Still June Still Hot By the Naming Powers, Now a Week into Summer

The sun is already shortening its days with us. Its heat, not so much, sometimes. These days, 2024, Earth, each day seems a season on its own. The days’ weather seems increasingly unpredictable from longer than 8 hours in advance, maybe only 4 hours in advance. Of course, that may vary by a few hours hear and there depending on which of the myriad weather predictors one references. One day recently as I stood outside beside the back yard, it began to rain, as I was on my way away, I had my phone in my pocket. I took it out and looked at the well-worn weather app. It said cloudy, and made no rain mention, now nor soon. To be fair, the rain only lasted three minutes. And, then the steam rose.

I do not complain, I note. I do not complain because here in New England, we have not endured the excruciating heat Hajj pilgrims in the Middle East are currently finding many among their number dying from, nor the rain soaking the ground so prolongedly that in parts of Europe crops have not been able to be sown (never mind reaped!), because the ground cannot hold them, nor the flooding in the north central portion of this country, and so on. Here, I can flick on a ceiling fan if need be; I can change clothes to suit the temperature; I can pour myself a glass of water.

I can watch a pair of robins guard the nest they built atop one of my porch columns.

I can also watch, as I did this morning, a robin and a chipmunk spar over an insect? A worm? A berry? The chipmunk prevailed, the robin squawked and flew up away, landing 20 feet further along the ground, finding her own sustenance.

I can see, and be amazed, and try, not too effectively, to photograph a three or four level spider web attaching my porch railings to a coleus I am trying to make well, a branch of the azalea bush behind the railings, a small table and a chair I have placed, and until this morning, have used (not to worry, I have other chairs set up, and table, which I populate and use)

Excuse me. I was away for awhile. I wondered at the genus of a spider. Oh what web I wove!! (sorry, couldn’t pass up the pun) I will give you a list that begins to define this particular spider, but actually stops so far short:

domain–Eukaryota (all eukaryota have cell nuclei)
kingdom–animalia
phylum–chordata (chordata have five distinct characteristics such as a hollow tube spine, ….)
[subphylum–chelicerata–chittin exoskeleton]
class–arachaida
order–araneae
[suborder–araneumorphae–web weaver]
family–araneidae
genus–there are 184 genera within the araneidae family that this spider could be, I did not dig in
species–there are 3,097 species within the 184 genera within the araneidae family that this spider could be, I did not dig in.

Someone(s) identified this deep, so far. How much more life threading through every tangible, breathable/breathing, potentially visible, potentially audible… particle is there. SomeONE made life (life sits above domain in the scientifically defined hierarchical list I provided above, it is the basis/source of all else that tumbles down the list, that tumbles down and climbs back up, that interacts with all the other species, genera, families, orders, classes, phyla, domains categorized somewhere on that hierarchical list). Imagine that.

Psalm 139: 1, 7, 17-18

I wonder as I wander what we are doing with this life. Why?