Michael Robert Dyet's Blog, page 43
February 10, 2018
Metaphors of Life Journal: Three Meditations on a Snowy February Evening
As you may know, I am a winter Grinch. I do not care for cold temperatures, the icy grip of the wind and, in particular, the chaos a snowstorm causes on the roads. I count the weeks and days and hours until spring.
But winter does have its graces. Now that I am safely ensconced in my townhouse unit and planning to hibernate here for the duration of the weekend, I can pause to appreciate the fresh quilt of snow on the courtyard outside my window. It softens the harsh lines of barren winter and bestows a soothing peace on the land.
It is an evening that puts me in a contemplative state. The pressing issues of the times in which we live present themselves for inquiry.
Hmmm, the epidemic of sexual harassment claims against men. Where is it going to take us? I have consciously stayed away from this inflammatory subject although I find the behaviour loathsome. But it warrants a bit of musing.
Will it run its course, as media ravaged scandals usually do, and fade away when the next big story surfaces? Or have we reached a breaking point where societal norms lurch and stagger and a major step forward occurs. Will sociologists look back on this time, 10 years from now, and write papers on the unprecedented shift that occurred?
Hmmm, the trump enigma. Will he serve out a full term as U.S. president or ultimately self-destruct as so many expect him to do? And what does it say about the times in which we live that he defied the odds and was elected to the most powerful position in the world? And the $100 question: Will he actually build the wall?
I try not to be disillusioned by the Trump enigma. I relegate it to a one-time aberration that reason and wiser minds will eventually course correct. But what if I am wrong? Will sociologists look back on this time, 25 years from now, and write papers on the glorious age of Trump?
Hmmm, the apocalypse prophecies. Is our world on a crash course with days of reckoning? Seems like everyone is writing a dystopian novel these days. No fresh water left. Coastal cities under water as global warming melts the icecaps and raises ocean levels. Extreme weather conditions that wreak havoc. The fabric of ordered society fracturing until it all falls apart.
Will sociologists look back on this time, 100 years from now, and wish they could find a functioning computer to write a paper on the disastrous mistakes that lead to a world in disarray with those who hold power strangling the life from the powerless?
It is a winter night fit for musing but not, it seems, fit for reaching conclusions. Winter is both a wolf at the door and an angel incarnate. It threatens us in one breath and caresses us with the next. Winter is a state of mind and our minds have states of winter. And so it goes.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
Three Meditations on a Snowy February Evening
Hmmm, will you humour me a while as I meditate on the state of affairs in our world?
As you may know, I am a winter Grinch. I do not care for cold temperatures, the icy grip of the wind and, in particular, the chaos a snowstorm causes on the roads. I count the weeks and days and hours until spring.
But winter does have its graces. Now that I am safely ensconced in my townhouse unit and planning to hibernate here for the duration of the weekend, I can pause to appreciate the fresh quilt of snow on the courtyard outside my window. It softens the harsh lines of barren winter and bestows a soothing peace on the land.
It is an evening that puts me in a contemplative state. The pressing issues of the times in which we live present themselves for inquiry.
Hmmm, the epidemic of sexual harassment claims against men. Where is it going to take us? I have consciously stayed away from this inflammatory subject although I find the behaviour loathsome. But it warrants a bit of musing.
Will it run its course, as media ravaged scandals usually do, and fade away when the next big story surfaces? Or have we reached a breaking point where societal norms lurch and stagger and a major step forward occurs. Will sociologists look back on this time, 10 years from now, and write papers on the unprecedented shift that occurred?
Hmmm, the trump enigma. Will he serve out a full term as U.S. president or ultimately self-destruct as so many expect him to do? And what does it say about the times in which we live that he defied the odds and was elected to the most powerful position in the world? And the $100 question: Will he actually build the wall?
I try not to be disillusioned by the Trump enigma. I relegate it to a one-time aberration that reason and wiser minds will eventually course correct. But what if I am wrong? Will sociologists look back on this time, 25 years from now, and write papers on the glorious age of Trump?
Hmmm, the apocalypse prophecies. Is our world on a crash course with days of reckoning? Seems like everyone is writing a dystopian novel these days. No fresh water left. Coastal cities under water as global warming melts the icecaps and raises ocean levels. Extreme weather conditions that wreak havoc. The fabric of ordered society fracturing until it all falls apart.
