water drain and the pool enclosure frame. It is very tiny but somehow the snake managed to sneak through to visit our pool area. Our pet Orion is the frequent visitor to the pool area as none of us use our pool.

Viswa

 

Dear Kamla,

My wife is definitely on your side regarding snakes. I am not brave either but being the only man in the house, I have to do what it takes to handle the situation. But she doesn't like her husband risking to take a snake head on. With all fairness, I admit that I didn't notice the snake when she asked me not to open the door as I was busy talking to my son. Had I noticed, I would have jumped to close the pool door quickly. No one likes to invite the snake inside the house and chase it.

What a mess to destroy the vegetable plants? Your husband is very tolerant to let the groundhogs to coexist by the side of your house. If I were to deal with a skunk even once, I will find it hard to eat for another day. No wonder your husband ran straight to his shower besides washing the deck with scented soap water.

My heart tells me to love all beings but I don't mind feeding a rabbit or squirrel keeping them in my hand but how do I hold a skunk? I am not even sure whether Rama would have been so nice to hold it, if a Skunk were to help him to build the bridge to Sri Lanka?

Viswa