Sanskrit Grammar

Thinking about Sanskrit grammar, and about the beauty and musicality of the desiderative verb forms.  And the wonderful line from the Maitrāyaṇīya Upaniṣad, profound and direct, like something from Novalis: 

If people thought of God as much as they think of the world,

who would not attain liberation?

December 12, 2015 Virgen de Guadalupe

Madre benefactora

Madre venturosa

Señora del Tepeyac

Dueña del agua

Xinola achaneh

        --Natalio Hernández, ‘Madre amorosa”

Stanzas on Editing a Novel

Editing the same piece over and over again

is like trying to break through a brick wall using your head.*

“I spent the morning putting in a comma

and the afternoon removing it.” ― Gustave Flaubert

Misery is still finding typos

in a passage you’ve already edited fifteen times.

To “that” or not to “that,”

that is the question.

  *No wonder Bertrand Russell said that writing the Principia Mathematica “had actually damaged his brain.”

Clarence Rivers

Today is the birthday of Clarence Rivers, who passed away a few years back.  He was one of the angels of my youth, with his joyful religion, his belief that music was the soul of worship, and his wonderful voice.  Pastor, liturgist, a composer who combined traditional Western church music with the African-American Spiritual tradition, writer and teacher.  I first read his Reflections when I was very young.  He is perhaps best remembered for his hymn, "God is Love."

Here is a link to that song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXqfh5KxqYs

Krishna Janmashtami

Gopala Krishna, Mahabalipuram, India

Abandoning attachment to the fruit

of action, always satisfied,

at peace, he does nothing at all,

even when engaging in action.

He bears no guilt or vain expectations,

controls his thoughts and desires,

gladly surrenders all he possesses,

acting only with his body.

Accepting whatever comes his way,

beyond all dualities and free from envy,

indifferent to success or failure,

he is not bound even in action.

When a man has achieved this liberation,

through knowledge and understanding,

all his actions become a sacrifice,

and are purified and dissolved.

                --Bhagavad-Gita 4:20-23

This New Novel's Killin' Me

When one is writing a novel there are sacrifices that must be made--other pastimes that must be put aside.  It is easy to mourn the life missed by focusing on writing instead.  But when confronted by what I might be missing, I answer, loosely paraphrasing the Buddha, "No, instead I will finish this novel, and make a million worlds rejoice."  Okay--maybe it's time to take a break.

Rain

We had our first big monsoon rain on Wednesday, and everything still looks washed and fresh.  I can't wait to go to the mountains, or at least the foothills, in the next few weeks, to see the wildflowers that will be blooming.  In the meanwhile, the garden is full of butterflies and hummingbirds and bees and dragonflies.  They are all going about their business in a most playful way.  I almost expect to see a few of Tessa Farmer's skeleton fairies playing mischief on them.  It is a never-ending festival of work and flight and buzzing and chasing and quarreling and pairing.

For everything living in the desert, the rains are truly the source of life.  From the spadefoot toads that stay buried until the rains bring temporary breeding ponds, to the ocotillo that only puts out leaves and blooms after the rain, everything in nature rejoices and thrives during the short rainy season, including people.

Just Can't Get Enough of the Butterflies

With the swallowtails and other large, colorful butterflies, it is easy to overlook the small butterflies, especially the skippers.  Here are a few little butterflies that are found around here.

Western Pygmy Blue

This is a Western Pygmy Blue (Brephidium exilis) drinking nectar from a hairyseed bahia flower in the alley behind our house.  The Western Pygmy Blue is the smallest butterfly in North America (actual size ½ to ¾ in.), but around here you can see literally thousands of them swarming the four-wing saltbush plants that their larvae use as food and that grow wild in our area.  Unfortunately, the city loves to spray the four-winged saltbush (and everything else that grows wild) with Roundup, as part of an ill-conceived “weed eradication program.”  For some reason, the Roundup trucks keep missing the hairyseed bahia plants that this butterfly was drinking from.  This is truly fortunate, because they must spray thousands of gallons of Roundup in our neighborhood alone, even though it has now been classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Association.

