Dear Ones,
On our trip the south we witnessed a living art project by Sonya Devine, painter - teacher - mother friend in San Diego. Over the past several months, she has created a well-researched Monarch Butterfly incubation station. With the thorough intensity of an investigative botanist,
poet, surgeon, painter, jeweler, entomologist, storyteller, she shared with
us the wonders and travails of the remarkable Monarch metamorphoses amidst her home. Through her efforts, albeit on a modest scale, she is counteracting the march of civilization, (monoculture, drought, pesticides, etc., etc., .... ) ........)
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| Monarch egg from internet - magic already |
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| eggs and babies eating to live living to eat |
For her Monarch hatchery, she has provided milkweed plants with screened-in porches, secure chrysalis hammock areas, indoor safe-houses for young caterpillars, called "instars" who must eat enough to double themselves several times over without getting eaten themselves ..........
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| munch munch munch into five different sized "instars" and poop in a fertilizing way |
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| shedding their skin again and again |
before becoming a nourishing cocoon that will hang upside down for many vulnerable days:
how does a caterpillar become a pupa? (Art Ranger does not do religion, she does insects instead)
After finishing its phase of rapid expansion and shedding a final skin, this happens:
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| The pupa phase, also known as a chrysalis |
which we had thought was an ear ring tree of jewelery fit for Cleopatra. The pupa is hanging by its "cremaster"(term shared with a part of human anatomy):
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| this is the equipment by which the chrysalis can hang securely from it's silk pad |
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| brilliant adaptation |
During our visit, we could not possibly stare enough in wonder at this spectacular creation. The gold highlights, the domed architecture. An unexpected unknown form of beauty that has been hanging on the undersides of leaves all this time, now endangered on our used up planet.
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| Holy mother takes note of the epiphanies |
Darkening as the wings take form.
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| "It's a boy " |
Everything has to go well to get this to happen: after the journey to become a butterfly - a whole new journey begins again.
To learn more about butterflies, or how provide habitat for them.
metamorphosis is useful for the artist to focus upon, many-stepped creative, interlocking, arduous, amazing, not always successful
Now,
morph is such a common word. Sometimes the artist friends' life is the art and sometimes the art is the life and sometimes it is p/art of life and sometimes it is the art of shedding the skin before your very eyes that you can relate to. Artists digesting and re-inventing incessantly until we do part with our next skin or mortal envelope.
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Have yourselves a lovely summer and consider planting some milkweed! Please keep in mind the found ART that sits on your head or causes you pause, or same relaxed face asked for by yoga instructors. Art Ranger will return to her desk/cloud from being "at large" when she is ready.
FAF@homelandinspiration.org for your contributions - which are the reason we are still in business. We shall have some badges made. Peace to you and your kin.