Will sociologists look back on this time, 100 years from now, and wish they could find a functioning computer to write a paper on the disastrous mistakes that lead to a world in disarray with those who hold power strangling the life from the powerless?
It is a winter night fit for musing but not, it seems, fit for reaching conclusions. Winter is both a wolf at the door and an angel incarnate. It threatens us in one breath and caresses us with the next. Winter is a state of mind and our minds have states of winter. And so it goes.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
February 3, 2018
Random Act of Metaphor: A Graceful Sedge Grasshopper in a Meadow Jungle of Greenery
(Visit www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 to view this post including the photograph)
I am hunkered down to ride out a frosty, February winter weekend. Instinctively, my thoughts turn to the creatures of resplendent summers past. I slip away on a metaphorical magic carpet to the summer of 2011 in the embrace of Mother Nature.
My summer preoccupations, as you may know, are winged wonders. I will concede that Grasshoppers are a stretch in this regard. But they do in fact have wings and are capable of short flights.
Viewed up close, grasshoppers look very much like a prehistoric throwback. This Graceful Sedge Grasshopper most certainly does so.
But as the name suggests, this particular species is quite an elegant creature in the wet shrub meadows, lake edges and sedge marshes it inhabits. Marvellously camouflaged for the jungle of greenery in which it resides and possessed of ambidextrous limbs to nimbly navigate the grasses and weeds it calls home.
Sidebar: I have perused this photo many times. But only this time around did I notice the tiny ant on the leaf above the grasshopper’s head. It gives a dramatic sense of scale to the photo and hints at the dozens of other tiny creatures that no doubt inhabit the meadow unseen to most of us. The grasshopper looks by comparison rather like King Kong climbing a skyscraper.
It is not just a glimpse ahead to summer that draws me to this seven year old photo. After a week wrestling with temperamental technology, which insists evolving faster than I can adjust, multi-tasking until my head spins and weathering a non-stop hailstorm of e-mails, I crave simplicity.
It soothes my soul to admire a species which has managed to survive 300 million years on earth by simply doing what it was created to do.
A Graceful Sedge Grasshopper perched in a jungle of meadow greenery – a random act of metaphor to remind me that it is often the simple things in life which endure and which deserve our true admiration.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
Random Act of Metaphor: A Graceful Sedge Grasshopper in a Jungle of Meadow Greenery
Hmmm, is a virtual glance back to 2011 the best cure for the February blues?
I am hunkered down to ride out a frosty, February winter weekend. Instinctively, my thoughts turn to the creatures of resplendent summers past. I slip away on a metaphorical magic carpet to the summer of 2011 in the embrace of Mother Nature.
My summer preoccupations, as you may know, are winged wonders. I will concede that Grasshoppers are a stretch in this regard. But they do in fact have wings and are capable of short flights.
Viewed up close, grasshoppers look very much like a prehistoric throwback. This Graceful Sedge Grasshopper most certainly does so.
But as the name suggests, this particular species is quite an elegant creature in the wet shrub meadows, lake edges and sedge marshes it inhabits. Marvellously camouflaged for the jungle of greenery in which it resides and possessed of ambidextrous limbs to nimbly navigate the grasses and weeds it calls home.
Sidebar: I have perused this photo many times. But only this time around did I notice the tiny ant on the leaf above the grasshopper’s head. It gives a dramatic sense of scale to the photo and hints at the dozens of other tiny creatures that no doubt inhabit the meadow unseen to most of us. The grasshopper looks by comparison rather like King Kong climbing a skyscraper.
It is not just a glimpse ahead to summer that draws me to this seven year old photo. After a week wrestling with temperamental technology, which insists evolving faster than I can adjust, multi-tasking until my head spins and weathering a non-stop hailstorm of e-mails, I crave simplicity.
It soothes my soul to admire a species which has managed to survive 300 million years on earth by simply doing what it was created to do.
A Graceful Sedge Grasshopper perched in a jungle of meadow greenery – a random act of metaphor to remind me that it is often the simple things in life which endure and which deserve our true admiration.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
January 27, 2018
Metaphors of Life Journal: Two Minutes to Apocalyptic Midnight
You may take comfort in the knowledge that this timeline is metaphorical. It is the current setting of The Doomsday Clock which I am given to understand represents the likelihood of a man-made, global catastrophe.
The origin of The Doomsday Clock dates back to 1947. The Chicago Atomic Scientists, a group of international researchers who participated in the Manhattan Project (an R&D project during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons) developed the concept.
