How did the lantern become an enemy?
We were told to destroy all Lanternfls because they are “invasive and destructive” to our environment. In fact, these little pests just live like any other insect – So why is he attacking the lantern?
Below is a fragment Love, nature, magic By Maria Rodale. Has been adapted to the network.
Lanternfly: The road to heaven is through joy
Travel: August 14, 2021
Imagine: I filled the bucket with heated water, vinegar, soap and kitchen oil and carefully went to the juvenile tree of the sky, which was the novel house of the flies of the spotted lantern, “invasive invader” from Asia. Sapling had about fifteen feet of height, heel, with leaves that looked like ferns. My goal was to cut a tree (with your hand, remember Because we were told over and over: if you see them, kill them. They are invasive. They are destructive and do not have known predators in North America.
Latnflies were placed together directed up on the trunk of a tree. From a distance they look like a bark – part of the tree – but a closer inspection reveals them as a swarm of worms. When their wings are closed, they have the same color as the trunk of a tree. But when they fly, you see their red and white wings in color. Each insect is about all the length.
I removed the water on the tree and suddenly about four hundred lanterns exploded in every direction, including straight towards my face. They don’t bite, but they are large. I’m screaming! (My children will tell you that I am a screaming.) I ran as quick and far as I could. I felt that I was starting to fall when I got to my Macadam driveway, which really is not an ideal place to land.
Somehow I managed to trip through the driveway without a fall until I got to the grass on the other side. There I fell inebriably, still holding the bucket, laughing so tightly, only slightly wounded and triumphant, that there was still in the bucket or two of my non -toxic death fluid. It was my version in the slowed temperature of the Premier League Football Fall (officially known as “diving”). I was very proud of it.
Returning to the tree, I started stomping with still trembling worms, determined to cover them all. After I was elated that most of them were dead, I sat on the rock and started seeing through the trunk. The tree of the sky is a weed – a kind that grows through cracks in the pavement in cities. It is a fertile producer of novel seed sprouts. About ten years ago, I cut out a immense tree of the sky and it is still one of the most committees of “weeds” that I pull out of the garden.
Sokling, which I saw, had about six inches in diameter – “weed” that escaped. Wybkinie with a hand requires patience, and because I get ancient, a break or two to rest. One third of the way I thought about calling someone with a chain saw to support. But I insisted. Two -thirds of the way I took another break, sat on the grass and thought about this spotted lantern.
It’s a lighthouse Really Possessive?
He probably didn’t go to this continent. Maybe he was packed in a chest of things that someone sent by accident. It can be a novel military tactic sent by the China government to destroy the United States, but probably not. More likely that he fell into the case of economical goods successful to the dollar store. If it wasn’t marked as a terribly invasive species, it could even be stunning. Although his eyes are dazzling red and terrifying.
But while only a few of them to death I thought about those films that you see in social media – you know the man, maybe a cop or white supremation, stamping and digging a person who is on the land huddled in football and crying for pity.
Wait. Did I do it? How did I differ? I aggressively killed something “that is not here”, although it was not a real for me. Because I was told: “If you see them, kill them. They are invasive! “
We went through it ten years ago with a brown marmed stinking worm, another insect accidentally imported to North America from Asia and for the first time noticed in Pennsylvania, where I live. But it was a bit different because these smelly worms appeared at home. I remember one heated day at the end of September, when I bought thousands from my bedroom. Not frosty. This is breaking and entering if you ask me. (But we are now friends, I stink and I.)
However, the lamp spots were not in my bedroom. They were in my yard, what, let’s face it, it’s really a forest. There is no forest control.
I finished cutting out a tree and returned to my house, feeling slightly ashamed. But I also appreciated the insight into my own behavior and the way it is so effortless to catch in madness and swarming of activities that do not make much sense. I consider myself a serene, loving man, but I can even become incorrect, given the right circumstances.
How lanterns have become an enemy
How and why is this happening? I’m not sure. Ultimately, most of us are immigrants. And many of us and our ancestors were slandered at arrival. Some arrived voluntarily, others involuntarily. But regardless of when and who, history is the same.
Within a few years of the initial wave of immigration to the Lantern to the United States – and my attempt to their massacre – it seems that they settled in the environment, as did the smelly worms. I rarely see them.
