Tag Archive | metamorphosis

The Simple Art of Being

Jun24

Things I’ve been grateful for recently include discovering that the ‘new’ lens for the husband camera has been the wrong lens all along. It’s just never provided the same quality closeups (or any distance, really) that the original husband camera did with his original equivalent lens. (Imagine sufficient technical jargon here to explain why it was not the right tool for the job and move on.)

After shooting these images the other day, inspired and excited to bring my husband out to play for the first time in a long time, I ended the day feeling the same disillusionment that I have every time I’ve used this lens since I bought it. There was a cascade of reasons I didn’t investigate this sooner, among them the possibility that it was just me, unable to hold the camera quite as steady as I used to.

So I’m grateful to learn that it wasn’t me! And I’m grateful that I can return the whole setup. While this results in a financial hit, at least I’m able to trade in the lens, the camera body, and the other lens I bought six years ago and get back about 25% of what they cost me.

I may or may not get another camera. Except for photographing my favorite things, bugs and birds, the iPhone camera does well enough for what I foresee needing going into this next phase of my life. I’m no longer showing or selling large prints, I’m simply sharing online or creating small-scale projects like books or slideshows that don’t require the fancy components of a husband camera.

I’m grateful that I’m finally feeling motivated to simplify and downsize in a profound way; enough that I can contemplate relinquishing this pleasure and many more elements of this full and busy life. It’s time to release my grasp on things, conditions, relationships, drives, commitments, etc., that have added so much to my life but have become overwhelming.

Buddhism is often distilled into one simple phrase. The exact phrase varies from teacher to elder to practitioner, of course, but the gist is this: “From beginning to end, the path of dharma is about letting go.”

I don’t know if there is such a thing as the simple art of being, but I might be close to discovering it. It’s been a restful couple of weeks spent turning inward, spinning a cocoon, resting into my life as it is moment by moment, making deep inward contact with myself.

I’m grateful to those of you who read this blog regularly and encourage me to continue posting with your supportive comments. I’m grateful for the connections I’ve made and those I’ve deepened through this platform. I’m not walking away from Morning Rounds, but for now I won’t be posting as regularly as I have over the past five years.

Caterpillar of an owlet moth species photographed in the garden some years ago.

I attended an online retreat last weekend in which a dharma talk included a description of the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. It’s a great metaphor for many aspects of the Buddhist path, from faith and resilience and patience to impermanence and transformation.

The monarch butterfly by Joel Sartore, creator of the Photo Ark.

What resonated the most with me in that talk was the idea of imaginal cells. Once any caterpillar spins its chrysalis, it dissolves itself into goo inside the cocoon. It unmakes the caterpillar it was and with the provocation of imaginal cells it creates the butterfly it was destined to become. Right now, I’m the goo. It could be awhile before I know what I’m turning into, but for now I’m content and grateful to rest inside myself and let the imaginal cells determine the course of my transformation. Let me remember to be grateful every living moment of every day.

Good Neighbors

Aug18
I’m grateful the little bonsai rose is recovering from its grasshopper defoliation.
One day the froglets will grow big enough to eat this grasshopper, but for now there’s a curious equanimity in their encounter. May I bring the same attitude to neighbors who are so different from me.

The froglets are very good neighbors even though their neighborhood is getting crowded. I have to walk ever so carefully, even ten feet from the pond on the flagstone, to be sure I don’t step on one. They’re literally underfoot! They are tiny, and fragile, and not 100% coordinated yet, so their jumps can be feeble and a little wonky; and also, they don’t really understand about giant feet yet, that they need to get out of the way of shadows.

I keep intending to set some coins out around the edge of the pond for scale to show exactly how tiny they are. But for now I’ll just use a cat: the frog above is the same frog as the one below, on the pond edge, just to the left of the furry hip of Topaz.

You can see several stages of metamorphosis in this image, if you look closely at each tadpole and froglet.
(the next morning)

The best cheese sandwich of the weekend was warmed Brie, sliced homegrown cabbage and red onion, mayonnaise, and organic grape jelly on of course homemade sourdough.

It was a lovely weekend, with ample outside time and the barest hint of pre-fall in the air, a slight cessation of the brutal heat and a minute rise in humidity. Wildfires in this part of the state (the nation, the continent) are rapidly getting contained with a little help from the weather and a lot of effort by brave men and women who are good neighbors to all of us. Whether they left homes nearby me to fight these fires or left homes in another state, right now they are my neighbors. The littles and I enjoyed another stunning sunset with our good neighbors to the west, who came to say hello over the fence and lingered for awhile in companionable silence before going home for dinner.

Speaking of neighbors, many people aren’t aware of the shooting at the CDC a week ago last Friday; it wasn’t a mass casualty event so it didn’t generate sensational television coverage. “Only” one person was killed, a police officer. But it was a mass trauma event, for hundreds of CDC staff and their families, and thousands of people who work in public health. Our neighbors. A foremost epidemiologist, Katelynn Jetelina, discussed the attack and its ramifications for public health workers, the regime’s non-response, and how average Americans can demonstrate support for healthcare workers in this essential, and increasingly stressful and traumatizing, field of public service. It’s forty minutes of lucid and moving discussion. Many of my neighbors work in healthcare, a lot of them in our rural hospital system which is on the chopping block with upcoming cuts to Medicaid. Are any of your neighbors healthcare professionals? How can you show them some appreciation?

Speaking of good neighbors, I was grateful this morning to be invited onto a press call about the destruction of the Social Security Administration. My contribution followed former SSA chair Martin O’Malley’s chilling assessment of the regime’s efforts to demolish social security. You can watch the press conference here if you’d like to hear just how badly the regime has already damaged “the only agency in America that runs a 2.6 trillion dollar surplus,” and also hear a couple of regular folks talk about what social security means for them and their neighbors.

