The March Hare: Winter 2007 Issue 51

Planning and Village Design • Ten Years On • Caterpillar • Preparedness • Juan's Bio • Nature Corner • Dancing Letters

Catterpillar

By Thomas Kortkamp

Often I’ll be dreaming and then open my eyes, look out the door and fancy that it is morning, but it is not. The other night the wolf moon was getting on full and the brilliant glow was convincing like that. So, I rolled the lasagna covers off and poked on my glasses and slippers. Waking from the dream, sitting there in bed, smelling the soppy cheesiness that I’d drooled into my beard, it was apparent that the light outside was all silvery with yet no hint of rose. I could have easily fallen right back to the deep-dish of sleep, which seemed like a nice plan, but nature also called and so I crawled from the cave and found my skin well met by a strangely warm January breeze.

I was passing golden nectar onto the peppermint patch, charmed by the whooping and quacking of courting barred owls, when, just two paces away, a deep and raspy chuckle began to shake the skeletons of last summer’s wormwood. I took a step back and shook the last drops as a grinning coyote stepped from the brush, silver as the moon and obviously amused.

“You might think yer fertilizin’ them herbs. You might think yer the caterpillar’s kimono...but yer not”, he drawled in a tone just like Johnny Cash.

“Do what now?” I asked, with a yawn. He padded over closer and regarded me with a sideways stare.

“Well you see, that fresh pee just ain’t available to them plants,” he said, then took some deep sniffs of the peppermint patch and explained: “All this urea and ammonia needs to be oxidized first and ya gotta depend on soil bacteria for that business. Give them critters some well-aerated soil and plenty of carbon, so as then they’ll take yer urine and crank out them nitrites that do right by las plantas. You oughtta rig up a pee tower….. otherwise yer just sprayin in the wind.”

This was, of course, sound advice, but I was only half awake and really thrown by the source, who was now lifting a leg on my rocket stove. So I turned and said groggily, “Thanks, coyote…you’re a whiz. Can I help you with something?” At this he lunged at my leg with his long muzzle full of daggers and I stumbled back over a log and onto the glistening peppermint. Luckily, it was only a feint.

He chuckled some more then sighed, “No, monkey-boy, I come ‘round tonight to help you. See here: I got a job, and I got connections. Yer past yer deadline for that newsletter rag you two-leggeds’ve been fussin over. So I come to show you some truth for yer article ‘bout planning.”

Yes, I had been struggling to crystallize a contribution to this newsletter. Pigging out on knowledge had only stuffed up my head. All those fried morsels of ecological design, thermodynamics and biology needed to be digested, stewed together and then offered as an inspiring bolus. Otherwise, the article could only be gurge.

Here was a wolf of the prairie, spouting a moonlight lecture on microbiology, and offering me assistance on this quest for clarity. Sleep had lifted and I was now fully impressed by the novelty and possibilities of the situation. He started pacing, perhaps impatiently. I collected my damp butt up off the ground and, supposing I ought be cautious towards this trickster and thief whom I had been thoroughly encultured not to trust, questioned, “With all due respect, dude, what do you know about planning an ecovillage?”

Stepping faster, he replied, “I know I liked this here place a whole lot better back when there were sickly buffalo calves. I know ya’ll got some good scraps to lick in them trashcans. I know you don’t get much of a chance to talk with handsome fellers like me. Most important, I know that you been summoned, and I’m to take you there.”

“Take me where, exactly?”

“To the local par-lee-munt of organic beings. Now we best beat it…else you’ll be late. Vamos!” he said, and then loped off towards the Holler. He was being evasive, but this parliament sounded promising, or at least funky. In any case, it was a very pleasant night. I threw on my striped suspenders and stashed a swiss army knife in my beard. Strolling out after my furry guide, I briefly considered going back for some pants, but then spotted him already slinking into the thin shadows of winter woodland, and so I hurried to catch up.

I ducked into the Holler just past Ironweed’s kitchen, which was created from massive amounts of cob, yet somehow floats there like a capsized schooner on the prairie. Coyote had paused down by the stinging nettles. He shouted, “Come lookey here!” Approaching the spot, I squinted to greet the wee sprigs of nettles just barely poking through the duff of oak and maple leaves. Then I looked up and was utterly bewildered: smack in the middle of their usual community stood an enormous chunk of limestone, and it was almost totally covered with the most fantastic crust of wavy blue lichen imaginable.

“Whoa!” was all I could say. The rocks forsook this land long ago, buried under the drifting clay, or, as one legend tells, frightened away by hungry ghosts. I gaped in wonder and circled the spectacular blooming monolith having no clue as to how or why it had come to this once familiar place.

Coyote, interrupting my trance of awe, plainly declared, “Yup, she’s the threshold alright. If’n yer to step inside to the party, first you gotta eat some of them blue rock ears. Let’s just say…they’ll expand your sense of harmony.” He flashed me a wily grin, turned away and took to licking his crotch.

I assumed he was telling me to munch on the lichens, organisms I was generally quite fond of, but had never actually consumed. I had read in field guides that, way up north, plenty of animals, even the human ones, rely on certain lichens as a staple foodstuff. The reproductive structures blossoming from that rock represented a rugged, trans-kingdom symbiosis between a fungus and a photosynthetic partner, maybe green algae and/or some cyanobacteria. I was drawn to the magical ancient alliance and to the hints of what might lie beyond. Humming a tune of thanks, I fished the knife from my beard, unfolded the blade and reached close to slice a few blooms of lichen from the chalky stone.

They hovered into my mouth, unassisted by any hand to be seen. I began to chew, sensed an acrid shiver coming throughout my entire being, and coyote yipped out a heralding cry. To be continued...

Planning and Village Design • Ten Years On • Caterpillar • Preparedness • Juan's Bio • Nature Corner • Dancing Letters