{"id":1681,"date":"2013-11-10T16:31:37","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T21:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=1681"},"modified":"2013-11-10T16:31:37","modified_gmt":"2013-11-10T21:31:37","slug":"wonder-in-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2013\/11\/10\/wonder-in-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Wonder in Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DSC_0313\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So this week\u2019s Legacy Lesson was to \u201cwonder in nature\u201d with a picture of a Praying Mantis parked on the wall outside my door.\u00a0 What started out as wonder quickly turned into; careful what you wish for\u2026you\u2019ve got to be just a little bit distrustful of anything that can stay that still for that long.<\/p>\n

I took that picture on my way to a writing workshop in the city being taught by the amazing Julia Cameron of The Artist\u2019s Way fame.\u00a0 It was all writing from the time we walked in until we left.\u00a0 Blank piece of paper please and she would throw out a cue.\u00a0 One of the more interesting cues was to create a tabloid type piece, outrageous, highly unlikely, and pulled from somewhere where you normally don\u2019t live.\u00a0 Ok, you\u2019ve got two minutes.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what came out:<\/p>\n

The dog told me to kill the Praying Mantis.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 No not in dog speak but in English so I could understand perfectly that she wanted that thing dead.\u00a0 We argued, isn\u2019t it against the law I said?\u00a0 Are we really arguing I asked her?<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t care, if freaked her out every time we walked out the door just clinging to the side of the railing, eyes bulging like it knows something.\u00a0 How does it do that we wondered.\u00a0 In the end the dog decided we should go out the back.\u00a0 She said it would be better for her if I didn\u2019t wind up in jail.<\/p>\n

Time.<\/p>\n

Yeah I know it\u2019s not the most outrageous story but truth be told I was the one a little freaked out by the\u00a0damn thing and obviously it was on my mind.\u00a0 It\u2019s not like the dogs don\u2019t \u201ctell\u201d you what\u2019s on their mind by the tilt of the head, the refusal to move or the running for the back door.<\/p>\n

I was pretty happy to see it wasn\u2019t there when I got home.\u00a0 A little research revealed I wasn\u2019t wrong in my distrust.\u00a0 They should be called Preying Mantis instead of Praying Mantis.\u00a0 These little things are ruthless, rip the male\u2019s head off after sex, eat bugs and frogs and chip monks kind of ruthless.\u00a0 You heard me they are purebred killers.\u00a0 And no it is not and never was illegal to kill one of them.\u00a0 The myth originated in the 1950\u2019s but no one knows why, they weren\u2019t endangered and they were considered beneficial for the pests they ate.\u00a0 I was kind of relieved to hear that because a couple of years ago there was one in the house and I dropped a very thick book on it from about 4 feet in the air.\u00a0 I was sure no one saw me but\u2026\u00a0 Oh and that\u2019s not all they ate, using those knife like front arms to saw up their prey.\u00a0 Eeewww.\u00a0 Just saying I was glad it was gone when I got home.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to the morning when I\u2019m making my coffee and holy shit.\u00a0 I jumped out of my skin when I saw this thing hadn\u2019t left, just changed position to the screen on my kitchen window.\u00a0 \"DSC_0465\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Come on already.\u00a0 Go find another garden to stake out.\u00a0 Of course now I\u2019m obsessed so when I get home and search it out I find it moved only about 4 inches.\u00a0 There are some people that believe the Mantis can teach you how to remain focused and centered in the midst of confusion and chaos. Like a warrior, s\/he maintains self-control. The actions of the Mantis are not guided by others, but rather by an inner force within the stillness of self.\u00a0 Ok, sure, not me.\u00a0 I want her\/him to get its bulging eyes outta here.<\/p>\n

Next day it winds up on the door next to mine.\u00a0 My friend John comes over to give me an estimate for some work to be done and I put him in charge of either a) moving it far away or b) whacking it with the paper laying on the porch.\u00a0 No, he says, it\u2019s illegal.\u00a0 Here we go again.\u00a0\u00a0 In the end he scooted the damn thing over the side of the porch with his tape measure\u2026gone.\u00a0 I was\u00a0pretty convinced it moved along until this morning when both dogs jumped up and stared at the fireplace\u2026book in hand<\/p>\n

that poor\u2026<\/p>\n

tiny\u2026<\/p>\n

little\u2026.<\/p>\n

innocent…<\/p>\n

cricket didn\u2019t stand a chance.\u00a0 Done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So this week\u2019s Legacy Lesson was to \u201cwonder in nature\u201d with a picture of a Praying Mantis parked on the wall outside my door.\u00a0 What started out as wonder quickly turned into; careful what you wish for\u2026you\u2019ve got to be … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[338,336,335,334,337],"class_list":["post-1681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pause-points","tag-beneficial-insect","tag-dog-talk","tag-freaked-out","tag-praying-mantis","tag-preditor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-r7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1681"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1686,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1681\/revisions\/1686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}