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Thanks, Jason. That means a lot to me. As you know, some of these bogs are so vast, and, yeah, that butterfly is so furtive. Then again, I guess that's part of my bond with those places. When I bushwhack there, dragging along my personal cloud of black flies, sometimes stumbling along the way, never sure whether I'll find the elfins, whe…
Thanks, Jason. That means a lot to me. As you know, some of these bogs are so vast, and, yeah, that butterfly is so furtive. Then again, I guess that's part of my bond with those places. When I bushwhack there, dragging along my personal cloud of black flies, sometimes stumbling along the way, never sure whether I'll find the elfins, when I finally arrive at the bog everything suddenly goes right in the world for me -- butterflies or no butterflies. I suspect we have have places like that — where we can stop, exhale, sit, think, be, and truly feel as if we belong (where even the black flies don't matter ... well, sorta). Thanks again!
Nicely said, Bryan. I do think we have those places, assuming we've been outside enough to find them. Certainly Antarctica, in that deep silence away from the base/camp, was that way for me, but maybe that's kind of cheating? First, no bloodsucking insects, and second, the whole place was sort of a Zen idyll, like a vast mountaintop.
I kinda want to see Antarctic midge (Belgica antarctica) before I leave this Earth.
You could go on an Antarctic cruise and be the one person looking for midges instead of penguins... One of my favorite places on the ice is a 3-person helicopter refueling station I worked at near the Dry Valleys. Just a huge coastal moraine in the shadow of a piedmont glacier, but here and there as I walked around I'd find a clump of moss tucked under a stone, and knew (or assumed) that there were midges and springtails (the largest Antarctic terrestrial life) hidden in it. For me, though, it was the bright green color that thrilled.