ouch!

I spent the day with friend, dyane, who is a marvelous creative soul. We talked art all day, made bracelets, looked at art books, lesson plans, a paper-folding video. She ignored the ringing of her phone... and I got none that I was aware of. We started with coffee in the morning and ended the day with a nice brew around 6 pm. Great day, great day....

However, earlier in the morning while I hiked, I saw a scorpion. The first scorpion I have ever seen on a trail while hiking. It had eggs or babies on its back. I stopped and looked at it and it looked at me. I wondered whether to smash it, but really, I was in its space... I told it to get off the trail and went my own way.

When I got to dayne's I told her about my scorpion sighting... she lives near the in-town foothills and has experienced scorpions in her house. Because she has been stung before, she warned me to keep my shoes on, that the scorpions had been very active lately.

When I got home my message machine was flashing, my daughter had been stung by a scorpion. It had been in the boy's toy box, and she was on the floor playing with them, when she reached into the box for another toy car she was stung. She is in pain and will be for a couple of days, but mostly she is glad the scorpion got her and not one of the boys.

The Buddhist teacher I had years ago talked about carefully removing a spider from a residence to free it into the wild. She talked about the sanctity of all life. I remember wondering if I could so serenely remove am eight legged intruder from my house.

We have moved into the scorpion's territory. We like to live pushed into the folds of the desert hills. We like to be within walking distance of the trails. We don't like them in our houses, but there is little we can do to keep them out. The truth is, there really are not all that many scorpions, rattle snakes, gila monsters around.

But when they strike we all shudder just a moment in fear.