I think I may have mentioned this feeling yesterday, but once Tropical Storm Isaias moved through our area, the transformation was stunning. Everything felt different; as if we were being given a fresh start. The air, the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the creeks, the gardens – everything was transformed.
Of course, a symbol of transformation is the butterfly. By virtue of its creature story, it embodies the essence of transformation. Starting life out as a caterpillar, it eventually wraps itself in a cocoon, completely dissolves itself into an amorphous goo, and then reconstitutes itself into an entirely new and different creature. One with wings, in fact.
Judging from what I discovered yesterday post-Isaias and witnessed today playing out in our yard, our garden, and in the fields as we walked, it almost seems as if the tropical storm was a catalyst of change. It was almost as if the arrival and fury of that storm initiated any number of cocoons to break open and release those new Beings into the world.
Moth Goddess – Photo: L. Weikel
Butterfly and Moth
The two pictures accompanying this post are of beauties crossing my path – literally – within hours of the storm moving through our area. It was as if the butterflies were breathing a sigh of relief over their release, their rebirth, and they just had to prove to themselves that they could actually do it. They could fly!
Both the Swallowtail and the delicately adorned, pale, butter-colored moth tested their wings, slowly opening and closing them, almost as if they couldn’t quite believe how it felt to both have them and have mastery over them. What purpose they were to serve was an even greater mystery, but somehow they knew it would be something so special that their perceptions of everything would be changed forever.
And they were right.
What if we’re on the brink of having our cocoons broken open as well? Will we learn to fly, too?
I have so many thoughts and feeling coursing through me.
On the one hand, I feel tremendous despair over the state of our country at the moment – actually, the state of our world at the moment. The fear. The hatred of the ‘other.’ I despair that so many feel such profound helplessness – and the rage over feeling helpless – in a country of purported opportunity. I am sickened by the blame being deliberately stoked by those who hold the greatest power – and privilege.
On the other hand, I sense a sea change. I know, I know: it’s been thought before, especially when innocents, little kids, were slaughtered at Sandy Hook. Or when high schoolers were mowed down in Parkland and their surviving classmates passionately and eloquently demanded change.
Something Feels Different This Time
But this time, perhaps because the racism in the White House, as it’s being leveled against duly elected Congressional Representatives and so blatantly being trumpeted against entire American cities and their inhabitants, is so obvious that the hearts of so many of us are saying, “Enough.”
I don’t know what feels different this time, but something does.
Needed to be shed (Cicada shell covered in mud) – Photo: L. Weikel
The insanity has reached a tipping point. The old ways simply must be shed.
Good people – who I truly believe are the vast majority of our country – are waking up to the horror and banding together. We are beginning to realize that it really does start with each and every one of us taking stock of our truth, taking stock of our lives and saying, “If I don’t call it out, who will?”
If I Don’t Call It Out, Who Will?
All viewpoints do not demand nor deserve equal time. All arguments do not demand nor deserve to be accorded respect. Vapid talking points need to be treated as such. Idiotic assertions need to be dismissed for their utter lack of merit. Immoral, hateful rhetoric needs to be deemed utterly unacceptable. Cruelty needs to be shut down.
And we don’t need to use cruelty to fight cruelty, either. But we do need to stand firm. We need to stop attempting to persuade when there is an utter lack of shared facts, when there is a refusal to acknowledge even the most basic tenets of a shared reality.
We can be kind; but we must say no. And we must disarm the desperate.
Closed in fear? – Photo: L. Weikel
We Know the Facts
There is incontrovertible evidence that weapons of war – automatic and semi-automatic guns with high capacity magazines – mow people down. The only use these weapons have is hunting humans.
We must stop pandering to those who would argue that the sun revolves around the Earth – and would cite a conspiracy theory to make their case that it is so. For they are shameless. They will argue anything to confuse, to obfuscate, to claim victimhood. They are the same people who argue that “guns do not kill” (as if anyone is saying that guns shoot themselves) in order to thwart any meaningful regulation. It’s specious and astoundingly tone deaf, and blind, and disrespectful to all those who’ve suffered loss as a result of these insane attacks.
Gradually opening up – Photo: L. Weikel
We Must Take Our Cue From the Caterpillars
It’s time for us to take our cue from the caterpillars. We need to utterly and completely transform. We must go within, engage in collective self-reflection, and transform. We need to realize our systemic racism, the lies we’ve been telling ourselves as a society since our nation was first formed.
And we need to have the courage to just face it. We must acknowledge the depth of our shame in treating other human beings as ‘less than.’ And that starts with admitting the systemic obliteration of the people who lived on this land for thousands of years before Europeans even arrived or Africans were forced to relocate to these shores.
NO ONE wants to be exploited. NO ONE wants to be judged by superficial standards (the color of our eyes, the shade of our skin, the accent of our first language). NO ONE (except for perhaps the most damaged among us) wants to succeed simply to screw someone else over.
We must drop the fear. We must drop the rage. We absolutely must LEARN TO LISTEN to the feelings of others – and cultivate compassion and empathy for ourselves and each other.
We can do this. The vast majority of us already know this is possible in our hearts.
