When Jax wrote me that the first of her black racer eggs had hatched last night, it didn’t take any convincing for me to plan a trip to her little hatchery to see for myself.
Any baby snake is gorgeous, but black racers are particularly so.
The coloring on these little guys is stunning and when they mature, the early coloring is lost into the darkness that gives them their names.
When I got there this morning, her kids were in mid-conversation with a squirrel in a tree and it felt like i had arrived in a Disney, Snow White, world where animals and humans were one.
I snapped that quick moment in picture one, when I stepped out of the car but the rest of the pics are about the newborn, or should I say, newborns. To my delight, a second baby had left her shell this morning and I was there for that awesome moment where she met her brother for the first time.
Interestingly, black racers are born aggressive, so their initial words were one of hiss and threat. But then they realized they were siblings and the world became calm again.
A third one had started to cut through their shell, so i suspect the full clutch will be out and about pretty soon.
Interestingly enough, when we began handling them and they experienced their first ever sunlight-warmth, they became quite friendly and they were more curious than anything else.
Shooting them was such fun and I was really pleased with the images. I hope you like them … they are at the end of the blog.
Before I left, I had the joy of having both babies in my hands and also the joy of getting a hand-shake from a young squirrel.
So, for the drive home, at least, the world I live in became a place of peace and harmony.
And that is what really occupied my mind and led to this blog.
There can be periods of our lives where we encounter relentless stress and unhappiness. And yet, just stepping away for a moment can help us recover to the point where we are ready to continue.
in my mind, this morning, I likened it to an oasis … a small haven of respite where things don’t feel so bad.
When we cross a desert and find an oasis, it isn’t really a place where we can stay forever in and live out of lives there. For whatever reason we are crossing the desert, it is important that we get to the other side.
But the oasis gives us some respite and rejuvenates our step so that we can continue with our journey.
Whatever desert we find ourselves in, we need to aware of what the relentless heat (stress, pain, hurt, worry) is doing to us. We should indeed be resilient enough to handle it in bursts. But we need to aware of when the relentlessness is wearing us down.
There are signs, such as depression, tiredness, and perhaps even despair. And we need to be able to realize their realities and react before they overwhelm us entirely.
Taking a small diversion and finding an oasis is well worth the trip. For me, that oasis is often in the form of something natural, But, in reality, it can be anything or anyone that helps you escape whatever is forming your desert.
It could be a movie, a visit with a friend, or even a good book.
Whatever works for you, take it. But remember, it needs to be unrelated to whatever has created your desert. A true oasis is lush and green and replenishing. It bears no resemblance to the desert around it.
And depending on the length of your journey through your desert, you may need to find more than one oasis to help you make it through.
A desert is not a solution to your problems, merely a respite from them.
… just a thought
