{"id":1582,"date":"2019-02-11T00:49:35","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T00:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aphidtrek.org\/?p=1582"},"modified":"2019-04-03T15:57:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T15:57:21","slug":"preparing-physically-and-mentally-for-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aphidtrek.org\/?p=1582","title":{"rendered":"Preparing Physically and Mentally for 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The old Bumble walking in the snow near Lakeview.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Outdoors the snow is flying and winter is stamping its authority after an unsettlingly warm January.  The mountains are being energized with deep layers of snow. It\u2019s the fourth consecutive year that our little corner of the world has had a respite from the ravages of climate change and winterless winters.  My little world of aphid research has been productive since the first flakes flew in November, with one Macrosiphum <\/em>manuscript finished and in press for publication in the first quarter of 2019, another Macrosiphum <\/em>manuscript drafted and almost ready for submission, specimens sent to collaborators in Poland and Georgia for the beginning of a new project on Macrosiphoniella<\/em>, specimens of Euceraphis<\/em> measured and ready to send to England for a possible new species description, and all my major collection curation work done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Collecting vials prepped and ready for 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Each year my first ceremonial step in preparation for the\ncoming collecting season is cleaning and fillings my vials and applying new\nlabels to them.  I\u2019ve been using the same\nvials since 1988. And, I still remember the day that my mentor and boss Gary\nReed stomped down the stairs to my lair at the research station in about 1989\nand gave me the rolls of labels I still use today.  He said he got them from a librarian, that\nthey were high quality label stickers, and that the two rolls ought to last me\nthe rest of my life.  He was right.  I\u2019ve been slicing and applying those labels\nto slides and vials (and containers of leftovers in the freezer) for almost 30\nyears now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I contemplate another growing season and a headlong rush\nthrough another season of pursuing my aphid research, I\u2019ve struggled with a\nshadow (or more) of despair about the future of humanity and the ecology of\nEarth. It seems inevitable that massive destruction of the Earth\u2019s natural\nsystems will continue for generations until it is stopped by cataclysm or alien\ninvasion.  Although each of our lives is\narguably meaningless under any circumstances, this steam engine of inevitability\nmakes it harder to convince myself of meaning or value in what I do.  This winter even aphid research, my one\nlifelong refuge, has lost some of its ability to give me direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I hike or pedal my bicycle through forests and valleys, I\nponder what might help me live life with some sense of peace while accepting\nthe inevitabilities of human-wrought climate change and ecological devastation.\nI\u2019ve been blessed this winter with a few glimmers of hope for answers or at\nleast helping hands and, with the sense of irony fully in mind, all have come\nto me through modern contrivances such as iPhones, Facebook, and YouTube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Heilung in costume. Photo by S\u00f8ren Bech from their Facebook page.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A couple months ago Gina heard from a friend on Facebook about a musical group from Northern Europe called Heilung (= \u201chealing\u201d in German) and insisted that I give them a listen.  One listen on YouTube and their work connected with me in a visceral, primal way that nothing before has done. As they describe their work, \u201cHeilung tries to connect the listener to the time before Christianity and its political offspring, that tortured and burned itself into the European mentality and culture of today. Heilung links.  It links the listener to an ancient mind-set and it links people.\u201d  As a human only a few generations separated from Northern Europe, the amplified history of Heilung gives me a way to think about my ancestors beyond the faith in science to solve all human-caused problems, beyond the violence and conquest wrought by Europeans all around the world, and beyond the influence of Christianity and the idea of human supremacy that it spawned. It\u2019s a depressing thing to look back on the past thousand years of European history and realize that it has been a story of losing touch with the natural world and a cleaving to ideas of human supremacy and the need to control everything and everyone within our influence. I think Heilung touches many of its fans because it connects us suddenly and viscerally to a past that our culture has cut itself off from.  As their opening ritual says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRemember, that we all are brothers
All people, beasts, trees and stone and wind
We all descend from the one great being
That was always there
Before people lived and named it
Before the first seed sprouted.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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