For The Doomsday Clock, hypothetical global catastrophe is represented as midnight. How close we theoretically are to that point is represented by minutes to midnight. The original setting back in 1947 was seven minutes to midnight in light of the threat of nuclear war. I confess I do not know what scale was used for that original setting.
The scientific body reset the hypothetical clock this month to two minutes to midnight. The change was made in part because of North Korea’s advancing nuclear weapons program and provocative actions in response by the U.S. and other countries.
I should note that the threats taken into consideration in setting the clock have evolved to now include politics, energy, weapons, diplomacy and climate science.
The clock has been reset 22 times since its origin ranging from a comparatively stress-free 17 minutes in 1991 to the current 2 minutes. The last time it was set to 2 minutes was 1953 when the U.S. and Soviet Union began testing hydrogen bombs.
What exactly does one do with this kind of warning? It seems to be an apocalyptic point of view. On the other hand, the threats it references are quite real. We live in a world in which we are never quite sure what tomorrow will bring and not even certain that tomorrow will even arrive.
Live in constant fear or in blissful denial. Are those our only options? I prefer to think there is a space in-between that we can settle into.
Live in the knowledge that each day is a gift. Whether you believe that gift comes from God or from the tides of fate, it does not really matter. The point is that we did not earn the day. It was granted to us to be enjoyed and valued and fully lived out.
Live also in the knowledge that each day is the last of its kind. Assuming tomorrow comes, it will be different from today in subtle and sometimes earthshaking ways. We will wake up to a new reality and have no choice but to adapt to it.
Live also in the knowledge that whatever the day, its value is measured not in minutes or in dollars or in wins and losses. Its value is measured in how much we embraced the moment, were kind to others and remained faithful to our values.
The Doomsday Clock metaphor has its usefulness, but perhaps not in the way that the scientists intend. It reminds us that time can slip away from us while we are caught up in the very act of racing the clock. I believe the minutes to midnight will manage themselves if we live into each day with joy, humility and reverence for one another.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
The Doomsday Clock: Two Minutes to Apocalyptic Midnight
Hmmm, would it concern you if I told you that we are only two minutes from global catastrophe?
You may take comfort in the knowledge that this timeline is metaphorical. It is the current setting of The Doomsday Clock which I am given to understand represents the likelihood of a man-made, global catastrophe.
The origin of The Doomsday Clock dates back to 1947. The Chicago Atomic Scientists, a group of international researchers who participated in the Manhattan Project (an R&D project during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons) developed the concept.
For The Doomsday Clock, hypothetical global catastrophe is represented as midnight. How close we theoretically are to that point is represented by minutes to midnight. The original setting back in 1947 was seven minutes to midnight in light of the threat of nuclear war. I confess I do not know what scale was used for that original setting.
The scientific body reset the hypothetical clock this month to two minutes to midnight. The change was made in part because of North Korea’s advancing nuclear weapons program and provocative actions in response by the U.S. and other countries.
I should note that the threats taken into consideration in setting the clock have evolved to now include politics, energy, weapons, diplomacy and climate science.
The clock has been reset 22 times since its origin ranging from a comparatively stress-free 17 minutes in 1991 to the current 2 minutes. The last time it was set to 2 minutes was 1953 when the U.S. and Soviet Union began testing hydrogen bombs.
What exactly does one do with this kind of warning? It seems to be an apocalyptic point of view. On the other hand, the threats it references are quite real. We live in a world in which we are never quite sure what tomorrow will bring and not even certain that tomorrow will even arrive.
Live in constant fear or in blissful denial. Are those our only options? I prefer to think there is a space in-between that we can settle into.
Live in the knowledge that each day is a gift. Whether you believe that gift comes from God or from the tides of fate, it does not really matter. The point is that we did not earn the day. It was granted to us to be enjoyed and valued and fully lived out.
Live also in the knowledge that each day is the last of its kind. Assuming tomorrow comes, it will be different from today in subtle and sometimes earthshaking ways. We will wake up to a new reality and have no choice but to adapt to it.
Live also in the knowledge that whatever the day, its value is measured not in minutes or in dollars or in wins and losses. Its value is measured in how much we embraced the moment, were kind to others and remained faithful to our values.
