While the long, beautiful spines of a mature barrel cactus are truly a sight to behold, they are woven so tightly together, across the cactus' ribs that any environmental detritus that falls on or around the cactus, becomes entangled.
Humanity's Beautiful Diversity
Human rights and diversity are important regardless of your background, dear reader, but are perhaps most spotlighted when concerning those members of society whose voices tend to be suppressed in some way. Minority voices are important, brightening and enlivening the global human narrative, whether that be religion, ethnic background, sexual orientation, gender expression, relative ablebodiedness, or other aspects.
Under the Harvest Moon
Things I learned from plants (A Series): #3. You can heal from injury.
Whether it be physical, mental, emotional, or otherwise, dear reader, you can heal from injury.
Have you ever seen an old, decomposing tree stump in the depths of the forest, with a seedling sprouting from its ruin? The decomposition and complete breakdown of the old makes way for an emergent new life form, providing the impetus for its growth and development.
Things I Learned from Plants (A Series): #2. Water is Life and Should Be Respected.
Water is party to all things, dear reader. While all Earth-dwelling embodied lifeforms have their own characteristics, goals, needs, and expectations of their environments, water is a common necessity they all share. Without proper hydration, the brain's receptors stop interpreting and correlating information and general organ failure occurs, plants are unable to photosynthesize, and moisture continues to evaporate from the body at a rather high rate.
The Turning Seasons: Plants, Death, and Rebirth
Today is Easter, the time when in the Christian tradition, someone who was once presumed deceased is reborn into a new, but strikingly similar form. Yesterday was World Transgender Awareness Day, celebrating a community so often misunderstood, harassed, or ignored--a community whose very nature calls out in an expression of change, ideally able to embrace the individual's truest self. On the Spring Equinox, March 20, was Ostara, the transition between the hibernation and death of winter into the rebirth and new life of spring. I find it apt that all three of these events occur during a liminal period, not entirely one or the other--the dusk of one season and dawn of the next.