Cee’s instructions for this week’s challenge are to show off photos that make her need to put on her sunglasses indoors. This gallery contains the photos that I think fit that fun challenge! (The butterfly photo that I use for my gravatar was taken by my friend Sarah Corlett.)
Today’s Daily Prompt: Underground reminded me of a list of facts about slugs I included in the PNW GreenFriends Newsletter in August of 2015 (Page 20). Before compiling that list, I had no idea that 95% of slugs live underground. It is still near impossible for me to visualize that reality. Here is that list:
Did you know…
Only 5% of the slug population is above ground at any one time. The other 95% is underground digesting your seedlings, laying eggs, and feeding on roots and seed sprouts.
Slugs do play an important role in ecology by eating decomposing vegetation.
A slug lays 20-100 eggs several times a year.
Slug eggs can lay dormant in the soil for years and then hatch when conditions are right.
In favorable conditions a slug can live for up to 6 years.
Slugs used to live in the ocean, which is why they still need to keep moist
One individual field slug has the potential to produce about 90,000 grandchildren.
It’s been estimated that an acre of farmland may support over 250,000 slugs.
A cubic metre of garden will on average contain up to 200 slugs.
Slugs leave their own individual scent trail so they can find their way home.
A slug can stretch out to 20 times its normal length, enabling it to squeeze through the smallest of openings.
A slug has approximately 27,000 teeth – that’s more teeth than a shark.
The above facts are excerpts from: Fascinating Sluggy Facts. Go there to learn many more facts about slugs!
You can also find fascinating information about slugs at:
I believe, at the core of every person, there is a part that is both trusting and trustworthy. Due to life’s traumas, however, that part may recede so deep inside that it may seem unreachable. In time, a person may even develop a belief system that says people are not to be trusted.
When people come from that framework, they are likely to see negativity, and even danger, coming from all sides. They don’t trust what others say, and look for ulterior motives. In time, they may become excessively independent. The thought of being interdependent may be unfathomable. The inability to trust often leads to anxiety and depression.
I have been a psychotherapist for almost 30 years. During those years, I have seen so many clients reclaim their right to trust. As they heal from the traumas of their past, they shift from the life stance that people are untrustworthy to an attitude that people are trustworthy unless proven otherwise.
That doesn’t mean that they start to trust without discrimination though. Once they work through their childhood and adult traumas, they stop projecting negative behaviors on everyone and will become much clearer in seeing the true “red flags” that indicate potential problems. They are more likely to surround themselves with a support system of healthy people. They will know their own weak areas and will avoid situations that are likely to pull them into unhealthy behaviors.
Reclaiming the right to trust is not an easy journey, but it is well worth the time and effort.
Written for Daily Prompt: Trust
Photo Credit: pixabay.com
I decided to go off-theme again for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. When I posted Good Morning to You yesterday, a friend told me about a ditty she used to sing to her children. Her story reminded me of a song I sang to my children when they were infants. It is called Sarasponda.
I had wondered, even back then, what the song meant but I never looked into it. Yesterday I checked it out and was fascinated by what I learned.
Wikipedia said Sarasponda is believed to be of Dutch origin and it is thought to be a song that women sang when spinning at a spinning wheel. Many sources describe the lyrics as nonsense words, but others think they are onomatopoeic and are meant to represent the sounds a spinning wheel makes as it spins.
It is a tune that is frequently sung around campfires so I probably learned it when I was a Girl Scout, or when I traveled across the U.S. with my church youth group in the mid 60’s.
Sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda ret set set
Sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda ret set set
A doray-oh, A doray-boomday-oh
A doray-boomday ret set set
Ah say pah say oh.
There are many YouTube versions of Sarasponda. The tune is the same in each version but the way it is presented is very different. I have decided to share three different versions.
These photos were taken near a river in Greenwater, Washington. That town is close to Crystal Mountain.
When I hear someone use the word “promise” the psychotherapist inside of me goes on alert. The images that come to my mind are children who are in trouble saying “I promise I won’t do it again” to their parents, or parents saying “You promised you wouldn’t do that again” to their children. I also think of bickering children saying to each other, or even to their parents, “You promised!” when someone doesn’t follow through on a promise.
It is important that interactions between adults stay equal with the adult part of one interacting with the adult part of the other. Two adults interacting in a way where one is acting like a parent and the other like a child can be very disruptive to adult relationships.
I think when people of any age hear the word “promise” their minds often add the word “forever”. “Forever” doesn’t take into account that we have a right to change our minds. We may have committed to something out of fear or without having taken the time to think the situation through. Also circumstances may change. When circumstances change then our commitments may need to change.
That doesn’t mean we should just say “I will try.” I’ve been told that Alcoholic Anonymous has a saying that “Triers are liars.” Too often when people say “I will try” they are saying it to get someone off their back and have no intention of doing what the other person is asking for. In my group room, I have a Yoda pillow that says “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
I suggest people don’t make promises because to me that word in and of itself evokes a child or a parent-child response. I don’t think there is anything wrong with making commitments or agreements but it is important that those commitments be well thought out, clear and not come from an over-adaptive part of us. They should be made with an understanding that we aren’t going to be perfect and that if we decide at a later time that the commitment is not in our best interests we can look at what changes need to be made and re-negotiate it.
