THINGS TO TALK ABOUT

Now that I'm in Okinawa, I can talk about what I saw. The Iwatsuki Park is 1000 miles away.

I didn't tell everybody when I saw the Kawasemi mostly because I didn't want cameramen to come running to take its picture and scare the bird away.

But snakes, I dared not tell anybody, because I knew as soon as I did, people would just hunt them down to kill them.

So, when the beautiful albino snake DIAN showed up at the Irrigation Ditch; or I got to be good friends with LEGOLAS on the hill behind Quasi Pond, I said nothing.

Even when the large Ao DAIsho let me sketch her on the front park; I tried not to utter sound of it for a while, at least until she'd had time to slink away or be hidden in her shrub, where she'd be safe.

I mean, she was nonvenomous and completely harmless, but huge so could be kinda unnerving.

I just remembered something else I needed to talk about.

In my book about Mommy and Daddy, Parts I-III had Japanese subtitles which were excerpts from a sign on Daddy's headboard (roughly translated: "Living in the Lord's Memory").

When Jesus walked the earth, His memory was of a time He was perfectly one with the Father in heaven, and He died for us so that we could live like this someday. How thrilling it is to think we are privileged to have fond Father-child thoughts with the King of Heaven!

Yes, He could've created us to be clouds, rocks, or even snakes (this is Legolas)--but He chose to have us born as human beings that we could have relationship with Him. Are we fortunate, or what?

We really need to be nice to these less fortunate slithering critters, don't you think?

ANOTHER RAINY DAY

I remember a few years ago when I used to come out to the park in the rain, barely seeing a turtle swimming in the creek. I wanted it to hurry and get where it was going because it was getting pelted by the raindrops. But altho' I could see his neck stre-e-e-tch forward, his shell and legs never followed. It took me a while. I swallowed, and realized I was seeing a swimming snake. This is from my journal in '22:

At first, my blood froze. But then I stopped myself. Just moments earlier, when I thought I was looking at a turtle, I had felt a smile warming my heart; was it right that the word "snake" changed all that? The critter didn't choose to be born, not a turtle, but a snake to be despised, did he? He's not given even one chance. Besides, the smooth head of the non-venomous snake, with its round eyes, looked very much like a turtle.

It took me a good bit of time, but little by little, I found myself changing in the way I thought about snakes. What made me look more carefully was seeing how ostracized these creatures can be, not just by humans, but by other animals too. Did you know they jump when they see snakes nearby? To their credit, they can tell the peaceful ones apart from the dangerous vipers, and they adapt their behavior accordingly.

But with human beings, alas, many will KILL snakes on the spot and THEN check if they are poisonous or not--they are treated all the same, (Humans can't make quick, accurate distinctions without risking getting badly bitten,)

That's why, if I ever find a snake in the wild, I know it wants to come out of hiding and enjoy living with everybody else. "But we humans kill snakes!" I find myself sadly saying; "Be good, and stay out of sight, okay?" Maybe it can go swimming on a rainy day when people will mistake him for a turtle.

I just realized: I'd cut off the lower half of the journal since I'd already blogged about it, but maybe I should've left it there for Mother's Day. Would you look at it again? (It was posted July 26, '23; this is the original sketch.)

LOOK! SERPENT'S LOOKING DOWN

I finally colored something I had an idea of in 2022. 

  

2 years ago, I had an image of Moses hoisting up the bronze serpent on a cross in the wilderness and encouraging his viper-afflicted people to gaze on it for healing. A youth is seen pulling on the arm of an elderly man, wanting him to avail himself of its curative powers.

"Just a metal snake? I'm dying here;" the man objects. "Get me real help, not superstition!" And in a smaller voice: "Besides, it was a snake that bit me..."

DABBLING

My first attempts, 2 yrs ago, at mixing in anything remotely removed from realistic in my drawings--I wanted to try it too--just didn't work. I tried to blame it on the serpent that posed for me by naming it Picasso. I know, I know; but I couldn't think of anything else.

I found out there's a technique called "bokeh" (Japanese for "blur"), used originally in photography; and artists and painters experimented with adapting elements into some of their works too. I tried it for a while, but I ended up opting to draw either the regular background or just fade it out.

Because when I made drawings like this--my sister, who is one of my biggest supporters, even asked me--"What are those shapes supposed to be?" No, she wasn't talking about the damselflies; she knew what they were. It was the other stuff I tried. That was kind of embarrassing.

Both of these are 2021 drawings; I just dared bring them out now and talk about them. I think anyone who does art dabbles in lots of stuff to find out what he really wants to do.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

"Don't you have unfinished business about that zine?" You told your blog readers you made one, but from yesterday's photo, they can't see its contents at all!

The weather forecast looks like I'll be staying home from the park awhile longer, so I'll introduce you to some of the friends on its pages.

The animal on the very back is the first one I'll be showing. This is DIAN, the Ao Daisho (non-poisonous tree-climber snake). I rarely see snakes now altho' they were good friends several years ago. I posted earlier what I'd seen about an Ao Daisho's maternal protection.

Onto the page before it:

Here's GOLDEN the garden spider. I think all outdoors spiders are beautiful (but I tell spiders and snakes they've got to understand I can enjoy them from a distance only--they must not get too close; I can't give you a mental explanation for my physiological desire to jump if they make contact with the skin!)

I'll add 3 more pages before it tonight, but I gotta go get ready for online fellowship, ok? Ta-ta!

SNAKE RESCUE - THANKS MOM

If someone said they knew a serpent story about a mother who threw comfort to the winds for the safety her young, most people would imagine a human mother dashing out to rescue her child from a snake.

Two years ago, when the greenery at the park had not been cut back so much, there was a bush at Corner Cove on which I saw an Ao Daisho, a nonvenomous tree climber snake. All of a sudden, it released the branch it seemed inextricably coiled around and fell into the creek below with a splash. Almost in the same instant--and then I realized it hadn't fallen off the branch; it was a purposeful DIVE, and its tail had HACKED the water intentionally--I saw it curled around and hurriedly ushered tiny tapeworm-like snakes into a side rivulet. Safe.

From her perch on the branch above, had she seen a predator in the water about to prey on her little ones? I don't know how reptilian mothers feel about belly flops or headaches due to sudden changes in air pressure, but I do know even the staunchest, most dangerous swimmer below would have been scared away by suddenly descending shadows from the sky accompanied by exploding tsunami sound.

Thanks, mom.

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Most snake stories make the serpent the "bad guy". This was the first time I even thought of associating a Snake with Mother's Love!