The Doomsday Clock metaphor has its usefulness, but perhaps not in the way that the scientists intend. It reminds us that time can slip away from us while we are caught up in the very act of racing the clock. I believe the minutes to midnight will manage themselves if we live into each day with joy, humility and reverence for one another.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
January 13, 2018
Metaphors of Life Journal: Spectre and Meltdown - Digital Villains and Killer Computers
Two new technology bugs, known as Spectre and Meltdown, have arrived on the scene. Rather sounds to me like a plot for the next Mission Impossible movie. Ethan Hunt enters the matrix to apprehend digital villains.
Being as jaded as I am in this area, I am inclined to respond to the news with “Yeah, so what else is new?” I know not to open e-mails from people I do not know or to click on links in e-mails that are in any manner suspicious. Flu season is year round in the digital world.
But there is something especially disturbing about these latest viruses. I am give to understand that they exploit a design flaw that apparently has existed in computer chips for years – and they affect every computer device including laptops, BlackBerrys and servers.
If I understand correctly – and I probably do not, but I will stumble on anyway – programs are usually isolated from each other and the operating system. But this design flaw allows viruses to break that isolation. And that is bad – Lex Luthor level bad.
I envision a microscopic bridge inside my computer that the virus can waltz across willy-nilly. Yes, I know willy-nilly is not a technical term. Then again, maybe it is. How would I know? And would I even care, if I did know? Probably not, but I digress.
It seems that the chip companies have known about this vulnerability but choose to turn a blind eye. Hmmm, blind eye. Great name for a computer virus. Copyright pending.
I have learned that modern, high-performance processors perform something called speculative execution. They make assumptions and speculatively compute results accordingly. It worries me to no end that my computer is speculating. It makes it seem actually alive and capable of going rogue in the matrix and attacking me.
But images of killer computers aside, if they guess correctly, they win some extra performance. But what happens when they guess wrong? They throw away their speculatively calculated results and start over.
All of this is meant to be transparent to programs. A well-kept cyber secret. But somehow this speculation slightly changes the state of the processor. These small changes can be detected which results in the disclosing of information about the data and instructions that were used speculatively. Translation: the digital cat gets out of the virtual bag.
And this too is bad. Or at least not good – or somewhere in-between good and bad, although how wide that spectrum is in digital terms I cannot speculate.
Computer virus is, of course, a metaphor. A metaphor gone wrong, it would seem. But I do not see the point of blaming the metaphor. It is just an innocent bystander in this speculative world of virtual right and wrong.
It must be Bill Gates who is to blame. Or Mark Zuckerberg. Or the guy who invented Google. Or all three of them together in a digital ménage a trois. Of course, that is purely speculation on my part.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
Spectre and Meltdown – Digital Villains and Killer Computers
Hmmm, is the digital cat out of the virtual bag in the secretive world of microprocessors?
Two new technology bugs, known as Spectre and Meltdown, have arrived on the scene. Rather sounds to me like a plot for the next Mission Impossible movie. Ethan Hunt enters the matrix to apprehend digital villains.
Being as jaded as I am in this area, I am inclined to respond to the news with “Yeah, so what else is new?” I know not to open e-mails from people I do not know or to click on links in e-mails that are in any manner suspicious. Flu season is year round in the digital world.
But there is something especially disturbing about these latest viruses. I am give to understand that they exploit a design flaw that apparently has existed in computer chips for years – and they affect every computer device including laptops, BlackBerrys and servers.
If I understand correctly – and I probably do not, but I will stumble on anyway – programs are usually isolated from each other and the operating system. But this design flaw allows viruses to break that isolation. And that is bad – Lex Luthor level bad.
I envision a microscopic bridge inside my computer that the virus can waltz across willy-nilly. Yes, I know willy-nilly is not a technical term. Then again, maybe it is. How would I know? And would I even care, if I did know? Probably not, but I digress.
It seems that the chip companies have known about this vulnerability but choose to turn a blind eye. Hmmm, blind eye. Great name for a computer virus. Copyright pending.
I have learned that modern, high-performance processors perform something called speculative execution. They make assumptions and speculatively compute results accordingly. It worries me to no end that my computer is speculating. It makes it seem actually alive and capable of going rogue in the matrix and attacking me.
But images of killer computers aside, if they guess correctly, they win some extra performance. But what happens when they guess wrong? They throw away their speculatively calculated results and start over.
All of this is meant to be transparent to programs. A well-kept cyber secret. But somehow this speculation slightly changes the state of the processor. These small changes can be detected which results in the disclosing of information about the data and instructions that were used speculatively. Translation: the digital cat gets out of the virtual bag.
