I am a Wasp
The Vespidae Project - Where it all began - photo credit Shawna Marie Franklin 2021
The Vespidae Project
2020-current
Exploring the places where I can’t go
Seeing the form emerge as the leaves died away was a surprise. A large papery form entangled and speared was suddenly right in view. How had I missed such a large form the size of my head all those days and weeks walking by? A home for so many! I couldn’t reach it. I watched as the winds came and the form endured. No one home now. Caught in mid air, by thorns and complexity that kept my interest day after day. I wondered what it would be like to be a wasp easily coming and going through such a snarl? What was it like inside? The form moved with the thicket in the wind, integrated, not separate. The now bare branches and menacing thorns running through it provided scaffolding and support. I watched the nest degrade over months, finally the bottom dropped away. And then, one day it was gone.
The form reminded me how intertwined and reliant we are to everything around us. Humans are not separate from wasps. We need to be reminded of that. We need to learn to see how beautiful and important this entanglement is ~ with every….every living thing that is here now. There is not a minute to loose. `~ SMF 2021
“our psyche suffers when deprived of biodiversity, and our physical lives become threatened when ecosystem services like pollination, natural pest control, seed dispersal, and organic decomposition are compromised. There is no alternative but to preserve and protect all remaining extant species, wasps included.” from Eric R.Eaton, Wasps: The Astonishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect, Princeton University Press, 2021, p9.