Uprooted

Well, during the walkabout today outback I noticed a lot of plants uprooted, and wondered if the Trash Can Tiki Temple flowers were gone...sure enough, the "immigration" enforcers got 'm. "Illegal aliens" they were...this to say non native to the Valley species of fauna and flora are removed.

On a ranger guided walk once in Sequoia I heard the explanation of "before Columbus", an effort to return the redwood ecosystem to what it was before Columbus came to the Americas. This is an oversimplification, and probably not even accurate, but it's the idea-- that there is an ideal mix of fauna and flora that is beset by foreign species taking root and moving in. A brown squirrel introduced from the east coast is slowly pushing out ground, or greys, I forget, in areas near San Francisco, from their natuaral habitat. That sort of thing.

Watched tonight how candy is made, more robots!, story of Loch Ness monster and other lake monsters, and a show about the history of dogs and people, how the dogs moved from being wild to domestic pets. In India there are still marginally wild dogs, no ones personal pets, but beggars and scavenger that attach to the community--camp followers.

"Dingos have veen interbreeding with dogs introduced by white settelers. The dingo is being hybridized out of existance.....serious conservations methods may be needed."

Singing dogs of New Guiena...


A poem...

The Valley, June 9, 2007

Haven't heard or seen Coyote,
And where are the mosquitoes!!
The Falls are gossamer already,
Their Spring roar gone with the Dogwood flowers.

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door
June 9, 2009

There Be Dragons

Here, there be dragons...

a poem

Oh, if only my thoughts could be still
Like the resting dragonfly's wings.

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door
June 7, 2007

COG

COG is an abbreviation for "continuity of government" , a subject that can be filled out with a google...


There's a slew of Presidential Directives that lay out what will be done in the event of a catastrophe.

There has been very little input into these things from local government, they're pretty much top done things, and under suspicions as ploys to continue government in a different form.

After the Indonesian Tsunami a helicopeter flew over the islands with the protected primitive tribes off the coast of India...the natives shot at the copters with bows and arrows, proving they had survived in fine shape.

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

June 6, 2007

Carolina Bays

I got to looking up the sun reversing in the sky, the sun stopping in the sky, which brings up a lot, notably "Worlds in Collision", and then reminded of the pygmies, looked them up, and then happened on the Carolina Bays.

Here is the famous commentary on such matters by the ancient Egyptian...

quote

In Plato's Critias, The wise Egyptian priest in talking to Solon, gives a fairly good picture of what has happened in the past; " There have been and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes, the greatest have been brought about by the agency of fire (comets) and water (ice age meltdown), and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes (volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis)."The declination of bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth (comet/asteroid impacts), which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in the dry lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by the rivers or on the sea shore. When on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors will be those who dwell up on the mountains, as the water always having a tendancy to come up from below (Tsunamis and sea level rises)." He also says "that wherever the extremity of winter frost (Ice ages) or of summer sun (climatic change and drought after volcanic eruptions) does not prevent mankind to exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in lesser numbers." These disasters "leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education, and so to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times."

end quote

And here's a bit more from the same site which is here:

The Anasazi have a legend that talks of a fiery sky serpent destroying the civilizations on the islands of the Carribean, or more specifically Tulapin (Turtle Island), their homeland. One can imagine an elongate meteor, rotating as it enters the atmosphere, creating a wiggly, snake like trail. The speed at which a meteor enters the atmosphere also gives the visual impression of the speed of a striking snake.

http://users.on.net/~mkfenn/Catastrophes.htm

Turtle Islands is cool, maybe I'll go there next post....

DavidDavid
Tree in the Door
June 5, 2007

Atreus

"Nor Atreus his nefarious feast prepare"

Medea and Cadmus I sorta knew, but Atreus I googled up..and found this at the wiki site...

quote

Atreus retook the throne using advice he received from Hermes. Thyestes agreed to give the kingdom back when the sun moved backwards in the sky, a feat that Zeus accomplished. Atreus retook the throne and banished Thyestes.

unquote

And the other thing that's caught my eye is the Atreidae, descendents from the Trojans I think.

I've been wondering about the Trojan diaspora after the Fall of Troy...

Tomorrow...

Pic is a little bird up in Tuolumne.

"nor Progne wing the air"

Progne is alternate spelling of Procne or Prokne, the latter being easier to google!!

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

June 4, 2007

Cadmus' Dragon

One of the charms of the web is I can find out about the mythical references in poems in an eye blink, where before searching the library was so daunting that I usually just shrugged and tried to gather in the sense of a poem without really knowing the reference.

In Horace's Ars Poetica I quoted the other day, there was this...

Let not Medea, with unnatural rage,
Slaughter her mangled infants on the stage;
Nor Atreus his nefarious feast prepare,
Nor Cadmus roll a snake, nor Progne wing the air;
For while upon such monstrous scenes we gaze,
They shock our faith, our indignation raise.

Next few posts I'm going to go over these references....

It's late...tomorrow Tuolumne for an afternoon...almost like the night before Xmas!!

DavidDavid

June 3, 2007

Tree in the Door

Waterfalls and Dragons

Qu Yuan and the Dragon Boats

I happened upon the story of Qu Yuan because of an art assignment. The assignment was to take two animals and combine them to make a new one. I made a dragon fish, combining a carp’s tail and a dragon’s head. The carp was from Hokusai, and the Dragon was from a roof with a Chinese Imperial Dragon in a photo of Old Shanghai.

The Imperial Dragons look a bit like the Aztec Feathered Dragons. In fact, there’s a book I read that noted the similarities between Chinese, Asian art and the art of the Mayans and Aztecs—pretty convincing of contact between the two.

Qu Yuan lived in a time of wars, and corruption, and to protest the later he walked into a river and took his own life. In reading the tale, I learned about the Dragon Boat Races, and about Chinese Dragons, and carp that ascend waterfalls, all full of symbolism and ritual.

There’s something about Qu Yuan that reminds me of Suibhne’s tale. They’re both remembered for their poetry.

The dragon Cadmus killed was a sacred guardian of a spring. More about that tomorrow…

DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

June 2, 2007