Weekly Photo Challenge: Precious Few

August 19, 2016 by scillagrace

“After a ten-fold drop in the population of the eastern monarch butterfly population over the last decade, a 2016 study predicted an 11%–57% probability that this population will go quasi-extinct over the next 20 years.” Wikipedia

Monarch butterflies used to be so plentiful. I would see them as a child living in the Midwest and study the way they emerge from their chrysalis in school. The Fall breeze was always full of milkweed seeds floating by. Their habitat was ubiquitous – all that open field land hosted several species of milkweed, the Butterfly Plant. When we moved to California where I went to High School, I would see Monarchs by the thousands at Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz hanging in great clusters on the eucalyptus trees. Then I moved back to the Midwest and noticed how quickly all that open field land, the prairies, was being developed into shopping malls, parking lots and subdivisions. Here in Milwaukee, we had a Monarch Trail on the County Grounds where there was about 350 acres of open land. Then the city decided to put in a “research park” – meaning technical buildings and apartments – and reduced the Monarch habitat to 11 acres adjacent to the interstate that’s been under construction for 2 years…so far. Once a common insect, the Monarch Butterfly is becoming increasingly rare on the landscape. The life of this wonder includes the amazing feat of migration, which is also being threatened by climate change.

The age of Kings is just about over, as the modern world encroaches more and more on his kingdom. I found this one at George W. Mead State Wildlife Area during the weekend of Independence Day.

I wish you a long life and numerous progeny, Little Prince.

Dream What You Will and Will What You Dream

August 16, 2016 by scillagrace

(This article is featured in this month’s issue of The BeZine. See the issue here.)

I took a quiz recently to test my Bible knowledge. I used to be a bona fide college campus ministry staff worker. I studied my Bible…religiously. So, I wondered how much I’d retained after having dropped the Christian label 6 years ago. I got one question wrong: “In a list of the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit, which one is NOT in the basket? Kindness, Peace, Forbearance, or Hope?” Turns out it’s Hope.

“Hope is a mannequin. Love is a battlefield,” sings Bobby McFerrin’s voice in my head.

Hope is a deceitful kind of thing. It sounds like a marvelous, Puritanical virtue. I think it’s a slippery slope. Hope is passive. “I hope it won’t rain.” There’s nothing you can really do about it, one way or the other. You’re stating a wish, a sort of desire or thought without any teeth. “I hope my insurance will cover this.” You’re placing the burden of responsibility or action on something, someone other than yourself. “I hope in the future.” You’re making present moment decisions while not being present in the moment.

On the other hand, I think Will has gotten a bum rap, as in “the willful child”, “not my Will but Yours be done”, “keep your servant from willful sins”, etc. I much prefer Ralph Waldo Emerson preaching Self-Reliance to that doctrinal negation of determination. I think it’s important to know what you want, what you like and why. At the same time, I think it’s very important not to get attached to those things. Some people will defend their desires because they feel that their identities are shaped by them, and they want them to be. In a Universe of impermanence, that can be problematic. What if the thing you desire is altogether unattainable? Or even unapproachable? Your identity becomes “the person who is not going to get what they want – ever”. Sounds like a life of frustration and suffering to me.

To be able to say that I think this thing is good, that I want to use my energy and resources to practice and promote this thing, while I acknowledge that much of the success of this thing remains out of my control, is Self-Reliance. Furthermore, I no longer believe that the success of this thing is in the control of a supernatural power. And I’m OK with that. I don’t need to have a guarantee that this thing will succeed eventually in order for me to feel my efforts are worthwhile. I can have a moral conviction of the value of this thing without supernatural endorsement.

I suppose I should mention that my philosophical transformation began after my husband died. My identity was shaken. I lost Faith; I lost Hope. “How very sad!” I hear you cry. Let me add that I was then asked repeatedly by a dear friend, “What do you want?” “Who do you want to be?” and I eventually found myself. I became aware of delusions and habits of thought that I’d never examined before. I discovered my will, my values, my feelings and my ability to accept change, adapt, and practice living gracefully and gratefully. I know good things intuitively, and I have learned that I am trustworthy.

