more insanity....
Posted on Dec 14th, 2006
by 
source-within
source-within
more insanity....
my landlady has now had the coconuts removed from the tree outside my door -- as if there would have been coquíes living right on the coconuts!! big, beautiful, green coconuts -- a huge array of them! the tree had just recently matured enough that it was beginning to drop them, one-by-one ... and i was saying thank-you-thank-you, cracking them open, drinking the juice, eating the flesh! wonderful, having a coconut dispenser right at my door, not having to hunt for coconuts elsewhere! but now they've been cut down and tossed on the junk pile....
i retrieved one of them, and will open it and see how it is -- i can hear juice inside, when i shake it -- but i think it's really too immature. the coconut man, the guy who sells coconuts at the market (opened with his machete), for people to drink the juice, is the one who cut these down; and, surely, if he thought they were any good, he would have taken them himself....
and still more insanity (from this woman who has been a veterinarian all her adult life -- 40+ years -- who, presumably, as a veterinarian, has devoted herself to caring for animals, and who is now devoting herself to the slaughter of as many coquí frogs as possible! how could someone who cares about animals bring herself to the point of spraying chlorine bleach on them, deliberately killing them in such a horrific and drawn-out way??? these little frogs suffer for about an hour before dying, when sprayed with bleach!)....
my vision of her poisoning the earth, to keep the massacred foliage from growing back, has not materialized, thank heaven! -- but, instead, she has now covered that strip of ground with black plastic, held in place by odds and ends of lumber. so, now, every time i open my front door, i'm treated to the shocking beauty of a barren, gray, cinderblock wall footed by black plastic and lumber scraps. WOW!! -- heavenly indeed! -- with the likelihood that the plastic will trap little pools of rainwater, which will serve as nurseries for mosquito larvae. so, we'll have the extra treat of additional mosquitoes -- and now fewer coquíes to eat them!
the landlady's approach to mosquitoes has been to buy and install, months ago, an electrical gizmo in the back yard, which allegedly attracts and kills them. it's not one of those zappers, the ones that fry insects with bolts of blue lightning - thank heaven! - it lures mosquitoes into a bag, by means of scent; then the bag has to be emptied periodically, plus there is of course the expense of running electricity through the gizmo, 24/7, plus the initial cost of the gizmo itself. she says it catches lots of mosquitoes -- maybe the only ones it doesn't catch are the ones that come into my apartment! anyway, the number of those seems to have remained fairly constant all along. wouldn't it have been a lot simpler, and less expensive, and less work, not to have bought the machine, and to have allowed the coquíes to flourish and eat the mosquitoes?? ah, but, of course, then they would still be keeping her awake at night! i really do sympathize with anyone who is unable to sleep, for any reason -- i've had some spectacular experiences with that myself -- but i also really wonder how the sound of these little frogs, which to me is so soothing, could keep anyone from sleeping! is it really the frogs, or is it more a matter of people's predisposition to hate the frogs, and the mental power of suggestion!!
the other day, my landlady said to me: "Some places around here, people can't even hear their car radios, when their windows are down, the frogs are so loud!!"
i said: "maybe Mother Nature is sending them a message, trying to get their attention, saying, 'Hey - turn off your radio for a while, listen to the frogs! Listen to NATURE!! Maybe you'll start to remember who you really are!'"
that's what i feel the frogs have been doing for me, helping me to remember who i am.... i came back to hilo at the end of august, after 3 months on the mainland ... and the frog-songs were much louder than they had been when i left (many more frogs!) ... and i heard them literally as the voice of Mother Nature, saying to me: "Don't listen to the radio anymore! Just listen to the frogs! Aren't they enough? Aren't they better, aren't they much more soothing and sane-ifying, than the radio??" and i knew she was exactly right! i have not turned on the radio for one second since my return from the mainland. just the thought of it was (and still is) enough to make me physically, viscerally, uncomfortable and anxious! just the sight of the radio, on the chest by my bed, was making me uncomfortable -- so i put it away in a drawer, months ago!!
of course, my suggestion that Mother Nature might be trying to get a similar message to people in their cars -- with radios blasting -- received only a snort of automatic dismissal from my landlady ... as if to say, "Oh, who would be so stupid as to prefer the sound of frogs to the sound of a radio?!"
