Zombie toads (and other toads)

“Resting one’s mind and body does wonders for the creative energy of the soul.  it is in this stillness that we can remove ourselves from the workings of the physical world and just allow things to fall into place”
– Animal Totem Tarot

The Zombie Toad is actually the Colorado River Toad (previously known as the Sonaran Desert Toad) and gets its nickname because it spends most of it’s live underground in hibernation. It’s only when the rain comes that it wakes and appears above ground. They wait on the signal to act, and don’t act before they need to. When the rains come, it signals that it’s time for breeding, hence for action and if they emerged too early, there would be no other toads to mate with. So, a simple lesson from the Colorado River Toad is to wait until it’s time. Acting before you need to could be a waste of time.

When researching the Zombie Toad, I found that they allow humans to undergo a metamorphosis of their own, through psychedelics. The toad’s primary defence mechanism is the production of poison, strong enough that it can kill an adult dog. Chemicals involved in the poison include hallucinogens. The toad’s poisonous secretions have been used in traditional medicines in China, a reminder that the line between medicine and poison, healing and killing is often not very clear.

Toad venom more generally has been used as a psychoactive for millennia. In Chinese medicine it’s been used to treat colds and other common complaints and in ancient Rome it was used by wives as “an expedient for resolving unhappy marriages” (Gordon Grice).

“In Haiti, the cane toad and others have been used as ingredients in the so-called zombie rituals designed to intimidate and enslave people through a combination of psychological manipulation and drugs”
– Gordon Grice

Another possible candidate for the nickname zombie toad are the fire-bellied toads found in Asia and Europe which play dead; they arch their backs, contort their limbs to display orange warning marks on the sole of their feet. The markings warn predators to stay away as they have strong toxins. The reason for playing dead might be to ensure the predator sees the warning markings.

Looking at other ‘zombie’ amphibians we find a toad/frog that appears to die during winter, only to be reborn in spring. Their hearts freeze solid, they stop breathing and then, with the warming sun, their ponds thaw and the toad/frog digs itself out of it’s winter tomb and emerges. Obviously they aren’t engaged in magical practices, but how then do they come back from the dead? Well, they aren’t technically dead… their hearts have frozen, stopped beating and they’ve ceased to breathe… They are frozen solid, except, importantly, for their vital organs. Glucose acts as a natural antifreeze.

Whilst toads may not be engaging in magical practices, they are historically associated with them. For example, in early modern Europe there were reports of frogs or toads emerging from the mouths of women, sometimes assumed to be evidence of witchcraft. They are also mentioned as ingredients in witches’ brews.

There was a popular belief that toads had a precious stone in their heads which was sought by alchemists believing it was magical and could be used to detect or negate poison. A belief adjacent to this is that:

“There is a particular bone in a toad’s body which, if located and removed in the right way, will confer important power on its owner.”
– Steve Roud, The Penguin Guide to the Supersitions of Britain and Ireland

“In China, toads were one of the five venomous animals, together with the scorpion, centipede, spider and snake. A three-legged toad was often depicted on the moon, with one leg representing each of the three lunar phases. According to legend, the hermit Liu Hai decontaminated a pool by luring out the toad with a string of gold coins. He killed the toad, thus punishing the sin of avarice.”
– Boria Sax, The Mythical Zoo

Before we move onto toads more generally, Archangel Oracle has written about this particular Animal Spirit Tarot Card and I thought it important to mention that. They start by reiterating what the guide book says before expanding upon their own thoughts. They talk of the power of rest and relaxation, of not pushing ourselves too far, and the need to take breaks, however big or small they are.

Toads more generally

“Frogs and toads are usually found around ponds or in moist areas that, in the context of myth, suggest the chaos out of which living things were created.”
– Sax

Naturally toads have been associated with water and rain and frogs and toads fascinated people because they can exist on both land and in water, being seen as a connection between the known world and the mysterious depths. They also feature in creation myths:

“Toad was the hero in the eastern Huron creation story. In the beginning there was naught but water and sky for animals to inhabit, and it was decided that something else was needed – a place where the animals could crawl about and dry off for a while. So they got together to figure out how best to build land.” Various animals tried and failed, “but it was only ugly old toad who was successful. This Toskwaye the toad made trip after trip into the deep, bringing up dirt. Thus he fashioned the world upon turtle’s back. Toad expelled his dying breath to spit the last mouthful of earth onto turtle’s back, sacrificing his life so that others might live and thrive. To this day toad is honoured by the Native Americans, and no man is allowed to harm them.”
– Jessica Dawn Palmer, Animal Wisdon

Folk beliefs suggest that to kill a toad would summon rain, likely because it is often rain that summons toads out of hibernation. They are rarely seen in winter but appear suddenly en masse in spring when the conditions are just right, as if by magic, but actually in response to temperature, day length, moisture levels. They are an indication of Spring, and:

“Its appearance heralds a beginning which inevitably results from an ending and which may not always be welcome.  Toad suggests either a period of solitude or a sudden burst of enforced activity within a crowded pond.”
– Palmer

As an animal that undergoes metamorphosis, they are linked with the cycle of life and death. For example, the Aztecs had a giant toad called Tlaltecuhtli who was an earth mother goddess who embodied the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Her name actually meant “the one who gives and devours life.”

Related to birth, from the 1940s-60s the world’s first reliable pregnancy test was a bug eyed toad which, when injected with a pregnant woman’s urine, would squirt out eggs 8-12 hours later to confirm the pregnancy.

With ideas about metamorphosis, we get ideas around transformation as well as cycles such as birth and death, however these may not be literal. They may be around particular projects or creations that you’re engaged in. It could be that a friendship is blossoming or coming to a sad ending.

“Toad was one of four animals sacred to the Peruvian Incas – along with condor, llama and serpent… The Incas worshipped the Milky Way, and toad was associated with the black cloud formation of the Southern Cross.  In this form, toad was considered one of the gateways to the sun.”
– Palmer

This feels like a wonderful idea, linking the toad to the sun which is seen in our culture as a positive, where the toad is often seen as a more negative creature.

“Frog energy is more gentle, while toad can be an emotional purgative.”
– Palmer

Toads often merge with frogs in folklore or, they are cast in opposition. For example, within Christian traditions, it was thought that the toad inverted the good of the frog and thus was linked to Satan. Where the frog is often seen as healer, the toad is about deeper work, the kind that can cause pain on the way to being healing. The work that the toad brings is about shadow work and accessing your rich instincts.

When it comes to folklore, we find the toad is both considered lucky and unlucky. It was believed they were venomous and spat fire, that they were used as an ingredient by witches but also were familiars, and some witches could turn into toads… In fact, Toads have been linked with sorcery and demons at least as far back as 1300s.  This might be because in the medieval period there were strong connections between toads and female sexuality. It could also be linked to the idea that toads were considered a cure all, and also poisonous. In fact, since Roman times their blood and lungs had been considered noxious enough to kill.

When it comes to a more healing vibe:

“In time of contagion, men used to carry about with them the powder of a toad…. Which draws unto it the contagious air.”
– Sir Kenelm Digby (1660)

Powdered toad was a plague remedy and dried toad worn in a bag could cure and protect you from pretty much anything and in Yorkshire this was particularly the case for nosebleeds and diarrhoea. Further, dried tongues would give man control over women… Great…

Reading

• Animal Wisdon, Jessica Dawn Palmer
• Boria Sax, The Mythical Zoo
• Steve Roud, The Penguin Guide to the Supersitions of Britain and Ireland
• Deadly Animals: Savage Encounters Between Man and Beast by Gordon Grice
• The Truculant Toad
• Discovering the Folklore of Birds and Beasts, Venetia Newall

Hippos

Hippos are huge. Intuitively I think most people know that! But they really are. They can weigh up to about 3,200 kg, be as long as 5m and 165cm tall, making them one of the largest land animals today. They have skin that varies between purple grey and brownish pink with thick bristles on their heads and tails.

They have a powerful jaw and very sharp teeth, giving it the title of most powerful bite force in all land mammals. In fact, they have been recorded to break full grown crocodile backs with a single bite. In addition to being noted for the power of their jaw, they have the largest gap of any land mammal at 1m wide, and their teeth are made of the hardest ivory in the world – despite this, the ivory is easy to carve and was used to make dentures in the 1700s. So, a hippo’s mouth alone is exceptional in several ways! In spite of this, they are predominantly vegetarian, mainly grass eaters. As a bit of a side note, during the dry season there is less grass available, and sometimes they do get desperate and turn to eating meat.

So, we have a huge creature, with a dangerous jaw, that eats grass (mostly). We also have an animal that lives in Africa and yet has to be careful of getting sunburnt… It’s because of their sensitive skin that they graze at night. Their skin doesn’t have hair or fur to protect it but it does however exude a red liquid which, as far back as the Roman empire, was thought to be blood.

Pliny the Elder explained why, or rather how, the hippo could ooze blood. In summary, Pliny said that the hippo would over eat and become too large, then would find the stump of a freshly cut reed and press its body against it in order to open a vein, thus spilling blood. The hippo would thus avoid falling into a ‘morbid state’. This idea of blood letting as a cure was common in medical treatments at the time.

Of course, it’s not actually blood, and Lucy Cooke explains what is really happening. The slimy red substance is produced by glands under the hippo’s skin and it has amazing properties; it acts like a suncream, is thought to have antibacterial properties and is suggested to work as an insect repellent.

