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Rationale:
_We do not, after all, equate selfishness with intelligence.
_Narcissism may be the beginning of love, but we know love as love only when it escapes self-regard and self-protection. Sympathy (or empathy) is the base of intellectuality, and its driving force, It is in the home that the connections between sympathy and intellect can most clearly be seen and are most clearly sought after. A home that is perceived as "sterile", without sympathy, seems to us not a home at all. A home is a welcoming shelter, isn't it? If it is hermetically sealed against the world it is more stupid prison than shelter. Despite superficial cultural or architectural differences, from one end of the world to another, home is profoundly the same. I will therefore use my own home as a model for this project. Although your home may not have every element I mention, (Black Widow spiders, for example, may not be common in your area) we can see that with imagination our various homes are essentially the same. It is a privilege to entertain and help strangers in need. It is also a delight.
Method:
_Remember the hungry kitten arrived at your door? We may use that as an example of an approach, which takes sympathetic advantage of continually existing phenomena. Certain American Indian tribes believe that the spider is the Universal Grandmother, who sits in the corner weaving, un-noticed until needed. This especially means a Black Widow spider; and it is considered a good fortune to have a Black Widow spider at the entranceway of one's home - as both welcome and caution. If you are adverse to the interpretation of spiders as Grandmothers, you might try imagining them as sky fishermen. They carefully spread their nets and patiently wait to flying fish. Think of spiders as welcome little guests. What to feed them? To insure a good supply of both flies and maggots (some spiders cast nets close to, or on, the ground.) is also an opportunity for us to be sympathetic in unusual ways. That is the most valuable sympathy - it is easy to be sympathetic to someone similar to one-self, isn't it? We don't normally think of " starving" bacterial, but the bacteria without proper nourishment in one's house will surely die, and it, too, is there seeking shelter. Kindness to bacteria can actually attract tired and hungry flies who, like you, seek shelter. If anyone in your vicinity kills another animal or a succulent root-plant such as potato, ask for a piece of the muscle tissue. You can eat part of this yourself, thereby providing nourishment to millions of bacteria, which live in your large intestine. Leave the remainder some place high enough where the kitten can't find it. The bacteria will find it and soon after the flies. Cockroaches will also come. Welcome them, because a marvelous type of centipede will arrive. Although these centipedes cause blisters on one's skin if touched, they are beneficial in maintaining a natural balance of the cockroach population.
_A most beautiful kind of iridescent cobalt blue wasp will also be attracted by the larger cockroaches. Indeed, why not start a vespiary? Wasps of all sorts are fascinating, and the larvae of some wasps are very good to eat; roasted like nuts.
_You will find that your flies will have brought salamanders, lizards, and iguanas. (The iguanas are also quite edible, but beware eating salamanders because of poisons found in the skin.) Crickets, much prized in the Orient for their cheerful song, will seek the droppings of the salamanders and lizards. Their chirping will in turn bring scorpions. At first you may be nervous at such houseguests. Don't be! Scorpions mean no harm to humans and are not aggressive. The fact that they can be dangerous serves to make one more careful, in the same way that one's lover of business-friend can be.
_After eating your evening meal, place all the table scraps just outside the front door, then leave the door open. One evening I had a virtual party of at least twenty stray-dogs that way. But later, after most of the dogs have gone, you will receive visits from raccoons, skunks, opossums and rats. Try taking flash photos by attaching a string from the camera to a piece of dead, cooking cow or sweet potato. By this time many of your new animal friends will have become accustomed to you to the degree that they are as though part of your family. Is that the squirrels I hear rustling in the pantry, or the mice? Let the kitten and a couple of the dogs investigate! Once I discovered that a magnificent King snake had found a shelter in the pantry. He had not touched the pig parts I had hung there, but instead had eaten some of the mice, which had been sharing my Camembert. The same day I greeted a large colony of bats in the attic. They are half Angel half Demon. Bats have neither lice nor fleas, but they carry more exotic life forms, such as germs associated with Rabies (a strange little animalcule that actually lives in the brains of mammals including humans. —we can imagine therefore that the Rabies germ is closest to art of all life-forms.), Cholera, and Dysentery. If your kitten eats, or is bitten by, a bat, you should probably give it to the neighbor's children. But do not worry about lice - keeping an attic window open will invite not only bats but also pigeons of course. It is those who can provide your home, your living infrastructure, with lice. Fleas will already have arrived, as the natural accompanies of the mice and rats.
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