Walking Sticks and Praying Mantises
Roly-Poly Bugs and House Flies
June Bugs and delicate, lacy Dragonflies
Butterflies and Lovebugs
Lightning Bugs and Stink Bugs
Wasps and Bees
Ants and Worms and Tree Roaches and Spiders
Cicadas and Katydids
Crickets and Grasshoppers
Moths and Ladybugs
Water Striders and Caterpillars

These were some of the bugs of my early childhood here in Louisiana. Mosquitoes and Fire Ants didn't show up until I was older. My first memories of insects are lovebugs floating in cohesive pairs in the summery daylight, some landing on the sheets the lady down the street was hanging on the line to dry. I built a castle of stray bricks, and peopled it with about one hundred roly-poly bugs that escaped almost as fast as I deposited them. We chased the lightning bugs on summer evenings, and caught the Dragonflies known as Mosquito Hawks in our bare hands to study their iridescent colors. We fell asleep, the bedroom windows open, to the music of crickets and katydids.

When the subject of trees arises, there are details such as height, leaf shape, hardness of wood, type of bark, trunk diameter. This gives us what we need to identify tree species.

What I've been thinking about of late are other amazing facets of trees. What else lives in this tree? What kind of lichens, mushrooms, and curious growths? Do insects - ants, beetles, fireflies - reside beneath the bark? Do wasps create galls that house their young? What kinds of birds like to nest here? Do they make nests from leaves or needles or bark of this tree? Are there dead or dying limbs on this tree? Has a raccoon or woodpecker carved a home in the dying wood? Is there a bee hive dripping with honey filling such a hollow? Is there a swing hanging from a branch? Is there a tree house resting on the lower limbs with children holding their secret meetings? Are there vines clutching the trunk and limbs of this tree, that kids can swing on and that squirrels scurry upon? How far deep and how far around do the roots stretch? Do they go as deep in the ground as the height of the tree? Do field mice have little burrows near the roots? What lives and grows beneath the leaves that fall off the tree? What happens as the leaves moulder and crumble into the earth? What a community thrives around and within an old tree!

What happens to the tree community when a dying tree remains in place for many years? How does this compare to when trees or dying limbs are promptly taken away? Does a young new tree provide the same environment as an ancient crumbling tree?

And is there such a thing as tree spirits, like those that appear in many ancient stories? Do trees commune in some way with the life around them?

"Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist."

The writer August Strindberg was referring to Carl Linnaeus, the 18th century Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist. Though Linnaeus is best known today for his practical system of categorizing plants and animals, he was a prolific researcher, explorer, and teacher. He catalogued thousands of plants, and though I haven't heard him described as an artist, images of his work suggest he was not only competent at sketching, but that he was creative and took pleasure in drawing.

This is a link to a page from his book Praeludia Sponsaliorum Plantarum ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linn%C3%A9-Praeludia_Sponsaliorum_Plantarum.jpg ). How I'd like to see one of his original works, to turn the pages, feel the paper, see what he saw!

Triangles get a bad rap. When people talk about relationships with a third wheel, they talk about jealousies, and possible infidelities, and two at a time leaving the third member out in the cold. The dark side of triangles.

But triangles may occur naturally, and sometimes in quite healthy ways. One-on-one relationships can be kind of intense and heavy, or boring at times, and all sorts of stuff from one's history can be acted out, unfairly, toward one's partner. When there are three people, the one outside of the heavy situation may shed light, or may give the person who is stressed a breather by taking the other guy or gal to a ball game for the afternoon.

In triangle X-Y-Z, you - Person X - can struggle with or tear your hair out over person Z. Dear person Y shows up and sighs with you until you regain your fascination with the flaws in person Z that made you tear out your hair and love him or her in the first place.

Am I making any sense?

I'm not discussing sexuality here. All I know is that person Z in a friendship can offer fresh air, a sense of space for awhile while he plays board games or talks politics with person Y. Perhaps X and Y are married, and their friend or relative Z hangs out with them a lot. When X and Y are bored by the end of the weekend, Z shows up, having been lonesome all weekend, and everything is alive again with the welcome arrival of a dear third person. This kind of healthy triangle is a heart-expanding gift, and can nurture relationships through hard times to the benefit of all three.

There were four gold-plated bells shaped like small, upside-down bowls attached to a single handle. When the altar boy shook them, all four rang at once with a sound that was both melodious and sharp - creating a great pause.

Everyone paid attention. When I was a girl, as now, I experienced a frisson at the sound. Tonight on the internet, I found them under 'sanctus bells' or 'altar bells'. We called them 'sacristy bells', and they had a way of clearing a space, opening the door to the consecration of bread and wine, the mystery part of Holy Mass.

A real south Louisiana spring day, the temperature mild under cloud-laden skies, the breeze pouring in from over the gulf, fresh and salty, a neighborhood schoolyard flowing with green clover in bloom, the scent borne over the playground fence.

Listened to a warbler's song, loud and lusty, and heard, for the first time in several years, the call of a mourning dove.

The famous two-note 'rusty gate' call of a blue jay floated down from the right side of the street, in a steady cadence, and then, from the left side, the same song, the timing of its seesaw beat more rapid than the call from the right. It was as though one bird was on a slower train than the other, each singing to the tempo of the wheels against the tracks.

The first sound we hear is the beat of our mother's heart.



(Here's a link to a visual representation of the beat of time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flashingsecond.gif )