Living both in water and on land means they could have ended up poorly adapted to one or other environments, but the ways they’ve adapted to aquatic environments helps them on land where they can move at up to 30 km an hour. They can maintain that speed for several hundred metres and by keeping three feet on the ground at all time, they do so with stability. In shallow water, their short legs propel them powerfully through the water, with their webbed feet helping them navigate the river bottom. Walking well in water is important as they don’t actually swim, instead they walk on the bottom of the river.

Looking at where their sense organs are placed, we find them high on the head, allowing them to be mostly submerged in water whilst still being able to breathe and remain aware of their surroundings. When they completely submerge, their nostrils close and their ears fold to prevent water from entering. If they’ve been threatened, they can spend up to 30 minutes underwater, holding their breath.

Interestingly, their closest relative is the whale and they communicate in a similar way to whales. When they wallow in the shallow waters (nose, eyes and ears above water), their bellows are heard above water, but the sound is also heard underwater. Above water the sound is transmitted from the nostrils, and below the water, it’s through a blob of blubber on the hippo’s throat. Other hippos can hear the underwater sounds via their jawbone which links to their inner ears. Hippos make clicks underwater like those dolphins used as sonar.

Looking just at their senses and how they communicate, we can see hippos are well adapted to their environment. I’ve talked about this before on my blog, but when I was getting more and more pain and fatigue, I realised I was spending much more time at home. I made the decision to do my best to have my home work well for me. This includes various aids and adaptations, but also bookcases that I love, shelves and shelves of books and an array of photographs and pictures that are meaningful to me. The outcome is that my home feels very me, and helps me to feel grounded. Where the hippo is well adapted to it’s environment, I’ve adapted my environment to suit me.

Family life

Hippos live in groups that are female led. Females control the centre of the resting pool – the safer part – and males rest on the outer banks. As suggested by the use of the phrase resting pool, they are highly sedentary and spend most of their time resting.

As with many species, there comes a time when young males start to compete for dominance and hippos do this by yawning, roaring, jaw clashing and dung showering (they have a backward facing penis to help spray dung). Similar behaviours are involved in territorial battles, with dung and urine used to mark boundaries. Fighting is most intense during the dry season when they are all living more closely together with less food available.

The dry season is also often when hippos conceive. The way hippos approach mating is polygynous, that is one bull will mate with several females from the herd. To find a mate, the dominant male assesses the herd, acting with unusual submission as he smells each female’s bottom. He does this to figure out who’s in heat. Once he’s found his mate, he taunts her, pushing her out the herd into deeper waters. She gets frustrated and lashes out at him. He forces her into submission, forces her head under water and mounts her.

Ahead of giving birth, the female gets protective and aggressive and isolates herself, either on land or in shallow water. Once born, mum can be seen cleaning and cuddling with the baby. Nursing takes place underwater and being able to hold their breath and secure their airway means calves can suckle underwater. However, they can’t hold their breath very long so mums will nudge them to the surface with their snout, providing a support for the calf to take a breath! As with the bear, we have a nurturing, caring mother, that can also become aggressive.

And just because it was interesting, Cooke tells us that: “Hippos have internal gonads, hidden beneath several inches of skin and fat… [their] testicles have been described as ‘highly mobile’ due to their habit of wander about, especially when under threat. Their position can vary by as much as 40 centimetres!”

People and hippos

We’ve touched a little on how aggressive hippos can be, and for this reason, hippos are often darker and more complex that pop culture suggests with images of a roly-poly bumbling animal.

In fact, people and hippos are in conflict across Africa, with it often being said that hippos kill more people in Africa than other species. The reality is that river bank habitats are home to both, with humans encroaching on hippo territory and reducing grassland. Given the amount hippos need to eat, the reduction on grazing food can result in them eating crops. When they venture onto land to feed at night, hippos like to keep a direct line to water so that if they feel vulnerable or threatened they can quickly retreat. If a person unknowingly gets between the hippo and the water, trouble starts. Additionally, fishing in hippo waters can make humans appear to be a threat to a newly born calf.

In spite of this conflict, hippos have a important role to play in the local ecosystem, improving it for humans. For example, the amount of dung they produce, fertilises the waterways, increasing the fish populations which is good news for local fishing.

Their grazing also keeps pastures clear of woody species which benefits other grazing animals. The nightly walk from water to grass creates hippo paths and over time this creates a path for water to flow through in the wet season, creating lagoons and side paths for small fish to retreat to in droughts. As well as benefiting fish, their dung fertilises the riverbanks and helps sustain a wide array of plant and animal life.

Ancient Egypt

The duality of beneficial and danger is reflected in culture. For example, in Ancient Egypt, hippos were both feared and worshipped. The god that brought destruction was a hippo, and so was the god of pregnancy, which reflected the recognition of their good mothering skills. The evil god Typhon was represented as a hippo and was a symbol of impudence, impiety and a symbol of “greedy men who despoil the poor but do not dare to touch the powerful and rich” (Beryl Rowlands).

“Throughout the three millennia of the ancient Egyptian civilization, the hippopotamus was abundant and lived in the Nile river…. To the Egyptians, the hippo possessed powerful religious significance, while also acting as a trophy and a source of meat and honour, depicted in the hieroglyphs of tombs and obelisks, while as a hunted animal it was cruelly pursued, speared and often left to die in its own blood.” – Williams

Goddess Taweret – meaning the great one – was sometimes depicted with the head of a hippo, paws of lioness, back and tail of a crocodile and the breasts and stomach of a pregnant woman. She protected women during pregnancy and childbirth, and also protected young children. She was worshipped throughout ancient Egyptian history.

Ammit was another Egyptian deity, with the head of a croc, body of a cat and rear of a hippo and Ammit was the guardian of the passage to the afterlife.

Just taking a quick look at how the hippo was used to represent various gods and goddesses shows that ancient Egyptians recognised the complexity of the creature.

Ancient Rome onwards

As we’ve seen, hippos were revered by the ancient Egyptians and when it came to Romans, they were exhibited. According to Pliny, the first hippos seen in Rome were displayed in Marcus Scaurus’ spectacles of 59BC.

Moving forward in time, we find them being viewed sceptically, and then as wonderous beings.

In The History of Four-Footed Beasts (1607), Edward Topsell wrote of the hippo, saying:

“Some say that hee is five cubites high, and hath ox-hoofs, three teeth sticking out each side of his mouth, greater out than any other beasts, eared, talyed, and neighing like the horse, in the rest like the Elephant; he hath a mane, a snout turning up, in his inwards not unlike a horse, or asse, without hair.”

Topsell found it easier to accept the existence of unicorns than the existence of hippos, reflecting their absence from England.

An advert in 1799 may either be a spoof, or be referring to the fist hippo in England in modern times, describes the hippo in question as “so perfectly sweet, that it fills the room with a rich perfume” and “so extremely tractable and gentle, that the most timid lady may approach it with perfect safety”. I would strongly deter you from the latter…

Apparently, Mr Brookes who had allegedly purchased the hippo claimed to want to improve English cattle by cross breeding them with the hippo… (Caroline Grigson)

By the Victorian age, attitudes towards the hippo can be summed up by Charles F Partington’s entry in The British Cyclopaedia of Natural History (1835):

“The whole aspect of the hippopotamus is repulsive. It has a very stupid look and yet its air is ferocious; and its mouth is about as ugly a mouth as can be imagined.”

A few years after this entry, a hippo called Obaysh was brough to London Zoo, the first hippo to be seen in Europe since the Roman times. It promptly led to a craze known as ‘hippomania’ but was not the first hippo in England. If you head back past Ancient Rome, past Ancient Egypt and keep heading back in time, hippos were actually found in England. They thrived anywhere that was ice free and warm enough to support their huge appetite for grass and their bones have been found as far north as Stockton on Tees, in Wales and across the South of England, including under Trafalgar Square.

Over in Australia, in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, a zoological garden was being constructed. The main objective was to “introduce, acclimatise, domesticate and then liberate select animal, insect and bird species from England” with the goal of diversifying the agricultural industry in South Australia and essentially making it look like England. The plan was it would include spaces for a wide array of animals, including, of course, a hippo.

It appears as though a motive for including the hippo was part of effort to invoke a colonial ‘display’ of exotic animals from lands that England had ‘conquered’. This required a certain array of staple animals such as elephants, lions, rhinos and bears, in addition to the hippo. Some of the exhibits were given special enclosures to reflect their status, with the Egyptian hippo house being added in 1901. To acquire the hippo, the governor used his colonial influence. The hippo went on to die within a year and the South Australian Museum acquired its skin for their own display. A later hippo died in 1929 when someone threw a rubber ball into its cage and it choked on it. Obviously, this doesn’t make for a great story, but I wanted to include it as it shows the symbolic importance of the hippo in colonial eyes.

And over in contemporary Colombia…

Pablo Escobar also works his way into our tales of hippos… Escobar, having made a lot of money through cocaine, wanted it all. And with that, came the idea of a private zoo. Over the years various creatures were smuggled into Colombia, including hippos. There were 3 females and one male called El Viejo (or Old Man). In the early 1990s, Escobar was shot by military police and the entire menagerie was rehomed, minus the hippos who were too hard to transport.