Bronze Roadside-Skipper

The Bronze Roadside-Skipper (Amblyscirtes aenus) looks very plain until seen close up.  I love the bronze color of its wings, and the fuzzy white head with a black “Mohawk.”  This one was very friendly and posed for me on an apple tree before eventually flying off to find nectar.

Fiery Skipper

This Fiery Skipper (Hylephila phyleus) wasn’t interested in posing at all.  It was hiding in a clump of rosemary.  These tiny Skippers are often found on lawns, as they lay their eggs on common lawn grasses like Bermuda, crabgrass, and St. Augustine. 

A Few More Butterflies

Here are a few more of the butterflies that we see around here.  It’s hot right now, but the butterflies like it.  The butterflies remind me of the years we have lived in this house, but most especially of the time when we moved here.  It was a difficult year for a number of reasons, and I began to learn about the butterflies that lived here in such great numbers, partially as a distraction from all of our problems.  I was especially amazed at the number of Giant Swallowtails that were attracted by the orange trees, and the various Black Swallowtails that were attracted by the parsley and rue.

     Some of the butterflies, like the Sleepy Orange (Abaeis nicippe), were already known to me.  The Sleepy Oranges fly in mating pairs and are very shy and hyper.  I don’t know where the “sleepy” in their name comes from! 

female Sleepy Orange

male Sleepy Orange

male Sleepy Orange (upper side of wings)

Sulfurs are also common around here.  Here is a male Lyside Sulfur (Kricogonia lyside).  They are also shy and hard to photograph.  I was chasing this one all over the place.

Lyside Sulfur

Lyside Sulfur (a little closer up)

And finally, the Fritillaries.  They are beautiful in a classical butterfly sense, with their golden and orange and black colors.  There are several different Fritillaries that come around, but the Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta Claudia) is the most common.

Variegated Fritillary (top of wing)

Variegated Fritillary (underwing)

The Moth and the Butterfly

Okay, one more butterfly post.

This is a gorgeous specimen of a Vine Sphinx moth (Eumorpha vitis).  It is about 3 1/2 inches in diameter.  These moths love a variety of flowers, including those of the trumpet vines that have slowly taken over our yard.  This Sphinx had recently emerged from pupating in an underground burrow below a stand of trumpet vine and was still getting its sea legs when I photographed him (after posing him on a pomegranate bush).  I put him back in a secluded spot under heavy foliage so he could finish adjusting to the outside world, and he eventually flew off to find his own spot where he could wait for evening and a new life as a fully-mature moth.

Vine Sphinx moth

Vine Sphinx moth (a little closer up)

Here is a female Checkered White (Pontia protodice), also known as the Common White and the Southern Cabbage Moth.  She is a butterfly, however, and not a moth.  Several species of Whites are called Cabbage Moths, which is made even more confusing by the fact that there is also a true moth called the Cabbage Moth.  The upper side of the female checkered white has this lovely light brown pattern, though the underwing is mostly white with just a little bit of light brown marking.

female Checkered White

female Checkered White

More Butterflies

The summer heat arrived this week, and with it an explosion of butterflies (being cold-blooded, they tend to like the heat).  Fritillaries, Sulfurs, Swallowtails of every stripe (literally), Western Pygmy-Blues, and Cabbage Moths (which are actually butterflies, not moths). This Buckeye (Junonia coenia) was sitting on the grass looking a little ragged, and I thought it was in distress or drinking beads of water.  But actually, it turns out that Buckeye males like to sit on the ground and wait for females.  It’s their favorite “dating spot.”  I saw another one sitting on the grass later.

Buckeye male

Here is a rather busy photo of an American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis). These butterflies are very common around here, along with their close relative, the Painted Lady, and can be distinguished by the “cobweb” design and blue "eyespots" (which for some reason look black in this photo) found on the undersides of the lower wings.  This one is drinking from a chaste berry (vitex) flower.

American Lady

This is either a Red-Lined Scrub-Hairstreak (Strymon bebrycia) or a Grey-Hairstreak (Strymon melinus), also drinking from a chaste berry flower.  Unfortunately, another flower is hiding the hilarious “second head,” that is a distinguishing characteristic of the Hairstreaks.  They have thread-like tails which they vibrate to imitate antennas, and the spots at the base of the wings look like eyes.  This is probably intended to confuse birds who might try to strike for their heads when attempting to catch them as prey, only to find that the "head" is just the corner of a wing. This butterfly is actually quite small, with a wingspan of about an inch.