It feels like it’s been forever since Karl and I had a chance to take one of our walks. But we managed to take one this evening. In fact, we went around twice, just for good measure. Along the way, we picked up some cool treasures from our walk.
The first discovery was this greatly intact butterfly. When I discover butterflies that are fully intact, I assume (rightly or wrongly), that it’s been hit by a car. Too many times, I’ve been driving along and suddenly see a butterfly, flying in a characteristically loop-the-loop flight pattern, waft out into the path of my car. Often it’s too late or too difficult to avoid hitting it; and all I can do it hope that the air current passing over my car will buffer the delicate one from slamming into my windshield.
Sometimes we get lucky; sometimes we don’t.
I’m afraid that’s probably what happened to this lovely one, which I found on the side of the gravel road near High Rocks. It’s too intact. It obviously wasn’t killed by anything that tried to eat it.
A Surprise Peeking Out of the Mud
Later in our walk, I noticed the Township road crew had recently dredged out along the side of the road. With a combination of scraping and scooping, they cleaned up the piles of mud and debris that have accrued as a result of the flash flood-inducing rains. The sides of the road have been getting pretty full lately, to be honest.
Something bright and pretty caught my eye, flashing a smile at me from the muck left behind. What a pretty mushroom! I was struck by how bright a color it is, and even more so when I got up close and saw the bright yellow outline around its cap.
I’m trusting one of you will fill me in on precisely what kind of a mushroom this is.
Photo: L. Weikel
Frog But No Photo
I also found a dead frog, but alas, I did not take its photo. Truth be told, Sheila found the half-dessicated frog while taking a pit stop to add her scent to the neighbor’s flower bed. I saw her suddenly shaking her head in the characteristic fashion she employs when she’s trying really hard to swallow whole some disgusting tidbit before having to “drop it!” when we realize what she’s doing.
I declined to photograph the frog. It was not particularly flattering. But that makes me think of another frog I photographed along that same route quite some time ago. I’ll see if I can find it and will post it here, too.
Woman-Frog – Photo: L. Weikel
Success!
Tell me you don’t see the woman with upraised arms?!?
Treasures from our walks. We’re so incredibly lucky to live here.
Who’d have thought such a thing could be possible?
I’ll admit, it’s not something I’ve thought much about. However, a couple experiences I’ve had over the past two days have proved to me that it is indeed possible to discover – often unexpectedly – that as grateful as you may be with the many delights in your life, a change in perspective can lead to the experience of even more joy.
As you know if you’ve been reading my latest posts, I’ve become smitten with my Fish Crows. I’ve been trying to get closer to them (to take a couple photos) as the parents mentor their fledges, mostly in the branches of our maple tree and sometimes in the middle of our crushed stone driveway, where they teach them how to crack open peanuts. In spite of the fact that I’m the one that keeps the peanut coil filled, they still get spooked when I try to edge closer. This was the best I could get today:
Fish Crow snagging peanuts – Photo: L. Weikel
Magic!
I happened to be out and about this morning and got the urge to pay a visit to the hostel where I’ve held many Listening Retreats, as well as the retreats for the entire two year Merkabah Medicine Program. There are a lot of wonderful memories associated with that place and the Spirits of that Land.
Just being at this energetically rich place, I encountered magic. Butterflies of many colors languidly feasting on the nectar of a massive butterfly bush. Six, seven, eight hummingbird moths hovering over the Monarda and drinking deeply from its many blossoms.
Hummingbird moth – Photo: L. Weikel
I had to wonder if some of the creatures were gathering so abundantly precisely because there’s far fewer humans hanging around on a regular basis. They feel safer now to drink from the blossoms slowly and deeply.
This brief visit helped me appreciate the current situation involving that land with a shifted attitude.
Photo: L. Weikel
An even greater example of ‘appreciation rut’ and how it impacts my life was brought home when Karl let me know he was going to be home much later than he expected last night.
In a dual bid to both outrun the impending rise in temperatures that’s going to visit our area starting tomorrow, as well as just give Karl a pleasant surprise after a long week, I decided to mow all the lawn while he was away. Normally, he does ‘the back’ (behind our small barn) and I do the ‘front’ – which is what you often see in the photos I share, especially of our birds.
A Land of Faerie
Well, I always seem to forget the utter faerie-like quality of nature’s expression back behind our barn. There are so many places for all sorts of animals and other creatures to flitter, roam, play, nest, and nestle. It is an exquisite oasis of sacred nature: An Lar Naofa, as our dear friends from Sli an Crois, Karen Ward and John Cantwell, dubbed our land.
As I looked up from my path and eased up my intensity (born from a desire to complete the task before Karl returned, weary, from a road trip), I saw our property from almost the exact opposite perspective, literally, from what I see when I sit on our porch. At that moment, I peered through willow leaves and brilliant purple wildflowers to see our barn basking in the deep golden orange of the setting sun.
It was in that moment that I realized that, as much as I love, appreciate, and celebrate the abundance of beauty that I enjoy from the perspective of my porch – an entirely different flavor of natural beauty had been patiently awaiting my awareness and celebration.
