Doesn’t this picture make you sad?This
is from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. I assume these
birds were preserved and labeled for scientific reasons, yet I can’t help
feeling depressed to think of all these dead birds!
God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the
birds and invented cages. -JACQUES DEVAL
I never
really thought about it before, but most museums must have storage rooms filled
with all sorts of collections…not just birds.I’d like to believe they communicate with each other and share what they
have discovered, but I’m betting that every museum, every aviary, every science
lab is doing its own research and killing birds for its own collection. Here is
a link listing of some them.
How many birds, fish, and bugs do they kill when it is all added up?Well, okay I don’t really care how many bugs
they kill.I'm not overly fond of bugs.
Birds
differ from man because they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was.
They don’t mess things up.I like birds.
Birds probably care how many bugs are killed. Or they would if they knew.
The moment a person is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow,
he can no
longer see birds or hear them sing. – ERIC BERNE
Automated Bird Song
In many
cultures, birds are thought to be a supernatural link between Heaven and Earth.
In India birds represent departed souls; whereas in Christian art, birds are often portrayed as
saved souls.In Greece, the mythical
Phoenix represents the resurrection of mortals born again from ashes and in Asia birds are symbols of immortality.
Specific
powers are attributed to certain birds too. For instance, in Imperial Rome and
in present day United States, the Eagle is a symbol of strength. In China, cranes represent long life.
In many
religions, Angels are depicted as winged humanoids. They guard mankind and act
as mediators between Heaven and the Earthborn (us).The Egyptian god, Thoth, with the head of an
Ibis, was credited with giving mankind the invention of writing.Prometheus, who gave mankind fire, was
punished by Zeus by being bound to a rock, where each day an eagle was sent to
eat his liver, only to have it grow back the next day and be eaten again.
Egyptian God Thoth
Birds
are scattered throughout our religion, our mythology and our literature. Some
examples:
1.In the ballet, SWAN LAKE a
young princess, Odette and her maids are put under a spell where they are
transformed into swans.
2.In the Harry Potter
series written by J.K. Rowling, a race of magic creatures called VEELA appear
as beautiful women, but turn into scary bird-like creatures
when angry.
3.In Douglas Adam’s The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the bird people of Brontitall evolved from
humans who were sick of buying shoes and vowed never to set foot on the ground again. (Personally, I find it hard to believe that anyone would tire of buying shoes, but this book WAS written by a man.)
4.In
the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy game, the AARAKOCRA are a race of bird
people who dwell in the mountains.
The bluebird carries the sky on his back. – HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Legend of THE OWLMAN of Mawnan, Cornwall
We
give birds human characteristics in our children’s stories such as the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series by
Kathryn Lasky and give humans bird-like features in adult books such as the Maximum
Ride series by James Patterson. In the movie SPLICE , human and bird DNA
are combined to create a new species as seen below.
Dren, the Human-Bird
Birds are important to us in many ways, and I hope that their fate is not as written in the poem below. I don't want the trays of dead museum birds to be all we have left for our future generations.
What They Made from Its
Bonesby William Wenthe Buttons, of course. Dagger handles. Letter openers. Hairpins, combs.
Okay
here it comes …the big countdown to the latest doomsday prediction
12-21-12
Are
you scared?Nope, me neither. I’m not
worried that the world will end suddenly just because we have reached a magic
number on our calendar. As one of my friends (laughingly)
pointed out, I’ve lived
through 5-5-55, 6-6-66, 7-7-77, 8-8-88, 9-9-99, 10-10-10, 11-11-11 and now
12-12-12!
I
remember the Y2K panic. That didn’t happen, did it? Besides, I was taught that
God put me on Earth to accomplish a certain number of things, and right now,
I’m so far behind that I know I will never die!
What
causes great civilizations to collapse is over-expansion and the exhaustion of
natural resources. The Mayans did both.If they could not foresee their own end, then I’m not putting much stock
in their forecast for the rest of us. The future is what we make it.
Mankind
has messed up a lot of things, but I believe we still have time to correct our
mistakes. We’ve cut down rainforests, blown up mountain tops, killed whales,
fouled our drinking water, waged war with each other…
yet even in big polluted
cities, birds are still building nests on tall buildings, grass is still
growing in sidewalk cracks and when people put a flowerpot out on their
windowsill - butterflies still come by.Nature will survive us if we give it the smallest chance.
You don’t have to be a scientist to understand
this.Just look at your family tree. (Sorry,
you can’t escape
your biology.) Who
you are is due to the decisions your ancestors made in choosing mates.If you think they’ve reached perfection in you,
I suppose you could store some of that DNA so that you could be cloned in the
future. (In the deep South we already do this – it’s called “cousins”.)
