This morning as I approached my office, I noticed in the middle of a wide patch of sidewalk that is flanked by the street on one side and a brick building on the other, with no tree boxes or other plantings for several yards in any direction, a praying mantis stranded in the middle. I wondered how it had gotten there and worried that it would not survive if it was just stuck in a sea of concrete.
I crouched and put out my finger. The praying mantis crawled on to my hand. I did not have time to go all the way back to the park next to the Capitol or to the nearest “island” with trees, but I took it to the nearest tree box, certain that there would be enough mosquitoes for it to eat well. When I placed my hand next to the bush in the tree box and helped the praying mantis move onto the greenery, it first came back onto my hand again. So I talked to it (as if it understood English) and encouraged it to get onto a branch (yes, I was getting some strange looks from passers by at this point). I watched as the praying mantis eventually turned around and started moving into the denser foliage.
With this act, did I make anything in the world better except give myself the joy of interacting with a wonderful being? Does it matter?
For yogis, of course, it seems not even remotely ridiculous that the only true revolution is one motivated by love. (Photo compliments of a friend whose phone was capturing the image better than was mine.)
When a hurricane that is predicted to be perhaps the worst in 50 years for the East Coast shares the same name as one’s mother, news of the impending destruction is bound to bring up childhood memories.
I grew up with the song “Good Night Irene” as part of my childhood mythology. My parents met in Greenwich Village in the late 50s, which was a time when folk music was the thing. We all love songs about someone with our own name, so “Goodnight Irene” was one our mother taught us. If memory serves, we had recordings in the house by Leadbelly and the Weavers to which my older sister and I danced around the living room.
A search in You Tube reveals that it has been a popular song to cover for decades. Which is your favorite?
