Red-violet and gray
the faded seats of the train car
a man's gray hair
his blue-gray shirt
the gray slats of the shelf above him
holding up black luggage
the wind through an open window
causes a paper flyer
to flutter against the slats
the breeze cools my bare arm
light against the narrow silver watchband
just for a moment
everything is beautiful

sit in the shade
of a cafe on a warm day,
the red, white, green-
tomatoes, cheese, basil-
on a round white plate

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affectation for a few people near us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Albert Einstein

The first photo is from 10:21 AM, the second from 12:58 PM.

See the first picture, the shovels for front feet, the mud-crusted shell? The cicada in its final nymph stage had dug its way out of the earth. I found it near my car, eyes opaque, legs waving weakly. I thought it was dying, and then I saw. It was focusing inward, about to molt, about to shed its outer layer and become an adult.

Molting is more than just a shedding of skin. As the old is shed, something new is created. The growth and tranformation are triggered by hormonal changes, and aided by enzymes.

A cicada in gleaming gold new flesh started to emerge.

But this particular bug didn't go any further in the process. Perhaps it was the afternoon heat. I don't know, but it was sad. Instead of life burgeoning forward, it slipped away.

Still, from the chorus of sound outside my window before dawn, and tonight as I type, it's clear that many have survived the process.

In New Orleans in 1924, there was a golf course with a clubhouse. Behind the building stood a very old oak. One night, the clubhouse caught fire. Fire fighters arrived. Water capacity to douse the fire was limited. The clubhouse director instructed the fire crew to protect the tree. He could build another clubhouse but he couldn't build a 300-year-old tree. So, the hoses were aimed at the oak. The clubhouse burned to the ground. The tree survives.

As I approached the workshop, three roseate spoonbills sailed above from the right, two egrets from before me, and a great big hawk sat perched on a power line to the left. The seven of us intersected all at once. Right in town! I knew it was a good day.

I opened to the first page of the training handout and read:

DEFINITION OF SYMBOLS

*Symbols are defined as expression for something unknown or representing something that may have special meaning.
*May act as a bridge—bridging of what is familiar and that which is strange.
*Jung suggested symbols are thought to be the best possible expression with which to describe a relatively unknown and complex fact.
*A symbol generates itself from the unconscious as a spontaneous expression of some deep inner power of which we are aware, but cannot be fully explained in words.

Mariellen Griffith, Ed.D.

Right time, right place, right people. A very good seminar, another happy intersection.

Yesterday morning, just before the longest day of the year, a webcam showed a fresh sheet of snow glittering in the sunlight at Crater Lake in Oregon.

Here in Louisiana, large birds, rhythmic and powerful, took flight in the distance toward last night's sunset. The flock undulated like a ribbon in the colorful sky.

And there was the Great Snake.

Some of the pedestrian butterflies have turned true green beneath the white, still parked on the stems of the vines. Something growing within. I'm thinking they may not be butterflies at all. Right now, they look like living housing for something else.

There were at least ten species of bugs in the light fixture removed from the ceiling today, including dried out ladybugs and mosquitoes and tiny beetles that had been attracted to the light.

Fire ants feasted on a dead cicada on the driveway. There was one carpenter ant, so large compared to the fireants which barely would reach the carpenter's kneecap. The carpenter ant was acting erratically, writhing and twisting about. I looked down to see what was up. A fireant was clinging to one of its legs. The larger ant would try to brush it off, and the small ant would just hang on, or attach to another leg. A small fury. I guess its job was to keep the big ant away from the cicada feast, but really, I think there would have been plenty for all.

I've also seen the small ants working together to carry big loads such as a grasshopper or cicada.

Today, there's been thunder and rain.

Happy solstice! Welcome to summer.


Crater Lake National Park

There it was, two and a half feet of beautiful, mottled black snake, stretched out in loose coils in a triangle of sun on the carport floor. My feet screeched to a halt; the snake didn’t move. Its head was poised a couple inches above the concrete, gazing without expression in my direction.

