eating bugs

I have to say, I have a new found appetite for bugs after watching the chimps in this video artfully 'fish' for termites. Yet the best part about the video is how the researchers turned into instant wrecks when they tried it. Of course, being National Geographic, the announcer has to make the obvious connection between fishing for termites and chimps forging weapons (which they would no doubt use to hunt Wooly Mammoths).

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Small White Lady's Slipper

This is the draft video I put together of the Small White Lady's Slipper on Bkejwanong Territory. I believe the community holds the largest population in Canada, and is one of two or three sites in Ontario. You'll notice how severe shoreline erosion is to the plant. The most ironic part about the situation is how the invasive phragmites plant is actually holding parts of the shore (and the plants) in place. Phragmites is taking over like wildfire, and indeed is the source of massive wildfires in the spring. The plant has long tendril roots, which you'll see, and does not allow much else (waterfowl, indigenous reeds, prairie flowers, etc...) to grow.

Music is "Salka" by Sigur-Ros.

a post!

I watched the video produced by Amanda Baggs about a week ago, and I've been thinking about it ever since. Specifically, it reminded me of a couple things. Firstly, I recalled a line from Gaston Bachelard's book Water and Dreams in which he makes the argument that people who live near water all their life, know the water as a poetic reality, rather than as a determined, and I might say, a strict linear quality. Secondly, I was reminded of when I shared some of my research with a friend (perhaps a bit too enthusiastically), only to find he just didn't get what I was trying to say. The frustration arose when I tried to suggest that an animated experience of reality can allow for the presence of what some Anthropologists (Hallowell, Ingold) consider the other-than-human beings that fill old stories and mythology. This potential, or possibility, arises through a communication with the world that defies the strict edicts of what the modern world considers communication. The communication does not have to be expressed in English, on television, or on the internet, but I like to think it comes from the experience of being here and listening and the repetition of this. It may be in thunderclouds that are other-than mere meteorological phenomena or it may be in snowfall that is other-than frozen crystalized precipitation. I like to think of these things as Bachelard, as the poetic realities, that if we're fortunate enough may find words not easily distilled in English, the poetic realities that move us to engage with the world in anti-modern dialogue.