I am a lover of all creatures on this earth. And I love bugs. I cannot bring myself to kill a bug, spider, or any insect. I simply love bugs, but yet, for some reason, I get really squeamish when katydids fly in my hair, or especially when cicadas fly at me. Cicadas are the wackiest bug I have seen fly. They bang into lights, walls, and even people, making a big racket as they do. Being hit by one during one of their nose dives feels like someone just threw a rock at you. Tonight, while hanging out in the kitchen and helping serve dinner, a crazy cicada flew in and erratically started banging into pots, walls, the fridge, and every now and then it would suddenly change course and plunge toward me and the cooks, causing us to scatter and duck for cover. All the while, I, the bug lover, let out a little squeal each time it came at me. Although they fly around like a plane with a busted engine, they are really pretty insects. I caught one last night in a glass and showed it to a few of our guests who thought it was a neat sight.
Steven contends that it is okay to kill insects that will inevitably bite you and draw blood, like the unloved horsefly. Although I have never been bitten by a horsefly, I can’t imagine wanting to kill it, but then again, my reflexes at such a moment might just get the best of me. My pacifist tendencies toward insects stem from my belief in bug karma. For example, if you kill a mosquito, you are sure to be bitten by not just one, but at least two more mosquitoes that otherwise would not have bothered you. I have seen it happen before.
One of my favorite insects in Costa Rica is a light green katydid that looks like a brilliant young leaf. Here it’s called Esperanza, which means hope and is supposed to bring luck—isn’t that beautiful! The insects here are just wild! There are silver and green beetles that are as reflective and shiny as a mirror, tiny little beetles that look like someone delicately painted on dots of hot pink and yellow on a slick black shell, and huge Megaloptera that are like gigantic moths that I almost mistook for a bat! I just learned that in the tropics, ants make up 10% of the total weight of animals. I don’t find that at all hard to believe after coming across an ant last night that was as big as my thumb!
An amendment to the last blog: It is not Iti who dislikes Toucans, but her sister, whose awe of the bird came to a screeching halt when she caught one eating a cute little defenseless bird.
Biodynamics
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