The hippos carried on living there, in what turned out to be a great environment for them, and populations grew. Hippos are however very territorial, so when young males reached maturity, Old Man would kick them out. The area surrounding the hippo pond was rich in waterways, the kind of waterways that would allow young male hippos to travel easily through the Colombian countryside. In Africa this would be fine, the young males would find a female hippo and produce their own baby hippos… In Colombia the outcome is less positive… essentially leading to a lot of sexually frustrated young male hippos…Hippos aren’t small animals and sexually frustrated young male hippos have been causing chaos with their bulk. In addition to damaging crops and the risk to people, the hippos also potentially have the power to change the environment, impacting on local Colombian plants and animals.

As we saw earlier, in Africa, hippos and their environment are much more finely tuned than in Colombia which made me wonder about the effects on us of being in the wrong place. Whether it’s in the wrong country or the wrong job, it surely has an impact? For example, I’ve been in jobs which weren’t a good fit and they impacted on my mental health.

Hippos and names

In my research I came across a couple of references to hippos and names. Firstly, in Ghana, some people celebrate hippos and see them as sacred. It is thought that hippos protected people from enemies and there’s a post puberty naming rite which involves going to the river to get a name from a god, hippo is the messenger, linking god and human.

There’s also a story from which explains why the hippo lives in water. Tortoise had a good life except for one thing; Hippo lived nearby and Hippo had huge and heavy feet which were a danger to Tortoise. One day Hippo had a feast and during this, he said “Friends, you have come to eat at my table, but none of you know my name”. Shocked, the animals realised it was true.  Hippo told them if they didn’t know his name then they couldn’t eat at his table, confident that only Hippo’s many wives knew his name. Tortoise asked what Hippo would do if one of the animals did know his name and Hippo said if that was the case then he would do whatever the animal wanted at another feast.  Come feast day, Tortoise had managed to find out Hippos name and thus Hippo, or Istantim as it turned out he was called, had to do whatever Tortoise wanted.  As we know, Tortoise had a nice life and all he wanted was not to be endangered by Hippo’s feet so he asked him and his wives to live in the river so he could walk on land without danger.  Hippo agreed and has lived in the river ever since.

Wrap up

About 2000 words later and we’ve been on quite a journey to get to know the hippo. We’ve seen the importance of living in the right environment, the complex role of mother as nurturing and violent, and we’ve seen the changing views of hippos throughout history. Leaving us with a reminder that time and culture have a strong impact on how we view things.

Reading

• The unexpected truth about animals, Lucy Cooke
• The Mythical Zoo, Boria Sax
• Animals in Roman Life and Art, J M Toynbee
• Hippopotamus, Edgar Williams
• Caroline Grigson, Menagerie: The history of exotic animals in England
• Animal Diversity
• How did African Hippos end up in Colombia

Queer and Disabled Histories

I recently gave a talk about how queer and disabled histories are connected as part of LGBT History Month so I figured I would turn out what I researched into a blog post. I’ve already written about sterilisation and eugenics here so I won’t be going into those areas. Instead I’m looking at different ways of seeing queer and disabled people in history, how homosexuality was demedicalised and a couple of queer disabled people.

Why are we thinking about queerness and disability together?

There are higher rates of disabled people in the queer community and vice versa:

• More than ⅓ of queer adults identify as having a disability
• One study found ¼ of heterosexual women have a disability, compared to over 1/3 of lesbians and bi women

Queer people and disabled people have been treated similarly in history. We’ve been erased, made invisible, our lives have been medicalised. We’ve been ostracised and excluded, oppressed and seen as deviant, as abnormal within the dominant cultures of heteronormativity and ableism.

Ways of looking at disability and queerness

So what are a couple of different ways of looking at queerness and disability? We might think about these as different lenses that are guided by the dominant authority. The dominant authority in society at any time shapes what is seen as normal or deviant and regulates and surveils accordingly.

Historically, the bible has been seen as an authority, with disability being seen as a result of sin or encounter with evil and queerness viewed as a transgression of religion. With the bible, or religion, as the authority, we encounter ideas of sex and certain kinds of sexuality as sin and both being queer and disabled requiring prayer to ‘fix’ the issues.

More recently, we’ve tended to view both queerness and disability through a medical lens which sees both as individual issues for an individual to fix. When you medicalise something such as queerness, you find yourself searching for a medical cause, and medical cure. When it comes to disability, the medical model of disability sees an impairment as something that is dis-abling and that needs fixing.

A couple of millenia ago…

Before being labelled a sin, engaging exclusively in ‘same sex conduct’ was seen with disapproval because it meant you weren’t fulfilling your reproductive potential. This meant you weren’t ensuring you have family to care for you as you age and that you weren’t continuing your family line.

Around 3000 BC: In Mesopotamia, anal sex was common but only if it didn’t interfere with reproduction

Around 1000 BC: For Jews, men having sex with men wasn’t acceptable because, like bestiality, it didn’t produce children.

As we can see, this is focused on reproduction and procreating. So if we look at disability, we find disabled people being viewed as non sexual, as unfit to be parents and if in a relationship with a non disabled person, as taking someone fit to reproduce ‘off the market’ and denying them a chance to be a fulfilled person.

The medicalisation of sexuality

By 1886, various kinds of sexual behaviour that couldn’t lead to procreation had been labelled abnormal. The view was that too much sex was seen as unhealthy, but of course sex couldn’t be outlawed, so non procreative sex was targeted.

Between the end of the 19th century and 1965, the medical field solidified the pathologisation of homosexuality and thus created the idea of there being a cure. In searching for a cure, doctors will have made gay people disabled as techniques such as lobotomy, castration and electroconvulsive shock therapy were used. In 1952 in America, homosexuality was listed in the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), classifying it as a mental illness.

Between 1965 and 1973, the rising gay rights movement placed pressure on medical organisations to remove homosexuality from the DSM. As an aside, until 1990 homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in the International Classification of Disorders

Whilst homosexuality was technically removed in 1973, I think it’s important to note that in doing so, it pathologised atypical gender identity. Essentially they said that homosexuality was now ok because it was no longer connected to trans and non binary people which it still considered problematic. So whilst technically removed, it remained problematic.

Further, the approach of the gay rights activists included insisting that gay people are healthy and aligning gay with health – thus distancing the queer community from disabled people, and ignoring those who had been dis-abled by so called treatments and those people who happened to be both gay and disabled.

The queer rights movement achieved what they did by: “…attempting to attain rights and respect by distancing one’s own group from associations with disability and mental illness…” – Kunzel

It’s important to note that the queer community isn’t the first to distance themselves from more oppressed groups in order to gain their rights. So this is not to point blame or whatever, just to notice it.

“Stigmatised groups have struggled to be recognised as normal, legitimate, or human by distinguishing themselves from the even more stigmatised” – Kunzel

A couple of queer disabled people

Bobbie Lea Bennett was a wheelchair user. She forced Medicare to pay for gender confirmation surgery in 1978 which is one of the first documented cases of Medicare covering a trans-related surgery.

Connie Panzarino was a disabled lesbian activist. In 1994, she wrote her autobiography, The Me in the Mirror, which discussed how her sexuality and disability influenced her life and how rampant ableism in the LGBTQ community needs to be addressed… Sadly that was almost 30 years ago…

Sources

Books

• Bi: The hidden culture, history and science of bisexuality, Julia Shaw
• A history of bisexuality, Steven Angelides
• Sex in History, Reay Tannahill
• Sex & Punishment, Eric Berkowitz
• Non-binary Lives, ed Jos Twist, Ben Vincent, Meg-John Barker and Kat Gupta
• Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health, ed Adrian Shanker
• Sex and Disability, eds Robert McRuer and Anna Mollow

Papers

• Queer History, Mad History and the Politics of Health, Regina Kunzel
• The legacy of medicalising ‘homosexuality’: A discussion on the historical effects of non-heterosexual diagnostic classifications, Joel Raymond Anderson, Elise Holland
• Exercising Intimate Citizenship Rights and (Re)Constructing Sexualities: The new place of sexuality in disability activism, Alan Santinele Martino, Margaret Campbell
• The Sound that You Do Not See: Notes on Queer and Disabled Invisibility, Mara Pieri

Online

• Trans Lives Survey 2021, TransActual
• The medicalisation of homosexuality, Emma Aggar
• LGBT History: Disability, Disabled People and Disability Movements, Laura Hershey
• Regard’s Submission to the seventh Pre-sessional Working Group of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
• Thinking Outside the (Tick)box Conference – Speaker notes

Red Panda

The first account of a red panda, written in 1825, describes them as the “Most handsome mammal in existence” (Cuvier), with another early report saying they are a “delightful little creature” (Sowerby). (cited in Glatston and Gebauer)

First, and perhaps most important if you want to know the red panda, you need to know they aren’t pandas… They actually have their own, unique taxonomical category consisting of Himalayan and Chinese red pandas. They aren’t closely related to giant pandas and are in fact considered to be carnivorous despite their mostly vegetarian diet. However, like giant pandas, they do have a heavy diet of bamboo, and like giant pandas, they have an extended wrist bone that works like a thumb to help them grip bamboo. The diet of red pandas is supplemented by fruits, roots, grasses, acorns and occasionally eggs, insects and grubs.