Albert
Einstein said,"I never think of the
future, it comes soon enough."And he was right.
It has come sooner than I ever thought it would. Because time DOES fly.
When I was a child watching cartoons on Saturday while
drinking Tang ...
"The drink chosen
for the Gemini Astronauts!"
...I thought by the year 2000 I’d be riding into
work on a flying car like “The Jetsons”,
living in a very different city,
and looking something like
this
Oh, wait isn’t Katie Perry doing
that one now?
Okay, maybe it’s better for everyone in my age group and size that this clothing trend didn’t
happen. Scary!
Who really started this doomsday myth? According to news reports, Guatemala’s
Mayan people have accused their government of perpetuating the
myth that their calendar foresees the imminent end of the world to promote tourism for monetary
gain. Imagine! As if anyone would do that, right?
In
reality, the world’s end is linked to our sun – which was formed about 5 billion
years ago and still has about 3-1/2 billion years left before the gas fueling it
is depleted.When that time approaches,
the sun will become a “red giant” expanding more than 250 times its present
diameter.The planets closest to the sun
(including the Earth) will be burned up! But, hey – we’ve got a looong time to
figure out the solution.
We
could just set up a human colony on another planet, you say? Yeah, but it would
have to be located in a galaxy other than this one, because our sun’s next phase
would be as a “white dwarf” - which would make our whole solar system
uninhabitable.
We may
have an environmental sword pointed at us, but the future does not have to be a
plank that we walk blindfolded. There are always choices.We just have to remember that the pirates are
not our friends.
It
may be the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine.
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -- William Shakespeare, from Macbeth
Sometimes I feel that a blog is hardly worth writing anymore. There are so many out there! Everyone is busy writing them, so who is reading them? There are so many voices and topics to choose from that it is impossible to believe that anything I say or think hasn't already been said or thought - and probably expressed more eloquently. Is there nothing new under the sun?
Maybe not. But, there is probably alot of old stuff we don't know anything about - or new ways to do old stuff. The ultimate in recycling. That's why I like Pinterest. There is no craft, skill, artistry, trade or clever idea that hasn't been investigated, photographed and documented for you to look at and try.
Garden "Flower"
Garden Wind Chimes
Tire Caterpillar Planters
I don't know how many more slaps to the head with the exclamation of "Why didn't I think of that?" I can make. I am absolutely addicted to Pinterest! And if I wasn't wasting so much time looking at it all, I might have time to actually do some of the things shown to me.
Tomatoes
Eggplants
Roasted Veggies with Cheese - Yum!
If there is nothing left for me to show and nothing new I can tell, then all I can do is record events as they unfold. A journal? A diary? I'm not Ann Frank. I'm not even Mia Thermopolis. I last kept a diary when I was in 8th grade. I still have it and let me tell you -it makes for some pretty boring reading! If I could go back in time and speak to my 14-year-old self what I would say?
I'd say " Quit whining. All the things you worry about will never happen. Things you never imagined will. All the friends who are so important to you now will disappear from your life and it won't matter. All the people and things you take for granted now will prove to be what is important." I'd tell myself that I am stronger than I think I am, smarter than others think I am and that it is always a good idea to be kind.
But, it doesn't really matter what I'd say because (at that age) I wouldn't be listening! And if perchance I did hear, I wouldn't understand or believe it anyway.
Most of Mankind is like a 14-year old child too. We are old enough to see what is going on around us and certainly intelligent enough understand the implications, but only concerned with that which affects us directly. We may hear what others are saying, but we don't really listen - or care. We are selfish and ignorant.
One change that is needed is the way we view food and its production, but as philosphers
have noted “People don’t change because they see the light; they change because they feel the heat.”
If we were to divide the Earth equally among all humans it would give us about 4
acres per person. However, only 3/4 of one acre would be livable. We would have to share some of that 3/4 acre with other non-human animals too. The tiny portion that is our "fair share" has to be able to produce food for everyone. I think it is probably safe to say that we have overshot the carrying capacity of our planet.
Per Michael Pollen, in order to make the most of what we have available to us we need to eat REAL food, LESS of it and make sure it is mostly PLANTS. We have a limited amount of grain to feed the world, but we are using 60% of it to feed animals that we in turn eat.
What can you do?
Buy food locally, buy organic and buy in season. Know what is in your food. Read labels. Plant a garden. Raise chickens. Cook and eat at home. Get involved. Know the issues.
Community Garden
Organic Farming
Fight to make sure that healthy meals are being served in public schools, write to your representatives, and insist that local Farmer's Markets accept food stamps. Why? Healthy food needs to be affordable for everyone.
A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds.
Is there nothing new under the sun? Just our future.
Books available at Chesapeake Public Libraries CLICK ON GREEN LINKS TO SEE
