Today is Earth Day. I first wrote about it here.
Some years ago a designer friend at Emily Carr asked me to
contribute to a show in Calgary called Mother Earth. I thought about it and the
picture I submitted with the great help and chest of Katheryn is the one that
opens this blog.
Since then I have found that any attempt to combine my
passion for roses and flowers with human anatomy is doomed. The only exception
seems to be the use of the chest with hands in a graceful manner.
Because I am obsolete, redundant & retired at my almost
77 years of age I have time in my hands to think. I do a lot of that except
when my Rosemary snaps me from it and urges me to do this or that. Today is a
lazy, rainy Easter Monday (besides being Earth Day) and Rosemary is having a
siesta. This gives me the impetus to write this not-too-heavy-duty blog which
has only the pictures as a reason for it.
One of the major differences between my mother (note the use
of mother) tongue and my second language
that is English is that nouns in Spanish have gender. Automobiles being
máquinas are therefore la máquina. Cars in Spanish are women. Sex, is el sexo,
so sex in Spanish is masculine! Nouns that end in a are the exception. Thus an
eagle is el águila as la águila would be cumbersome to pronounce. There are is
one fine exception that I learned in the Argentine Navy. Ships that go to see “se
van a la mar”. El buque (male) goes to the sea (feminine). And yet sometimes
(most of the time) the sea is “el mar”.
In this 21st century where women are fighting
actively to finally get their due it is nice for me to remember that somehow
our planet has been a woman, our mother. This is perhaps why plants held close
to a woman’s chest somehow convery nurturing and growth.
