Caterpillars

 Regard Heaven as your father, Earth as your Mother and all things as your Brothers and Sisters.

Tribe Unknown

”All things in the world are two. In our minds we are two, good and evil. With our eyes we see two things, things that are fair and things that are ugly…. We have the right hand that strikes and makes for evil, and we have the left hand full of kindness, near the heart. One foot may lead us to an evil way, the other foot may lead us to a good. So are all things two, all two.” 

Eagle Chief (Letakos-Lesa) Pawnee

In the space of two weeks I've watched the gypsy moth caterpillars devour the green from the giant oaks, the cheer from the birch trees, the rich colour from the purple beech and the shimmer from the quaking aspen. I put up barricades of tape and burlap, only to find hours later hoards more are clambering over those unfortunates who got trapped on the way and the tree base is teaming with creatures that have one thing on their mind; to satisfy their hunger. This single minded purpose makes it hard to think of them as my brothers and sisters.

And yet, perhaps they are a mirror to many things ... greed is their nature. They consume til they cocoon, a moth emerges, eggs are laid and generations continue blindly following the pattern until - Yikes - a Virus attacks and they are vanquished for a period of years until the virus itself runs out of easy food and its numbers fade (they still lurk about though) and the gypsy moths rise again.

If this were told from the tree's perspective; it would read similar to the biblical seven years of feast before the famine story. They have several years to gain reserves of energy to withstand the next surge of these glutinous predators. Although, of course, trees have many other predators to protect against which makes their story infinitely more complicated.

If we told this story from the perspective of the undergrowth in the forest; they could be grateful to the caterpillars for allowing them some sunlight to grow and maybe establish themselves to be a next generation of trees and food for caterpillars. (and yes the "invasive species" also would have light to grow, good/evil coexist everywhere.)

 

With all our brain power, intellect and imagination humans could potentially rise above this instinct. Signs of this are hard to detect in the news, but individuals and small communities are proving it possible to care for and support each other. 

I wonder if this is the virus that will allow enough sunshine through for these sapling groups to gain stature and withstand the caterpillars... 

Or will we need to wait until the next one??

Good and evil exist everywhere in everything. Judgement is dependent on perspective and is only possible when we turn a blind eye to what is in ourselves. Knowing this does not make staying out of judgement easy...it is hard not to judge people harshly where we see cruelty, unconscious waste and people denying other's rights in favour their own.  But everyone has an inner world and can justify their reasons for what they do ...  as I do when in my efforts to save the little trees on the lawn I pick off gypsy moth caterpillars and drown them in soapy water...

Perhaps that is the ultimate question; where does good end and evil begin?

Cheers

Jeanne

Fear - the Trap

 "To avoid a fear emboldens it" 

Sue Monk Kidd, The Book of Longings

”Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.”

Rudyard Kipling

“It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.”

Virginia Woolf, The Death of the Moth and Other Essays

A journey of fear. 

Fear can immerse us so deeply that we cannot see anything beyond. The only way to escape fear is to go towards it and hold it up to the sun. Ignoring it, hiding it, fighting it, all serve to make fear stronger and give it more power. 

The story we make about ourselves as a victim serves to mask our common humanity. The more we hurt, the more we fear hurt, the more we blame, shame and hurt others in futile attempts to show our strength. Paradoxically our strength comes from humility, acceptance and respecting all things. 

Cheers

Jeanne

Dragons are Princesses

 “.....what we believe becomes what we do. “

Steven Charleston, Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder’s Meditations on Hope and Courage (Broadleaf: 2021), 60–61, 67.

"Thank you Davis for sending me this quote. In the context of everything that is happening right now I wonder how many of us know what we believe to the extent that we are aware of what we do??? By this I mean that until we have a set of values that we believe strongly enough to bring our every action up to the light and judge it on our beliefs then we are hiding from ourselves and perpetuating our own myth of being "good" whatever that might look like. Over generations we "north american middle class" have slipped into a complacency of entitlement that is only possible to reconcile our beliefs to if we don't shine a light below the surface. In all our doing good works for charities, donating money, being tolerant, even feeling empathy we do not look inside ourselves to see our culpability in the injustices happening everywhere. 

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. 

Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

Whew, imagine?? 

All the fire breathing dragons we fear just want to be loved. 

All the prickly shelled people and all the arrogance and cruelty of humankind caused by longing to be loved, and when that longing is combined with a deep fear of not being worthy we assume unloveable traits so no one will see we are vulnerable to heartbreak.

Most everyone wants love, only most everyone doesn't accept that to get real love they need to give real love and open themselves to heartache. There are no guarantees, only rewards beyond one's imagination. 

“Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.”
Barbara De Angelis

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone."
Audrey Hepburn

Cheers
Jeanne

“The historical irony is that European Christians coming to the Americas were escaping highly stratified and intolerant societies; in North America they encountered societies that were open and tolerant; but in response, these European immigrants simply duplicated the oppression they had known by practicing it on the Native People.”
Steven Charleston, Coming Full Circle: Constructing Native Christian Theology

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky

Cheers

Jeanne