When A Man Loves A Worm Moon

It's March. And the full moon that satellited around us on March 11th is known as the Worm Moon. You gotta love a worm moon. Just the two words together warms the heart. Worm and Moon. 

Now the reason they call it a worm moon (i'll bet you already know this) is because we've got spring sneaking up on us and that's when the worms start squirming around in the dirt again so that air and water can squiggle into the ground. The worm poop known as castings gives the soil a perfect nutrient-rich fertilizer. And a lot of it. 'Cause there are a lot of worms out there.

I'm talking earthworms. Kinda the building blocks of the plant world, which is, you may have noticed our world.

Which makes that "lowly worm" talk seem silly. Nothing lowly about them except their height.

Did you know that an earthworm has no lungs? They use oxygen but it goes in and out of their skin. No lungs, but FIVE hearts. Oh, yeah. And all those hearts makes for some mighty fine romance. Earthworms have all the equipment they need to make their own babies but, no, they'd rather rendezvous with another earthworm and take advantage of the "it takes two to tango" theory.

You see, it goes like this. The two worms (both of which have male and female reproductive organs) sidle up to each other and flatten out against each other perfectly. Then there's an exchange of the life-giving juice known as sperm (sometimes known as glue). Each of them gives the other some sperm. Then off they go on their own while their bodies choreograph an elaborate system of moving the sperm from section to section until it reaches the egg section. Once the eggs are fertilized they break off into a cocoon. Making more of these love-bugs.

Yes, the lowly earthworm. Dancing to the beat of its own drummer under the Worm Moon, which just may be the most romantic moon of the year. 

What's up with colonialism?

Yesterday marked the anniversary of Tibet's failed uprising against the Chinese. 

1959-2009. 50 years.

What's the point of taking over Tibet? The Chinese say they've modernized their world, set up a needed infrastructure, and dismantled the Dalai Lama's feudal system. Feudal system as in monk disciples? If anyone knows anything about the Dalai Lama, feudal lord is the last label on earth that could possibly fit.

So now that the Chinese have made things "better" in Tibet, the Tibetan way of life has almost disappeared (along with thousands of killed Tibetans). And now the Chinese live there, too. So the betterment was to make it hospitable for new settlers.

Sound familiar?

The West Bank, 

India,

Roman Empire,

"America,"

thousands more.

dictionary: "Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another."

Pretty pushy, isn't it? Why would one people want to be subjugated by another? (They don't.) More puzzling: why does one people want to subjugate another? (To conquer, to subdue.)

I want what you have, get lost. I don't want to hear your complaining, stifle. I don't like how you do your thing, conform.

Of course, you can't do this kind of thing unless you've got an army. And guns. Weapons, etc. 

And then they put bows and ribbons on it and say it's for everyone's best interest.

Any cosmic relief in here? It's a hard one.

Reversals. They happen. They have happened. Somehow the weaker prevail. Somehow the stronger lose their wind. Sometimes with enough opposition, the bullies back off. 

When someone more powerful yells: "Hey you! Cut that out!"

And the more powerful can be the small, but collected. 

All the small ones saying at once: "Hey you! Cut that out!"

Critical mass becoming a fierce Tibetan deity ferocious enough to incite terror in evil spirits.

It's an ocean of grief. With a world halted like a ship without a sea.