Lustrous diamond, blazing star constant and true, Sol, we adore you.
Turtles are renowned sun worshipers, so today I’m dedicating my sun haiku to them. Unlike humans, however, sunbathing is not just a fun pastime in order to enhance one’s aesthetic attractiveness. No, their health and well-being depends upon it. Apparently turtles bask to regulate body temperature, and also to produce the vitamin D3 they need to absorb calcium and avoid metabolic bone disease.
Turtles are very sociable creatures. They will happily share a log, and if need be, they politely as possible walk on top of their companion(s) to get to the other end of it. I suppose it’s a sort of sunbathing etiquette agreed upon by turtles. Imagine if we humans did that to each other at the beach!
But what I really want to know is, while they’re soaking up the rays, what do turtles talk about? (“Hey Bill, check out the cute babe on the next log…”)
Beyond the babel, my bliss, beauty, sacredness, soul cradled in calm.
Perhaps it’s just my lens because I’m a traveler at heart, but I think some of the best stories are rooted in travel. Of course, one person’s travel story is another person’s home story – and that is the essence of these journeys – discovering bits of one’s self in other cultures, and by extension, the call of our humanity.
What does any of this have to do with the haiku? The world’s in a pretty crazy place right now, and many of us are looking for calm places where we can heal and center ourselves. (I would say it’s not only crazy, but society has morphed into a quite abusive place of late. This makes our need for sanctuary more important than ever.) Judy Garland wistfully sang about it in Over the Rainbow, that place where “troubles melt like lemon drops”.
This morning I happened to stumble upon a wonderful story about just such a place of healing, created by a community of formerly abused African women. I’m looking forward to many more stories such as these, as the unfolding of a new humanity continues. It’s a saga of hope and possibilities, and beyond that, a confirmation that our best potential for the future lies in our ability to work together to achieve it.
Gossamer faerie, neon being of lightness, a fire-breathing fly?
I have yet to personally spot a flaming hot dragonfly. What a beautiful creature! It makes me wonder about the secret world of insects, a mysterious place to which we are seldom privy. Is the dragonfly legendary to the rest of the insects, just as dragons are to humans? A quirky, but interesting question.
The magical dragonfly is a fond girlhood memory of summer for me. Paddling around the lake on sultry afternoons, I loved to watch their iridescent colors flitting among the graceful lily pads. They captivated me. There was a purity and magic about these tiny gossamer creatures. They seemed to be visiting me from some mysterious, unseen faerie world, to which for a few moments I was privy.
Those dragonflies so many years ago were mainly cloaked in cool green and blue hues. Apparently the red ones mainly reside in parts of the world I have not seen yet. I haven’t done much traveling lately. Methinks it is time to go on a red dragon hunt… 😉
The beautiful dragonfly photos are courtesy TopSeed and ignartonosbg, Pixabay
Susan L Hart / Author 