Immortal Beloved

This month's Love Wins story is about a specific Jellyfish and the reality of this being's immortality...

Dog Days of Summer

I have not posted in Beautiful Creatures in a little while, having concentrated on my Love Wins series. However, I thought this fitting in that it reveals my own childhood experiences with my brother and family that have shaped who I am and I was inspired by the familiarity of sounds that can trigger such powerful memories. 

In memory of Richard Boissonneault 1945-2016

(July 24th, 2016)

The air resonated with the familiar whirr of static, like the sound of a breath as it escapes the threshold of one’s lips and snakes through a blade of grass held between one’s thumbs. That constant low pierce saturated the summer air but never revealed its source other than in the memorial shell of a previous corporeality. The preserved memory of alien husks are the only signs of these cyclical transient guests that remain bonded to the bark of the maples whose branches swayed in the summer breeze to filter the sunlight where she sat on that park bench watching it dapple through the leaves. 

It’s all about the framing… She lay there listening to the constant drone of the cicadas in the wee morning hours of that still August night. She had always thought of the sound as a source of comfort and a reminder of her childhood until he’d revealed his own loathing of their uninterrupted mating whirr that seemed to have no end. They had sat around that evening talking about different insects; a strange topic but one bug led to another and the conversation continued in ebbs and flows with imitations of the maddening perpetual familiar mating call of this cyclical insect. Now, as she lay there in bed she could hear nothing but that piercing buzz that disturbed the fluidity of her intervallic thoughts of the reminiscences of the weeks gone by that brought her to this point. 

The 17 year awakening of the cicadas seemed a fitting metaphor for the summer’s loss of her uncle that had brought her family together. With the exception of a few of her relatives, it had been about that long since she’d seen the greater part of her family on her father’s side. The family that she’d grown up with as a child, and for whom she’d had fond memories of in those foundational years of her childhood. She closed her eyes thinking back to that day of remembrance that had brought them together, focussing on the small wooden box at the front of the room that was once her uncle and she fell into sugar-coated recollections of moments on the farm with her cousins. She remembered the pig that wowed her in disbelief by her sheer size, for she had only really known the idea of a pig to be like the piglets that were suckling this giant sow. Each time her brother and her were let loose with their cousins it revealed a new curiosity, from feeding the goats, the softness of touching the ethereally downy fur of the angora rabbits she remembered eagerly waiting to brush, to the mischief and contrary nature that simmered beneath her shy and sweet demeanour. 

She smirked as she recalled riding a horse for the first time with her cousin’s at the neighbouring farmstead. As she got on this huge splendid animal she could barely contain the smouldering anticipation behind her soft manner to feel that moment of connection as she and this horse would begin to race through the open field. She was warned not to touch the backside of the horse behind the saddle and that cautionary advice inevitably sparked her contrary nature. As they began to trot her crooked smile revealed her intentions and her hand slowly reach behind the saddle to gently tap the horse on its right haunch sending the animal into a wild gallop as the two shot forward in a breathless moment that she can still feel over thirty years later. It is like those last moments of giggles of freedom before leaving when they’d find themselves up in the rafters of the barn flinging their bodies into the void of that weightless moment before landing in the hay beneath. 

These irregular visits to her uncle’s farm were always filled with moments of wonder, mischief, connection and childhood whimsy. They are moments that will always remain with her, they are memories that she still cherishes all these years later. She can recall the tenor of her uncle's voice and those family gatherings. In loss she has been given those memories once again that were not forgotten but simply squirrelled away for days like these to revisit when she needed a smile.  

The more loving one...

I'm a little late this month in publishing the story for my series exploring courtship, mating and bonding among species. Nonetheless, I made it in time for July with the latest from Love Wins... In June I explored H for Humans. This month my story came to me thanks to someone who recently introduced me to the work of Auden. The More Loving One, a poem by from his book Hommage to Clio (1960) iwas the inspiration for my narrative on the letter I.

H is for Humans

While H was for a brief hiatus Love Wins is back with a mirror for the letter H.

H is for Hiatus...

I’ve taken a little hiatus over April but Love Wins will return in May with the letter H… 

Hopping through Spring and jumping into April with Love Wins this Friday and the letter G...

Will you be my Valentine? Love is in the air once again at Love Wins!

Head over Heels

Starting 2016 with a success story at Love Wins...

Who wants to cuddle with a gender-bending king?

Eight arms, stripes and deception... Who could it be for the letter C at Love Wins this month...

Flight of the Bumblebee...

This month at Love Wins out of limestone caves come two explorers into the forest fires of Thailand.

Love Wins

Welcome August and the first in the love alphabet... Come and meet Mox and Mialy for our journey exploring love across the species...

