Pet Worship

 

Our First Day Together!

           Like I’m sure many of us can say, I tend to be highly attracted to colorful objects/entities within the world. Only recently have I truly recognized my appetite for taking in colorful things within a photography class I experienced during my first semester at Wheaton. Oftentimes while taking this course, I would manually up the saturation and vibrancy within the editing software we used so that my work would look visually pleasing (and therefore, less dull) to me. Apparently this love for vibrancy isn’t just something that has been a quirk of mine during my more recent years of life. When I used to show my mother the pictures I had taken (and edited) from Photograph 1, she would always mention how unsurprised she was at the intense focus on color within my pictures based on her experience raising me. Oftentimes, during these moments, my mother would  bring up a common activity that we used to do together when I was little. According to her recollection, Mystic Aquarium was a common hang out of ours due to a certain fascination with fish younger me possessed (more particularly those fish that had really interesting colorations/patterns: like clown fish, sea horses, blue tangs, etc.). While I may not have any plans of becoming a marine biologist, I still find that I enjoy watching water dwelling creatures in my adulthood (though I don’t visit Mystic as often as I apparently once did); this observational activity is quite calming to me. Due to said beneficial effects on my mood, I’ve recently made a decision to rescue a betta fish from the clutches of a nearby Petco.

One Week in the Five Gallon Tank!

Originally, I had only meandered into Petco in order to buy a stuffed lambie toy for my dog. With this having been said, I got a little bit sidetracked. As I made my way to the dog toy section of the store, I passed by the shelves of fish near the front of said place and found a (male) galaxy koi betta. Largely what drew my attention to this fish had been the blue, red and peach coloration(s) on his lower body (along with the fact that he was a bit more active than the other bettas). Due to a sense of guilt at leaving him behind, along with the fact that I was anticipating a lot of potential stress in the upcoming college semester (at the time), I walked out of that pet store with a stuffed lamb, a betta fish, a five gallon tank, live plants and a whole bunch of other necessary accessories. Since then, I’ve been performing pretty frequent tank maintenance. My attention to this creature and his habitat seems to have had a very noticeable effect on said betta’s quality of life. One thing I have noticed is that the colors on this galaxy koi’s torso (and fins) are far more vibrant than they were when I had first brought him home (see pictures 1–2 & 3–5 for a visual comparison). The blue on his fins is much deeper than it once was and the red splotches on his body are more noticeable overall; I’ve even witnessed a much more vibrant sheen to  some of his scales (see photo #3).

One Month in his New Home!!

In addition to these more visibly recognizable signs of the betta’s well-being/happy state of being, this fish also seems to show physical gestures that suggest a certain level of enjoyment when I get close to his tank. For example, when I sit in front of his abode for daily check-ins, the little guy tends to swim back and forth (consistently) in the front of the tank as if he wants to show himself off to me. He even makes an effort to follow my finger when I point to something inside of his home (for any viewers other than myself to focus in on). Another really cute habit that this fish has (that suggests a certain level of affection for me) usually occurs when I clean his abode; this creature makes it a point to get very close to my gloved hand almost to the point where he’s basically nuzzling me. Overall, these visual improvements to his demeanor/color have proven to be a form of reassurance that I did the right thing and helped this entity live a better (or at least, more healthy) life.

A Little Over a Month With Me!

On the topic of sight, I want to circle back to Diana Eck’s work on the sense of sight in Hinduism. A common talking point within their work (especially early on) has to do with the tendency of Hindu deities to be portrayed with their eyes wide open. As for why this is, Eck states that: 

“The prominence of the eyes of Hindu divine images also reminds us that it is not only the worshiper who sees the deity, but the deity sees the worshiper as well. The contact between devotee and deity is exchanged through the eyes. (...) When Hindus stand on tiptoes and crane their necks to see, through the crowd, the image of Lord Krsna, they wish not only to ‘see,’ but to be seen. The gaze of the huge eyes of the image meets that of the worshiper, and that exchange of vision lies at the heart of Hindu worship” (Eck 7).

In the case of my own lived experience(s), it seems to me that I have something slightly adjacent going on with my betta. Obviously, in a literal sense, when I observe this creature, he has every opportunity to stare right back at me. However, in a slightly more speculative sense, his efforts to return my gaze in a very open way appears to be his way of showing appreciation for the effort I’ve put into taking care of him; therefore, I'm being seen for the good deeds that I’ve done by the very entity that receives my acts of goodwill. The distribution of his gaze, in the past, has even alerted me to certain wants/preferences of this creature. For instance, during a time where I had originally started off by feeding him pellets, my betta friend would completely ignore the food offering and instead stare at me (as if he expected something else). After two days of noticing that he refused to eat the pellets, I decided it may be a good idea to switch to the apparent delicacy that is fish flakes. As you can imagine by the language I’ve used in the previous sentence, he turned out to be obsessed with the flakes. I inferred his preferences just by seeing how he behaved (outwardly) in his environment.

One Week Ago!!

Jumping off of this past point, I’m tempted to make another connection between my experience tending to my betta’s needs and a point Eck made about how images of deities are created by Hindu worshippers. As explained within Seeing the Divine Image in India: 

 There are many Sanskrit texts, based on ancient traditions transmitted orally, which deal with iconography and iconometry. They are the texts of artists, called śilpins, who make images. These śilpaśāstras treat image–making, along with architecture and the building of cities. For each particular deity, these works specify the proper proportion of the parts of the body, the appropriate postures, the appropriate number of arms, the gestures of the hands (mudrās), the emblems and weapons to be held in the hands, and the appropriate animal mount (vāhana). Thus, the fashioning of the image is not left to the ‘imagination’ of the individual artist” (Eck 51).

As I’ve mentioned briefly in passing, a large part of my responsibility when I had gotten my aforementioned pet was to ensure that he had a nice place to reside in. This task included buying things (such as a smooth rock structure and live plants) that I hadn’t imagined I would need; a Petco employee helped me figure out what would make the five gallon tank a comfortable place for the betta (which included having plenty of hiding spaces and live plants to promote a greater amount of oxygen in the tank). This kind of reminds me of a point Eck made about how practitioners of Hinduism are concerned about the steps behind preparing and cleansing certain icons for the potential inhabitation by certain deities (for usually short periods of time). Just as Hindu icon builders follow guidelines/instructions while creating icons/temples/etc., I also didn’t really get a chance to image what an ideal (pretty) tank set-up would look like to me; instead, I just followed broad instructions I was given by the pet store employee about what plants/decor wouldn’t be harmful (or rather, irritating) towards the fish (along with listening to them educate me on exactly how to go about actually cleaning my tank). At this point, I don’t think that it’s too much of a stretch to say that I'm a devotee to my galaxy koi betta (along with any deity who may have brought him into existence).