Parting the Curtain

My continuing passion
is to part a curtain,
that invisible well of
indifference that falls
between us and that blinds
us to each others presence,
each others wonder,
each others human plight.

~Eudora Welty

Of Note: The invisible curtain might also be parted to the other kingdoms in nature--the animal, plant and mineral. Each has a longing at some level for connection with the human. It is predicted that in the future great things will be achieved when humanity creates the necessary link. The work has already begun and the keen environmental sense so prominent today--though not perfected and thus unbalanced to some degree--is one of its manifestations.

Today's Weather Report: The prediction of 10 inches of snow was overblown. Only 5 inches fell during the night, and the sun is shining brightly at the moment. Even with the dribs and drabs of snow we've had over the past month, snowplowing is getting to be difficult because the snow has no place to go. Mountains of snow are already accumulating in retail parking lots. At 10 below this morning it was cold and is only 5 below zero now at 1:00 pm.

Watch For Change Snippet: What do the UN, drug cartels and Mexico have in common? Each has a great interest in the habitat of the Monarch butterfly--high in the mountains, 60 miles west of Mexico City. Monarchs return to this site every year after an amazing migration that takes the butterflies thousands of miles north in waves of survival, then returns to the same tree of its grandparents. How this unparalleled feat is accomplished as yet to be determined. For decades, drug cartels have taken advantage of the area's poverty by backing lucrative logging operations in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Little was done to stop the illegal destruction. Year after year large swathes of the land were denuded of trees, often with Monarch's hanging onto the branches. The tide began to turn last year, however, when the reserve was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The prestigious designation prompted the Mexican government to begin combating the illegal logging operations, and 12 sawmills have been closed thus far. Homero Aridjis was raised watching the wholesale logging of the Monarch's trees often during mating season when tens of thousands of the insects clung to the branches. We can thank this visionary, who is Mexico's ambassador to UNESCO, for his courage in preserving the Monarch's habitat in the face of retaliation by the fearsome drug cartels. It is this kind of fearlessness that will eventually change the world. Marie captured this stunning shot of a Monarch winging its way through northern Texas on its way south in late summer.