CaterFly

Somewhere between caterpillar and butterfly there is a pupa (caterfly?) undergoing remarkable transformation.

"Within the chrysalis, the caterpillar’s tissues undergo histolysis, a process of controlled self-digestion. Most of the larval cells break down into a nutrient-rich soup, while the imaginal discs and certain other groups of cells survive. These surviving cells then use the available nutrients to construct entirely new tissues and organs. The caterpillar’s body is reorganized into that of an adult butterfly—complete with wings, compound eyes, proboscis, and reproductive organs." (Science News Today)

That must have happened to produce the white butterfly we saw yesterday, first of the season, identical to all those white butterflies we saw last year.

What happens in a chrysalis is a striking analogy for this chapter of the planetary story. We find the biosphere, including human affairs, collapsing in many ways: biodiversity, climate, global and national politics, energy supply, the economy, food security, religion, relationships, health, fertility. What if this is the chrysalis from which Earth may emerge as something beautifully new with or without people? What if the human obsession with consumption and growth has been our larval stage, and as emerging adults we have other concerns, an evolving worldview.

A metaphor gets us thinking, but is never exact. Once it has our attention, we learn much from how it doesn't fit. For a particular species, what emerges from the chrysalis is almost always the same. If it fails to repeat the inherited plan, the butterfly probably doesn't survive. Very occasionally, a mutation turns out to be useful, and will be passed on to progeny.

In the human realm, we have history to lead us into the future, but it is a future unlike anything in history. If we faithfully replicate what the ancestors have done (including war, exploitation, extraction, extermination, pollution), we race to the sixth mass extinction. Fortunately we are equipped with a tool that the butterflies lack. We have imagination.

We either reinvent what it is to be human, or the world will evolve without us.

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New Climate Research Warns of Faster Warming: Just Have A Think

A Question Of Margin: Bill McKibben

An Attractor Nobody Sees: How civilizational dissolution reorganizes itself: Richard David Hames

Taraxacology

the study of Taraxacum officionale, also known as blowball, cankerwort, doon-head-clock, witch's gowan, milk witch, lion's-tooth, yellow-gowan, Irish daisy, monks-head, priest's-crown, puff-ball, faceclock, pee-a-bed, wet-a-bed, swine's snout, white endive, wild endive, and dandelion. We have this ology about Taraxacum because there is much to know such as this plant's use as food and medicine, the aerodynamics of wind dispersal of seeds and reproduction by apomixis. Curious yet? You can read about it >> here <<.


Taraxacum officionale

Taraxacology is on my mind because this year I have already spent hours digging Taraxacums out of the lawn. If you let one grow, it produces so much seed that your yard will soon be fully entaraxacumbered.

On the plus side, my back is getting stronger. That and the pretty yellow flowers are free. That and the fun of blowing away the seedheads in June. That and the tap-rooted persistent greenery they provide during summer drought. They are vigorous, resilient, tolerant of heat, cold, full sun, shade, and mowing. What's not to love?

The Dandelion Strategy For Regenerating The Earth: The Earth Regenerators use dandelion seed dispersal as a metaphor for the rapid spread of an emerging ecology paradigm following the coming collapse of the biosphere. It may only take a few people with regenerative ideas to seed a rapidly growing sustainable culture amidst the chaos. Shall we be dandelions?

Sea Level Rise: The Universe, The World And Us, a video explaining one consequence of climate change.

Sustainable Communities: The David Suzuki Foundation

Regenerative Practices Breathe New Life Into Forests: David Suzuki and Rachel Plotkin

Mark Carney Wades Into The Deep Waters Of Environmental Regulation: CBC News, May 13, 2026

Doing The Best That I Can

Until recently I didn't give a thought to my thumb, the one on my right hand. It was useful for sure, opening the cookie jar, taking out the garbage, tying shoelaces, etc. But it was always there in working order, so I just got on with business.

Last week, the old thumb had enough of being used, abused and ignored. The knuckle began dislocating even under slight stress making all the usual chores painful problems to be managed. 

I'm not looking for sympathy. You don't make it to 85 without accumulating problems to be managed. It's OK. I'm managing. The right hand is on vacation. The left hand opens the cookie jar and carries the garbage bucket. Since both thumbs are needed to tie the shoes, I'm switching to Velcro. Velcro is nifty, but I can't take credit for it. Didn't invent it. Didn't design and manufacture laceless shoes. Glory and honour to inventors and manufacturers.

This reminds me:
when things are running smoothly, we forget that we are part of something bigger that keeps us safe and comfortable and solves our problems. We imagine that the world is there for us to use, and we use it as we wish because we can...until we can't. We are deluded in thinking we are self-sufficient and in control. Not so. We are bit actors in a story that has been going on forever, a story to which we belong as transient, self-absorbed trouble makers, a story that will continue without us when we are gone.

Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble 'til you try brushing your teeth with the other hand.

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It's Hard To Be Humble: Mac Davis and The Muppets

Everyone Is Playing Correctly, a game theory of collapse: Adrian Lambert

Overshoot:  Alan Urban, 2023

Ants Or No Ants

That is the question.

We've got ants.
Again.
Ants on the floor.
Ants in the kitchen.
Ants running up our legs.

I imagine an ant saying, "How do I get this tasty human to hold still so we can get his butt back to the nest? We've got babies to feed."

As for us tasty people,
how do we get rid of the ants?
We use ant traps, of course.
Ants will take the poison bait back to the nest
and that'll finish 'em off.
When the ants are gone, the traps go in the garbage...until there are more ants.

There are always more ants.

Years ago a wise granddaughter told us we were being mean. We should put a jar of jam on the lawn so the ants would stay outside. She hadn't been around long enough to learn how we humans deal with stuff we don't like. Jam on the lawn doesn't work. If you feed the ants, they thrive and you get more ants looking for more food. Ants will happily bite the hand that feeds them.

