My friend in the Khazikstan Armed Forces sent me this picture, over there they have genetically engineered this new type of insectoid warrior/soldier, they are called Xorns, they have wasp heads and moth wings 

                     

CLICK TO ENLARGE 

 

I used to live in Iowa, in my spare time  I  would roam the Great Plains and take some 35mm photos, using black and white film 

Defunct Farm Vehicles of Iowa 

 

 

Cattle of Iowa 

 

 

Dilapidated Farm Structures of Iowa 

This crazy looking insect landed on my back porch one night, I had never seen anything like it, maybe it's in the arthropod books, click to enlarge 

 

This Praying Mantis is unusual in that it had a flexible neck and would follow my movements, staring at the camera, most insects that i have met do not do this 

click to see mantis gallery 

i am a big fan of insects and also of the speculation about and study of the so-called law of karma, and i present here an interesting story combining the two, as i had an encounter with an insect, and the aftermath of this meeting made me further speculate about karma and if it is a natural 'law' of some kind that sets paramaters on a 3-dimensional plane of manifestation in which we, or i mean i, find myself (as i can only speak, or write, for myself), and if it is governed by exalted planetary beings who ensoul the planet saturn, the so-called 'lords of karma' who are said to dispense karma like many of the orators standing on speaker's corner corner in hyde park in london dispense wisdom, or if it is bullshit as the amazing randi might have said and life and all manifestation is ruled by blind, mechanical forces (big bang, primordial soup type of thing) or maybe its all of the above combined or none of the above 

anyway, during another lifetime maybe i was working for a paving crew in a western usa city, and on one summer workday, i found myself spray painting freshly-hardened curbs in a new housing development, i had to mark the curbs every 50 feet or so, for the surveyer, i think, but anyway, i was marking the curb with spray paint, and i came across a big yellow-jacket type-wasp that was just laying low right on the curb, and she, or he, whatever the case may be (more on the subject of drones and worker bees later) but this wasp was just sitting, all peaceful-like, and s/he was putting out the vibe of like 'dont tread on me', but for some inexplicable reason, i just wanted to spray the insect's body just a bit, kind of like tag her/him slightly with day-glo orange, but because of my haste and of the imprecise nature of the paint can nozzle, when i held the button down a big swath of orange paint covered the whole insect, it was brutal to see, as it was trying to remove the paint from it's eyes and mouth, but to no avail, and no way it would have survived, but i cant remember exactly if i did or not, but i think i stepped on it or something, mercy killing of sorts, i had to put it out of its misery 

so after i stepped on the yellow-jacket, i knew that i had effed up and i was quite disturbed by what i had done, but i kept on working 'til quittin' time, and i eventually forgot about it 

now at about this time i had been dating beatrice who live about 30 miles away, we had a weekend relationship that worked out great for both of us, as she couldn't put up with me nor i with her 24/7/365, and we each had our own apartments, which is how it was back then, but i wanted to end the relationship because it wasn't enjoyable for me anymore, or whatever, maybe i met someone else, i cannot remember exactly, because this could have happened 10,000,00 years ago or whenever, maybe it happened in another dimension 

so, on the same day that i stepped on the wasp, i did my normal routine, go to the beer hall and smoke dope outside and get plastered like on any night of the week, and when i got home i decided to call beatrice to let her know that i wanted to end the relationship, and it didn't go down to well, she was pissed and crying, but i know how it is, i been dumped before and i would be pissed and crying, then relieved and filled with joy, but i was just dispensing to her what had been dispensed to me many, many times before, a cold-turkey, clean-break termination of the affair 

thus, many dynamics are now building: 

1- i spray painted, stepped on and then terminated the tiny life an arthropod-type insect 

2- then later that same day, i had an emotional phone conversation with my ex-girlfirend, a crazy and not normal day to say the least 

so, next morning i show up at the jobsite, still rattled from the day and night before, and it was just me and billy, he was my co-worker but when the foreskin left the job site, billy stepped up and took control as he was the blade and backhoe driver, so they usually call the shots relative to the laborors on the job site, that's what i was, a laboror, and billy was grading a dirt road with the blade, a long piece of equipment that had a steel blade hanging down in the middle that scraped  dirt road surfaces, so billy was scraping this road, the same dirt road job site near which i terminated the doomed insect's life on th day before, and billy is scraping away so that the blacktop guys could come in and have a smooth and surveyed road surface on which to seal the deal, so that's what i was doing, walking along billy, making sure that he didn't grade below the top of the stakes embedded in the road, as if the stake just appeared at the dirt surface, and if his blade just skimmed the top of the stake, i would let him know this, that he has hit a home run and he didn't need to scrape the road surface in that spot anymore, and the proper amount of blacktop could be poured later 