This may be due to the fact that people have spent so much time, energy and a toxic spray, trying to kill them – I hate the remaining remains of pesticides and what effects they have on our bodies. Or maybe insects were assimilated, and now they are one of us, part of this ancient American crucible, which we once celebrated as our special gift for the world, as a characteristics that makes our culture so special.
I watch today’s cultural wars with a sense of confusion and sadness. People from all sides seem to throw terrible words at each other that they can, without showing the desire to understand, listen or solve differences. It is exhausting and mean.
With this sadness, burdening me and the ongoing memory of my own attack on lanterns on the blue tree, I felt forced to travel to ask Lanternfly what it meansAlthough I am a bit terrified of the idea of traveling to talk to insects.
I don’t like traveling when there are other people in my house and my children stayed with me for two weeks of summer fun. In the middle of these two weeks, my beloved, but older pumpkin cat died. I decided to wait for everyone to leave before I try to visit Lanternfly. I was hoping that the pumpkin would also appear on my journey.
On an early Saturday morning, in my now empty home, I fell apart from my own garden, opened the holy space and lay down on my magic blanket.
Drums began.
Jovial journey: communicating with a lantern
I opened a wooden door on the tree and entered the meadow and forest. I smelled incense and felt that I was somewhere in Asia (in the distance I saw the temple). I was very compact and hidden among the grass. I became a lighthouse. A compact Asian girl leaned closer to having fun with me. I jumped and she laughed and jumped behind me. (During one stage of the Lanternfly development nymph, before the wings grew, it is a dazzling red worm with white and black spots. But even when they are mature, the lanterns come in the same way as they fly).
Lanternfly said: “In Asia, we are symbols of joy. Children love to play with us because children do not judge. You should learn to evaluate. “I saw a compact child jumping over the nymph and giggles in the lantern.
“We came to America as eggs on wood. Apparently Americans need more joy. But we met with anger, fear and hatred.” I heard the word “killjoys” whispering me around me, as if the lanterns were accused of Americans under their destroyer of pleasure and without fun.
“We advise on the trees of the sky to tell you that the road to heaven is through joy!”
At this point of traveling I started sobbing. Of course. How did I not know about the lighthouse before? Even calling the tree of the sky a “junk tree”, just like me, seemed terribly bad.
“Our goal is to bring joy. In Asia, we are considered stunning. “
Then a pumpkin appeared, poisoning me and licking the tip of my nose as it used to be. She proudly showed me her little angel wings. She said: “There are pets to teach you people how to love – but you have to learn to share this love with other people. We all have a goal, and joy exists when everyone and everything lives fully for its unique goal.”
A novel look at the “nice” insect
I left the trip stunned and humiliated. In retrospect, these things seem so straightforward and obvious, and yet we are so blind on them. (I was so blind on them.) A journey for me to see the things they really are, not just as I imagine.
A tree of the sky, also known as a Chinese sum, smelly summary or stinking tree, was brought to the United States from China at the end of 1700 as a shadow tree. It was popular in cities because it was so effortless to develop. In fact, it is a tree that appears in the novel and the tree grows on Brooklyn Betty Smith:
She looked at the yard. The tree, whose leaves of the leaves curled up, under and above its fire escape, was reduced because the housewives complained that the laundry on the lines got tangled in branches. The owner sent two men and chopped him.
But the tree did not die. . . It didn’t die.
The novel tree grew out of the trunk, and its trunk grew along the ground until it reached the place where there was no laundry line above it. Then he began to grow towards heaven again.
Annie, a tree of fir, which Nolany cared for with water and loads, have long ill and died. But it is a tree in the yard – a tree that men chopped. . . It is a tree that built a bonfire, trying to burn their stump – this tree lived!
He lived! And nothing can destroy it.
I went outside to the pumpkin grave to thank her for showing myself in my journey. There is a stunning rock on which you can sit, placed by my son -in -law, an immigrant. And so I sat, just absorbing this novel insight into life and I feel very grateful. After a few minutes I looked at the ground. There, on a compact grass blade, pointing to the sky, there was a single lantern.
Thank you, Lanternfly.