WHO's COUNTING?

One thing I especially like about my yoga teacher is that she reads us beautiful things as we are doing our poses which helps to relax and distract.  Tonight, she was reading some things from Hafiz.  She was reading about a person who was feeding a grass hopper on their hand and walking through a meadow asking if there was anything else that was better to be doing.

It made me wonder how many people take time to do these things.  Do children still watch ants carrying things from here to there?  Do they at least still catch fireflies, in the summer, in a jar and let them go?

Biologists let us know that the honey bees are declining and now the bats.  But, have we delegated the responsibility of counting plant and animal species and numbers there in, to the scientists?  I count 9 sheep, 5 chickens, and 3 geese, everyday, and sometimes John and I throw quilts out and star gaze, but we don't count the stars (maybe planes blinking as they travel across the sky) .  We don't count the birds, though I am aware there seem to be more in the winter.  There were more tiger swallowtails this summer and fewer monarchs.  There were many fewer dandelion flowers.  We used to have thousands of them.  It seems funny to have to nurture dandelions.  Makes me think about the song, "Where have all the Flowers Gone?

All this rambling, but all I really want to say is, tomorrow, after counting 9 sheep, 5 chickens, and 3 geese I think I will go count grasshoppers, beetles, hickory nuts, and walnuts.  But, I won't count stink bugs because there are thousands of them.  Yesterday, when I was thoroughly cleaning the fiber studio,  for guests coming today, they were in every dark place imaginable.

My guests today, numbered 10.  They were from the local sheltered workshop, come to see if there was a job or money to be had, in fiber production.  I have so much fiber to offer, so we were exploring possibilities.  At the end of the morning one fellow wanted to make a camouflage toboggan out of wool  but also dog or cat toys.  I alway say, "we are only limited by our imagination".