Can’t we all be good neighbors to each other? Planet Earth is our only neighborhood, for all of us, human and non-human alike.

This evening, I only counted a dozen tadpoles left in the water. I know there are more I didn’t see, but I saw just as many froglets in one square foot at the edge of the pond. I’m not fond of the algae, but the froglets are, so I’m not about to scoop it out. It’s an essential part of their neighborhood, which is all they have and all they know.

More Froglets!

Aug11

I’m grateful that there were plenty of windows of opportunity to visit the pond over the weekend. A massive wildfire northwest of here about eighty crow miles covers much of the state in smoke depending on which way the wind blows. When it blows from the south these days, we have good air; when it blows from the north, as it’s been doing the past several nights, the air quality shoots up over 110 and many of us have to stay inside. I’m grateful it’s not worse: friends from Chicago to Syracuse have been experiencing the worst air in the world on occasion over the past couple of weeks, due to even more massive wildfires in Canada. So when I get a window of clean air I make the most of it, and visit the pond.

Despite jaw and tooth pain as my mouth settles around new crowns and attendant complications, I’ve “gotta eat sometimes,” as the dentist kindly reminded me. So I’ve enjoyed eating homemade brown sugar-cinnamon poptarts for breakfast the past few days. Amy recommended the recipe and since that was always my favorite flavor poptart growing up I had to try it. Pretty good for a first effort, and not that hard to make. Not perfect, either, so I’ll have to make them again.

After breakfast, or sometimes before, I visit the pond, where fewer and fewer tadpoles swim and more and more froglets crowd the edges. They’re in the rushes, on the lily pads, among the flagstones, under the flagstones, out in the grasses. This evening I took a quick look and had to step very carefully to avoid stepping on some: little froglets everywhere! They’re so tiny they get a little tangled in the grass stems when they startle and try to hop to the pond for safety. Wren could catch and eat them easier than she does the grasshoppers, but she’s been very responsive to my admonishments to leave it.

Above, four froglets cluster at the edge, and a nearly-turned tadpole rests in the warm shallow just above the tiny snail on the brick. In the detail below you can see a fifth froglet’s leg peeking out below the brick, underwater.

At the slow north end, where algae has collected, I couldn’t count the gathered froglets, and kept getting closer, and closer.

I hadn’t thought about what the soles of a froglet’s feet look like and it kind of surprised me to see the little bumps. I think these are the toes beginning to develop, but that’s just an educated guess. After seeing how far they’ve ventured from the pond already and how fragile and vulnerable they are, I may need to use my next window to lay out some branches and build a few rock piles; I certainly won’t be mowing again this year.

After a weekend of adventures and work and smoke and play, Wren and I both rest.

Each Day is a Gift

Aug3

The pond just keeps on giving. More froglets in all stages, some with tails climbing onto the rushes, tadpoles with arms bulging beneath their skin, and some fully transformed. The rushes seethe with them fleeing when we get down there and the water bubbles beneath as they disappear into it. It happens so fast, they’re so tiny, I’m trying to film it but they dive before I can even steady the camera.

The good news is that by now there are so many that even when the masses dive away I can still sneak up on a few. Some look pretty thin and vulnerable to me, others look fat and sassy.

And whose eggs are these strung along the curly rush behind the froglet?

There’s always at least one big mama keeping watch.

The hummingbird feeders are busy, too; there’s not enough time in the day! Come evening, I walked the little pets up the drive a little way, and was startled when I turned around to see this:

The Leroux Fire is less then twenty crow miles northwest on BLM land. With winds it grew from one acre this afternoon to a hundred by dark. Thunderstorms Friday did bring some rain, but also lightning, and this fire may have been smoldering for two days before erupting. Another close call on this mesa with a strike at a neighbor’s, but the Crawford volunteer fire department put out the burning tree before it could spread. We are all so grateful for their commitment, bravery, and skill.

Froglets!

Aug1
I didn’t see the one hiding behind until I zoomed into the picture.

Now that I know where and how to look for them they’re all over the pond, in various colors with tails of various lengths. I saw one kick through the water like a grownup without any tail, too fast to catch on camera. This little one hung out under the rush flower for a long time—see the nubbin of tail? The rest of it already metabolized. And then the shot of the day, below.

Legs!

Jul21

Let’s get the food shot out of the way first, because simple and delicious though this lunch was, it wasn’t the highlight of the day. Pretty much the same thing as the past two days, except with havarti instead of cheddar, no egg, and some chopped tomato and apricot included with the onion greens pesto, mayo, and bean mashup. I’m grateful I’ve learned that good food doesn’t have to be complicated, fancy, or difficult.

And in fire news, it was mostly cloudy with some drizzles today which must have helped the firefighters across the western slope a lot, and certainly made for a more comfortable day for those of us with challenging lungs.

But for today’s big JOY: I was beside myself this afternoon to discover that some of the tadpoles have actual legs! At last!

I needed a second opinion, so I asked Topaz to investigate since she could get closer to the water than I could. She confirmed my assessment, and suggested I bring down the husband camera.

There are two legged-ones who show up in this video, one near the beginning and one at the end. I might have missed another one or two…

Husband camera confirmed, and I was especially delighted to catch this one with just the bare beginnings of legs. Most of those I observed tonight, maybe three percent of all the tadpoles, had slightly better developed legs than this one.

As though mama is keeping tabs… As far as I know, each of these images is of a different tadpole. I’m grateful for the gift of being able to observe the miracle of metamorphosis in real time in my own backyard.