Hunger and Patience
You can see I am getting a lot of use and enjoyment from my new camera's macro focus.
The Butterfly Bump and Grind was successful and the next generation of Monarchs that soar through my garden are munching away on a Calotropis procera. These Milkweeds have the most bizarre seed pods.
Divided into two hemispheres with a lumpy surface, it looks a lot like a human brain. When you open them up they are mostly hollow inside. The seeds are held tightly on a central stem that occupies a mere fraction of the large cavity. I would like to suggest a new common name for this poisonous shrub, Brain Bush, or Bush's Brain if you like.
Meanwhile just three feet away and above the boldly striped caterpillar's head a big Banana Spider, Argiope aurantia waits patiently for another meal to arrive.
A view of the underside of the beast reveals his larder may already be full in the fine web he has sewn among the stems of the exotic tropical Torch Ginger. There is no rush it seems to go hunting for a new meal.
A certain couple who shall remain nameless are chomping at the bit for the next transformation in my life.
There is a hunger for new birth and transformation that the offer of an incredible gift promises me. A fine web and full larder built over many years in a habitat that has fed me well can be a bit sticky. A lot of house cleaning needs to be done before all those legs amd arms are set free.
Patience and Hunger
7 comments:
The empty brain pods are very interesting, and perhaps appropriately poisonous since they are from a Bush/Brain/Bush. I'd be tempted to cut a stalk and see if how it would look when dried inside, out of the sun.
Sometimes children are tempted to 'help' a new butterfly free itself from the splitting chrysalis, moved by sympathy for the writhing insect. Result: a butterfly that is not fully formed. It's all the flexing and effort that makes those wings expand and harden for flying.
As garden bloggers, we watch each other writhe and flex, empathizing and sympathizing without the ability to intervene, appreciating that we are allowed to be present in some way. You may be thinking of yourself as a spider, but since patience and hunger are essential for both spiders and butterflies, I'll think of you as a Monarch, and wish you strong wings for the journey.
Happy New Year, Christopher!
Annie
I don't do spiders.
Thank you Annie.
I am very ready and looking forward to the change. All the work involved is what has me dragging my feet.
Yesterday's phone call and "hurry up" with New Years Eve, now it is 2007 and it has gotten more real and time to get busy.
Chuck I was 4 inches away from that spider. I have had them crawl on me when I walked through their webs. Open the picture to a larger size and look at that thing, how pretty it is. It can't bite you.
They do have very pointy toes which feels weird.
I especially don't do spiders crawling on me.
Not only do they have eight legs, they have eight eyes.
Spiders are demonic, evil creatures that would cocoon us all in a sticky web, paralyze us with their poison, and make us watch them suck us dry painfully and slowly over time if they could.
We have to kill the spiders before they kill us.
Be very very careful when you come to Hawaii this summer. Banana spiders are not the only Creatures that inhabit our gardens and houses.
Oh, how awful.
Surely my resort sprays poison for such creatures.
It reminds me of that Brady Bunch episode.
Cane spider? Does that mean it lives in sugar cane fields? Ugh. I did that sugar plantation inner-tube irrigation canal rafting thing the last time I was in Kauai.
(Second item: http://www.hawaiiactivityworld.com/kauai/kauai_adventures/)
I would have just died if something like that spider made an appearance.
What a beautiful spider! How interesting that you caught it with its legs all in pairs that formed an X... I have never seen one at rest like that before.
Best of luck to you with whatever your new endeavor might be. :)
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