We do that too. Come to think of it, we have a lot in common with the ants.

When they have exhausted the provision around their nest they send out an army to exploit surrounding territory. Just like us.

Sometimes ants send a swarm off to find somewhere else to call home. Just like us.

Some ants let aphids do the foraging for them and harvest aphid sugar secretions. Ice cream anyone?

These solutions to survival problems have evolved over millions of years along with everything else on the planet including us.

We have evolved smarter than ants, but not as smart as evolution. We are good at altering our circumstances but not so good at predicting outcomes, some of which may be bad. Eventually evolution fixes its mistakes. 

If we continue to exceed the regenerative capacity of the planet, that mistake will be fixed.

After that there will still be ants.

May we be wise enough soon enough to survive being so smart.
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The Abundance, Biomass, and Distribution of
Ants on Earth: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
Creation As Relative: Randy Woodley
Climate Science Awareness and Solutions: Columbia Climate School

Record Heat: The World, The Universe And Us, 23 minute video
The Failure Of Climate Politics: Prof Eliot Jacobson
I Need To Be Honest For A Moment: The Earthly
The Mouth Of The Ouroboros: a chronicle of civilization's suicide: Gabriel Lovemore

After Earth Day

Earth Day was April 22. It went by hardly noticed. Our attention is on war and tariffs, the price of fuel and groceries, housing and jobs. All of that is important here and now. 

But have you noticed that the conversation around climate has hushed ? William Rees (see link below) explains why humanity is mentally, socially and culturally unequipped to pay attention to this large scale, slow moving existential threat. If he's right, we are done. 

It would be so tragic if our grandchildren were extinguished because we are distracted by the price of gasoline. 

We have a choice.
We could pay attention to the facts,
imagine a better future for the planet and
make it happen. 

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Conflict and Crises Floodlight Fossil Fuel Folly:  David Suzuki and Ian Hanington

Mything Out On Sustainable Development: William E. Rees

Something Brewing In The Pacific: Chris Gloninger

Super El Niño: The World, The Universe and Us and New Scientist (13 minute Youtube video)

Super El Niño: Covering Climate Now (1 hour Youtube video)

Let's Talk Climate: Bill McKibben

The Economy of Becoming: Indy Johar

Another Year Gone

Eighty-five today and still writing.

Maybe I have said everything I have to say. I look back and reread words from blog posts past and find I agree and disagree with it all, naive simplicity and pedantic complexity, so serious and so silly. Ideas are to be lived, like seeds sprouting questions, budding heresies, and bearing fruit with new seed, then doing it all again. That's life, or perhaps meta-life.

Which leaves me wondering:
what's the meta for:
overthinking simplicity,
oversimplifying complexity,
being seriously silly?

Enough!
Time for life.
I will dig the garden and plant again.

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Evolution of Minds: acknowledging the complexity of thought

KISS or SIN: in praise of simplicity

Emergence: a simple poem about the source of complexity

To Look at Dust: the last words in this blog.

Just Check The Thermostat

One night last week, the furnace went down. There was an error message on the thermostat telling us to call for service and not try to fix it ourselves. I called. The receptionist walked us through a couple of first steps: does the filter need changing (did that last week), turn the power off and on to reset the controls (tried that with no effect). A service call was set for that afternoon. Meanwhile we kept ourselves warm with the fireplace, space heaters and ovens.

Let me explain. We have a hybrid heat-pump/gas-furnace. The heat pump works down to -10° C outdoor temperature. Below that the furnace kicks in, until it kicks out. It kicked out some time during the night leaving the house cooling to 17° C by morning. 

That's all I knew or want to know. For control, we have the thermostat, filter, power switch, and the telephone connecting us to service. That's enough. The jungle of tubes, wires, switches and valves inside the furnace is up to the technician. He says the high temperature kill switch was thrown for some unknown reason, and if it happens again they will replace the switch. Thank goodness he knew how it works and what can go wrong. We are warm again without needing to take a course in furnace repair.

The equipment, which is warranted by the manufacturer, has parts made who knows where on the planet. The materials from which the parts are made come from remote mines and refineries. The minerals which aggregated from space rubble 4.5 billion years ago, came from stardust, and we could trace their origin back to the inflation of the singularity 13.8 billion years ago, a year being the time required for one revolution of the earth around the sun. Note that there wasn't always an earth to serve as a cosmological clock. 

You get my point? It's complicated, but you don't have to know where it all came from or how it works or what the evidence is. Just check the thermostat and do what it says.

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We called a taxi to go to the optometrist last week. The driver said it was a slow day because it was March break, and he was wasting time when he should have been earning fares. Our fare came to $19. I gave him $25. He said, "God bless you", and we departed mutually happy with his fee and our ride. 

God bless you? I appreciate the gratitude. But what's God got to do with it? Is God going to fix things so I win the lottery as a reward for my generosity? Well, no. I am pretty sure reality doesn't work that way. But yes, we participate in reality and in response to our God-thoughts we can make it more generous.

That's my inner theologian being hyper-vigilant. If you've followed along, you know I have been thinking of God as two things: reality (complex and mysterious), and also our simplified understanding of reality (metaphorical, incomplete and fallible). We don't all have to be theologians (trained existential technicians), but we do have some control over how reality plays out. We may need to repair things and clean up our messes (reset and change the filter). Experience is our thermostat, showing us how we are doing.

We can choose (within limits) the warmth of the world we  live in. We have a hybrid furnace, more or less passionate or rational as needed.

Let us be generous, passionately and wisely.

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The Good Life Was Never Mine: Jessica Böhme

The Last Illusion: Deconstructionology with Jim Palmer