Post written for: Daily Prompt: Promises
Photo: Bickering Children by Bernhard Keil (1624-1687) via Wikimedia
I have been eagerly awaiting this week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge. My favorite yellow photo is one I took two years ago near Amma’s Engineering College in Amritapuri, India. The bright yellow flowers were such a stunning contrast to all the greenery that surrounded it.
Here are some of the other “yellow” photos I’ve taken during the last two years. (Click on the gallery to enlarge the pictures.)
Helen’s direction for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday is to share lyrics from a song that has something to do with nature.
Since a major focus in my life right now is freeing trees from invasive plants such as blackberry vines and ivy, I decided to look for songs that talked about trees. The first one that drew me was Michael Mitchell’s song “Little Trees”. While I liked that one a lot, I decided to consider songs from a wide variety of sources. I listened to Bob McGrath (1922) singing a musical version of Joyce Kilmer’s poem- Trees, Metalicca’s- Blackened, Rush’s- The Trees, and Enya’s- Memory of Trees.
These songs varied from hopeful to apocalyptic. I decided to go with the first one I had listened to, one that was written for the purpose of teaching children about trees. Michael Mitchell wrote “Little Trees” for Sesame Street. It is part of his album Canada is for Kids: Volume 1.
LITTLE TREES
I’d like to take a walk in the woods
Come with me, do you think you could
We’ll find a tree that we can climb
We’ll have fun all afternoon
Chorus:
Little trees need a chance to grow
It takes time and care
They’re a lot like us you know
So many kinds of different trees
They look like one big family
Big ones, short ones, baby ones too
I’ll name this one after you
It’ll be a long time before he
Is tall and strong like a grown up tree
For now he’s just a kid like us
Playing out in the woods
For the video, I picked Phantom Ember singing the song. I didn’t have much luck finding out information about Phantom Ember. From what I’ve read, I’m wondering if it is the ghost of Ember McClaine from a Nickelodeon animated television series Danny Phantom. Am I right?
Each week on Song Lyric Sunday, Helen tells us that it is fine to choose a song that has nothing to do with the prompt’s weekly theme. I’m taking advantage of that option this week so that I can present a song that addresses current events.
T.I., a rapper from Atlanta, Georgia, recently released a music video that shows “the reality that this country is living in.” T.I. remarked that he wanted the content to be “powerful enough to create the type of dialogue necessary to inspire some form of change.” The video is definitely not easy viewing but it is thought provoking and makes the point in an unexpected way. I believe it is well worth watching.
May the violence end soon.
This goes to the white boy that ran in the old church
I hope you get slow murked, and they torture you slow first
Ran in our place of worship to slaughter our grandma
Won’t go kamikaze for that, well what would you die for?
Hold up… I’ll wait, I’ll wait
Heard it from buddy who took for the fall for Watergate
The war on drugs was just a war on us
Give us all these guns, give us all this dust
Change all them laws, lock all of us up
Went from Freeway Ricky, on to BMF (free Meech)
Then hip hop came, that’s when we got rich
Cause white kids gravitated to it like all of us did
And that’s when they got slick
Invented the technology to take our shit
Diluted all of the artistry
Pardon me, somebody tell me what happened to Alton
Sterling, killed Philando right in front of the girl
And the world saw
Everybody’s reaction was, “Hell naw”
This modern day slavery, the prison publicly traded
And the jig’s up
The Constitution and Emancipation Proclamation’s just a fuckin’ piece of paper
Can’t you see we livin’ in a war zone?
Guess you don’t notice when you livin’ in it
Like every weekend it’s a man down
Ain’t got no pity for the innocent so I’ma represent it
Dedicated, tell ’em,
“Hands up, can’t breathe
Hands up, can’t breathe
Hands up, can’t breathe”
Hands up, can’t you see we livin’ in a war zone?
The direction for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday is to share lyrics from a Blue’s song. Sreejit from The Seeker’s Dungeon, and who also happens to be my son :), has composed and sung numerous Blue’s songs over the years. The one I have chosen to share here is called Feel My Blues.
Lyrics
Hear my words and be confused
as you look into my eyes and feel my blues
happiness is hiding from
the darkness to which my heart has clung.
Oooh wooh oh oh
Lost control
I hold the answers but my heart wants more
don’t even care what I’ve been fighting for –
dreams are there to hold me down
forsaking the peace that I have found.
But so long as I hold on to sleep
– it keeps me in darkness
– I’ll go on pretending.
Hear my words and be confused
as you look into my eyes and feel my blues
happiness is hiding from
the darkness to which my heart has clung.
To contentment I’ve said goodbye
there will never be any compromise
as I fight for what could never be
and stir the fire that burns within me.
It doesn’t take but a moment
to destroy a life’s work beyond all atonement.
Hear my words and be confused
as you look into my eyes and feel my blues
happiness is hiding from
the darkness to which my heart has clung.
Tearing down old walls
to make space for new ones –
enjoying the comfort of being
wrapped in illusion.
Hear my words and be confused
as you look into my eyes and feel my blues
happiness is hiding from
the darkness to which my heart has clung.
Oooh wooh oh oh
Lost control
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