Yesterday, I posted grades for my world religion survey class. We had a great semester looking at various religions and their theological beliefs. Interestingly, several religions believe in reincarnation. Depending upon one’s behavior in this world, it will determine who the person will be in the next life.

While reincarnation is an interesting concept, it isn’t a concept that I can buy into. While discussing my relationship with my family in Myanmar on my last trip, I asked them how our relationship happened. The parents of my three granddaughters are Buddhists and said that it had to do with reincarnation. That might be so, but I haven’t gotten to that place yet theologically.

Now, for the backstory. Thirty years ago, I lived on a mountain that I named Wolverton Mountain. It was based on Claude King’s song by the same name and is the origin of this webpage. I loved living there with the woods surrounding me and enjoyed living in nature. I fed dozens of raccoons daily with leftover scraps and food. However, one of the raccoons and I developed a relationship. I trained her to come to me on my deck to get her food.

I don’t grasp how or why my pet raccoon and I developed that feeling of trust and interest in each other. I’d throw food out to a couple dozen raccoons every evening, but she would come up to the deck to get fed. She could have remained with the rest of the raccoons and still had plenty of food.

My family would come up to the mountain for dinner, and they would enjoy watching me feed the raccoons. My granddaughter, Ayanna, named the raccoon, Ra-Ra. She was a toddler learning how to walk and wanted to go to see where the raccoons lived.

That was the backstory. Today, I live on a lake. However, it is only a temporary home. I would like to create a utopian experiment even though my clock is ticking. I want to create a small experiment on a lake before running out of any more bricks on my yellow brick road of life. I dream about bringing together all my family members from around the world. They live in various countries scattered across the globe. Some live in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and America, but they all are family.

My dream looks like this.

In the meantime, I was cleaning up my backyard, which faces the lake. I just happened to notice a Mallard duck. She was just sitting there looking at me even before I noticed her. She was protecting her nest and some eggs. I stood there as we looked at each other while my mind drifted back to Ra-Ra. It was a similar situation. Maybe, the Mallard is the reincarnation of Ra-Ra.

Later that day, I checked on Ra-Ra’s possible reincarnation. She had left her nest with two eggs in it. Apparently, she needed to stretch her wings.

The following day, the Mallard was back on her nest. However, I returned to visit the soon-to-be mother and discovered about a dozen eggs. It will be fun to watch her babies learn to swim and fly.

One other item. Ayanna, who wanted to toddler off to see where the raccoons lived, lives in my home. The issue of reincarnation haunts me.