Color, shape, patterns…part of the attraction dance between flowers and pollinators.
Colorful with geometries and patterns that dazzle us humans, imagine what flowers do to their pollinators. I totally understand how butterflies flutter away from flowers in drunken delight. Can you imagine living your life so intimately connected and totally dependent on your relationship with flowers?
Recently results from a study on these blooming wonders gave us even more to admire about them. They use an electrical field to attract bees. Not only do flowers use ultraviolet spectrum colors we cannot see, petal temperature, texture and shape to attract pollinators, they use electricity.
Come on baby….wow! You turn me on!!
Daniel Robert and a team of researchers published their study which proved that flowers emit a slight negative charge that attracts bees, which carry a positive charge. Just seconds before a bee visits a flower, there is electrical activity in the plant resulting from the nearby bee. After the bee leaves, the energy field of the flower stays altered for 100 seconds or so and this serves as a warning for the next bee that the flower has recently been visited.
I believe in the intelligence of nature. Not a ‘thinking’ intelligence that results from a logical brain, but a natural, instinctual intelligence that bypasses a need to think about anything….an inner wisdom.
The flower isn’t thinking….come on baby….check out this pollen…ooh let me make some more of that nectar and flash a deeper ultraviolet color. Feel my electricity baby!! None of that takes place. It’s just a dance between flowers and their pollinators. A beautiful, magical, mystical dance of attraction.
Wouldn’t it be nice to simply be yourself and be accepted for your beauty. To dance your soul’s dance without holding back. To love and accept others as they love and accept you without judgement.
Recent winds have caused a blizzard of live oak tree leaves that have covered the brick pavers in the courtyard. It’s no big deal really; however, with rain forecasted for the day, I wanted to remove the leaves before they got plastered and stuck to the bricks.
It felt amazing to be outside in the cool, gray morning. After a day spent traveling to Atlanta and back yesterday, I needed some quiet time in nature. The courtyard is a place of peace and quiet where birds entertain the porch-confined cats and flutter and flit all day through the little haven.
I brought out the broom and started sweeping. The leaf blower gifted to me from Asheville never started after I moved. Not by my choice…it wouldn’t crank. My brother took it apart, I pleaded with it….but nothing. It was dead. Not a spark of life in it. So I’ve been sweeping the courtyard for almost a year now. I keep meaning to find a replacement but haven’t. And I don’t mind it…if the leaves are dry.
Classical music wafted softly from the porch as the swishing of the broom put me in a sort of nature-trance. And then…a burst of life erupted from the spider plant…the one that wintered outdoors due to lack of actual ‘winter’ with all of my tropical plants. Ah…the wren.
I realized, as I swept, that it was her courtyard I was sweeping. She allows me to share it with her and the family. She fusses and bustles about and graces this sacred space with the sweetest song. Welcome to my courtyard, she sings. And so I accept her invitation and do my best to keep it tidy and beautiful for the wren mama and her babies soon to arrive.
Playing God with Genetics…. or Bend Over and Kiss It Goodbye
Today while driving back from Pensacola, where I shopped at a health food store and purchased organic and non-genetically engineered food, I heard a most disturbing story on NPR (National Public Radio). Emily Anthes, author of the new book, Frankenstein’s Cat, was being interviewed by Terry Gross. The story is truly a horror story and as I listened I thought….this cannot be happening! But it is my friends. It is indeed.
For your amusement, a tri-colored hogfish…oops…did it get released in the wild?
As I listened to stories of genetically engineered animals I thought of the Hunger Games trilogy and the freakish human and beast alterations that took readers into the possibilities of what happens when human arrogance and greed take over common sense and basic moral and ethical reason. My heart sank as I heard story after story of ways scientists are altering nature, sentient creatures, for our own selfish reasons.
Here are some of the things already done: Fish engineered to glow in the dark by adding jellyfish DNA; goats raised with human gene for breast milk; cat that glows; pigs that lose genetic information that causes humans to reject organs transplanted from pigs; cockroaches with mechanical implants (the Borg of the insect world); and the Chinese mice experiment.