my landlady has now had the coconuts removed from the tree outside my door -- as if there would have been coquíes living right on the coconuts!! big, beautiful, green coconuts -- a huge array of them! the tree had just recently matured enough that it was beginning to drop them, one-by-one ... and i was saying thank-you-thank-you, cracking them open, drinking the juice, eating the flesh! wonderful, having a coconut dispenser right at my door, not having to hunt for coconuts elsewhere! but now they've been cut down and tossed on the junk pile....
i retrieved one of them, and will open it and see how it is -- i can hear juice inside, when i shake it -- but i think it's really too immature. the coconut man, the guy who sells coconuts at the market (opened with his machete), for people to drink the juice, is the one who cut these down; and, surely, if he thought they were any good, he would have taken them himself....
and still more insanity (from this woman who has been a veterinarian all her adult life -- 40+ years -- who, presumably, as a veterinarian, has devoted herself to caring for animals, and who is now devoting herself to the slaughter of as many coquí frogs as possible! how could someone who cares about animals bring herself to the point of spraying chlorine bleach on them, deliberately killing them in such a horrific and drawn-out way??? these little frogs suffer for about an hour before dying, when sprayed with bleach!)....
my vision of her poisoning the earth, to keep the massacred foliage from growing back, has not materialized, thank heaven! -- but, instead, she has now covered that strip of ground with black plastic, held in place by odds and ends of lumber. so, now, every time i open my front door, i'm treated to the shocking beauty of a barren, gray, cinderblock wall footed by black plastic and lumber scraps. WOW!! -- heavenly indeed! -- with the likelihood that the plastic will trap little pools of rainwater, which will serve as nurseries for mosquito larvae. so, we'll have the extra treat of additional mosquitoes -- and now fewer coquíes to eat them!
the landlady's approach to mosquitoes has been to buy and install, months ago, an electrical gizmo in the back yard, which allegedly attracts and kills them. it's not one of those zappers, the ones that fry insects with bolts of blue lightning - thank heaven! - it lures mosquitoes into a bag, by means of scent; then the bag has to be emptied periodically, plus there is of course the expense of running electricity through the gizmo, 24/7, plus the initial cost of the gizmo itself. she says it catches lots of mosquitoes -- maybe the only ones it doesn't catch are the ones that come into my apartment! anyway, the number of those seems to have remained fairly constant all along. wouldn't it have been a lot simpler, and less expensive, and less work, not to have bought the machine, and to have allowed the coquíes to flourish and eat the mosquitoes?? ah, but, of course, then they would still be keeping her awake at night! i really do sympathize with anyone who is unable to sleep, for any reason -- i've had some spectacular experiences with that myself -- but i also really wonder how the sound of these little frogs, which to me is so soothing, could keep anyone from sleeping! is it really the frogs, or is it more a matter of people's predisposition to hate the frogs, and the mental power of suggestion!!
the other day, my landlady said to me: "Some places around here, people can't even hear their car radios, when their windows are down, the frogs are so loud!!"
i said: "maybe Mother Nature is sending them a message, trying to get their attention, saying, 'Hey - turn off your radio for a while, listen to the frogs! Listen to NATURE!! Maybe you'll start to remember who you really are!'"
that's what i feel the frogs have been doing for me, helping me to remember who i am.... i came back to hilo at the end of august, after 3 months on the mainland ... and the frog-songs were much louder than they had been when i left (many more frogs!) ... and i heard them literally as the voice of Mother Nature, saying to me: "Don't listen to the radio anymore! Just listen to the frogs! Aren't they enough? Aren't they better, aren't they much more soothing and sane-ifying, than the radio??" and i knew she was exactly right! i have not turned on the radio for one second since my return from the mainland. just the thought of it was (and still is) enough to make me physically, viscerally, uncomfortable and anxious! just the sight of the radio, on the chest by my bed, was making me uncomfortable -- so i put it away in a drawer, months ago!!
of course, my suggestion that Mother Nature might be trying to get a similar message to people in their cars -- with radios blasting -- received only a snort of automatic dismissal from my landlady ... as if to say, "Oh, who would be so stupid as to prefer the sound of frogs to the sound of a radio?!"
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coqui
July 2008 