HERON DILEMMAS

A great blue heron on the road

 Alarm

 Take off

A croak in protest and flight

 

A ferocious dilemma in the beauty of humans, wildlife refuges and birds...

BACKYARD WILDERNESS/ SELVA DE FUNDO DE QUINTAL

Snakes

Skinks with blue tails

Golden-headed flies

Deer

Racoons

Spiders and butterflies,

of course…

 

A juvenile, I think...

A blue-tailed five-lined one, also answering to Plestiodon fasciatus

A young buck by the iris, daily visitor, until hunted.

Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) in reproductive mode, and a fly.

A May study in form, Gold-headed snipe fly (Chrysopilus thoracicus)

Mischievous racoon, tipping garbage cans, eating bird food and feeders, finally caught on tape...by the living room window.

A Jumping Spider meets an Eastern-tailed Blue butterfly, on a Cup plant. Measuring about an inch, both have excellent, and highly specialized vision! (A Salticidae meets a Cupido comyntas on Silphium perfoliatum)

WORK IN PROGRESS

TRABALHANDO NA TRADUÇÃO DO PORTUGUES 

Cobras, lagartas de rabo azul, moscas de cabeça dourada, libelulas, abelhas, guaxinims, aranhas e borboletas…

Fabulous tiny skipper butterfly, on poisonous (to humans), ivy. (Poanes zabulon on Rhus radicans). Found in Maryland, and also in the Mata Atlantica,, in South America, in Brasil. TUNE IN.

A THOUSAND AND ONE STORIES

As mil e uma estórias das sementes da romã e da viagem de Perséfone para dentro dos territórios da Morte (e do inferno de Hades), da Mãe territorial, do Pai no Julgamento e das Leis.

E da menina que puxa, já fazia tempo só o que queria era correr pelo terreiro, achar a romã madura, com as unhas abrir a casca devagar, pedacinho só pra tirar um gomo, mais fininho e delicado que mexerica ou laranja, veludo do vinho do Tio, transparente de ácrido lúcido. E de chupar não sete nem mil sementes mas cada gomo inteiro. Devagar. Sem contar. Escorrendo o suco gostoso pelos lados da boca. Cuspindo o bagaço amargo e os carocinhos no chão do quintal para as galinhas. Morrer nisso. Era tudo que a menina queria.

Talvez a menina soubesse mais que Zeus, mais que Demetria, mais que Hades, mais que Wall Street, mais que todos e mais que ninguém. Talvez. De incipiente mulher, na mudez que veio depois.

Talvez a menina soubesse de coisas que já tinham sido explicadas… na criação. E ficou sem voz.

The thousand and one stories of pomegranate seeds, Persephone’s journey into Death Territories (Hades’ Hell), of the territorial Mother, of Father in Judgment and of the Law.

And of the girl who, well, all she wanted was to run through the backyard and pick a ripe pomegranate, rip the skin slowly with her fingernails, just enough to carefully take a segment, more delicate than an orange, finer than a tangerine, each seed inside, velvet red as Uncle’s wine, transparent acrid and lucid.  And to suck, not seven, not a thousand but each entire. Slowly. Without counting. Good juice dripping down the sides of her mouth. Spitting the bitter fiber and the hard seeds in the yard for the chickens. To die, doing this. It was all the girl wanted.

The girl apparently wanted things that had already been explained… in creation. And she lost her voice.

Maybe the girl knew more than Zeus, more than Demeter, more than Hades, more than Wall Street, more than all and no one. Maybe.  Incipient woman, in the dumbness that came later.

http://bodydivineyoga.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/rewilding-the-yoga-body/

The beasts of my travels

Real beasts of Swaziland
Back in the nineties and for almost two years, the Mkhaya Nature Preserve, near Mbabane, capital of the Kingdom of Swaziland was my favorite weekend destination. I kept the postcard as a reminder of the Park's great beauty. It is a small preserve founded and run by the Reilly family and by Swazis and it has helped to save white and black rhinos from extinction.  The young boy, I believe, is Ted Reilly. The caption reads  "Forgot the gun".  In reality white rhinos are quite peaceful, not to say the same for black rhinos.

Imaginary beasts at the Passarada farm

Wild cat or ant eater? Passarada farm, Piracaia, Sao Paulo, Brazil, January 1st, 2010

Eve and the Beasts in Paradise
Mark Twain in Eve's Diaries, illustrations by Lester Ralph, free and printable book, part of the Project Gutenberg.

Eve muses: "I couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold; but I found some tigers and nestled in among them and was most adorably comfortable, and their breath was sweet and pleasant, because they live on strawberries. I had never seen a tiger before, but I knew them in a minute by the stripes. If I could have one of those skins, it would make a lovely gown."