They live in subtropical and temperate forests and are crepuscular, arboreal and mostly solitary, spending most of their life in trees sleeping and sunbathing. They are well adapted to their environment. In particular, they have sharp, semi retractable claws to help them grip slippery branches and flexible ankles which allow them to climb headfirst down trees. Their ankles can rotate 180 degrees and they have thick foot fur instead of pads which serves to keep their feet warm and means they don’t leave defined tracks in the snow.

It’s believed that their facial markings don’t just add to their adorable appearance, but they have a purpose – the red tracks down each cheek are thought to keep the sun out of their eyes and the white face fur helps them to see each other’s faces in the dark. Another way their colouring helps them survive is through camouflage. The red on their coats matches the moss that grows on the trees where they live and their black tummies help hide them from on the ground predators. And when it comes to the chilly temperatures, they have two layers of fur for insulation and use their tail like a blanket which is adorable!

The many ways that the red panda is well adapted to their environment makes me think about how we thrive best in the environment and community we are best suited for. If you don’t feel like you’re thriving, maybe look around you and see if anything can be changed to make it work better for you. Maybe a SAD lamp, or a picture that makes you feel at home, whether of a person or a place. In my case, being surrounded by books always makes me feel much more at home and practically, I need an environment that has factored my accessibility needs into it.

When threatened, they make a sound scientists called a “huff-quack” by scientists which is a mix between a duck quack and a pig snort! Today their main threats come from habitat loss and poaching as well as competition for bamboo. Partly this competition comes from other animals such as primates, elephants, wild pigs, porcupines and bamboo rats which all live in the same areas and eat the same foods. And partly it comes from human demand for bamboo as a material to be used for roofing, thatching, fencing, baskets and more (A. Choudhury)

Issues with their habitat comes from degradation, destruction and fragmentation of forests due to logging, making space for farming and the demand for firewood.

“from the latter part of the 19^th century onwards, large forested areas of Darjeeling District were cleared for commercial tea plantation; these areas included much potential [red] panda habitat” – Choudhury

This is ironic when you learn the image of the red panda was used to promote the first International Tea Festival in Darjeeling (Glatson and Gebauer).

Whilst mostly solitary, there is the need to red pandas to come together to breed, how else would we get baby red pandas?! In response to rapid changes in day length following the winter solstice, males seek out a mate, marking their territory with a strong smelling liquid, excreted from glands at the base of their tail. Once they’ve found a female, they have to get their timing right as they’re only fertile for a couple of days a year. They then give birth to 1-4 cubs, these cubs stay with mum for about 90 days and the males play no role in childcare.

It is normally about this point in my blog posts that I would look at the animal’s role in folklore, ethnozoology, religious beliefs and superstitions however the red panda has made limited impact on the culture or traditions of their home region. Whilst I will be looking at a variety of beliefs and uses of the red panda, keep in mind that these are contradictory and may only represent a small number of people’s thoughts.

Michael Oppitz (cited by Glatson and Gebauer) reports that shamans from a tribe in western Nepal use the skins and furs in ritual dress, considering them to be a protective animal which would guard the wearer against aggressive spirits. In an eastern part of Nepal, their claws were used to treat epilepsy (Bista, Baxter, Murray). In other parts of Nepal, there are similar beliefs about the positive role of the red panda, such as them being seen as a talisman of good luck; in some cases wearing part of a red panda is thought to bring the luck and in others it’s seeing a red panda.

The creator of Red Panda beer, made in Bhutan, said this when asked why he named his beer after them: The red panda “is a special living thing and a symbol for beauty, fellowship and perhaps also a little wisdom (intelligence)”.

“The people of the Bumthang and Sengore regions of central Bhutan consider red pandas to be the reincarnation of Buddhist monks, apparently because their fur is a similar colour to that of the monk’s robes.” – Glatston and Gebauer

However, whilst they might be red and white not black and white, views are polarised when it comes to the red panda. In some areas, hearing them howl at night is a omen that someone in the community with die. Although red pandas can’t actually howl, it’s a strong enough belief that people will kill or chase off a red panda if they see one.

Historically, their fur was used for hats and whilst this demand has died down, the red panda is still high in the list of mammals poached and traded illegally in Nepal (Bista, Baxter, Murray). As well as being used for hats, they were used to make rugs and in some parts of Nepal their tails were used as dusters.

Whilst not traditionally having much impact on culture, the red panda has come into its own in the age of the internet! Glatson and Gebauer had positited if this increasing popularity could be a tool for their conservation, however there are concerns that it has instead led to demand for them in the pet trade.

As well as being shared frequently online, there’s also Master Shifu, the kung fu guru from Kung-fu Panda. If you can think of any other cultural representations of red pandas, let me know!

I think the key messages from the red panda are around adaptability, an environment and community you can thrive in and being divisive – and as someone who is not to everyone’s taste, I can confirm being divisive is not necessarily a bad thing!

Resources

• National Geographic
• Smithsonian National Zoo
• 2001, An overview of the status and conservation of the red panda Ailurus fulgens in India, with reference to its global status. Anwaruddin Choudhury
• Local knowledge, perceptions and the cultural significance of the Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens) in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, S Doriji, R Rajaratnam, M Tighe, K Vernes
• What is driving the increased demand for red panda pelts? Damber Bista, Greg S Baxter, Peter John Murray, 2020
• Red Panda Network
• People and Red Pandas: The Red Panda’s Role in Economy and Culture, Angela R Glatson and Axel Gebauer (chapter from Red panda: biology and conservation of the first panda)

Termite Mounds

The short version of this post is that termite mounds or nests are incredible! And I don’t really know where to start…

“Termite workers nearly always look the same – flaccid abdomens connected to round heads and mandibles – but their nests can look like Rorschach forms, skyscrapers eight meters tall, dome pyramids and even crumbly balls suspended in trees.” – Rob Dunn

An important note going into this blog post is that there are many species of termite and they don’t all do things in the same way. Some tropical forest dwelling species even have nests in trees which is not what we tend to think of when we think of termite nests. Having said that, a lot of this post is going to be thinking about the stereotypical kind of termite nest; the termite mound. Specifically, I’ll be thinking about the construction of them and the folklore that surrounds them.

Much of my reading focused on termite mounds in Australia and Africa and in those areas, termites can build mounds as tall as a double decker bus

In Builders Change the World, Mike Hansell discusses so called ‘magnetic’ termites from Australia which have large, flattened mounds that are orientated very specifically. Some people think this structure and orientation is for avoiding the harsh midday sun; the logic being that one flat side faces east and is warmed by the morning sun and the other side faces west and is warmed by evening sun; the form of the structure means that in the midday sun, only a small area is exposed to the sun. Hansell suggests that this may not be a universally accepted explanation.

A termite species found in Africa, the Southern Harvester Termite, makes mounds that are, on average, 2 metres high and 28 metres across. For context, a bed (in the UK at least) is just under 2m long. So that’s over 14 beds lined up… Thinking about the size of a termite we can see that their nests are an epic example of homebuilding… The commitment involved, the team work required to achieve it and the time that must be involved are all overwhelming to think about… In fact, these masters of architecture were revered in ancient societies because of the way they worked together.

So, how are these magnificent mounds made? Well since you asked… the structure is a mix of soil, faecal cement and saliva… When this is baked by the sun it makes a strong, durable building material. The blueprint for the mound is impressive and the built in temperature control has inspired architectural design.

With help Douglas J Emlem, author of Animal Weapons, I’ll be looking specifically at the mounds of Macrotermes suubhyalinus (a fungus growing termite species found in Africa and South East Asia*). These particular mounds had a concical base that rises to a spire with a kind of chimney but aside from the shape, the fundamentals of the mound seem to be a basis across species.

(*Some termites have evolved a special relationship with a species of fungi. The termites act as farmers of the fungi because the fungi help the termites to digest tough grasses).

With a generic termite mound, there is an outer wall, then an empty space, and then an inner wall.

“The inner wall is separated from the first wall by the insect equivalent of a castle’s moat – a no-man’s-land. This air filled space forms a six inch gap, and only after breaching the second wall will you get to the colony proper. The termites themselves enter or exit through tiny little gates, a half dozen termite-sized tubes that extend though the no-man’s-land to the outside world. These tubular gateways have rock-solid walls, and they’re guarded by masses of big-headed soldiers.” – Emlem

Inside the mound, there are lots of small chambers, each within a hard shell, and they are connected via a plethora of tunnels. Some of the chambers are for food, some for nurseries and in the centre, the most protected chamber is where the queen can be found.

A large colony of termites going about their day to day life creates heat, expels carbon dioxide and inhales oxygen. Without careful planning, this is going to cause some issues however the architectural design avoids this. The mound walls have lots of tiny tiny holes which allows oxygen to enter and carbon dioxide to leave.

“Wind passing over the chimney – or even directly through the walls – pulls stale air out of the colony and replaces it with fresh, oxygenated air. The double-walled design also works like an insulator, keeping the colony inside at a constant and cool temperature.” – Emlem

Whilst that’s the practical creation and maintenance of the mound covered, I wanted to ponder what it is like for the termites. Of course we can only consider this from the perspective of humans (I assume, dear reader, you’re human?!) so our idea of what it is like will be guided by the way we sense and experience the world… All of that aside… termites live in the darkness, many of them shut off from the world, living in chambers and tunnels. If I was a termite, I would want my home space to be somewhere I feel safe, comfortable and settled. What this means for people will differ of course but if you’re someone who spends a lot of time at home, I do think it’s worth thinking about how you feel in that space. Thinking about the termites, this idea of making the right environment may extend past your four walls to include your local area or your community.

