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mosaic - smalti, pebbles, agate slice, sea urchin spines, millefiori, tinted-mortar, hand-formed substrate.
Stinging Nettle Slug Caterpillar (Cup Moth, Limacodidae) "Pin Cushion"
Cup Moth larvae are often highly ornamented and brightly colored. Two main types can be distinguished: larvae armed with rows of protuberances bearing stinging spines called nettle caterpillars, or non-spined forms where the surface of the larvae may by completely smooth, called gelatine or just slug caterpillars. The larvae of this family bear no prolegs on their abdominal segments. The larva attaches itself to the substrate by means of an adhesive ventral surface. The movement is like a slug hence their generic name.
A stinging slug caterpillar (like this one) generally bears warning colouration and stinging hairs. These hairs can inject a venom from poison sacs carried at their base that are used as defensive weapons. Reactions can range from a mild itching to a very painful sting.
Globally, the connection between adult cup moths and their caterpillars remains sketchy. Although many, and increasingly more, of the moths are being identified, their life cycles have not been studied or recorded. This is particularly apparent regionally. As fascinating as these caterpillars are, few can be linked to their night-flying mature forms. Hence, should you be browsing my Flickr set of Limacodid Caterpillars, the majority are generically named and only tentatively identified.
See posts on my tumblr blog, SINOBUG, featuring these magnificent caterpillars HERE.
Pu'er, Yunnan, China
(see adjacent photostream images for others in this series)
Baird's Sandpiper BASA (Calidris bairdii)
&
Least Sandpiper LESA (Calidris minutilla)[on right]
mouth of Reay Creek
outflow
Bazan Bay
waterfront beach south of
Sidney
North Saanich, BC
DSCN7870
Sibley's says
"Uncommon on damp upper edges of mudflats and sometimes short grass fields.Usually near other peeps,but forages on drier substrate,rarely in water or on wet flats."
Very interesting since this particular bird was foraging in this freshwater outflow.
It showed the most preference to this type of foraging amongst the (WESA & LESA) shorebird flock that was there.
It stayed the longest & foraged the deepest.It remained there in the creek flow when the rest of the peeps flushed,circling around a few times.It fed actively and then went up on the gravel to rest & snooze when done.
Obviously it was tapped into a yummy food source in the underwater gravel of the creek outflow.
Given the info cited and other readings i was fascinated to see this.
I always enjoy observing new behaviours which prove that "the birds don't read the books"
This particular bird was behaving like a head-plunge-feeding specialist
:)
one should always keep one's mind at least as open as one's eyes
when it comes to almost everything
&
that holds wells for wildlife viewing
Remembering summer!
Prints/ canvases available here: www.500pxart.com/photo/53788218?substrate=canvas&styl...
I have been talking with a fascinating scientist who’s working on genetically-modified neurons to innervate the brain from a silicon substrate. The goal — connect prosthetics to the cranial nerves and eventually, replace all sensory input to the brain with a computer interface. Well… how complicated would this be? While the human brain has 86 billion neurons, he estimates that there are only 4 million cranial nerves to connect, and 3 million of them come from the retina (the color-coded photoreceptors).
Who might volunteer to have their head and spinal cord cut out of their body and their skull removed, to be reborn as a cyborg, fed by an ECMO machine? Many terminally ill cancer patients have not suffered a neurodegenerative disease. Their body will die while the mind is still ripe.
I do not believe we will be able to upload our consciousness to a silicon substate, as Ray Kurzweil has long predicted, at least not any time earlier than we will grow an AI that exceeds human intelligence. The brain in a vat is very different. A prosthetic hijacking of the interface to the sensory cortex is a much simpler task. The inscrutable complexity of the cortex remains just that. We just need to couple to the extant external interface to the body.
He makes it sound… imminent. While the sensory cortex is notable for its neuroplasticity, (the ability to remodel sensory input), can it be this dramatic — from body to borg?
I thought of the adage from Hunter S. Thompson that arose while watching a boxing match on an ether binger: “Kill the body and the head will die.”
