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Meanwhile, In Other News

Hearing a word from the wasp, or two or two thousand of the little darlings.

From an article in the HuffPost: In most years, the winter freeze kills off many colonies. But that doesn’t always happen ― and when a colony survives the winter, a super nest can form.

“The queens are the only ones who have an antifreeze compound in their blood,” Charles Ray, an entomologist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, told The New York Times.

He said climate change is one reason for the survival of so many colonies:

So normally, a surviving queen will have to start a colony from scratch in the spring. With our climate becoming warmer, there might be multiple surviving queens producing more than 20,000 eggs each.

  • Posted in HuffPo

Did you know that with each wasp sting you develop more of an allergy to them, not less? Unfortunately many people believe you would be building up an immunity. Not so. Just the opposite.

In the end, maybe it’s the bees that will get us, not the birds—Alfred Hitchcock’s film was close. And what a horror film that could make.

In case you’d like to know more, here’s a site that will tell you how to avoid them once they are spotted. #Wasps#Summer#WaspStings#YellowJackets#Hornets

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Star Crossed Lovers

“I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.”
Anaïs Nin

Posted by Ravenous Butterflies—Evelyn Nesbit, Thisbe, 1900.

Pyramus and Thisbe

Pyramus and Thisbe are young lovers in a Babylonian* story told by the Roman poet Ovid in the Metamorphoses. The lovers, who lived next door to each other, were forbidden by their parents to see or speak to each other. But the two communicated through a hole in the wall between their houses.

Deciding to elope, Pyramus and Thisbe agreed to meet at night under a mulberry tree outside the city. Thisbe arrived first, wearing a veil over her face. When she heard a lion roar, she fled, dropping her veil. The lion, whose jaws were bloody, found the scarf and tore it up. When Pyramus arrived, he saw the stained, tattered veil and assumed that Thisbe was dead. He drew his sword and stabbed himself. Thisbe then returned to find Pyramus dying, and she used his sword to kill herself as well.

It is said that, before this incident, the fruit of the mulberry tree was white. However, the blood from Pyramus and Thisbe turned its fruit deep red, and it has been that color ever since.

The story of Pyramus and Thisbe is the subject of the mechanicals’ play in Shakespeare‘s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Any relationship to Romeo and Juliet? Many others?

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Shaun The Sheep

Just a little note from nature to keep our spirits up.

ShCostasiella kuroshimae (also referred to as “leaf sheep” and “Shaun the sheep”) is a species of sacoglossan sea slug whose beady eyes and flat face make it look like an adorable cartoon sheep. Add some droopy feelers and a phosphorescent, leaf-like body, and this little darling may just be the loveliest slug in the ocean!

Posted by My Modern Met

I continue to be amazed and impressed by Nature Herself. If I were a poet I would certainly be a Romantic. Not only a beauty, but the great works of use to itself and those who feast upon the bounty.

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Robert Thurman

Here we have Robert Thurman—as posted in Tricycle magazine and shown on Facebook with today’s news feed. Thurman is pretty much a mainstay in contemporary Buddhism in the U.S. What many people don’t know however, is that Uma Thurman is his daughter. Yes, the movie star. Once knowing that, I’ve been unable to see or read anything about Uma without thinking of her dad. Pretty sneaky way of keeping Buddhism in your mind, I’d say. (By-the-way, Uma is the name of a goddess.)

  • Robert Thurman

“I am insisting that Buddhism be taken seriously as a knowledge system. The arrogance of Western materialist scientists, that they understand the world and know how to fix it, is ridiculous because they are destroying it, not fixing it.” —Robert A.F. Thurman

Robert Thurman in Ubud, Bali. Photo by Christopher Michel

I met Thurman in Shaker Heights before I went to Colorado, some time back. The above photo does him no justice—he is a handsome and charismatic man. I doubt seriously that he has lost all of his characteristics with time. He has an edge. A twinkle in his eye. And a deep husky voice that speaks with great enthusiasm on the topic at hand—usually Buddhism.

He was the first American to ordain as a Tibetan Buddhist monk before returning to lay life to become Columbia University’s Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies, the co-founder and president of the nonprofit Tibet House US, the president of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, and a prolific author and translator. Did I also mention that he has great stamina? You can feel the energy emanating from him.

And he is quite a character. His original house (if it is still standing) is a hodgepodge of thoughts as they ran through his mind, and some that fell though the cracks. Robert’s design and build has leaked from time to time, had parts of rooms fly off in a storm, and a whole section of roof implode. It doesn’t seem to bother him much, he just carries on.

Thurman House in Woodstock, NY—Irish Times

The NY Times published an article in 2017 titled 50 Years of Marriage and Mindfulness With Nena and Robert Thurman. Nena is of course Robert’s wife. Much more can be said of the Thurmans and many articles have tried to capture it all. It will take many more.

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Roshi Bernie Glassman

Zen is all of life

As quoted from an article in Lion’s Roar in remembrance of Bernie:

Roshi Bernie Glassman founded The Zen Peacemakers

As articulated by Glassman, the community was founded on three tenets for integrating spiritual practice and social action: (1) not knowing, thereby giving up fixed ideas about ourselves, other people, and the universe; (2) bearing witness to the joy and suffering of the world, and; (3) loving action for ourselves and others.

Glassman saw these three tenets as traditional Zen, phrased in a fresh, modern idiom. “In Zen training,” says Glassman, “koan study gets you to experience the state of not knowing.” Then, bearing witness is just sitting meditation, or shikantaza, and loving action is none other than compassion.

  • Glassman, with his signature red beret and cigar, off in search of Sunday bagels.

Bernie wrote a book with Jeff Bridges, The Dude and The Zen Master

The article about Bernie is well done and explores much more of Bernie’s life and accomplishments. It’s well worth a look.

http://Zen Is All of Life: Remembering Roshi Bernie Glassman