As a slight side story… Years ago I realised I was spending a lot more time at home that I had been, very much due to increasing levels of pain and fatigue. The flat I was living in at the time was very bland, the landlord had very strict ideas and definitely wanted to keep it as a show home… I am not a show home person… and I didn’t really feel ‘at home’ in my flat. Having realised this, I spent time and a bit of money working out how to make the space feel more cosy, more comfortable and more me. I now live in a flat where I have a lot more freedom and someone once described it as walking into my inner world…

Not just a termite home…

“One study has carbon dated material from the core of a mound. This gave a date of between 4,000 to 5,500 years ago for their foundation. Each mound is a living site built on its own archaeology, like the hearts of many human cities.” – Hansell

The longevity of the mounds means they usually outlast the colony and are then ideal homes for a variety of species including insects, lizards, snakes and birds. In New Guinea and Australia, there is a kind of kingfisher that excavates nests in active termite nests, exploiting their consistent temperature to incubate their eggs (Ildiko Szabo).

But in addition to being a home, termite mounds can tell us about the ground beneath and around them and the creation of the mounds has it’s own important environmental importance.

An article looking at the role of insects in sustainable development goals highlights the perception of termites as pests and how we focus on their so-called dark side and destruction. The article also argues for their light side, saying they are helpful and have an important role to play in ecosystem engineering. They are involved in recycling wood and plant materials, as well as aerating and enriching the soil. Abandoned mounds can provide soil for building and because they dig so far down, the termites can bring back traces of minerals to help humans establish if an area is worth mining or not.

As well as termites being a source of food themselves, they are important in nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration. Regarding termites as food, in Zimbabwe, the harvesting, preparing and selling of termites is dominated by women and children thus addressing gender inequalities. It turns out that termites don’t need oil to be fried because they already contain high levels of oil, any oil that remains after cooking is then used as cooking oil for other meals. Being at the centre of the nest, the queen is rarely eaten however when it is eaten, it is for special reasons such as to aid a malnourished child or by ill people. It may also be eaten by someone who is wanting to demand more respect, or given as a mark of respect.

Another use for the termites themselves comes from the soldiers who have a role in medical surgery as they can be used like stitches to hold a wound together. Other ways in which termites have been used medicinally include in particular in treating flu, asthma, bronchitis, sinusitis and tonsillitis. It is thought that at least one species has some kind of anti-microbial property.

When considering the cultural significance of termites in Subsaharan Africa, we find that termite mounds were used as burial sites and have associations with ancestors, devils, spirits, witches and ghosts. This helps to explain why the mounds are sometimes not destroyed, and are in fact respected. One of my favourite bits of the article was that:

“Several informants from Madagascar mentioned that you should not urinate on a termite mound as something may happen to your testicles or penis”

Termites feature in a creation story for the San people of Southern Africa. They were said to be the first meat that God provided and flying termites had supernatural creative powers attributed to them. It’s told that the first humans emerged from a termite nest that was God’s house. As well as a link to the realm of God, mounds have been seen as entrances to the netherworld as well as sources of fertility.

We find this link between termite mounds, ancestors and spirits echoed in Thailand and in India, animals that are worshipped such as snakes, can be found in abandoned termite mounds.

And finally… there is a Nigerian proverb, “Termites cannot eat a stone”, that means do not do what you can’t handle.

More info

• Builders Change the World by Mike Hansell
• Animal Weapons, Douglas J Emlem
• How Termites Evolved to Build Massive Mounds

Termites

“Nothing in this world was ever meant to last.  Nor was it ever meant to be created instantly.  Step by step, piece by piece, is how we create the wonders that are our homes.” – Animal Totem Tarot

In this post we’ll be thinking both about termites, and about their homes. But to kick things off, did you know there are about 2,800 species of termite identified worldwide which is mind blowing?!

They have a somewhat controversial or polarising effect with people either loving or hating them, or having a love hate relationship with them. But as a Science Direct article says, when talking about their light and dark sides:

“…one cannot be obtained without the other and that to get the bright, we have to accept the dark…”

A wonderful metaphor for life really… This blog will look at termites lives, their homes and will unpick those light and dark aspects, starting with a little about why they are viewed as pests.

PestWild, probably unsurprisingly, describes them as “silent destroyers” because they eat wood, flooring and wallpaper and often go undetected. Personally, I think silent destroyers makes them sound more like a cool assassin but who I am I to say… Also, only about 10% of the species are thought to be pests so be careful not to tar a whole group with one brush…

Encyclopaedia Britannica goes for a more technical description, saying they are cellulose eating insects and that their social system echoes that of ants and bees, despite evolving independently. When the same traits, systems and adaptations evolve independently it’s called convergent evolution and tends to be because there is an efficient solution, for example squid eyes and human eyes are surprisingly similar.

Back to the termite as a pest… So PestWorld was correct in saying that termites are destructive when they eat wood or vegetable matter that is considered valuable to us, and yet, as Encyclopaedia Britannica says, they eat cellulose which helps in the recycling process… They help convert plant cellulose into substances that can enter the ecosystem and support new life. I think this is an important thing to note – what we view as destructive may be constructive, it’s all about perspective… And this paragraph seems to sum up termites to me! I think it also shows that where we place value can change how we view something. A termite destroying a much loved chair invokes a different reaction to them clearing up a pile of unwanted wood.

“The word termite was given by Linnaeus and originally meant “end of life”. That’s how young and new our oldest knowledge is, because these, too, are old participants in creation, in beginnings. They break down wood, forming rich soil in a place that would otherwise be choked.”– Linda Hogan, Dwellings

I’d never really thought about how termites communicate but they do so through vibrations, scent and physical contact. When alarmed, they may tap their head on the ground or run in a zigzag, bumping into other termites who in turn spread the alarm. Apparently, the head tapping can rise to a level where it’s heard by humans as a rattling sound, but termites themselves cannot hear airborne sounds, instead they sense vibrations through their legs. When talking about communication, a National Geographic article describes termites as ‘novelty detectors’, “attuned to excitement and always on alert”.

Before I learnt much about termites I was thinking it would be helpful to look at the ant post as well.  Little did I know… Whilst they appear similar at a glance, they aren’t closely related to them and ants actually eat termites. However, in some ways they do have a similar social set up with a division of labour that includes clear roles.

There is a lot of value in teamwork, and even more so when the people, or termites, involved have worked out what their role is based on their skills and knowledge. This creates a team that is much stronger, more sustainable and makes the most out of collaboration, community and relationships. A team where people play to their strengths and interests is one where people are more likely to enjoy their work and grow within that role, and hopefully avoid burnout.

Within the social set up is a queen, who is essentially an egg laying machine who produces hundreds of millions of eggs over her life. National Geographic explain that essentially, the queen is a slave, a ‘captive ovary’ and in spite of her title, she isn’t in charge of the mound. Because of her size, she is actually immobile and has to be tended to by workers. (There is a king, he is much smaller than the queen, about the size of worker termites.)

Whilst Helen Jukes is talking about bees in her book, A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings, it feels relevant to the termite discussion as well:

“The hive has often been touted as a symbol for the virtues of a monarchical society, but that’s misleading. In fact it is the workers, not the queen, who hold much of the decision-making power; and in the absence of a ruling authority it is communication, not control, that maintains the stability of the hive. Which rings true with the sense I have, standing here, leaning over them like this, of something alive and meshlike at work.”

Along with the queen, termite colonies are made up of workers and soldiers. Workers are generally wingless, soft bodied and care for the king, queen, eggs and nymphs. They make up the majority of the termite colony. Soldiers are, as it’s probably clear, the termites that are involved in protecting the colony. Generally, they are larger than soldiers, with larger mandibles.

As a whole, the colony are and organised, cooperative group, each working together for the good of the whole. This can be seen in a couple of ways; the power of working together for positive change and the important role that each of us has within that. But also, as Insect Fact and Folklore says, “the individual termite becomes but a readily replaceable cog in the complicated system by which the colony operates”.

In terms of their collective power and strength, Hogan describes a termite nest she’s seen as “splendid architecture… one come to over time, a creation older than human presence on the earth by millions of years. The nest is a contained intelligence, made up of lives that work together with the mind of a single organism. “

Which brings us onto their mounds or nests, which feels like it needs a post of it’s own!

Atolls

In the Animal Totem Tarot, the World card is represented by an Atoll.

“Do you know what conditions are necessary to create a thriving new world?  There is a special ingredient list and everything has to come together at the exact same time.  It is not easy to complete and sustain a thriving ecosystem.  But with time, patience, and perseverance it can be done.  Miss any one step or any one ingredient, and you will not get that which can sustain life.”
– Animal Totem Tarot

The animal totem tarot quote essentially wraps up the essential message here – it’s about creating the right conditions for creation.

But what is an atoll?

“An atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef, island, or series of islets. The atoll surrounds a body of water called a lagoon.” – National Geographic

In further info, they are found in warmer seas and the majority are in the Pacific Ocean. There are about 440 atolls and they tend not to breach 5 metres in elevation and a lot of the reef hides below the surface.

Atolls develop over epic timescales and can take up to 30 million years to come into being. Some work is just like that, a long long haul where you think you’ll never get there but some things are worth the work and perseverance, just maybe don’t commit to anything more than say half a million years! You are human after all (I assume?).

