Wild Boars, Butterflies, & Seasonal Indicators

I read today that,

“Schoolkids in Marudi could recall that their uncles would hunt boar after the appearance of a particular butterfly, but they could not recall which butterfly it was or when it appeared.”

Such disconnected earth - human relations are par for the course in our modern age, but we want to change that and we know we aren’t alone in this bid for more intimate earth connection.

Just as cutleaf toothwort, spring beauty and spicebush are showing their flowers after the dormancy of winter, nettle is popping its head up and morel season will come on in a few weeks. Daffodils are sending up their lovely yellow flowers while toads and frogs lay and fertilize their eggs in waters everywhere.

(Cutleaf Toothwort: image source)

Spring is in the air and it is a nuanced thing.

We have learned this within our fourth year, imagine the informative wealth of millenniums wherein a specific mushroom shows its head or a particular beloved plant appears related to this or that event.

I’ve seen a few Zebra Swallowtails out lately which feed on Paw Paws, for example. These are the things we must keep alive, resurrect if they are dead and remember if they are lost.

(Zebra Swallowtail: image source)

We love in increasingly disenchanted times as species diversity and ecosystem devastation happens at an unparalleled rate- it is, sadly, par for the course for our generation.

As the author mentioned above says,

“‘Nostalgia’ is the word we use to describe the bittersweet evocation of precious feelings that lie just beyond reach in the past. Often the emotion arises during rites of passage or out of the intricate matrix of personal history, memory and place, but what word or phrase adequately describes the feelings evoked by repeatedly observing the disappearance of an entire landscape, a people, a language, a way of life? It is akin to forever showing up for the last scenes of a tragedy in which one can glimpse, but never fully experience, the past glory of the protagonist.”

From The Ragged Edge of the World by Eugene Linden

As a human who has grown up with this existential threat over my head my entire life, I am not willing to see the degradation of our earth reach its peak climax. Though consumption and capitalism may try to overwhelm the earth in their crazy infectious nature on human behavior, I wager that earth connection is more a intimately satisfying and sustainable option in the long run.

I vote for knowing our seasonal identifiers' name, species and interconnections for a better way forward.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://www.ozarkmountainjewel.com/2019/04/03/wild-boars-butteflies-seasonal-indicators/

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