by this summer’s moth
This morning I found this sadly expired moth on the floor of my studio. I was reminded of past similar photo memorials on this blog such as this one three years ago. Time to do another, just to reactivate my long-too-quiet blog and say ‘hello’ to friends and readers. Summer has been and still is wonderful, though sometimes much too hot for my nordic blood, provoking my inclinations towards much laziness and many books. How is your summer?
August 23, 2016 in Nature, Photoworks by Marja-Leena
Hello, Marja-Leena. Thank you for this poignant, exquisite beauty, on a day when I too feel beached already at mid-morning by the heat. xx
Jean! Wonderful to hear from you! Thank you for your kind words, and try to keep cool.
What a wondrous creature, with such a range of textures on the body, and with such a beautiful limited palette. I love the dramatic lines of the antennae and the legs.
Summer has been warm and sunny here and has led to lots of tomatoes and other produce in the vegetable plot and greenhouse, in stark contrast with last year. It has certainly slowed me down, however, and I have been puttering about rather than achieving anything much – except like you, reading with great pleasure.
Olga, I am delighted that you like this! How lovely that your garden is so productive. “Puttering about” is all about summer, isn’t it? I have reduced the amount of gardening because I cannot keep up with all the work anymore, and watering alone takes a lot of time in this large yard with all the permanent plantings. Husband has been helping a lot.
I concur with your reasons to have stepped back on blogging these past months. Summers have become all too short, haven’t they? Hopefully the cooler weather will see us being more communicative once more.
I love this gilded treasure that proves once more that beauty is its own reward. And with that said I was reminded of a favorite remark made by Richard Feynman:
“I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe…
“I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.”
Susan, thank you so much for the excellent and thought provoking quote. So true. Sometimes though, I do think artists can help others see beauty in things that may not seem so beautiful at first glance, such as this moth, that stone, an interesting crack on the sidewalk, and so on…. just by looking closer. I’ve had that response often to my not so obviously or traditionally beautiful images. Feynman’s friend is both right and wrong in thinking scientists don’t see beauty because that perception for beauty can be so individual yet can be developed by just saying “look, really look” beyond that first obvious sight.
I’ve had the odd person say to me, “why don’t you paint flowers?” instead of whatever “ugly” work of mine they don’t like.
I must say, I’ve always admired these soft creatures of the night. Butterflies seem to feature in all the poems, but I feel that you’ve captured three images of moth poetry here.
I’m happy to see your posts again. Summer here has been surprisingly busy, but I did have a chance to take a few genealogical research trips to the city of my ancestors here in the States. At the moment, I am “studying” domestically-brewed Märzens and assorted Oktoberfest beers (all in the name of science, of course).
rouchswalwe, yes, moths seem to be the plain jane but they really are fascinating and beautiful when looked at closely.
How interesting to do research on your ancestors in the US. Our parents, with us kids, were the first generations to come to Canada, so we’d really have to go to our home countries to delve deeper into our roots. Thankfully we’ve many relatives back there that have been doing some of it.
Enjoy your ‘liquid” studies!
The pattern on the wings is so subtle. Lovely. Glad you are blogging again. We are sitting here wondering if the two hurricanes coming at us are going to hit us. It is amazingly humid. What a summer, eh?
Thanks, Hattie. I hope to get into a regular blogging pattern though that laziness is still with me. It is cooler and raining gently today, thankfully.
Stay safe during those hurricanes! Will it bring some severe storms to the Pacific westcoast too?
Inspiring, stunning photos of a humble insect who, in such distinct close-up, is transformed into a regal masterpiece,. No monarch or bishop ever had garments of such magnificence. Yet we hardly ever notice that such creatures are everywhere around us. A moth somehow appeared in my bathroom the other day and brushed against my hair as I walked in. That touch panicked me and I lashed out with a towel, ending the innocent creature’s fragile life in an instant. I hadn’t even looked at it! Poor moth, I’m sorry.
Thanks, Natalie, glad you like this. I love using the scanner as if it were a microscope to see all those beautiful details. A way of honouring the dead? I too have swatted many a moth or other flying insect that may have come indoors. Sometimes we do capture a nice one if it is at rest, then release it outdoors.
Somehow it seems “he.” That first one in royal robes does it perhaps, with the shield-like shape on his back. Quite grand. Then I like the bits of moth gold dust in the next and find that under the robes he is his own mummy, tidily wrapped in bands.
Summer, don’t leave us yet!
Marly, yes, like royal robes, with gold dust! And I recall your reference to Miss Havisham in one of my previous moth posts!
First day of September already and we are having showers – so needed and such a relief from heat.
And I must have asked you with the last moth whether you have read Leena Krohn’s Tainaron….
Marly, I recall your mention of Krohn’s Tainaron but could not find the post with it. Anyway, I think I was unable to get my hands on the book but will give it another try! Thanks for the reminder.
It is quirky and interesting…
I found it on one of the big online retailers, at a ridiculously expensive price. Will continue to keep an eye out for it….