And I believe that everyone else could say the same. See, I do believe in something.

Weekly Photo Challenge: FUN! and Booty Shaking

August 12, 2016 by scillagrace

I gotta admit, I am a more (ahem!) serious photographer. Nature close-ups, landscapes and the like are hardly the stuff of Booty Shaking shots. And when I’m in the midst of having fun, I usually don’t have my camera out. It’s a relatively big one, a piece of equipment that represents an uncharacteristic birthday splurge for me. So, it’s not like I’m popping shots from the hip while out clubbing. However… my kids came to my birthday party and danced in the living room once.

And then there was that New Year’s Eve we opened some Christmas Crackers…

My brother’s wedding reception was a great dance party!

Yeah, I’m a pretty mellow kind of person, but I do like to have FUN in my own way!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Good Morning!

August 5, 2016 by scillagrace

It’s all about the initiation. The beginning. The sun rising in the east and making the western sky rosy. The fog lifting. The commencement of new sound breaking out of silence. The birds, the frogs, calling back and forth. Another day, a new opportunity for life.

Looking at the effects that nighttime sunlessness has left on the world and realizing that other changes are still to come. The frost will melt. The air will warm.

It’s all about the sun. It’s come back again. Whatever we wished or feared, held in hope or anxiety, we have been given another day to work, to play, to love, to dread, or to be free. Continuation is the gift…or maybe the rule. What will you make of it?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Narrow, but certainly not Straight

July 29, 2016 by scillagrace

I have a thing for paths and journeys.

I like walking along, single file mostly.

I’m not a 4-lane highway kind of person, by any means.

I like to meander…

…though I’m a bit more efficient and direct than my partner, Steve.

When he feels that I’m being too driven and not aware enough of my surroundings, he says that I’m “doing the train”.

Okay, I get it. So we tend to travel narrow, but not too straight. I like it that way.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Over the Top

July 22, 2016 by scillagrace

Lately, the world seems to have fallen to new depths of misery. I’m sure ten examples have just popped into your mind. Into this awareness, I want to insert illustrations of the fact that at the same time, the world is more awesome than we can imagine. You’re having an experience that is very pleasant; you’re smiling; you’re happy. Suddenly, something happens that kicks it into another level. For example, my brother’s wedding reception. It takes place at the Winchester Mystery House, which is already very interesting and fun. Then, the Hora Loca begins to play and a new element is introduced….

We were not expecting that! Or that my 80-year old mother would join her on the dance floor. Here’s another…

I was working 5 different part-time jobs when I was offered a job as the Administrative Assistant at a conservation foundation. That meant that I would work in a farmhouse with just one other employee (the Executive Director) and help protect the natural environment. I took my camera to the top of one of the hills on our lands. It was the first day of June last year. The weather was perfect. The vistas were lush. And I was getting paid. Then, this swallowtail came by to welcome me.

The goodness of the real world transcends suffering, I have found. But you have to be open to receiving it as such. A simple, new breath can be the cherry on top of everything. Breathing in, I am alive. Breathing out, I am grateful.

Faith Means Making Choices

July 15, 2016 by scillagrace

This article appears in the July issue of The Be Zine. To see the whole blogazine, click HERE.

Faith.

“Firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” Merriam-Webster

We all act on faith. Each of us, every day. We make decisions based on ideas and concepts for which we have no proof. We take action based on insufficient evidence about the cause and the effect. This is unavoidable. When are we ever going to have all the information about anything? The more we learn, the more we realize how little we know. The more we experience and the more we learn of others’ experiences, the more we realize that possible experiences and conclusions are infinite. None of us is ever in possession of “all the facts”. We are all guessing.

Similarly, we all have delusions. We all look through various lenses, have particular blind spots, and wear custom-made blinders for one reason or another. Sometimes these serve as coping mechanisms to protect us from overwhelming stimuli. Sometimes these simply magnify our ignorance.

Let’s try on an example.