I stood awed.

Then, I wanted a picture. That would break our communion, but even so I backed into the house, hoping the snake would keep its frozen, defensive posture long enough for me to get the camera.

When I returned, the snake was making haste away, its body whipping like rope, the friction of its weight scraping crazy rhythm against the floor.

As I approached, its motion grew panicked. The snake changed direction toward the cover of my dad’s van. I cautiously peaked below, and saw it toward the rear. I moved that way and looked again. I saw the shadow of the tires, but no snake. I tried another location, and another. Nothing.

It was a lot of snake. How had it disappeared?

I felt icky, greedy. I had the chance to enjoy the company of a wild magnificence had I not wanted to own it with my camera.

The snake wanted no attention. It wanted no photos. It didn’t want to hurt or scare me; it was scared itself. It just wanted a few untroubled moments of sun.

I read about the crossing of the river by ferry. How, as we wait, we are a part of what is on this bank--the people in their jeans, their sandals, the trees giving shade, the coffee shop--and don't think about the other side which we can barely see in the distance. How once on the ferry, the bank gradually disappears. It slowly loses meaning, and during the crossing, the other bank as yet has no meaning.

No time. No expectation. Being.

There is only the boat, and the river.




In Recuerdo, Edna St. Vincent Millay, tired and merry, spends all night on a ferry, eating pears.

Tired of being earnest?


Me, too.


Shake hands.


Mmmph. Not that one.


Snagged three treasures in this morning's lawn clean-up: A Dr Pepper can with a few sugar ants and a picture of Indy Jones being convinced of something 'with a fist!'; a squashed plastic bottle with a label boasting glacial water from Iceland; one shiny half-inflated mylar balloon decorated with colorful packages and a big 'Happy Birthday!'

I could see it glowing in the grass from the front door. I thought--Oh boy!

Good day for a birthday.

Happy Father's Day!

Here are the pics of the odd white pedestrian butterflies.

Here's the little I know:
-Seen here in Lafayette, Louisiana at least these last 2 years in June.
-They're perched on vines, preferring one broad-leaf variety, but sometimes on another variety, or even an oak sapling.
-They're usually in clusters, lined up one behind the other facing the same direction.
-They seem immobile until you disturb them, at which point they will take a step or two out of the way.
-I've never seen the wings open, never seen one in flight.
-They're there for days at a time, but become more spread out--or perhaps some are eaten, or do fly off.
-I've had a sense that perhaps they are drugged, maybe parasitized. Sometimes their bodies look more translucent, and I'm not sure if I'm seeing their greenish internal organs, or some other living thing coiled up inside.
-Some eventually are found dead on the vine, ash gray and shrunken.
-Sometimes there are ants in the area. Occasionally white, sugary-looking matter on the stem of the vine.

What a mystery, to have wings and never fly-

This photo followed a storm in May, but you get the idea:



I feel rather cheerful tonight. Maybe it's because the flu bug I had this week is nearly gone. And the sound of frogs and crickets chirping creates a very pleasant chorus.

Early in the day, I was anxious, trying to catch up on work that had been delayed. A storm came through, and it really poured, creating small reflective lakes across the yard. Meanwhile, I came upon a web page on mindfulness. One section describes the many ways the mind gets out of hand. The message is repeated: 'remain still like a piece of wood'. I haven't focused on meditation of late; the reminder to quiet the mind seeped within me. And that someone out there had patiently created such an extensive, beautiful website devoted to the teachings of this Shantideva moved me. It had certainly brought me to center.

I still felt that inner peace later when I looked out the window. A broken, heavy pine branch--a log, really--seven or eight feet long--lay in the wet green grass. It fell during the storm. There's a big dent in the hood of the tractor.

Ha! Paradox.

There's always a wise guy.

Penny from heaven;
Clouds turn to roses.
People say good-bye, hello.

