Animals and solitude

On my trips there has been a recurrent pattern that it's quite particular. Maybe I'm looking for it or it's looking for me.

It started, I think, on January, 2016.

First encounter, I was on a Chilean beach, just walking on the sand. I heard a weird sound, like a baby crying. Looking closely I found a baby sea lion screaming, he was far from the sea so I took it back to the water. It refused and cried back to the land, I think he/she was looking for his/her mother. I was alone, really alone there so I just ran and called someone, we came back and the animal was just looking dead but was alive. So I ran 4 km to call the marine guard, when I came back the sea lion was no there anymore.

On the same trip, on the day of my birthday I was just walking on the beautiful landscape that surrounds the Aconcagua mountain, just walking to see the giant closer. Like a birthday gift. Just going by the old train rails I found a mule sitting there. I went closer and he stood up, one of his legs was apparently broken. In that kind of animals that means he's going to die, no cure for broken bones. Probably his owner left him there. And there was I, alone again with an animal that "needed help". I noticed the same pattern and didn't know what to do. Tried to get closer but the mule started moving, afraid of hurting it I left.

Few months later, I was walking on Basel (Switzerland), towards France. Just close to the "border", there was a tree-lined square with a huge amount of ravens flying and trilling above me. I was really impressed by the noise of that birds, just a little bit before. There was a lonely raven, standing on a metal structure. Alone, ill-looking, I just stared at it. I came closer, he opened his wings but one of them described a weird angle when closed. Something was broken. The illness was stronger than the self-awareness or pride, I just went close enough to touch him and tried to feed him. Didn't work.

Some time went by, I was on Plovdiv (Bulgaria), sleeping (or trying) in a little hill near the city center. I just came back from a bar where I was invited after asking to some people for a place for my tent. At 4 am I went back to the little hill and started to look for a place for my sleeping bag, I found a not so bad placed and tried to sleep. Was not cold. As soon as I fell asleep a weir noise woke me up, there was something crawling beneath the golden grass surrounding me. I used my cellphone flash to look for the noise source. Suddenly I saw it, a baby porcupine was close enough to reach it with my hand. I just stood, looking at that little and sweet animal. Black and innocent eyes, little black nose with some pink details. It just crawled back to it's place. Didn't say goodbye, knew it was not necessary.

On Osmangazi (Turkey), I walked a couple of kilometres to reach a castle on the top of the city that was not worth. Walking back to the road I found a little golden-haired dog, it was alone next to a car without people. It was on his bare bones, it was shy but not scared of this weird biped turtle. I tried to give him some mandarins but it didn't accept. So I took some "simit" (delicious kind of pastry from Turkey), I cut it it small pieces and left it next to him. He just took it, happy and looked at me, those eyes, those innocent, thankful but aware eyes were just burning on my soul all the way back.

Maybe there were another encounters that I don't remember now. Maybe they were not so clear nor evident.

Water-air-earth. Maybe I'm looking for it, just selective processing of my sight. Maybe something it's calling me from a dimension I'm still not aware of.