Thanks to Genevieve being an MIT alumnus, I can get behind the paywall of the MIT Technology Review October issue on the Mind. Professor Lisa Feldman of Northeastern postulates a problem: “Your brain did not evolve to think, feel, and see. It evolved to regulate your body. Your thoughts, feelings, senses, and other mental capacities are consequences of that regulation. Since allostasis [regulation of body systems] is fundamental to everything you do and sense, consider what would happen if you didn’t have a body. A brain born in a vat would have no bodily systems to regulate. It would have no bodily sensations to make sense of. It could not construct value or affect. A disembodied brain would therefore not have a mind. I’m not saying that a mind requires an actual flesh-and-blood body, but I am suggesting that it requires something like a body, full of systems to coordinate efficiently in an ever-changing world. Your body is part of your mind—not in some gauzy, metaphorical way, but in a very real brain-wiring way.
Your thoughts and dreams, your emotions, even your experience right now as you read these words, are consequences of a central mission to keep you alive, regulating your body by constructing ad hoc categories. Most likely, you don’t experience your mind in this way, but under the hood (inside the skull), that’s what is happening.”
She elaborates, as you might assume: “When your brain remembers, it re-creates bits and pieces of the past and seamlessly combines them. We call this process ‘remembering,’ but it’s really assembling. In fact, your brain may construct the same memory (or, more accurately, what you experience as the same memory) in different ways each time. I’m not speaking here of the conscious experience of remembering something, like recalling your best friend’s face or yesterday’s dinner. I’m speaking of the automatic, unconscious process of looking at an object or a word and instantly knowing what it is. Every act of recognition is a construction. You don’t see with your eyes; you see with your brain. Likewise for all your other senses. Just as your memory is a construction, so are your senses. Everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel is the result of some combination of stuff outside and inside your head. Affect is just a quick summary of your brain’s beliefs about the metabolic state of your body, like a barometer reading of sorts.
Brains evolved to control bodies. Over evolutionary time, many animals evolved larger bodies with complex internal systems that needed coordination and control. A brain is sort of like a command center to integrate and coordinate those systems. It shuttles necessary resources like water, salt, glucose, and oxygen where and when they are needed. This regulation is called allostasis; it involves anticipating the body’s needs and attempting to meet them before they arise. If your brain does its job well, then through allostasis, the systems of your body get what they need most of the time.
To accomplish this critical metabolic balancing act, your brain maintains a model of your body in the world. The model includes conscious stuff, like what you see, think, and feel; actions you perform without thought, like walking; and unconscious stuff outside your awareness. For example, your brain models your body temperature. This model governs your awareness of being warm or cold, automatic acts like wandering into the shade, and unconscious processes like changing your blood flow and opening your pores. In every moment, your brain guesses (on the basis of past experience and sense data) what might happen next inside and outside your body, moves resources around, launches your actions, creates your sensations, and updates its model. This model is your mind, and allostasis is at its core.”
Anil Seth from the University of Sussex phrases it more strongly in Our brains exist in a state of controlled hallucination: “The brain is always constructing models of the world to explain and predict incoming information; it updates these models when prediction and the experience we get from our sensory inputs diverge.
The entirety of perceptual experience is a neuronal fantasy that remains yoked to the world through a continuous making and remaking of perceptual best guesses, of controlled hallucinations. You could even say that we’re all hallucinating all the time. It’s just that when we agree about our hallucinations, that’s what we call reality.”
P.S. photo above is a movie prop from Robocop 2
Travelers of Space and Time -The Immortal and Timeless Soul in Symbiosis with Matter by Daniel Arrhakis (2026)
Travelers of Space and Time: The Immortal and Timeless Soul in Symbiosis with Matter
The Rovingian Animistic Perspective of the Soul
The Rovingian animistic view conceives of the soul as a traveler of space and time, proposing a cosmological perspective where consciousness exercises the fundamental free will of the universe.
In this approach, the soul manifests and evolves through successive incarnations and experiences in multiple physical realities and unimaginable cosmologies. Matter, in turn, is not presented as a simple inert substrate, but rather as a living extension of the soul itself, forming a symbiosis in which the spirit expresses and renews itself.