The creation process starts with underground volcanos (called seamounts) which spill larva onto the floor. This hardens and over time, and many volcanic eruptions later, the larva tower break the surface of the sea in the form of a small island. At some point the volcano becomes dormant. This is when creatures, including coral arrive. The corals build a reef around the island. The kind of coral that creates these reefs are hard corals and they create an exoskeleton of limestone. It is billions of these exoskeletons that make up the reef.

Over time the volcanic island starts to sink but the corals remain, and grow up until a lagoon is formed between the coral reef and the land. The ringing or fringing ring is now a barrier reef with the corals breaking the surface and dying as they do so. The lagoon is warm and shallow water which is great for many animals and the barrier reef also protects the lagoon from harsh winds and waves, making it more of a safe space. And yes, I’m going to ask you to think about your safe spaces, or how you create safe spaces! In a lot of ways, this reminds me of the safety of the Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Sea Serpent card.

In the final stage of the formation, waves break the limestone reef, beating the coral into sand. This sand and other material is then swept onto the reef forming a ring shaped island, or islets, known as an atoll.

I think it’s clear that to create new land, everything must come together at exactly the right time and in the right order. Personally, this is a poignant reminder that I need to think more about the conditions I need to live and thrive in. It can also be a prompt to ponder what your ideal world looks like? What energy and people would you surround yourself with if you were to create space for the life you want to live?

It’s also important to note that destruction was one of the elements of the process and sometimes we need to undo things to make space for new things, a lesson that the Tower in the tarot is good at highlighting.

That being said, atolls also remind us that the cycle of creation is one that happens over long, deep time. Whether that’s literally creating a child which goes far beyond the months of pregnancy and reaches out into their toddler years, their teen years and beyond, or whether it’s an artistic creation that needs seeing from inception stage to completion. Some creations have much clearer start and end points than others as I think the two examples show. If your creation has a clear end point, how do you know when you’ve reached that? Alternatively, if it’s something that will always be a work in progress, how do you know when you can feel good about it, satisfied with its progress?

The kind of coral that creates atolls, lives in warm water which thus dictates where atolls are found; the right place, the right conditions in the right order and with enough time given. Our world can be very fast paced so this might be a nudge to slow down. Things get done when they get done and also ensure you’ve got the right conditions in order to create.

If we think about how humans and atolls have interacted, we don’t necessarily find positive news… They lay low and this has been disastrous. Think of boats travelling the sea and the atoll obscured from view by the waves… Many atolls are uninhabited by humans as they are often remote and unfortunately this has made them good for testing nuclear weapons… The first hydrogen bomb was tested at Bikini Atoll by the Americans but it isn’t the only atoll used for this purpose.

Unlike other islands, atolls tend to be short of natural resources, although are enticing to tourists if they are easily enough accessed. This means things like food and fuel have to be brought to the atoll. Atolls struggle to earn money because they don’t have much to offer beyond tourism. However, some, such as the nation of Tuvalu (a series of isolated atolls in the Pacific) receives millions of dollars every year for use of its “.tv” Internet domain name.

Atolls are also at risk from climate change. As low lying land, rising sea levels are a very real threat and in the Maldives, reclamation projects have started, and the government has looked at land in other countries to repatriate residents should it be necessary. On a more positive note, it seems like natural processes on coral reef atolls may result in better resistance to sea level rise than should be the case given their low elevation. It appears that most coral atoll islands remain stable but of course, the future will determine what happens.

It does feel like atolls show the completed cycle of creation, and highlight that even if it seems complete, it is still changing, that endings are just beginnings and we’re never going to reach a state of perfection where all is done. I know for me, if I feel overwhelmed by day to day things, I sometimes think that if I just get them all done right now, that’ll be it. And of course that’s not the case. I send one email and get another I need to respond to. This puts me in mind of pacing, a concept familiar to many disabled people. It’s a way of getting out of the boom and bust cycle; you don’t wait until you feel ready to face everything you need to do, instead if you have energy to do one thing, you do that. If you wait till you think you can face it all, you’ll most likely hit 75% of it, and then spend the next week in bed recovering. Doing it in a more gentle, intentionally paced way, means you do a thing, you rest a little, you do another thing.

In case this is helpful, the explanation that helped me really understand was about knitting. Say you want to knit a blanket. You could sit and do ten rows and then need to rest for two hours. Or, you do a single row, stretch and wiggle and grab a coffee and then do another. Repeat and repeat (but maybe not the coffee part!) and you’ll find instead of getting ten rows done in two and a bit hours, you get 30 rows done in the same time.

Similar to the atoll, we are not a constant, we’re always being shaped by our relationships and the world around us. Murray Ford, in the article about the Maldives, said:

“The key thing to understand is that these islands aren’t static. They don’t sit passively as if they were in a bathtub and slowly drowning. They are constantly being reshaped by oceanographic and sedimentary processes.”

Isn’t this so true?

If we turn to mythology, we find that in the islands of Tuvalu, it’s believed in some of their mythology that the atolls were created by Te Ali, or the flounder, with the flounder’s body becoming the island.

One website shares the creation myth, saying that they were created by Te Ali and Te Pusi (the eel):

“Carrying home a heavy rock, a friendly competition of strength turned into a fight and Te Pusi used his magic powers to turn Te Ali flat, like the islands of Tuvalu, and made himself round like the coconut trees. Te Pusi threw the black, white and blue rock into the air – and there it stayed. With a magic spell it fell down, but a blue part remained above to form the sky. Te Pusi threw it up again, and its black side faced down, forming night. With another spell, the rock fell down on its white side and formed day. Te Pusi broke the rest of the rock into eight pieces, forming the eight islands of Tuvalu. With a final spell, he threw the remaining pieces of blue stone and formed the sea.”

If we rely on Wikipedia, we learn that the word atoll comes from the Dhivehi word atholhu from an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Maldives. Darwin took this and used it as atoll, referring to the word’s indigenous origin, meaning a lagoon island.

Sometimes I reflect upon literature in these posts, but for atolls, my findings were limited… I did find a poem entitled Atoll by Robert William Service which looks at the romantic ideal of visiting an island or atoll and being away from the rest of the world. A concept I’m sure we can agree is idealised.

So, in conclusion, we have themes of time, perseverance and long, deep time, as well as the cycle of creation.

Kingfisher

“It was the rainbow gave thee birth,/And left thee all her lovely hues” – William Henry Davies, The Kingfisher, 1910

The kingfisher we’re focusing on today is the one familiar to those of us in the UK, but there are nearly 100 species worldwide, including the kookaburra. The kingfisher of today’s blog post is the one with unmistakable bright blue and burnt orange plumage. Whilst it’s iconic colouring sounds like it should be an easy bit to identify, you have to see it first and the kingfisher is very much a blink and you’ve missed it experience.

“Kingfishers are so difficult to spot, they have inspired a saying: ‘Only the righteous see the kingfisher’.” – Woodland Trust

They are at once wonderfully flashy and surprisingly illusive; a magical sight if you are lucky enough.

They are smaller than people tend to imagine – only slightly larger than a robin – and are lone birds.

“Solitary kingfishers have to overcome a natural aversion to one another in order to breed” – BBC Wildlife, Rob Fuller

When they do mate it’s a noisy, frantic, chase with males carrying out aerial displays. During courtship the male presents the female with a gift of fish, in a act called, creatively, a ‘fish pass’ and is a monumental stage in bonding. Once they have bonded, it’s then onto breeding and they start breeding in their first year. Having paired up around February, they then both excavate a nest burrow in the bank of a stream or river.

By late march a first clutch of eggs is laid and both adults incubate them. Once hatched, each chick can eat about 15 fish a day, and there are generally 6-7 eggs making quite a task for the parents. Something I found interesting was that they are fed in rotation – once a chick is fed, it moves to the back of the nest to digest and the others move forward. Given how brutal feeding chicks can be, this felt quite mature and democratic. They raise up to three broods a season, which must be exceptionally taxing for the parents. The high demand for food from chicks means the adults have to be good at fishing, and as their name suggests, they excel at it!

They are incredible predators that perch patiently until they spot their prey, aided by their good eyesight. Their eyes have two fovea which apparently means they are able to very accurately judge distance. Their colour vision is also enhanced and they can polarize light which reduces reflection of the water and helps them to spot fish more easily. Once prey is identified, they dive, bill first, from their perch. As they enter the water, a third eyelid (a nictitating membrane) closes to protect their eyes, effectively blinding them. This is all the more reason why speed and precision is needed.

They hover above the water where it can’t be seen by their prey, keeping their head still until they lock onto prey before entering a controlled descent. As their beak hits the water, they barely make a ripple on the surface. A fish reacting just a 1/50^th second faster makes the difference between whether they are caught or not which is incredible.

In Irish, the kingfisher is sometimes known as biorra an uisce, or water spear, which should give you some idea of the weaponry these little birds are working with. They enhance their tools by learning to compensate for refraction, adding to their already exceptional efficiency.

Speaking of efficiency… Their beak is aerodynamically efficient allowing for maximum speed and minimal splash – in fact Japanese bullet trains have taken their design from the kingfisher. Changing the design of the trains not only increased efficiency but also resulted in a quieter train. Looking to nature for design inspiration is called biomimicry and is fascinating and shows the power, diversity and potential that’s all around us. On the note of biomimicry, I heard somewhere that there is technology which mimics the kingfisher’s eye to help people see under the surface of the water, for example to find whales for research.

