TeapotInATempest
TeapotInATempest's JournalHope in a time of crisis
A little backstory, and please forgive me if I seem to ramble - I live in the middle of a large northern city and have no yard, not even a small patch of grass. I do, however, have a deck that I use to plant herbs, flowers and veggies in pots. I take care to select plants that help our pollinators and I grow organically.
Last year, I chose to grow dill alongside my cucumbers so that I could try my hand at making pickles. I soon noticed a couple of tiny caterpillars, looked them up and discovered that they were Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly larvae. Cool, I thought! I’ve never seen one of those butterflies in the city! Then, the wasps carried them away and that was that, I thought.
A month later, though, there were two more of them. I took them inside and cared for them until they emerged as butterflies – one male, one female – and set them free. I was completely awestruck, as this city girl had never witnessed this phenomenon before, and welled up with tears.
This year, I asked the 6 year old if he wanted to raise caterpillars again (silly question). The dill came back on its own, in a completely different pot across the deck than the one it had been planted in originally. (I’m pretty sure this is why it’s called “dillweed”!) Early this summer, a caterpillar appeared which we took in, a female it turns out. We said goodbye with a mixture of joy and awe as she flew off.
Word must have gotten around, though, because the next thing I knew we had 8 new caterpillars. Female Eastern Black Swallowtails only lay one egg at a time, so I don’t know how many may have visited my plants. I also have literally never seen one of these butterflies in my neighborhood except the ones that I’ve raised and only as they're flying away from me. Then 5 additional caterpillars appeared but I lost these to the wasps before I could bring them in. Butterflies are known as an indicator species, because they quickly respond to even subtle changes in their environment. That I have so many now means something is going right!
This morning, after a miserable evening of trying to avoid the news about NK and possible nuclear war, I woke to find that 5 of my 8 butterflies had emerged from their cocoons and were ready to be set free.
I share this story, while simple and maybe a bit pedestrian, because I was reminded this morning that in this time of crisis – when I am so terrified, angry, and sad – that there is still beauty, and hope, and the possibility for transformation in the world. In other words, “there’s a crack in the sidewalk where a flower grows.”
Please don’t give up, fellow DUers. We have a lot of work to do and we must keep fighting.
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For my first thread, a thought experiment on misogyny
Imagine if you will that in this last election it was Barack Obama who ran for president and lost against Trump, that Keith Ellison was the DNC chair and that John Lewis was the House Minority Leader.
Now imagine that Obama was being told to go away and never show his face in public again or state an opinion, that Ellison was demonized beyond belief for the loss and told that he and Obama were entirely to blame for it, Russia and the Electoral College be damned.
Further, imagine during Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing that Cory Booker was silenced from reading Coretta Scott King’s letter and reprimanded, though white senators were allowed to finish reading it; and then told by McCain and Burr to stop harassing Jeff Sessions during his last hearing though his white colleagues were allowed to ask questions that were just as pointed.
Finally, imagine that after losing narrowly in a special election in a district so red that Newt Gingrich once held it and that has not gone blue since the 70s, that John Lewis was being told it was his fault and he needed to step down and go off to die somewhere. And that all the names being floated to replace him belonged to white Congressmen.
Would you not start to wonder – not for one moment – if there was any racism involved? Could you empathize at all with African Americans who did? Would you listen and try to understand why they felt that way or would you shut them down and tell them it was all “identity politics”?
If you answered “no” to the above questions, you might just have some unconscious biases.
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Member since: Fri Mar 17, 2017, 09:42 AMNumber of posts: 804
