A Garden Flower

Mary finds the door to the secret garden with the help of the little robin!

We ended up having a lengthy conversation about how a disease, sea star wasting syndrome (SSWS), decimated the wild populations of that species and many sea stars a few years prior and how that aquarium was actually one of the few in the country exhibiting Pycnopodia that didn't lose their entire population to the disease. We talked about some of the research that was happening to help protect them and she started to feel a little better. She wanted to feel like it was okay for her to visit the aquarium and that she wasn't just staring at caged animals.

Pycnopodia are now listed as critically endangered. They are a keystone species in their environment and SSWS is estimated to have killed 90% of the wild population. Without them, the shores of the entire west coast have changed. Now, ten years later, that same aquarium was the first to establish a successful treatment for the disease. Before that, most aquariums had the protocol to remove symptomatic animal and generally had to euthanize them because nothing could be done. Within a matter of days, they were completely melted. Now, there is a treatment. It's not a cure, but there's hope that something can be done. That same aquarium is also part of efforts to work towards reintroducing Pycnopodia to the wild to help restore the ecosystems.

People have started to understand that zoos work in conservation and education, but aquariums do, too. We talk about the California condor and black footed ferret as success stories and Panamanian golden frogs and rhinos as works in progress, but aquariums are doing that same kind of work! There are coral conservation labs, efforts to reintroduce wild animals and remove invasives (looking at you, Florida), housing of non-releasable marine mammals, research into new medical procedures and treatments, and breeding of endangered species. The fish (and inverts!) in aquariums have an easy life, and might even be part of something so much bigger.

Every website uses a language called JavaScript; long story short it’s a website language that allows developers to do the crazy shit you see on websites. Now the easiest thing to do is to disable JavaScript to stop them from knowing you have an adblocker:

Oh no! I’m blocked from viewing the website. It would be a terrible shame if I were able to right click and select the “inspect” feature

Click the three dots in the top right and open the “Settings” Menu

And then scrolled down to “Debugger” and checked the “Disable Javascript Option”

And then just refreshed the page

He was a enjoyable cuss who didn’t care for war mongering.

Especially profitable war mongering and excuses for it!

He certainly didn’t like selfish husbands and fathers!

Politicians who turned on their words once they got theirs weren’t safe.

He said fuck the police!

He absolutely didn’t like people ruining little things for kids.

He stood up for foreigners. Especially those doing their best to communicate with limited second language knowledge.

He was not having any tomfoolery when it came to gun safety and laws. Especially with youth involved.

You had better not abuse a animal with him nearby. He’d right that wrong real quick!

And best of all him and his wife were both prickly cusses together. Relationship goals.

some nights you are the lighthouse / some nights the sea / what this means is that I don’t know / desire other than the need / to be shattered & rebuilt— 

— Ocean Vuong, from “My Father Writes From Prison”, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

I close my eyes. I only hear the ocean.

— Reinaldo Arenas, Farewell to the Sea: A Novel of Cuba

— Adonis, from “Candlelight”, Selected Poems

— Pablo Neruda, from “Here I Love You”, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

(…) the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too.

— Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to Theo van Gogh, November, 1876

— Mary Oliver, from “Swimming, One Day in August”, Red Bird

— Lorna Knowles Blake, from “Sketches of Lorca”

— Derrick Brown, from “Le Monde Du Silence”, Strange Light

And I saw the abyss embrace our days, the abyss through whose cracks I heard the sounds of the nearby sea,

— Adonis, from “Candlelight”, Selected Poems

Then, as if breathing, the sea swelled beneath us. If you must know anything, know that the hardest task is to live only once.

— Ocean Vuong, from “Immigrant Haibun”, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

— Saddiq Dzukogi, from “A Pond of Alcohol”

Aphrodite laughs, head tossed back with stars in her hair, ‘We are immortal. We are ageless. We will never die.’ 

How do you kill a God?

Hera sighs, ‘You rob them of love and loyalty. They will be alone and unhappy, and eternity will seem like a punishment, but it is not death.’ 

How do you kill a God?

Zeus declares, rather confidently, ‘You deny them their power. Poseidon nods his head in agreement. ‘They will be weak and defeated, perhaps even chopped up into pieces, but it is not death.’ 

How do you kill a God?

Apollo closes his eyes. ‘You strip them of their senses. Their eyes, and they cease to see. Their ears, and they are rendered silent. They will be in the dark, conscious and cut off for millennium, but it is not death.’

How do you kill a God?

Hades whispers, though still his voice carries, ‘With another God. An immortal for an immortal. Era for an Era. A celestial being to strip another’s soul. He pauses, the rest are silent. ‘A God for a God.’

Sit out on the terrace in the morning, drinking coffee and journaling as I start my day off slowly and mindfully

Sketching with my windows open, my records playing gently in the background while a breeze enters my room

Lighting candles for when I do my work, a warm cup of tea at the ready

Lighting candles for when I'm taking a long, hot bath

Lighting candles

Early morning walks in the mist of my neighbourhood

Practising my Latin and Irish, sketching out their beautiful words with my fountain pen and parchment

As protests against injustice in legal system, discrimination, police brutality spread through the US, it is necessary to educate yourself about these issues. 

Here are just a few book recommendations (there are so much more out there), include both non-fiction and fiction about racism and challenges that black people face throughout their lifetimes. 

Thank you so much for more recs. Below are some more amazing book recommendations from the comments:

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

White Fragility by Robin Diangelo

Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

Noughts and Crosses series by Malorie Blackman

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates

Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated by Richard Rothstein

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Policing the Black Man by Angela Davis

At The Hands of Persons Unknown by Philip Dray

Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

What Set Me Free by Bryan Banks 

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams 

Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas 

Beloved by Toni Morrison 

The short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace By Jeff Hobbs

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin