Everybody Eats (Again)

This isn't for the squeamish.

Then again, neither is the natural order of things.

Eastern Pondhawk eating a male mating with a female Violet Dancer.
(I apologize for the video quality and size.)

Amazingly, the female survived, with the male's abdomen

still firmly clamped to her.

Food for Thought

I
A Great Spreadwing's supper consists of many insects, including colorful beetles, and there are no leftovers.

II

For supper, I am eating beef vegetable soup, without consideration of the cattle on a feed lot or their slaughtering or their butchering or the ways in which the leftovers not suitable for human consumption might be used. I may not be able to eat it all.

III

Discover Life says this about Odonates:

Odonata have widely been objects of superstition. In Germany, odonata have had over 150 different names, including names that mean "devil's needle," "water witch," "goddess' horse," "devil's horse," and "snake killer." In England, names meaning "devil's darning needle" and "horse stinger" have been used. In Denmark, some names mean "devil's riding horse" and "goldsmith." A Swedish name means "hobgoblin fly"; long ago, the people in Sweden believed that goblins, elves and fairies lived in the woods and used dragonflies as twisting tools. Another Swedish name means "blind stinger," and comes from the belief that dragonflies can pick out your eyes or even sew them shut. Also, odonata have obviously been connected to females: "damselfly." The body shape of odonata have led them to earn names than mean "devil's steelyard" and such because they look like heavy tools. The myth is that the Devil uses them to weigh a persons soul, and when a dragonfly flies around your head, you should expect serious punishment

IV

Something to ponder: just who is the "devil's" instrument when it comes to eating?

Day 36: Another Day That Changed My Life

A day without words: that's what I hunger for. Silence, absence of commentary, even of thought in suspended consciousness, like that before or after major surgery, lost in the drugged space between nothing and everything now. I'm ravenous. Like these.