What are their names?
Thirty white white
half-inch butterflies
lined up along
only one kind
of sticky vine
like little white clams on legs
day after day in the same space
so sluggish
they rarely take
one step, or two-
do they ever open their wings?
Do they ever fly?
Their eyes are so tiny-
or are they camouflaged white?
Can they even see?
Here last spring as well,
I wondered at first are they larva?
or housing larva?
I still don't know.
If anyone reading this does, I'd love more info-
I call them spirit moths.

Clinging to my blue work gloves
that I forgot in the oak
are two hornet casings
thin as cellophane--
stripes and stingers and tiny limbs--
molted overnight

Nature Report

Fish Fall from Sky
(respected biologist reported)
between 7 and 8 AM
October 23, 1947
Marksville, Louisiana-
on Main Street,
on pedestrian cashiers and merchants,
on roofs of houses-
goggle-eye, sunfish
large-mouth black bass-
“absolutely fresh and fit
for human consumption.”

C'est Vrai
Jim Bradshaw
The Daily Advertiser
Friday 6 June 2008

A bonsai citrus tree
with its hand-sized branches
(witnessed circa 1935
by a boy
visiting a Japanese cargo ship
docked in New Orleans)
bears one full-sized orange.

I was looking for love, and so took a bowl of homemade soup and a glass bottle of Coke to a friend in the nursing home.

And I did. I did find love.

Life is so rich with irony that I choose instead to think of today's powder blue dragonfly or the little black bee, the pines stretched high in the sunlight, green needles against blue sky, branches dancing in many directions in the wind, or the great blue heron that calmly wends its way above.

dieffenbachia



We searched and searched for a specific quote he had in mind, but this one kept popping up instead:

Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for.

Tennessee Williams
Camino Real

These are crawfish holes. I took the pictures yesterday.

If they aren't already, crawfish should be the state crustacean of Louisiana.

When we were kids, there was water in the ditch, oh, maybe an inch or two. We'd tie a bit of bacon or cheese to the end of a thread, and fish for them. (Never worked in the mud structures.) It took a light hand to get a crawfish out of the water and into the bucket.

Sometimes, we'd feel a heavy unyielding tug, as though the thread were caught in the mud in the ditch. Then the thread would snap, and we'd come up with nothing. But once, I pulled very slowly. A dark, smooth-bodied creature with a big mouth clamped to the string slid from the muck. We screamed. I let go.

We later learned it was a siren.

Here is a description of sirens from wikipedia:

"The sirens are a family of aquatic salamanders. Family members have small front extremities and lack hind limbs.[citation needed] In one species, the skeleton in their forelimbs is made of only cartilage. Sirens are limited to the North American continent.[citation needed] In contrast to most other salamanders they have external gills bunched together on the neck in both larval and adult states.

"Sirens are quite distinct from other caudates, hence they form their own suborder Sirenoidea. Sometimes they are even referred as a completely distinct order (Meantes or Trachystomata). Genetic analysis confirms that sirens are not closely related to any other salamander group.[citation needed] Many of their unique characteristics seem to be partly primitive and partly derivative.

"They are not primitive as one may think, but degenerated.[citation needed] The larval gills are small and functionless at first, and only adults have fully-developed gills in form and function. Because of this, it is most likely sirens have evolved from a terrestrial ancestor that still had an aquatic larval stage. Like amphiumas (congo eels), they are probably able to cross land on moist nights through wet grass.

"Except for some patches of small teeth on their palate and on the splenial bone on the inner side of their lower jaw, their mouth has lost all dentition and has been replaced with a horny sheath that resembles a beak. Sirens feed mainly on worms, small snails, shrimps, and filamentous algae. [I think they oughtta add crawfish here.]

"If the conditions of a water source are unsuitable, a larvae will shrink its gills to mere stumps, and may not function at all. They are also able to burrow into mud of drying ponds and become entombed, covering themselves with a cocoon. In this period they breathe with small but functional lungs..."

Complicated days
can be met
in simple ways.

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you’re bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead
here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you’d be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as bird wings.

Rumi