I have to make a decision about how to commute to work in the morning. I have been told that taking the freeway is the fastest route. After all, the speed limit on that road is 55 mph. However, it’s always under construction in the summer. But is speed the best value to consider? Maybe I should not burn fossil fuels and ride my bicycle instead. I will then arrive at work sweaty and tired. There is a bus, but buses are full of germs. But my friend takes the bus, and I could ride with him and chat…And so on.

The point is, there are a number of ways to get to work and a number of reasons to justify each one. Those reasons may be weighted by experience, by social influence, by practice, by value and by preference. We each make our choices, our decisions, based on incomplete data and bias, but the point is WE MAKE CHOICES. And that is our great freedom, a right of autonomy.

We have the opportunity to make new choices at any time, although they will also be based on incomplete data and bias even when they are made in an attempt to incorporate new information. The dynamic of deciding and re-deciding is perhaps the greatest activity of life for our species. It’s what our big brains are for. But it is a process that does not have a product. We will never get it all figured out. Dogma is unsupportable in the long run, even if it seems beneficial in the short term. We will never, ever arrive at what is absolutely “right”. Perhaps a better pursuit is simply what is “better”.

Where faith turns into action or behavior, we make moral judgments. Based on your beliefs in the moment, you chose what to do. Was that action beneficial? Did it cause harm? If you decide the action was harmful or that acting in that way did not help you to be the person you want to be, you can choose a different action…AND you can choose to change the beliefs that justified your action. A flexible framework allows a lot more options.

Back to our commute example. What if…

Believing that getting to work quickly was the most professional, responsible thing to do, I set off on the freeway. Soon afterward, I ran into road construction. Flag operators stopped my car. The minutes ticked by. I got frustrated, angry, eventually enraged, and I expressed this state of mind by shouting a curse at the flag man and punching the accelerator as I was allowed to move forward. In the process, I rear-ended a car in front of me. Now I have caused insult to the construction worker on the scene, injury to the car and possibly the person ahead of me, and acted like a person I do not wish to become. I can decide to be more careful not to act in anger in the future, and I can decide that getting to work quickly is not an important value so that I’m less likely to feel frustrated when I can’t fulfill that value. I can examine my beliefs and thoughts as well as my actions and make changes in both in order to practice non-harmful behavior more effectively.

This is a simple example. My real life is much more complex. At one point, it involved decisions I made about raising teens to adulthood while my husband was dying of a chronic illness. I realized that acting on my faith sometimes caused me to harm them and to become someone I didn’t want to be. So, not only did I stop the behaviors, I stopped believing the underlying principles that motivated them. I kept wondering if I was “losing my faith”, a phrase that sounded so negative and irresponsible. What I was actually doing was evolving my faith and my self. That, I think, is a very positive and responsible practice. I intend to practice striving for “better” and doing less harm. That’s my new choice, my new faith.

Text and photographs © Priscilla Galasso, 2016. All rights reserved.

Weekly Photo Challenge: In the Details

July 15, 2016 by scillagrace

I’m with Jen. I love Nature in intimate detail. So much beauty! You have to slow down to find treasures under a leaf…

…or on top of a flower.

When you take your time to look at details, you can change perspective and admire Nature from different angles.

Awareness leads to appreciation. The world is fascinatingly intricate and beautiful.

Soon appreciation becomes an attitude. You see everything for its intrinsic beauty. Eventually, this attitude of wonder and respect gets converted to action.

May we all act peacefully and do no harm.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Looking Up

July 8, 2016 by scillagrace

Looking up is all about being aware of how wonderful the world is…as it is.

“Things are looking up”…

Go ahead. “Look on up from your life…” There’s so much more.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Opposites

July 1, 2016 by scillagrace

There’s a jazzy Jim Henson Sesame Street song about this…

That’s the first thing that popped into my head. ‘Near’ and ‘far’ are opposite concepts. Concrete things are rarely exact opposites. More often, their differences are about contrast and juxtaposition. Here are some examples:

This complex world is full of interesting differences. My hope is that these contrasts become areas for exploration and awe, not areas for fear and hatred. You know what I mean?

Peace, friends. 🙂