If we go back to thinking about their fishing  method, we find a variety of metaphors that we may be able to reflect on ourselves; waiting for our opportunity, having an arrow like focus, making a split second decision and going in for the kill. Watch and wait, then pounce on the opportunity.

Despite being exceptionally skilled hunters, there are inevitably threats that face kingfishers, especially young ones. Any shortage of food has a big impact as they need to eat their bodyweight in fish each day. Water conditions also impact of food availability. As chemicals and pollutants in waterways kill off the fish, this means you are more likely to see one near a clean stream or river, and they’re more active in the early morning… early bird catches the worm… or early birder spots the kingfisher which is not at all as catchy to say!

Chicks can be affected by human disturbance of nest sites, by drops in temperature and risk drowning if heavy rains flood their burrow. Heavy rain also reduces water visibility making it harder to fish and flooding results in fish dispersal. Drought of course also poses problems as it decreases or destroys food supplies. Hopefully the blink and you miss them adage isn’t going to extend to them as a species…

Folklore and Mythology

“Kingfishers are a sight to behold.  The dash and verve of this cosmopolitan bird has been admired for millennia, appearing in creation myths, imperial regalia and cultural iconography, and they were once valued as highly as gold.” – Ildiko Szabo

The English name, kingfisher, dates back at least as far as the 1500s and one explanation of the regal name is that ‘king’ is referring to the bird’s blue clock. Royal Blue was coined in response to a challenge thrown out by King George III to clothiers in England. He challenged them to create a colour so triumphant that it could be worn by royalty (Szabo).

Their scientific name comes from Greek mythology. In the legend of Ceyx (son of the day star) and Halcyone (daughter of the god of the winds), Ceyx was drowned at sea in a storm and washed up on the shore.  Not knowing this, Halcyone waited and waited for his return until one night, she learnt of his death in a dream.  The gods admired Halcyone’s fidelity and took pity on her, changing both her and Ceyx into kingfishers so they could live together, happily.  They also degreed that for 14 days in winter, when their female descendents brood upon their nests, the winds would be restrained and the sea would stay calm. Thus, we have the halcyon days, a period of time around the Winter Solstice when the weather is said to be calm.

We find kingfisher’s colouring explained in the bible; before everything happened with the flood and Noah’s ark, their feathers were said to be dull and grey, but Noah sent them out to find land. They flew too close to the sun, got burnt and were forced to dive into the water to put out the smouldering feathers (Tate). Around the world we find other tales which explain the colouration of many kinds of kingfisher.

As well as stories which explain their colour, other common themes include featuring in creation myths, having a beneficial role whilst also, conversely, being associated with fighting

In Egypt, the word that meant kingfisher burrow also meant cavern of the underworld suggesting that the burrows may have been seen as a portal between the two worlds.

A tale called ‘The Fox and the Kingfisher’ from the Jicarilla of the Apache Nation shows that not all people can do all things. In it, Kingfisher plunges through ice to get fish but when the fox copies this, the fox breaks his head instead. Once Kingfisher was bought Fox back to life, he says, “I am a medicine man. That is why I can do these things. You must never try to catch fish in that way again.” It reminds me of the saying about fish trees:

“Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by the ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that is stupid.” – Albert Einstein

Whilst their colouring is explained and celebrated in many tales, it can be detrimental to the Kingfisher as well. Instead of just being an inspiration for artists, at times, they were instead the material… Their iridescent feathers were used by artists in tian-tsui which is a style of Chinese art that’s over 2000 years old. Wearing these kingfisher-feather was associated with nobility and were coveted by brides. Tian-tsui is made from feathers plucked from birds that were imported from what is now Cambodia. It is said that this trade helped to fund the building of Angkor Wat. It is also thought that this trade in turn lead to the decline of Angkor Wat; the kingfisher giving and also taking.

Most of what I found when it came to folkloric beliefs are from Europe so if anyone has any good sources or books they can direct me to for the rest of the world, please let me know in the comments!

So on that note, European folk beliefs… There are a few that relate to weather which I think is interesting if you consider the kingfisher from an elemental perspective; they are creatures of the air (flight), water (fishing), land (burrows) and fire (colouring). One of these weather related beliefs is that a kingfisher supended by a string in a house would act as a weather vane, always turning it’s beak to whatever direction the wind blew, earning it the name Vire-vent, or turn-in-the-wind, on the Loire. The Greeks believed that the dried body of a kingfisher, once hung up, would ward off Zeus’s lightning (Greenoak).

Another theme I came across expanded on the beliefs that surround the dead body; in 1185 a British writer said that it would ward off moths, that their bodies didn’t decompose and that they had the power to stop other things from decaying as well. Giraldus Cambrensis went further with this, claiming that “if, when dead, they are hung up by their beaks in a dry situation, they change their plumage every year, as if they were restored to life, as though the vital spark still survived and vegetated through some mysterious remains of its energy.”

The plumage of a kingfisher was said to increase the beauty of any woman who wore them through magical means (Newall) and anyone wearing them would have grace and loveliness (Tate). If your beauty wasn’t enough to attract the person of your dreams, fear not, kingfishers can also be used as a love talisman. In eastern Europe and central Asia, their feathers were plucked and thrown into water, collect those that floated and then stroke the object of affection with one (Tate).

And one final note on the kingfisher – in Brittany it was believed they could glow in the dark!

Reading

• Wildlife Trusts
• Animal Diversity: common kingfisher
• RSPB
• Kingfisher by Ildiko Szabo
• British birds, their folklore, names and literature by Francesca Greenoak
• Flights of fancy by Peter Tate
• Discovering the folklore of birds and beasts by Venetia Newall

Grasshoppers

“There is something liberating about not knowing exactly how things will turn out.  The smell of a fresh new adventure tickles the tips of my antennae.  It sends shivers down my body and before I know it, I turn and land in its direction.  As its vibration gets stronger, I trust my inner compass more and more until eventually that which was once unknown now becomes the known.”
– Message from the Grasshopper, Animal Totem Tarot

It’s a bit of an aside but grasshoppers are eaten by Roadrunners which are another of the Animal Totem Tarot cards so you may want to spend some time reflecting on what that means, especially if you’ve pulled both cards.

But back to the main post, the grasshopper, the first card in the Animal Totem Tarot deck; the fool. Something I didn’t know about grasshoppers and locusts until a few years ago is that they are (sort of) the same.  A locust is a short-horned grasshopper but not all grasshoppers are locusts. Got that?! Safe Haven Pest Control describe locusts as grasshoppers that have “superior social characteristics”! Given the right environmental conditions, a short horned grasshopper can transform into a locust. When conditions are right for that transformation, they get bigger, their wings become stronger, their colour changes and they swarm.

Scientists have identified an increase in serotonin in certain parts of their nervous system initiates the changes in behaviour which leads to the swarming. Serotonin, when it comes to humans, is mostly known for its role in depression but it’s a chemical that carries messages between nerve cells in your brain and body. In addition to its role in mood, it affects sleep, digestion and healing.

This Jekyll and Hyde transformation is something I want to consider in relation to this insect along with the two sides.  We have here a being with two very different personas depending on the situation or environment it finds itself in. It makes me think of someone who is quiet and unassuming in their day job but then comes alive and vibrant at night, in the karaoke bar or on stage as a drag queen. Or an extrovert in one aspect of the life but introvert in another. Then there’s the trigger that changes one into the other. Perhaps you’re an introverted performer who can relate to the idea that a certain routine helps you get into the right mindset, or a writer who has a certain environment where they are better able to get into the flow.

Whilst I am going to touch on locusts, as this card is primarily about the grasshopper, let’s start their first. They are ancient creatures which were around about 250 million years ago and key to understanding them, is their powerful hind legs.  These allow them to escape from danger and according to Canal and River Trust:

“These all-singing, all-dancing creatures truly are the gymnasts of the insect world, being able to leap distances of up to 20 times the length of their own body.”

Whilst they don’t actually ‘jump’, they catapult themselves instead, it’s not surprising that we see the grasshopper in the place of the Fool as this Major Arcana card is epitomised by leaps of faith.

In addition to catapulting themselves out of danger, they have a hard shell and some species eat toxic plants and then keep the toxins in their body for protection. They advertise this danger with bright colours. Further to this, when picked up, they spit out a brown liquid known as ‘tobacco juice’. This is actually a mix of saliva and other stomach enzymes and is acidic, smells bad and can stain. In China and Japan this fluid was sold for medicinal uses (Clausen).

They also disappear from predators by hiding in the vegetation that they enjoy, sometimes staying still is wiser than making dramatic moves. Their strong jaw is used for chewing plants, and in locust form especially, can cause serious damage to crops, causing devastation and famine which has a huge impact on their reputation.

Moving through their senses; they have a pair of compound eyes and three simple eyes which detect light and dark. Instead of ‘traditional’ ears, they have an organ called a tympana; a circular membrane on their abdomen which they use to hear. They also have a covering of fine hairs (called setae) which help them detect touch and wind. This makes me want to stand outside, arms outstretched and just feel the air and the weather on my skin!

Some species make the well known stridulation sounds by rubbing together a row of pegs on their hind legs and edges of their forewings.  Often the noise is made by the males and is to attract females or compete with rivals. Sadly, urban grasshoppers are having to make their song louder in order to compete with human noise.