now there was a whole strip of dirt road that billy had not scraped yet, it still needed to be packed down and compressed with this crazy, vibrating machine called the sheep's foot, and being i had sheep's foot driving experience, billy asked me to run the sheep's foot over this certain section of road 

now the sheep's foot looks like a steam-roller that one would see at a black top paving convention, chris angel got run over by one of the and lived to tell the tale, except that the sheep's foot doesn't have 2 big smooth rollers, it had rollers that were pock marked by the oval, knobby protrusions that extended out, kind of like those wind-up music making little machines placed in jewelry boxes and the like, they sometimes apear in horror movies, and the drum on the music box is kind of like the sheep's foot wheels 

and another thing about the sheep's foot, it vibrates, so that as you drive slowly over the road surface to pack it down, the protrusions dig into the road surface as the drums vibrate, providing a packing efffect, but the effect on the driver is crazy also, and after driving one, i would jump off and be buzzed for a half-hour or more, like with st. vitus' dance 

i knew that i needed the drive slowly in the sheep's foot, that is the protocol, and i knew that billy knew this and that i knew that he knew that i knew that this is the protocol, but when billy was out of site, driving his blade, i would speed up the pace of the sheep's foot, for in some way i had taken matters into my own hands and concluded that i was packing dirt sufficiently and that the surface would pass the compression test the next day 

so when billy was out of site, i would speed up, and when i saw him coming, i would slow down so that he would think that i was going the proper, snail-like pace with this god-forsaken machine 

problem was i didn't give billy enough credit regarding his perceptual skills, visual or otherwise, intuitive, or whatever, maybe he had a feeling i was being somewhat deceitful or maybe he just glanced at me down the road and, unbeknownst to me, he saw me slowing and speeding up 

ideas in billy's mind began to formulate, he had caught me and he was gonna call me on it, but he did it in a way that was like a big wasp bite on the face, harsh, violent, kind of like the way that i had terminated the yellow-jacket's life the previous day 

billy approached me, pissed and screaming, maybe he had his anger issues, but i though about later, that 2 of many possible ways in which he, or anyone, could have handled the situation, may have gone like this: 

1- he could have said, "marty, listen. i'm no idiot, i saw you speeding up and slowing down, but in order for this surface to pass the compression test, it gotta be packed down tight, and i don't know why you are doing this, trying to fool me and also possibly delaying this job for another day or 2 because the surface doesn't pass muster, but why don't you go ahead and resume, and go very slow like needed, don't ever try to bullshit me again, and  by the way, gotta smoke i can bum?" 

2- but, here is what really happened: he came running up to the sheep's foot, cursing at me and revealing that i was trying to fool him, and i thought he had steam coming out his nose as i was bracing for him to hit me, but i knew that he wouldn't do that, but he did everything short of that, and i was stung hard, yes, i was rattled, and i lost my composure, mentally and internally and didn't know what to do, he had just stormed off, and i was un-stable and freaked out, slightly shaking, not used to that sort of thing 

so, i did the only thing i could think of, i just left the job site, he was way down the other end, so he couldn't see me leave, i just snuck out to this 2-lane road and hitchhiked back into town, so he didn't know what happened to me 

(what happened at the job site later that day involved police and dog search crews, corporate execs flying out to join the search, they thought i had fell into a nearby river--but more about this part of the story later) 

i got a ride into town, and the hippie that picked me up was cool, at one point i said,  'ya, i just quite my job', and he said something like, 'cool, you gotta do what you gotta do'--this was my confirmation that i had done the right thing, but there was at the time no right or wrong thing, it is just what went down, so for the rest of the day i just bummed around town, smoking dope with these college kids i knew, and finally at about 9pm, i called the supervisor to touch base i guess, telling him that i  quit and sorry that i caused a ruckas, but i did not go into detail, he knew what had happened by now and briefly hinted that search crews had been out but that he was relieved that i was ok, and also said ok when i told him that i had quit, but it probably didn't matter, they maybe would have fired me anyway 

so, i got another job, a better one, and slowly this event drifted into the dim 'past (maybe it is still happening, i don't know) 

but, the main point about all of this is karma, and in my speculating mind, i conclude that possibly, my killing of the wasp the day before precipitated the next day's events, maybe there was a cause and effect 

karma is a big subject, i can only speculate and observe my thoughts and actions in my life, and certain results may come about because of these thoughts and actions, and i further observe these results, it's a very empirical process for me 

there are other instances where i did something or expressed anger or whatever and there was an immediate result or experience that befell me 

 

more on all of this later . . . . .  

in addition to musings about how i perceive change to happen in my consciousness relative to my observations/experiences with karma, or cause and effect, in my life  . . .