The morning of June 15, I was making my way into the circle for meditation. This was an eclipse day and I was going to participate in a group “fire” meditation in conjunction with Children of the Sun.
As I made my way near the circle I noticed some striped beetles here and there, wondering what type I was seeing. I walked into the circle and gasped. There were literally thousands of beetles right inside the circle.
As I surveyed the situation, it seemed as though the beetles really were only in one small place. I couldn’t understand why the beetles seemed to be swarming only inside the circle. Whereas there were scattered handfuls outside the stumps, there were many thousands of little crawling striped beetles devouring the broadleaf weeds in the sacred site.
It was a little hard to believe what I was seeing. I stepped outside the circle, and examined a few weeds nearby. No, there was nothing much happening there.
I again stepped back into the circle and took the photograph above, and watched what was happening for a little while. The beetles were eating only the weeds. Not the newly planted prairie and orchard grass. They were not eating the sunflowers either. Interesting. I walked back and forth all around the circle and field, reaffirming this really odd situation. Why were the beetles only in one small place? Why was that small place with the circle?
I started to wonder if the beetles came from the stumps themselves, because they were so concentrated within the circle. There were plenty of weeds in that entire field, it wasn’t like the dirt was disturbed or there were only weeds right there. What was going on?
I gave up on meditating outside and went indoors for a little bit of short lived quiet time, soon getting on with my day and headed back out to the circle. Still, the beetles were crawling, swarming and eating, only within the boundaries of the circle.
I announced to the beetles that while I was thankful they were weedeating for me, I was going to have to interrupt their feasting as I was getting ready to mow the circle and surrounding pasture with the farm tractor and shredder. I pushed aside one stump, mowed and scattered said beetles and then, from the very center of the circle set the shredder to work. I continued to mow, spiraling outwards into the pasture.
I decided then, to listen to the next Coast to Coast radio program on my lineup with my earbuds and Iphone. Soon I found myself listening to a scientist named Michael Tellinger speak about his research on human origins and ancient stone circles in Africa. Interesting. Especially has he described the spiraling roads that connected them as I spun around the circle site at Atira Moon. Most interesting indeed. If you have not heard of Michael or Zacharia Stichin and have any interest in cutting edge archeology (that is not state funded nor information controlled) you might want to look them up. You may soon hear these pivotal names in other places.
In any case the thoughts and ideas discussed by Tellinger and Noory made fascinating entertainment as I spiraled my way around the pasture, mowing down all the grass and weeds and carefully avoiding as many sunflowers as I could.
Soon, it was getting hot. I went inside deciding that was enough mowing for the day. I showered and did some other work and only a little while later did I decide to begin to research to identify the strange beetle of the circle.
It didn’t take long and what I found out set my heart on a rapid heartbeat and I put in an immediate call to my vet. These were blister beetles! Any informed horse person knows the danger of blister beetles in hay (especially alfalfa hay) but I had only ever seen photographs of these creatures, and the one I remember did not have stripes, but was all black.
A few ingested blister beetles can kill a horse. According to my vet, even one mistakenly eaten beetle can cause severe damage. “Don’t put your horses on that pasture.” She said, “And bring me a sample, would you?”
I quickly went outside with a container to capture a few beetles. Normally found in alfalfa, I had no idea to think they could invade our pasture. Also I had not, and still have not seen any alfalfa grown near Atira Moon. Blister beetles do swarm, especially when disturbed out of alfalfa, and then are usually are found in the edges of fields or fence lines near that crop. Our circle is in the middle of our farm and no where near a crop edge or fence row.
I looked all over for the beetles. They were simply gone. All of them were gone. I stood in the middle of the circle, where a mere two hours or so before hand were enough beetles crawling around to kill multiple thousands of horses, and I could not find a single one. I examined the horse paddocks, which were only a couple hundred feet away. No, no beetles there either, thank goodness. I searched the weeds and grasses in the front yard, the hay pasture, the tree line and several other places on our 80 acre farm. Nope, no beetles anywhere. Not a one to collect for the vet.
Slowly, my heart returned to a normal pace.
There was more to this than an odd swarm of beetles, there just had to be.
Stay tuned for part 2.
