peeking through the rainbow

peeking through the rainbow

of a handwoven hammock,

beautiful dark eyes

When I was 8 our family made a road trip to central Mexico. It was the first time I had been to another country and it made a deep and lasting impression: handmade tortillas, handmade dolls, handmade silver jewelry and handmade hammocks. We brought a wide white hammock back with us and it hung swinging between two trees in our backyard for many happy summers.

In March this year I travel to the Yucatán for the first time. This is the home of Mexican hammocks and they are still handwoven. Hammocks in rainbow colors and pristine white hang in gracefull curves along the pedestrian streets of Playa del Carmen, a seaside resort, in a little shop in Nohoch Nah Chiich, a Maya village way back in the jungle, in a hammock haven in Xel Ha, a popular water park, and in every Maya home throughout the Yucatán.

Hammocks were not part of Classic Maya civilization, but are thought to have arrived in the Yucatán from the Caribbean some two hundred years before the Spanish.

Originally made of bark and sisal, today they are woven from cotton or synthetic thread. Woven by hand on looms, by men, women and children, the quality of the hammock depends on the number of threads used.

Hammocks are used for sitting, sleeping, rocking infants (and adults), as in this hammock haven at Xel Ha.

And sometimes they're great for just fooling around!

spring, Bonnefield Lake

spring, Bonnefield Lake --

rippling reflections of water

grass stems in water

Illusion of a duck's head on a white mushroom cap.

Clusters of white wild blackberry blossoms on dark red stems, serrated emerald leaves.

On a stunted witch oak by the water's edge, spider webs festoon clusters of oak galls and the baby paws of green-gold leaves.

Explosion of kelly green leaves bursting through the slanted mat of last year's brittle gray stems.

in a castle

in a castle

made of air & primary colors --

breathless laughter

In front of Argiro Student Center, students enter and exit an air-filled castle on slides.

Or sometimes through a slit in the wall.

Where they cavort inside on a giant trampoline.

 

Until they're breathless from laughter.

Faces all aglow.

Inside the student center, a pair of students hand out free ice cream bars, your choice: chocolate coated vanilla, chocolate coated chocolate or mango. 

Outside, at the bottom of the long slide, a student savors her mango treat before she enters the fun house to join the jumping.

bumble bee probing

bumble bee probing

the path to the inner sanctum,

legs coated with gold dust

Like an airplane, the bumble bee is guided to its destination by the bright stripes on one of the three wide, striped sepals or "falls" of the Siberian Iris. Above the sepal is an arched canopy which forms a tube into which the bee must crawl to reach the nectar. In the process of probing, the bee comes in contact with the stigmatic stamens and picks up pollen. Now this part of the flower's pollination arrangement is quite brilliant. When the bee backs out, it touches only the non-receptive lower face of the stigma. So the pollen from this flower is not rubbed off on the same flower but will be delivered to a second flower. Clever flower!

quartz crystal raindrops

quartz crystal raindrops

beading along the blue veins 

of a hosta leaf

Many days of welcome rain. Every leaf and blade and blossom sparkles with water droplets. The blue-green fan of a Hosta leaf glistens with transparent beads strung along its gracefully curving veins. Each small droplet reflects and enlarges the whole world within its crystal dome.

redheaded vultures

redheaded vultures

perched on fence posts, soar away

to tall bare branches

Looks like a vulture convention, three red heads on large dark bodies perched in a row on fence posts next to the black top. As I slow the truck to a stop, I'm wondering, what poor creature are they waiting for to die? Three red heads turn and eye me for a few heart beats. I'm not moving, but somehow they know I'm not dead, so they take off to join their comrade maintaining a vigil in the top of a dead tree.
          I remember the first time I really thought about the puzzle of life and death. Grandpa just chopped the head off of a hen and the body is running around the bare dirt yard for what seems like forever. 
          Puzzled by a headless bird acting like a live one, I ask Grandpa, "How come that hen is still running around?"
          He grunts and says, "Takes awhile for the body to catch on that it's dead." Just then the hen flops over and lays still. Grandpa picks the body up by its feet and takes it to Grandma in the kitchen. 
          While Grandma is plucking the feathers off, I ask her, "How do you know when something is dead?"
          She chuckles. "When the vultures will eat it."
          "Does that mean we're vultures?"
          "No, pumpkin, you got to have a red head to be a vulture."
          "Does that mean Uncle Joe is a vulture?" Uncle Joe has red hair.
          Grandma laughs. "He's as hairy as a bear, but as far as I can tell, he don't have feathers."

standing on one hand

standing on one hand,

a glass of water balanced

on her small raised foot

The Golden Dragon Acrobats, regarded by many as the premiere Chinese acrobatic touring company, have traveled from the other side of the world to our little town of Fairfield for a theatrical production of breathtaking skill, spectacular costumes and enchanting music. Tickets have been sold out for three weeks. We got some of the last seats in Sondheim Theater, in one of the side balconies, close to the stage. Before the show begins, many of the children in the audience are playing a kind of Chinese folk toy that expands to great length with the flick of a wrist and then collapses. 

Each of the Golden Dragon Acrobats acts features different costumes, props and feats of flexibility and balance. Here, a troupe of girls in vivid, skin-tight costumes tilt and rotate inside colorful wheels, some single, some double.

Two cloaked and hooded figures walk out on stage, then drop their cloaks to reveal eerie masks and body suits. Standing on a round platform, they move slowly into different poses, balancing on each other in a display of incredible strength and balance.

Six gorgeous ladies in golden crowns move their long golden fingers in synchronous waves. Viewed from head on, the lady in front looks like a goddess with six pairs of arms.

Girls in traditional Chinese costumes whirl and toss golden spools on cords, then form a living pyramid.

Six men juggle hats from one head to the other. Each man removes the hat on his head, tosses it to the next man, catches a hat from another man, puts it on his head with perfect timing. They also form a "caterpillar" with their bodies linked together.

A man in white tights and a purple vest is carried ceremoniously on stage, lying prone above the heads of six men. On a stand in front of the stage, this man carefully stacks one chair on top of another other, climbs each one and does a hand stand. While his assistants lift the next chair up to him on a long pole, he stands on the chair, breathing heavily. When he reaches the top, level with the balcony where we're sitting, he rests for awhile, then asks the audience, "One more?" Of course we all applaud. From backstage a voice announces, "This is extremely dangerous. Don't try this at home." For his final feat he balances a chair on two legs, then does a hand stand on top of the top of the precariously balanced chair. 
          Spotters surround each of the performers who are doing something particularly dangerous. I keep wondering how many times they drop a prop, miss a hoop, or fall from a chair or another body before they reach this level of mastery. Truly amazing.