The Soul as a Cosmic Traveler
In animism, it is recognized that not only humans, but also plants, animals, stones, and rivers possess a soul, consciousness, or vital breath. Rovingian animism expands on this view, considering the soul as a spark of energy that travels through the universe, manifesting and evolving in a symbiotic relationship with matter. In this relationship, soul and matter are inseparable: one does not exist without the other.
According to this view, the soul is not static; it progresses through a cycle of successive lives, learning and evolving in different worlds, physical universes, and temporal realities, whether distinct (Past, Future) or contemporary (Present). The relationship between soul and matter is characterized by symbiosis, where the physical body serves as an expression for the soul, and matter is shaped by spiritual energy. Thus, spirituality and matter coexist, not opposing each other, but complementing each other.
Learning and Evolution in Diverse Realities
This approach postulates the plurality of worlds, admitting the existence of multiple inhabited worlds, each with different types of matter, densities, and physical realities, suitable for various evolutionary levels of the soul. The process of reincarnation is seen as a school, where the soul assumes bodies appropriate to the environment of each planet, learning new lessons and evolving through experience in varied physical realities and relative temporal planes.
As it learns and purifies itself, the soul brings the matter that envelops it closer to its spiritual nature, making it less dense and more subtle. This universal and timeless evolutionary dialectic advances towards a balance between matter and spirit.
The Role of the Soul in the Cosmic Journey
The soul is seen as an active agent, an intelligent principle endowed with free will, capable of detaching itself from the denser lower worlds to return to higher, less dense planes.
It acts as an intermediary between the universal spiritual world and the physical form of matter, propelling evolution. In the animistic view, by recognizing the world as a society composed of human and non-human beings—encompassing humans, animals, and nature—the soul perceives its connection to the whole, evolving benevolently as an insatiable learner.
In short,
Rovingian Animism proposes a vision that merges spirituality, cosmology, and personal evolution.
The central idea is that consciousness is not merely a byproduct of biology, but the driving force that shapes the physical universe.
Here are the fundamental points of this perspective:
1 - The Soul as an Evolutionary Engine
The soul is not seen as a static entity, but as an active traveler:
- Free Will: Consciousness chooses its experiences.
- Continuous Learning: Each life is a "school year" in different worlds and times.
- Transcendence of Matter: The goal is to make matter more "subtle," bringing it closer to the spirit.
2 - Inseparable Symbiosis
Unlike philosophies that see the body as a "prison," here the relationship is one of partnership:
- Living Extension: Matter is where the soul expresses and renews itself.
- Interdependence: One does not fully exist without the other on the manifested plane.
- Balance: Evolution moves towards perfect harmony between the physical and the spiritual.
3 - Multidimensional Cosmology
Reality is not limited to what we see; the universe is a vast field of possibilities:
- Plurality of Worlds: Different densities and physical laws for different levels of soul. On planets with distinct physical realities, the soul assumes biological or energetic forms unimaginable to the human mind.
- Fluid Temporality: The soul can experience past, present, and future as simultaneous or successive realities.
- Expanded Society: The recognition of "non-human persons" (plants, stones, rivers) creates an ethic of total connection with the cosmos.
Key Point:
In Rovingian Animism, existence is a journey of benevolence and self-discovery, where the entire cosmos collaborates in the evolution of consciousness.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Viajantes do Espaço e do Tempo: A Alma Imortal e Intemporal em Simbiose com a Matéria
A Perspetiva Animista Rovingiana da Alma
A visão animista rovingiana concebe a alma como um viajante do espaço e do tempo, propondo uma perspetiva cosmológica onde a consciência exerce o livre-arbítrio fundamental do universo.
Nesta abordagem, a alma manifesta-se e evolui através de sucessivas encarnações e experiências em múltiplas realidades físicas e cosmologias inimagináveis. A matéria, por sua vez, não é apresentada como um simples substrato inerte, mas sim como uma extensão viva da própria alma, formando uma simbiose em que o espírito se expressa e se renova.