Red-Lined Scrub-Hairstreak or Grey-Hairstreak

Swallowtails

Here are pictures of some of the swallowtails that we see in our garden.  The Giant Swallowtail (Heraclides cresphontes) is by far the most common.  This is because it is attracted by our orange trees and rue, which its larvae feed on.  They really love the orange leaves, and often get caught on a porch that opens up by a big orange tree.  When this happens, we have to help them by gently removing them back outdoors.  Here is one on the porch screen.  There were actually two of them in the porch today.  Because of their love of orange (and other citrus) leaves, their larvae (that look like bird droppings) are often called “orange dogs.”  The larvae have these wacky red scent horns that come out when they are disturbed.  We are happy to share a few leaves with them.

Giant Swallowtail

The Eastern Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes), as well as other black swallowtails, like our parsley and rue for laying their eggs.  Their larvae prefer parsley, and plants in the parsley family, but if there isn’t enough parsley they will settle for rue.  This one is on a lantana.  All of the butterflies drink from the lantanas, as well as flowers like those on our chaste berry tree, and buddleias, bee balm and verbena.  Many of the smaller (non-swallowtail) butterflies prefer daisies, sunflowers, and catnip and mint blossoms.  This Eastern Black Swallowtail is a female, which you can tell from the row of yellow spots on her wings.

Eastern Black Swallowtail

Eastern Black Swallowtail drinking nectar

This is a Two-Tailed Tiger Swallowtail (Pterourus multicaudatus).  The Latin name makes it sound like it should be a dinosaur or something.  It is sitting on an orange tree, but I don’t think it lays its eggs there.  I may have seen one of its larvae on a lilac (though it could have been the larva of another swallowtail).  In this photo it is easy to see the two “tails” at the end of each of its wings.

Two-Tailed Tiger Swallowtail

Four (Sort-of) Cool Nature Facts

Okay, the last one isn’t so cool.  And this is a one-time thing, so don’t think I’m turning this blog into Cracked, or anything like that.  Also, if the first three are actually common knowledge, I offer an embarrassed apology for wasting everyone’s time.

1. About 300 tons of space debris hits the earth every day.  This means that the mass of the earth increases about 300 tons daily.

2. Light doesn’t actually travel at the “speed of light” (299,792,458 meters per second) in water.  The water slows it down a little.  This means that super low-mass particles like neutrinos can actually travel faster than light in water, though they still have to obey the 299,792,458 m/s speed limit.

3. If there was no moon, the earth would revolve so fast that we’d all have continuous 50 to 150 mile per hour winds.

4. I once found an invertebrate fossil that I suspect was a new species belonging to the class Paracrinoidea, a very obscure, extinct, distant relative of sea urchins and starfish.  It’s now in the University of Kansas invertebrate paleontology collection.  I don’t know if it's ever been positively identified as a new species of Paracrinoidea.

Paracrinoids definitely have an extraterrestrial vibe

Speaking of fossils, a number of fossils I had stored in a garage, which included beautifully preserved cystoids, crinoids, trilobites, and other marine invertebrates from the Ordovician Florida Mountains Formation, were stolen some years ago.  I suspect that the thieves wanted the display case and not the fossils, which they probably discarded, which was a shame. 

Magical Idealism

Was ihn aber mit voller Macht anzog, war eine hohe lichtblaue Blume, die zunächst an der Quelle stand, und ihn mit ihren breiten, glänzenden Blättern berührte. Rund um sie her standen unzählige Blumen von allen Farben, und der köstliche Geruch erfüllte die Luft. Er sah nichts als die blaue Blume, und betrachtete sie lange mit unnennbarer Zärtlichkeit. Endlich wollte er sich ihr nähern, als sie auf einmal sich zu bewegen und zu verändern anfing; die Blätter wurden glänzender und schmiegten sich an den wachsenden Stengel, die Blume neigte sich nach ihm zu, und die Blütenblätter zeigten einen blauen ausgebreiteten Kragen, in welchem ein zartes Gesicht schwebte.