The Hawthorne Effect

My final summer class was yesterday and the end of the session is always bittersweet. When I refer to the term bittersweet I think of a discussion I had with a confidant a while back who always explains everything so eloquently. In his words, bittersweet is about the full spectrum of life rather than the simultaneous highs and lows of an experience. I always love his stories, letters and the word journeys he takes me on. He has an ability like no other to perfectly string together verses that shape the meanings of my moods or frames of my mind.

In the final discussion of my class, we explored science fiction. The week’s reading by Vint and the references to xenotransplantation had inspired one of my students’ discussions. In her post, she put forth a wonderfully creative exercise for us all to craft a being pieced together from a variety of species that would best represent our true selves.

It was a bit of challenging exercise if you truly delve into the depths of the beings you choose as it takes research, time and honesty to critically assess the best species to use for each of the parts of your mad scientist creation. In today’s fast paced social media driven society, we can float on the surface of the water in our self-awareness and the medium very much distorts the message. It makes me think of a recent article that highlighted the false reflection of our lives through social media. This final exercise was such a fun and thoughtful way to end the term. I have included her description of how to approach the task and shared my own exploration below.

Now is your turn to play a "mad scientist" without actually hurting any animals. Create an alien which contains animal parts to express your personality or style. The parts can be based on actual behavioral/physical traits or popularised ones (like the “heart of a lion” denotes courage). Remember, this type of xenotransplantation is purely fictional, but make sure that the parts you choose relate to your personality and explain why.



I am a collection of beings...


I am an empath, a forgiving person and I will instantly respond to another in need.

• My creature has the heart of a Rat

I am a soft spoken person and patient to a fault. However, when the need arises to defend my wellbeing or survival I am quick to respond and hold my position strong.  

• My creature has the jaws Crocodile

I am quite sensitive. Although I may not reveal it on the surface, my feelings can be deeply hurt quite easily. However, I am able to quickly redevelop from an affront.

• My creature has the skin of a African Spiny Mouse

I am a problem-solver, learn from observation, and I have a mind that is constantly seeking adventure and new experiences.

• My creature has the brain of a Cephalopod

I am hyper aware of my surroundings and I approach situations from new perspectives.

• My creature has the eyes of a Dragonfly

I have an acute intuition and I can quickly see through ambiguity.

• My creature has the stomach of a Bat

I am an explorer, a wanderer and I love to discover the hidden.

• I have the “feet” of an Adelie Penguin

#LastSelfie

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I teach a class called Animals and the Arts through Canisius College's Masters of Anthrozoology program. Every week we discuss new topics and take on some fun and creative assignments over the term. We are now at the midway point of the class and this week we start to delve into advertising. Students in my class each take turns leading discussions and creating thought-provoking questions to get a dialogue going in the group. This week one of the questions put out by our discussion leader was for the rest of the group to find an advertisement that featured other than human animals and talk about the strategies that were used to captivate their audience. It's always fun for me to partake in responding to the questions and I embrace these challenges! I thought it fitting to share my own chosen ad which was the WWF's snapchat conservation campaign.

#LastSelfie

This ad tied in with our week's reading by Jodi Berland Animal and/as Medium: Symbolic Work in Communicative Regimes and it is also a wonderfully evocative example to kick off the new page Love Wins starting at Beautiful Creatures this month that will feature love across species. In the same fashion that Alphabeasts' featured less popular animals in need of a spotlight and conservation aid Love Wins will do the same as we work our way through the alphabet... 

WWF #LastSelfie Campaign

Now this is why I thought it relevant to share my ad choice from my class's discussion. Within the same vein as Berland’s work, the WWF campaign focusses on the way in which we use technology to connect with each other by powerfully emulating the snapchat platform as a metaphor for species extinction. The soft yet hauntingly repetitive background music that plays has an underscoring sense of urgency while they stream their words to bring to light concepts of short-lived moments with which we can identify like our reflection in a mirror. In the brief trailer, the viewer is led through the dance of these metaphors which equally stir the subconscious feeling of our own momentary presence on this planet. It is very subtle and nuanced, but it plants that seed so that the viewer will bond and internalise that message and thus connect on a deeper level with their ensuing appeal. At the midpoint is where they deliver their tagline that will resonate with our contemporary culture “Don’t let this be my #LastSelfie” framing the image of a primate within a cell phone. This is something that a younger population can definitely identify with, and they are the target audience for this campaign. The WWF is reaching out to a new cohort of advocates for their conservation efforts and have done so in a very potent way. The concept of selfies and transience is one that is prevalent in today’s youth culture and this ad connects those ideas in a way that won’t alienate or critique but rather use the idea as a manner of empowering their audience and creating a call to action.

This ad is a reminder to the strength of our love of wild nature. I was not quite ready to feature the first of the Love Wins animals today and I hope to create this same connection to the species that I will feature in my new series. Until then, I hope you look forward to meeting Mox and Mialy, a faithful duo separated by distance...