A Alma como Viajante Cósmica
No animismo, reconhece-se que não só os humanos, mas também plantas, animais, pedras e rios possuem alma, consciência ou sopro vital. O animismo rovingiano amplia esta visão, considerando a alma como uma centelha de energia que viaja pelo universo, manifestando-se e evoluindo numa relação simbiótica com a matéria. Nesta relação, alma e matéria são inseparáveis: uma não existe sem a outra.
A alma, segundo esta visão, não é estática, ela progride através de um ciclo de vidas sucessivas, aprendendo e evoluindo em diferentes mundos, universos físicos e realidades temporais; sejam elas distintas (Passado, Futuro) ou contemporâneas (Presente). A relação entre alma e matéria é caracterizada por uma simbiose, onde o corpo físico serve de expressão à alma, e a matéria é moldada pela energia espiritual. Assim, espiritualidade e matéria coexistem, não se opondo, mas complementando-se.
Aprendizagem e Evolução em Diversas Realidades
Esta abordagem postula a pluralidade dos mundos, admitindo a existência de múltiplos mundos habitados, cada qual com diferentes tipos de matéria, densidades e realidades físicas, adequadas a diversos níveis evolutivos da alma. O processo de reencarnação é visto como uma escola, onde a alma assume corpos apropriados ao ambiente de cada planeta, aprendendo novas lições e evoluindo por meio da experiência em realidades físicas variadas e planos temporais relativos.
À medida que aprende e se purifica, a alma aproxima a matéria que a reveste da natureza espiritual, tornando-a menos densa e mais subtil. Essa dialética evolutiva universal e intemporal avança em direção a um equilíbrio entre matéria e espírito.
O Papel da Alma na Jornada Cósmica
A alma é vista como um agente ativo, um princípio inteligente dotado de livre-arbítrio, capaz de se desprender dos mundos inferiores mais densos para retornar a planos superiores, menos densos.
Atua como intermediária entre o mundo espiritual universal e a forma física da matéria, impulsionando a evolução. Na visão animista, ao reconhecer o mundo como uma sociedade composta por pessoas humanas e não humanas — englobando humanos, animais e a natureza — a alma percebe sua conexão com o todo, evoluindo de maneira benevolente como um aprendiz insaciável.
Resumindo,
O Animismo Rovingiano propõe uma visão que funde espiritualidade, cosmologia e evolução pessoal.
A ideia central é que a consciência não é apenas um subproduto da biologia, mas a força motriz que molda o universo físico.
Aqui estão os pontos fundamentais dessa perspetiva:
1 - A Alma como Motor Evolutivo
A alma não é vista como uma entidade estática, mas como uma viajante ativa:
- Livre-Arbítrio: A consciência escolhe as suas experiências.
- Aprendizagem Contínua: Cada vida é um "ano letivo" em diferentes mundos e tempos.
- Transcendência da Matéria: O objetivo é tornar a matéria mais "sutil", aproximando-a do espírito.
2 - Simbiose Inseparável
Ao contrário de filosofias que veem o corpo como uma "prisão", aqui a relação é de parceria:
- Extensão Viva: A matéria é onde a alma se expressa e se renova.
- Interdependência: Uma não existe plenamente sem a outra no plano manifestado.
-Equilíbrio: A evolução caminha para uma harmonia perfeita entre o físico e o espiritual.
3- Cosmologia Multidimensional
A realidade não se limita ao que vemos; o universo é um vasto campo de possibilidades:
- Pluralidade de Mundos: Diferentes densidades e leis físicas para diferentes níveis de alma. Em planetas com realidades físicas distintas, a alma assume formas biológicas ou energéticas inimagináveis para a mente humana.
- Temporalidade Fluida: A alma pode experienciar passado, presente e futuro como realidades simultâneas ou sucessivas.
- Sociedade Alargada: O reconhecimento de "pessoas não humanas" (plantas, pedras, rios) cria uma ética de ligação total com o cosmos.
Ponto Chave:
No Animismo Rovingiano, a existência é uma jornada de benevolência e autodescoberta, onde o cosmos inteiro colabora na evolução da consciência.