Of course, grasshoppers come together to mate even though they live mostly solitary lives. Females are larger than males and have a sharp point at the end of their abdomen, this helps them lay their eggs under the ground. After hatching as nymphs, they undergo an incomplete metamorphosis; at each stage their look a lot like adults but each time they shed their skin there are a few changes. These gradual changes (5 or 6 moults) end with them in an adult form where they’re able to reproduce and most species have wings by this point.

We all change as we go through life and sometimes it’s harder and more painful than others, but (full) metamorphosis involves fully rearranging your body and even incomplete metamorphosis involves breaking out of your former self. Give yourself the space to grow, the credit when you do and the time to say goodbye to that version of you. There may be the need to grieve old versions of yourself or the people who were there when that was who you were. Not everyone is supposed to be with you for life, sometimes people come into your life, make their mark and for whatever reason then go a different way.

Healing, symbolism and mythology

Taking a quick look at healing and insects in a more physical, less emotional, way, Wikipedia tells us that the femurs of grasshoppers were used to treat liver issues by the indigenous people of Mexico, and further afield, they’ve been used to cure migraines and headaches and are eaten as a source of protein.

We can also find historical sources which refer to the use of the grasshopper. According to Entomotherapy or the Medicinal Use of Insects, classical authors including Pliny the Elder noted that locusts of grasshoppers could be used for fumigation against anuresis of women and for scorpion stings. NB, anuresis refers to lack of urination and I’m unclear why it’s specific to women…

In Tibetan medicine, grasshoppers were considered medicinal, with their spit used for a head injury called ‘dripping brain’ and to neutralise the poison of a particular beetle. We also find that in Tibet, synonyms for the grasshopper include “the lion cub that jumps in the sky” which I wanted to include because it’s a gorgeous image!

And that feels like a great point to step into symbolism and mythology…

The story of how the first grasshopper was created is told in a Greek myth. It tells of Aurura, Goddess of the Morning who fell in love with a hunter, a mortal called Tithonus. In turn, he fell madly in love with her. So much so that he agreed to forsake the land of mortals to live with her in the land of the gods. They were happy for a while, until Aurora become overcome with the idea that he, being mortal, would die. She approached her father, conveniently the King of the Gods, and persuaded hum to make Tithonus immortal. She forgot to specify he would remain youthful and so, whilst she remained young and beautiful, he grew older. And as he grew older, he got sadder until he asked Aurora to be allowed to return to the realm of mortals. She did release him but as she did, she said: “From now on you shall be a grasshopper so that whenever I hear the grasshopper’s clear, merry song, I shall be reminded of the many happy days we spent together.” (Clausen)

Aside from that particular myth, Athenians held the grasshopper high esteem and hence it was unlucky to kill one. In China they are also considered lucky and are associated with fertility. Grasshoppers were used in ancient Egypt as a hieroglyph, a seal, an amulet, a symbol of beauty and an illustration of life along with Nile. But it’s not all good news for our symbolic grasshopper… It seems like their reputation is fickle…

The Aztec view of the grasshopper returns us to our earlier Jekyll and Hyde analogy with their ability to change overnight from grasshopper, a symbol of fertility, to a locust more associated with destruction.

If we turn to Aesop, we find that the grasshopper in the fable is recklessly living for today, where the ant is planning for tomorrow. Perhaps a sign to look up the ant card as the moral is that the grasshopper perishes and ant survives.

This perspective continues and in Shakespeare’s day, they were figures of careless improvidence and hedonism, focused on the joy of today without a care for tomorrow. And in some western cultures they were seen as irresponsible, because of their seemingly sporadic leaping (Insect Mythology, Kritsky and Cherry).

As a result of their link with locusts, they are associated with plagues and famine and so are linked to bad luck. Native Languages explains how tribes dependant on agriculture felt strongly against them whereas tribes that focused more on hunting and gathering were less affected.

They further say “In some tribes, it was said that grasshoppers could predict the weather and even had power over changes in the weather (especially drought and rain)” which makes a lot of sense when we consider how weather affects food supply and food supply affects certain kinds of grasshoppers. If they become locusts then a famine and reduced food supply would ensue.

We see the link with weather in amulets; farmers would sometimes carry a grasshopper amulet with them to protect from poor harvests (Bodyguards, Desmond Morris).

In India, the Sumi Nagas have used animal behaviour as a weather predictor. Grasshoppers are seen during the hot and dry weather so indicate the hot season has arrived or is coming and will be a dry period. A large increase in the number of grasshoppers leads to concern about a pending drought.

Other stories detailed on Native Languages link grasshoppers with tobacco. This Abenaki tale sees the grasshopper hoarding tobacco and refusing to share it, selfishly keeping it on an island. The hero of the tale, Gluskabe, is able to retrieve the tobacco and when grasshopper comes looking to claim it back, Gluskabe declares that grasshopper cannot be trusted with it. However, he does give grasshopper enough tobacco to enjoy for the rest of its life. The tale also explains that grasshopper couldn’t be trusted with the magical canoe to return to the island so Gluskabe split the back of it’s coat and gave it wings. To this day, grasshopper flies with these wings and chews his mouthful of tobacco, and if you ever pick up a grasshopper, it will immediately spit it out, “as if to say, “See, I am willing to share.””, “I am no longer selfishly hoarding tobacco.”

The Fool

Thinking about the grasshopper as the fool in the tarot deck, we can reflect on the cultural concept of the grasshopper as a student, never the master, as we all are. No matter how much we know or learn, we will never master all knowledge. This is not meant to be a defeatist kind of energy, but rather to encourage you to accept where you are, and still keep seeking and learning. Keep growing and keep moving through the phases of your life.

We have a creature here that has a lot of energy, taking leaps of faith, but who is also attuned to the world; they can literally feel the wind by the hairs on their back.

Finally on grasshoppers, because I have to share this:

What’s the craziest grasshopper fact you know?

“Grasshopper brains can be controlled by a worm! While eating vegetation, grasshoppers may ingest eggs of the parasitic horsehair worm. This worm hatches and feeds on the innards of the insects, changes their behavior, and ultimately drives them to seek water. The adult worm emerges from the drowned grasshopper, finds a mate, and lays eggs. A passing mammal (usually a cow, in Arizona) drinking from the water source will swallow worm eggs. After the eggs pass through the cow’s digestive system, they end up in poop on the grass, which is then eaten by a grasshopper, repeating the cycle.”

Locust

Where the grasshopper is seem in a positive light, the locust is seen as chaotic and destructive, and one of the key turning factors is the environment, and those we surround ourselves with. If you feel you aren’t acting the way you’d like to or showing up in the world in the form you’d want to, then have a look around you – it could be the friends, your workplace or even your social media that’s adding toxic energy to your life.

It’s important to note that a plague of locust is not sustainable; if they devour all the available food, there will be a mass die off due to starvation. This naturally limits populations through boom and bust cycles.

A final note on locusts, is just their power to disrupt ecosystems much larger than themselves; a power for good or for not?

Reading

• Insect Fact and Folklore by Lucy W Clausen
• Insect Mythology by Gene Kritsky and Ron Cherry
• Insect Mythology Blog Post
• Insects in the bible

Being queer and disabled

“Most of the time, I need to choose between being disabled and being queer, even if, in reality, that’s not possible.” – Katie Reilly

Sadly this is something that many of us who are queer and disabled can relate to. Spaces that focus on disability, often don’t consider sexuality and gender. And spaces that are carved out for queer people, tend to be inaccessible.

Perhaps we’re talking about the LGBTQ+ bar that’s up a couple of steps and doesn’t have an accessible toilet. Or the event that hasn’t thought about sensory impairments. Or a gig that doesn’t have seating…

I’ve been heavily involved in York Disability Rights Forum for the last couple of years and it’s been really important to me that people of all sexualities and genders feel able to get involved. I’ve tried to make sure our social media reflects an array of experiences and that we have pronouns on our About Us page.

But, the biggest display of this ethos and this intent to make a space where people don’t have to choose between being disabled and being queer, is Quiet Pride! Brought to you by York Disability Rights Forum and Portal Bookshop!

Quiet Pride 2022

A space to feel welcome, without music and crowds.

Drop in for as little or as long as you want.

The venue is wheelchair accessible, has nearby accessible toilets and accessible parking. BSL interpreters are booked 4-6pm (we may be able to extend that to cover the full three hours but can’t confirm yet).

Join us with your ear defenders, your mobility aids, or just bring your wonderful self! We want you to feel safe to be your most comfortable self, whatever that means to you. Wherever you want to sit or stand, there will be no pressure. Bring a book if you want, whatever makes you feel at home.

We’ll have a ‘quieter corner’ where you can just sit and be, and a space to work on a communal art project or individual art. There’s also going to be a timetable with optional activities including art and games.

When you book, you’ll get the chance to tell us about any access needs you have, but you can also get in touch with YDRF directly: hello@ydrf.org.uk or leave a message on our answer phone 01904 326781.

We will be sending a video with subtitles and voice over to people who’ve signed up with information about how to get to the room, Blue Badge parking etc. If you have any other questions, or want to have a contact number for on the day, get in touch and we’ll share a personal mobile number.

Quiet Pride 2023

Will be coming soon!

If you want to run your own Quiet Pride, have a look at our Manifesto to find out more about the ethos, making it accessible and inspiration for your own event.