In a lab in Chinese researchers are experimenting with mouse genes by randomly disabling their genetics, one gene at a time. They are doing this to identify the function of each gene and then breed populations of mice specific to that genetic deficiency so they can sell them to medical labs doing research on that particular medical issue. So far they have developed mice that are prone to tumors, mice that have OCD and obsessively bury marbles, a mouse that only makes left-hand turns and one that has male-pattern baldness.
For all humans prone to making only left-hand turns, this must bring a sigh of relief!
There was an experiment that injected pigs with human growth hormone to produce faster-growing, leaner pigs. The results were pigs that were riddled with human diseases…some of the worst diseases were arthritis, eye problems, and metabolic disorders. Ms. Anthes reports that the pigs were ‘miserable.’ I think the humans that did that to the pigs were truly miserable…miserable excuses for human beings. But that’s just my opinion.
Intentionally breeding animals with ‘problems’ isn’t a new practice in the world of animal experimentation but the Chinese researchers wanted to speed it up and so have elected to roll the proverbial dice with their mouse subjects to create little armies of mutant and highly marketable mice.
Is this a REAL, unmodified dragonfly? Look closer….Big Brother owns this one
The cockroaches are being implanted with mechanical devices which are controlled with joy-stick-like devices. The US Defense Department is funding these studies. They can already make mechanical drones as small as cockroaches but they don’t have an energy source that lasts. By combining a living being with mechanics, they will be able to send the cockroach army into caves, into your home…wherever they want to gather information.
The number one problem on our planet seems to be overpopulation. There are too many people, not enough resources to support them and the population is projected to explode in another twenty years. These resources are basic and include food, energy, clean water…shelter. It seems money going toward these freakish genetic experimentations could be better spent trying to solve the problems facing the dwindling resources on our planet. So what if scientists figure out how to make humans live fifty more years? If there are no resources to support said humans and we have genetically modified mice and cockroach drones hunting us for food, who wants to be alive for that freak-ish nightmare of a world?
What color would you like your cat to glow?
Aside from the ethical and moral questions raised…(please…tell me SOMEBODY is raising these questions)…what happens when these animals are released into the wild? When the aquarium owner tires of the colorful, glowing fish and decides to just release them in the river or the glowing cat is allowed to reproduce with monkeys bred to snakes. Oh…did I mention they are genetically modifying species by mixing genetics of species. Did you ever watch the X-Men movies or read the comics? If so, you understand the implications. It has already happened in the movies and it wasn’t pleasant.
The infestation of burmese pythons in the Everglades will seem like child’s play once the mutants are released into the wild. I hope my ashes are scattered in the ocean long before this happens….but sadly it is already happening and there are no laws to govern it. And big countries that have sketchy morals and ethics are prone to disregard laws anyway….and no….I’m not just talking about China.
This past winter I traveled from my home in coastal Alabama to Crystal River, Florida to visit manatee friends and connect with the beautiful energy of the clear springs. Along the way I passed several places I remembered from cave diving trips in years past. Such great times learning to cave dive in the crystal water of the Florida springs.
I reflect back on my first cave dive in Peacock Springs and remember writing about it being an underwater cathedral. It was like being in the bloodstream of Mother Earth. These experiences came after the first few times of cave diving. It’s not that pleasant to go back and remember the very first attempt or dives where equipment malfunctioned….like my old dry suit value getting stuck open just as I entered the Eye at Ginnie Springs and having to unhook the hose and flood my suit to empty the air that had filled it. That was unpleasant. Or the time my chest strap broke and I didn’t know it and every time I pulled forward through the cave it felt like my backplate and wings were lifting off my back (which they WERE) and it was hindering any progress I was making. Trying to communicate this underwater to my dive partner didn’t work. In frustration I called the dive. The next day when I went to put my gear together I saw what had happened. But I digress. I wanted to write about the springs and clarity.
