Thistle Murder
It takes a special kind of horrible...
It takes a special kind of horrible to walk into a public park on multiple occasions and destroy, with apparent vengeance, the plants growing there that are deliberately being cared for as a way to feed and attract butterflies who have become scarce, and who absolutely depend on them in order to survive.
Watching it happen, or more accurately, coming upon the aftermath three times now after someone has come in and deliberately vandalized a butterfly meadow just as a new variety of plants begin to really bloom feels like an encounter with intentional hatefulness, with deliberate darkness.
“Now listen to me, Buddy: there is only one unpardonable sin – deliberate cruelty. All else can be forgiven. That, never.”
— Truman Capote, The Thanksgiving Visitor
People can be real assholes. And no matter how altruistically trained we may be to look for and see the very best in people, it does not change the fact that individuals all the time make exceptions for their particular kinds of hatred, their particular grudges, sometimes even to the point that they somehow still see, or at least pretend to see themselves as good people, and sometimes defiantly call themselves good ‘Christians,’ while harboring intentional willingness to inflict pain on others they have decided deserve to feel it. History is full of stories of just such sorts of hatred. Full of them.
I have a friend, Stewart who spends hours, nearly every day, winter, spring, summer and fall doing his best to make safe spaces for butterflies. He gathers and sprinkles wildflower seeds, then carefully weeds around the sproutlings that emerge to give them a chance to establish and grow without becoming overwhelmed by the invasive, non-native plant bullies that would otherwise overtake them and choke them out.
He is patient. He is kind. And he will happily stop whatever he is doing to explain to almost anyone who inquires why a certain plant is important, which insects depend upon it as a host plant upon which to lay their eggs so that their hatched, larval babies will have the essential food source they absolutely require to thrive and grow.
Plants are not readily interchangeable as food for most insects. Many are surprisingly, quite specific, and most people have no idea.
The poster-child status and peculiarities of the beloved and endangered Monarch butterfly have certainly helped plant seeds of understanding in some observant minds, but it is fascinating to this student how a basic understanding of the Monarch’s ‘milkweed dependence’ has not translated into a much broader understanding that most butterflies have very limited dietary options when it comes either to caterpillar munchies (food their babies can thrive on), or to flutterby nectar (sipping sources whose nectar is uniquely palatable and digestible to certain kinds of butterflies).
It is not unusual these days to hear someone who really wants to add a few 'milkweed’ plants to their garden to feed the Monarchs (even here in Seattle where we don’t have monarchs), who then fails to understand on any level how essential those bothersome, native, ‘stinging nettle’ plants they’ve so proudly eradicated from their property are to Satyr Comma (Polygonia satyrus), Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta), and Milbert Tortoiseshell (Aglais milberti), butterflies as a host plant, as well as Painted Lady and the West Coast Lady, butterflies.
Prickly, native thistle, Cirsium brevistylum, aka, Indian thistle, Clustered Thistle, Short-style Thistle, is another plant most gardeners wouldn’t be caught dead with in their showy, award-winning gardens, but are an essential ‘host plant’ magnet for the Mylitta Crescent (Phyciodes mylitta) butterfly and the Painted Lady, whose scientific name “Vanessa cardui” means “Vanessa of the thistles” (thanks Stewart), to say nothing of nectaring, Woodland Skippers, native bumblebees, hummingbirds and yes, stunning, American Goldfinches who wait each year until the thistles have gone to seed to mate and nest so that they may line their cup-shaped nests with fluffy thistle down and feed their nestlings a regurgitated, completely vegetarian, slurry rich in thistle seed to help them thrive and grow.
How the hell did we lose sight of the beauty of what so many consider unsightly weeds while glorifying some of the most banal of garish, big-box-store landscape filler plants that add absolutely nothing helpful to the ecological health of the spaces they fill?
Again and again these days we are asked to look hatred and ignorance in the eye, to plot a path either through or around it, to become victim to it or rise above it. It is profoundly dispiriting to stand in the presence of someone else’s taunting, screw-you energy, to feel the hot breath of their resentments and willingness to force their whims and preferences upon you, or someone you know, just because they can, or think they should be able to…
Balling our feelings and our hearts into fists, in defense will only leave us panting for breath, full of anger and anxiety, and adrenaline. It will leave us blind to the dances of butterflies and songs of feather poems, and perhaps suspicious of those who remain more devoted to them than to the tenets of financial success we have been groomed to bow down to.
There is an immense and complex world out there that asks perhaps more loyalty and more awareness of us than it did our parents and grandparents, which means making smarter choices, putting the needs of our living, ecological community ahead of our shallow, ‘this year I’m really into neutrals and pastels,’ preferences and adding our voices to what is kind and true rather than the arrogance of nursing grudges and plotting revenge.
May you find a path that feeds your kindness and that in turn inspires kindness in others…
Namasté
I felt so guilty after reading this David, it is only now, 12 hours later I can write. Earlier in the year I dug up over 140 thistles from my sheep meadow, the sheep won’t / don’t eat them at all and they were taking over. These were Cirsium vulgare, also loved by butterflies and many other tiny insects… needs must, sadly. I can only console myself by the fact that I left all that were growing around the edges, along with the milk thistles - is that the same as your milkweed, I don’t know - and I always leave every flowering weed in my garden and elsewhere on the hill thistles run riot!
I will carry these words “Now listen to me, Buddy: there is only one unpardonable sin – deliberate cruelty. All else can be forgiven. That, never.”
I hope the garden gods know my acts were not a deliberate act of cruelty only of necessary maintenance !
Your poor friend, I feel his sadness.
Thank you for sharing my friend, as always your writing and images touch a deep and melodious chord.
What a loss, what a shame---I totes admire Stewart, and I'm sad for all the stupidity of destruction and loss.
"Thistle" became more than just a weed-word to me when I first noticed tiny sweat bees, like irridescent jewels, all over the blossoms here at my mom's acres. And as artist, I love the color & shape of their blossoms, and all those sharp-spear pointy leaves...
And now oh-so-much more---it's a joy to see your pics of butterflies & goldfinches, and hear details of these special thistle-relationships.
So many reasons to care... thank you for these wider glimpses...for "poetry among the weeds".