And this too is bad. Or at least not good – or somewhere in-between good and bad, although how wide that spectrum is in digital terms I cannot speculate.
Computer virus is, of course, a metaphor. A metaphor gone wrong, it would seem. But I do not see the point of blaming the metaphor. It is just an innocent bystander in this speculative world of virtual right and wrong.
It must be Bill Gates who is to blame. Or Mark Zuckerberg. Or the guy who invented Google. Or all three of them together in a digital ménage a trois. Of course, that is purely speculation on my part.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
January 6, 2018
Metaphors of Life Journal: The July Waltz of Winged Wonders
We are in the midst of a January deep freeze in this area. And just to be clear, I am talking about a teeth-chattering, bone-chilling, are you freaking kidding me, minus 30 wind chill winter assault on our senses. Every conversation begins with “Can you believe this cold!”.
It is the perfect time to hunker down inside, brew a big batch of coffee and revisit some of the winged children of the goddess of summer. The three I have chosen, from my summer 2017 excursions, are very common species – easy to find and yet always a delight to behold.
Visit www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 to see this post with photographs
This Canadian Tiger Swallowtail was intent on feeding on a tempting wildflower which gave me the luxury of time to creep closer and capture it.
Do you see how the outside of the wings displays a geometric pattern of artist’s touch markings that is a landscape all its own? Pale yellow furrows subdivided by a network of thread-thin and thicker, meandering black rivers. Scalloped edges on the fragile swallow tail, with crescent moons of white and orange, giving way to the pastel blue band.
Visit www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 to see this post with photographs
How could I ever tire of the golden orange flare of a Great-spangled Fritillary, with its pumpkin seed spots and quivering black lines, darting across my field of view? This specimen seems magically suspended against a background of verdant green while perched like a feather on the fronds of a whitish-purple wildflower.
(Visit www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 to see this post with photographs)
Does it matter that Silver-spotted Skippers are an easy find? Not in the least. Each one still stirs my heart with its photo-friendly attire – the telltale white splash and pale orange blotches against the walnut-brown wings. Like the Fritillary above, this flawless specimen had the fashion sense to position itself on a stage of mid-summer green pageantry for maximum effect.
In the barren, frozen scenes of a biting January, I need a metaphorical escape to summer glory to sooth my impatient heart. Nothing works better than a glance back at the July waltz of carefree, winged wonders in the full-blown extravagance of summer.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
The July Waltz of Carefree Winged Wonders
Hmmm, what is an unrepentant nature lover to do when caught in the vice grip of the dead of winter?
We are in the midst of a January deep freeze in this area. And just to be clear, I am talking about a teeth-chattering, bone-chilling, are you freaking kidding me, minus 30 wind chill winter assault on our senses. Every conversation begins with “Can you believe this cold!”.
It is the perfect time to hunker down inside, brew a big batch of coffee and revisit some of the winged children of the goddess of summer. The three I have chosen, from my summer 2017 excursions, are very common species – easy to find and yet always a delight to behold.
Canadian Tiger Swallowtail
This Canadian Tiger Swallowtail was intent on feeding on a tempting wildflower which gave me the luxury of time to creep closer and capture it.
Do you see how the outside of the wings displays a geometric pattern of artist’s touch markings that is a landscape all its own? Pale yellow furrows subdivided by a network of thread-thin and thicker, meandering black rivers. Scalloped edges on the fragile swallow tail, with crescent moons of white and orange, giving way to the pastel blue band.
Great-spangled Fritillary
How could I ever tire of the golden orange flare of a Great-spangled Fritillary, with its pumpkin seed spots and quivering black lines, darting across my field of view? This specimen seems magically suspended against a background of verdant green while perched like a feather on the fronds of a whitish-purple wildflower.
Silver-spotted Skipper
Does it matter that Silver-spotted Skippers are an easy find? Not in the least. Each one still stirs my heart with its photo-friendly attire – the telltale white splash and pale orange blotches against the walnut-brown wings. Like the Fritillary above, this flawless specimen had the fashion sense to position itself on a stage of mid-summer green pageantry for maximum effect.
In the barren, frozen scenes of a biting January, I need a metaphorical escape to summer glory to sooth my impatient heart. Nothing works better than a glance back at the July waltz of carefree, winged wonders in the full-blown extravagance of summer.
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .
~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