But what attracted him with full force was a tall, light blue flower at the very center that touched him with her broad, glossy leaves. Around them stood innumerable flowers of all colors, and a delicious scent filled the air. He saw nothing but the blue flower and looked at it for a long time with inexpressible tenderness. Finally, he tried to approach her, and she began at once to move and change. The leaves were shiny and clung to the growing stem, and the flower leaned after him, the petals displaying a wide blue collar, in which floated a lovely, tender face.

                                                                               --Novalis, Heinrich von Ofterdingen

The idea that we not only can, but we must, transform ourselves and the world around us by the power of our imaginations.  Everything becomes richer, clearer, more meaningful and profound when seen through the mirror of imagination, and this vision, when ripe, is expressed poetically.  Once again, we return to the center where the whole universe meets, all times and places and things, all our feelings and spiritual aspirations.  This is the birthplace of wisdom, of art, and of communion between ourselves and others; between ourselves and nature as well.  Die blaue Blume . . .

Protesting Against the Death Penalty

El Pasoans Against the Death Penalty holds demonstrations in front of the county courthouse on days when Texas executes an inmate.  Yesterday Texas carried out the first of four executions scheduled for this month.  Texas continues to lead the nation in executions and has recently executed both mentally ill and developmentally challenged persons (as well as at least one potentially innocent person), among the hundreds systematically murdered by the state.

Easter 2015

Christ's resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world.  Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force.  Often it seems that God does not exist: all around us we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference and cruelty.  But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life and sooner or later produces fruit.  On razed land life breaks through, stubbornly yet invincibly.  However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads.  Each day in our world beauty is born anew, it rises transformed through the storms of history.

                                                                 --Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (Joy of the Gospel)

Orange Blossoms!

For years after our move to Virginia Street, we would always have oranges coming out of our ears.  So many, in fact, that we would leave hard-to-reach fruit on the trees (orange trees are extremely thorny). After the big freeze of February 2011, there were no more blossoms or fruit.  All of the citrus trees in El Paso died back to the roots, and I feared that ours grew back from below the grafts. But this year, finally, we are getting blossoms.  Which means that fruit will--hopefully--follow.

I Will Give Them Rest in Safety

Wall hanging, Coptic, 4th-6th Century

I will make a covenant for them on that day,

with the wild animals,

With the birds of the air,

and with the things that crawl on the ground.

Bow and sword and warfare

I will banish from the land,

and I will give them rest in safety.

--Hosea 2:20

                     

Ash Wednesday Haiku

Loose Mardi Gras beads

Brilliant gold, purple, and green

Harvested by crows

The World Must Be Romanticized

Die Welt muss romantisiert warden (The world must be romanticized), Novalis wrote.  What did he mean by this?  He described the romanticized world as one where the ordinary was extraordinary, and the extraordinary ordinary. To create such a world is precisely the task of literature, especially poetry, which is why Novalis styled the Golden Age that would be ushered in when the world was romanticized a poetic Golden Age.

Ginnistan

Es liegt nur an der Schwäche unsrer Organe und der Selbstberührung, daß wir uns nicht in einer Feenwelt erblicken. Alle Märchen sind nur Träume von jener heimatlichen Welt, die überall und nirgends ist. Die höhern Mächte in uns, die einst als Genien unsern Willen vollbringen werden, sind jetzt Musen, die uns auf dieser mühseligen Laufbahn mit süßen Erinnerungen erquicken.

It is only because of the weakness of our sensory organs and our self-inculcation that we do not see ourselves in a fairy world.  All fairy tales are just dreams of our true home that is everywhere and nowhere.  The higher powers within us, that will one day--like genies--accomplish whatever we will, are, at the present, muses who refresh us with sweet memories on this arduous journey.                                                                                                 --Novalis

We Are near Waking When We Dream That We Dream

When I slept, I was somewhat consoled by my dreams; but all the time I dreamed, I knew that I was only dreaming. But one night, at length, the moon, a mere shred of pallor, scattered a few thin ghostly rays upon me; and I think I fell asleep and dreamed. I sat in an autumn night before the vintage, on a hill overlooking my own castle. My heart sprang with joy. Oh, to be a child again, innocent, fearless, without shame or desire!

                                                                          --George MacDonald Phantastes