massive swarm of grasshoppers and beetles headed to Oklahoma – click to read the article at KFOR.com
Was it you? Or YOU? Who was it!?
I like bugs. I really do. Granted, I don’t want them in my hair or in my food or on the underside of the toilet seat ready to bite my nethers when I take a leak in the middle of the night. But they’re pretty nifty little things and if I can study one up close, I take the opportunity. They seem to like me, too. The moment I step outside on a summer night, ALL the bugs come flying at my head. They never bother with anyone else. It must be my brilliant personality. Har. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I never fail to shriek and run and wave my arms around my head. Just the other night as I was walking out of the grocery store, something really big zoomed right at me the second the automatic door slid open, as if it had been waiting for me. It hit me hard in the chest and landed on the ground. It was a giant bright green grasshopper. It could have picked anyone else to dive-bomb, including my husband, but no. And anything that flies slowly by and may or may not have the potential to sting me? Well, you’re likely to have your own coffee spilled on you as I cringe and scoot out of the way. And now we have a whole swarm of grasshoppers AND beetles coming for me, I mean, us. Grand.
My favorite insects are beetles. I don’t care if they fly at my head or roll dung or kill my garden. I love ’em. They have a dopey sweetness about them, especially the big clumsy ones. I have a strong affection for click bugs and my very favorites are the metallic green scarabs. Whenever I find one I bring it home with me, even if it’s dead. I found one on a walk recently. Here he (or she) is:
Oh, the things I find on my walks… and bring home!
I have another one around here somewhere that I’ve had since high school. It has stayed in pretty good shape all this time.
Not too long ago, I said I didn’t feel badly about killing hundreds of ants, actually probably thousands of ants. I was very angry with them at the time. I really do feel awful about it. They’re obnoxious but they have as much right to be here as I do. I’d like to be able to convince them that they don’t need to come into my house, but they’re ants after all. When I found Mom’s copy of “Animal Speak” by Ted Andrews, I saw it was open to spider. I wondered if there was anything about ants in there, and sure enough. Coincidentally or not, I’ve only seen about 30 ants in my kitchen since reading that, and that was well over a month ago, probably closer to two months. Almost like magic.
Here are some interesting excerpts from “Animal Speak” by Ted Andrews:
ANT
KEYNOTE – industriousness, order and discipline
– “If the ant has shown up as a totem, examine your own industriousness. Are you disciplining yourself enough to accomplish the tasks at hand? Are you or those around you looking for the quick and easy way? Are you neglecting important activities? Are you laying a good foundation? Are you adding new structures to your life with each passing year in some fashion – education, jobs hobbies, etc.? Are you being patient with your efforts? Are you being patient with yourself? With others? Are you making things greater and more difficult than they need to be? Are you missing an opportunity to initiate new creations and endeavors? Ant can teach you how to harness your own power to design and recreate your life and its circumstances from the ground up. Ant can show you how best to work with others for the good of everyone. Ant teaches us that regardless of circumstances, if the effort is true the rewards will follow – in the most beneficial time and manner. Ant is the promise of success through effort.”
BEETLE:
KEYNOTE: resurrection
– “The beetle is the most varied of all insects. There may be as many as 280,000 different kinds of beetles. To put this into perspective, the number of vertebrate animals – including fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals – may be around 44,000.
In Egypt, the scarab, or sacred beetle, had great significance. The beetle would take a piece of ox dung and shape it into a ball by rolling it from east to west. The eggs were laid within this and then buried. After about a month, the beetle would dig it up and push it into the water and the young would emerge. Because of its east to west rolling, it came to be associated with the sun and its movement across the sky. The scarab thus came to be a symbol for solar deities and for new life.
As with many insects, the beetle goes through a tremendous metamorphosis from the grub state to the winged. Because of this, it is associated with resurrection and change. In its winged stage, the front set of wings are thickened into hard covers which fold and protect the soft underside. This may indicate for those with this totem to be more protective, or possibly that you are too closed off.
If the beetle has shown up in your life examine the need for metamorphosis. Are you in the process? If so, what stage? Do you need a change? Are you needing new sunshine? Is it time to resurrect some aspect of your life? Is it time to leave the past behind? The beetle can show you how to do this with the greatest success.”
—————–
I love this approach. Good questions. The right questions must be asked, or asked in just the right way, before we can begin to consider how to solve our own unique problems. Sometimes there are only more questions, but at least we’re getting somewhere – or somewhere else – right?
So, the beetle, and the mention of being too closed off… If you’ve been with me for a while, you know the last few years have been pretty rough for me. I’ve lost a lot of my people, I lost life as I knew it – and through the process of several of those losses, I came to realize that I didn’t know these people or situations as well as I thought I did. Not necessarily because they were hiding anything from me (although, that was sometimes the case) but because I didn’t want to look too closely. I feel like people should have their privacy to be as wacky as they need to be to feel okay about being alive, so I tend to look at people through a filter, of sorts. I guess that’s what I get for being raised by a bunch of weirdos. My family has them all: bookworms, conspiracy theorists, artists, scientists, perfectionists, cause-havers, crystal wavers, hoarders, gamblers, cock-eyed optimists… so I guess I came by my live and let live attitude pretty honestly. Problem is, these people were willing, even trying, to tell me these things all along that I thought were being hidden from me. I was just too wrapped up in my own problems and idealisms to get the subtle hints. These discoveries rattled me so hard that it took me quite a while to understand what happened.
dad
I finally had to admit to myself that this was my problem, not theirs. So I made a very conscious decision to look more closely at people, at life, at myself. I had to accept that I’m not always going to like what I see, but knowledge is power and all that rot. Hiding from people and new experiences, and most importantly, the truth, isn’t going to accomplish much. Looking back over the last couple of years, the results of my (then) new resolve have been fairly noticeable, even if only to me. I feel a little bit more happy, a little bit less stuck inside my own head, a little bit more at ease around other people. I’ve purposely yanked myself out of my comfort zone at least a few times and it hasn’t been so bad.
But all of that having been said, I still get a big thrill when people just come right out and tell me stuff. It’s easier that way. And we can talk about the ants later…
—————
OH! And don’t let me forget to tell you: SUPERSTARS THIS THURSDAY! Here’s what’s happening:
Be at www.z-beads.com this Thursday, July 30th
Click on the SUPERSTARS link at the lower left side of the front page
7:30PM – 8PM Central Time: 30 minute sale preview. Take this time to look at the photos, read the descriptions and decide what you want.
8PM Central Time and beyond – send in those requests!
I’ll post a sneak peek of the goods here before the sale.
Thanks for reading!
Read Full Post »
the z-beads blog 