Ginnie Springs, Florida
Cypress trees, duck weed, alligators, turtles, mullet in the open water. And strange, small creatures back in the caves. I still have mud balls gifted to me by my partner from a dive he did further back in the cave. I marvel at their perfect roundness formed by the constant, intense flow of freshwater from the underground aquifer. I suppose constant pressure can make you more beautiful or dissolve you. I’m hoping to become like the mud balls–little treasures of beauty but a bit rough around the edges.
My SUP board and I floated in Three Sisters Springs
While on the second trip to Crystal River, a few weeks ago, I floated on my SUP board in Three Sisters Springs. It was quiet and calm with only a couple other folks in the area. Such a lovely place, a sacred place. And to be able to commune with nature there, uninterrupted, was heavenly….blissful. It felt as if my soul was unwinding, healing from the clarity of the water.
Photo by Ed Jackson in Akumal cave…I forget which cave
I’ve missed cave diving a lot.–the limestone tunnels of north Florida and especially the intensely decorated caves of Akumal, Mexico. YOLO…You only live once, as ‘they’ say, so I’m headed back into the magical tunnels of clear water. Soon in north Florida and during late October in Akumal. Where else would I want to spend Halloween than in an underwater cave in Mexico?!?
Nahoch Nah Chich cave in Mexico
Until then I’ll be brushing up on my training and skills and dreaming of being submerged underground in crystal clear water. Maybe some of the clarity will ‘rub’ off on me.
“When a woman awakens to the beauty/power within her she will bloom as a flower she has always been and always will be.” Sharon McErlane wrote this quote as a message to women across our planet. Her words touch my heart and resonate with intuitive nudges I’ve been receiving.
We currently see discourses that are gridlocked. The US Congress shows us what no longer works. Trying to push and shove our way, shout our way or use anger to influence decisions is an outdated way to interact. We absolutely must find a new way–not just in our government but worldwide…beginning with ourselves.
During the past several months my journey has made me see my use of angry, aggressive out-of-balance masculine or yang energy. Wanting to heal and move forward in my life’s work, I found myself acting aggressively in my healing process. In anger I attempted to close my heart and mind with ‘pull and jerk’ moves. I actually thought I could force myself to heal by ignoring my heart, ignoring unconditional love patting me on my granite head…tapping at my heart.
A strange series of events knocked me out of my usual mode of operation and I tired of ricocheting against my self-imposed walls. I finally became conscious and saw how totally ineffective the old way was. It was the exact opposite of how I want to live.
Attempting to heal in an aggressive manner goes against the very idea of healing (shaking head, rolling eyes, laughing).
When my heart was given the space to open, I recognized the gentle yet consistent pushes I’ve been getting–focus on beauty;allow my heart to open, to flower; cultivate compassion, gentleness and softness. I couldn’t move forward with my work in the world until my inflexible, ineffective patterns were broken and released…then healed.
I believe people across our planet are awakening to yin energy. We are in dire need of it. Yin energy is receptive, strong, balanced, compassionate and is a container for love, a holding vessel.
Using balanced feminine energy doesn’t make a person weak and it isn’t manipulative like unbalanced feminine energy can be. And it’s not only about women. We all contain both masculine and feminine energy within us. We simply need to balance our fast-paced, active, aggressive lives with this softer energy. We need time to reflect and enter into a friendlier relationship with ourselves and others.
Flowers reflect the essence of feminine or yin energy in their blooming and unfolding. They are strong and have an amazing capacity to bring healing energy to any situation. Flowers make us feel better. So I’m focusing on one of nature’s expressions of the feminine to remind me to stay open, stay soft yet strong.
Balanced feminine energy holds the earth and cradles all life. This is what I wish to strengthen on the planet and within my own life.
The flower isn’t thinking….come on baby….check out this pollen…ooh let me make some more of that nectar and flash a deeper ultraviolet color. Feel my electricity baby!! None of that takes place. It’s just a dance between flowers and their pollinators. A beautiful, magical, mystical dance of attraction.
Wouldn’t it be nice to simply be yourself and be accepted for your beauty. To dance your soul’s dance without holding back. To love and accept others as they love and accept you without judgement.
