Your moment of Zen

Glass Beach, Fort Bragg, California. [image via]

Snow day

Winner of the unofficial photography contest.

Your moment of Zen

Purple crowned fairy wrens. [image via]

Your moment of Zen

Blue butterflies in the Amazon. [photo via]

Your moment of Zen

Frosted bluebonnets in Texas. [RC McKee photo]

Your moment of Zen

And the sun begins to win again against the darkness. Stonehenge on Solstice day.

Your moment of Zen

Castle made of sand, Santa Cruz, California. [photo via]

Your moment of Zen

Aurora over Maine farmhouse. [photo via]

Your moment of Zen

The entire alphabet as found on butterfly wings. [Kjell Bloch Sanved photo via My modern Met and M. Hush]

Your moment of Zen

Flamingos. [photographer unknown]

Rhinos eradicated for profit

So heartbreaking. Black Rhinos are gone. Extinct. An ugly word befitting such a hideous outcome.


[South African Animal Rights Activists Community photo]

It didn't have to happen. Greedy, evil, vicious, self-absorbed humans with black holes for souls did this. I won't wish them equal evil though. I trust the universe will deal with them in its own time.

Your moment of Zen

Down by the river in the Happy Valley. [Bill Dwight photo]

Your moment of Zen

It's always sunset somewhere. [Kenny Mars photo, via Jay]

Your moment of Zen

Autumn leaves. [photo via Old Moss Woman]

Broken planet

In news that never makes it to BigTV last week, BigOil is still polluting the Gulf of Mexico:

As Coast Guard crews were scouring the Louisiana coast looking for damage from Tropical Storm Karen this week, they made a startling discovery: A tar mat weighing 4,100 pounds, presumably remnants from the devastating BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010.

Not as impressive as the 40,000 pound mat they found earlier but the ongoing damage is adding up.

Mats and balls of tar have continued to wash up on gulf shores, despite the more than three years that have passed since a rig explosion left oil spewing into the gulf’s waters and spawned the worst environmental disaster in U.S.

But despite the lasting impact that BP’s oil spill has had on the region, the company discontinued its regular searches for remaining oil earlier this year.

Worse yet, nobody really seems to know what the long term damage will be:

The scope of damage from this tar isn’t entirely clear. What is known is that tar from the Deepwater spill contains the bacteria Vibrio vulnificus — which causes a deadly type of seafood contamination — at a rate 100 times higher than surrounding waters. On top of that, a combination of these tar balls and the dispersants that were used to clean up the spill can hold carcinogenic pollutants that are soaked up by human skin.

And after Fukishima, the Pacific is in even worse shape. Seriously, read this whole story of a man who sailed through thousand of miles of it. The ocean is broken:

"After we left Japan, it felt as if the ocean itself was dead," Macfadyen said.

"We hardly saw any living things. We saw one whale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a big tumour on its head. It was pretty sickening.

"I've done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I'm used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3000 nautical miles there was nothing alive to be seen."

In place of the missing life was garbage in astounding volumes.

Dangerous garbage at that. Big enough enough to sink small ships. We are literally killing this planet and nobody is reporting it with the urgency it deserves. [graphic via]

Your moment of Zen

The last luna moth, somewhere in the south.

Your moment of Zen

Full circle. Stage one. Stage two. Metamorphosis in Maeve's magic garden.

Your moment of Zen

Stage two of this moment of Zen. The chrysalis.

Your moment of Zen

Happy autumnal equinox. The caterpillar prepares for metamorphosis in Maeve's magic garden.

Your moment of Zen

Hand raised Monarch in Maeve's magic garden.