Moth

Not too long ago I found a moth resting on a dried rosebud in my place. It was still snowy outside and the cold did not encourage my hopes that it would survive if I let it outside. I also did not want the moth to have free reign of my place. So I did what I thought I should do, put it in a jar with some green stuff and hope that it survives my absence while I learn what it needs in so that it could survive. I clipped some leaves from my plants and put it in the jar. I left hopeful because I saw its antenna feeling along the edges of the leaves instead of its frantic flight against the unyielding glass.

I was not comforted by what I saw upon my return. My place usually gets really dry and the leaves in the jar had wilted. On top of that I had not had time to look up what the moth needed in order to survive. So there was nothing I could do anyway when I looked at the moth in its still form, extensions frozen, wings together. I thought about what my friend who had found a caterpillar earlier last year had said about moths living only about as long as it took to procreate (about a day) then falling to earth as its offspring caterpillar lives until spinning a cocoon and birthing the following spring. I can not help but feel that my doings had inadvertently brought in a cocoon that housed this moth in warmth all winter and, expecting to find spring, had shed its wrappings only to find itself in a glass enclosed shelter barring it from the elements.

Though I am concerned about the the extinction of species, it is one thing to be implicated in their extinction rather than be concerned and actively working to stem the extinction from happening. Moths are no lovable being as contrasted with the disillusioned portrayal of the polar bear. These Arctic quadrupeds have been lovingly depicted all across the globe, yet, I would argue they are hard to love when their life threatens yours. The moth, though a being that might eat my clothes, is food for the birds and a possible pollinator, poses no threat to my health and well being. Indeed it made me smile upon my discovery of life in my place. Yet I cannot help but feel that I have taken the food from a bird's young, while denying my 'human effect' on nature.

While cars are taking on a predator's role in the level of the deer population in the place where I grew up (monitors consider vehicle collisions with deer a predator/prey relationship) I wonder if we truly think that we are as much apart of nature as we are natural. The bouquet of dried flowers that I had brought home from the garden which probably allowed this caterpillar moth into my home was as much as an effort to introduce beauty and smell to my place, But at what cost? I wonder just how that moth may have made it if that bouquet had never been gathered.

Turning to the global volatility/climate change/global warming/whatever you want to call it issue. We are at a level of CO2 in the atmosphere that is two to three years away from dire (according to NASA scientists). How can we imply that humans have no effect? But what am I, "just a global grunt in a world of lyricists", no that's Sep Seven's*, a bicyclist in a world of gas-powered vehicles, that's ours. And if the moth is just minute in the scheme of things, think of me pedaling along on that scale. If you could do without the moth, could you do without me?

Sep Seven of Dynospectrum