July 25, 2006 After an unplanned overnight in Atlanta, due to a cancelled flight (a co-cancelee muttering darkly about how wise it is to avoid flying Delta Airlines in the evenings, when many of their flights mysteriously cancel), I returned to the Texas heat, and throngs of American snout butterflies (Libytheana bachmanii). Last seen in these parts in these numbers in 1996, the snout swarms resulted from the current drought (which killed off the parasitic flies and wasps that keep them under control) and the early July rains (which caused the spiny hackberry to sprout new leaves, giving perfect places for the butterflies to rest and the caterpillars to feed, after which they contribute their black droppings, called frass, to the soil). These flutterbies are named for their slender muzzles, which help them to more closely resemble the dead leaves they use for camouflage; the beaks, up to ¼ inch (2/3 cm) long, usually fall off the adults before they die. Adult wingspan is 1.5 - 2 inches (4 - 5 cm); wings are dark brown or black with creamy orange and white markings. At close range the snouts are really quite cute; at mid-range even cuter, as they flutter & flit from flower to flower.

The snouts migrate in large groups, with no established pattern. This year's flock, numbering in the millions, is to my eye just about right: enough to enjoy, but insufficient to overwhelm. In 1921, a swarm flew at an estimated rate of 25 million butterflies per minute from San Marcos (NE of San Antonio) to south of the Rio Grande; that migration, which lasted 18 days, may have involved more than 6 billion insects. And in 1966, so many snouts migrated over Tucson, AZ, that they literally blocked out the sun, forcing streetlights to be turned on during the middle of the day.

We end this fortnight's nature saga with the camera panning slowly back from the amazing foot-wide flat white mushroom that sprouted, well after the rains, in the front yard under the holly bush to the right of the front door ...

July 10, 2006 Having been collected by friend at Pisa airport-without my suitcase-we proceeded to Prato for tea, where I watched a 1972-vintage film of sadhus in India, including a few yogis performing amusing contortions. My attention was riveted, though, by footage of Tatvala Baba, a handsome man with long dreadlocks who, it was reported, had learned to make alchemical gold. Tatvala Baba was murdered about a month before I moved to India to study Ayurveda in 1974; the culprits were not brigands greedy for his gold, but hitmen hired by a rival sadhu a few caves up the hill who was envious of how all the foreigners flocked to T.B., and none to him.

From Prato to Crevalcore, arriving there on the one night during which the municipality had shut down the water mains while they put in track for a new high-speed train line. With neither suitcase in hand or liquid in tap, I could neither change nor bathe, and in her compassion Elvira gifted me with a dress shirt and also a T that proclaims, Il mare più bello è quello che non navigammo ("The most beautiful sea is the one you are not navigating"). The next day she & I & Francesco (all other extended family members being off in Portugal on vacation) enjoyed a pleasant afternoon in nearby Ferrara, with its Palazzo dei Diamanti ("Diamond Palace") and Palazzo de Schifanoia (literally, "the boring, disgusting palace").

In front of Ferrara's Castello degli Estensi, a statue of firebrand cleric Girolamo Savonarola, with the terse inscription: nato in Ferrara 1452, arso in Firenze 1498 - "born in Ferrara in 1452, burned in Firenze 1498." Elvira & Francesco were amused by the archaic Italian word arso (compare the English word "arson"); it spurred Francesco to repeatedly declaim, as we strolled along, phrases from Savonarola's sermons, in particular vaso del demonio, "demonic vessel" - one of the epithets the blatantly misogynist monk applied to the female of our species. Savonarola created a Republic of Florence in 1494, with "God as the only sovereign"; made sodomy a capital offense; and inspired the populace to incinerate all their pointless possessions, including intoxicants, books, and art works. It is said that even Sandro Botticelli was caught up in the craze, and cast some of his own paintings onto the first of these "bonfires of the vanities." Alas for Savonarola, this puritanistic mania quickly died away. Overthrown in 1497, he met his end on a bonfire (while being simultaneously hanged).

That night we the not-yet-cremated watched part of a World Cup match (before my departure my mother & I had seen several on Univision, the Spanish-language TV network that is headquartered in San Antonio); at that point, expectations for the Italian team were low. Other topics held the public's attention; e.g., a local Italian newspaper headline proclaimed: I nudisti escono allo scoperto e chiedono spiagge "poco visibile" riservate a loro (roughly "Nudists have been searching for "slightly visible" beaches to be reserved for them").

Before my departure for Austria, British Airways announced the arrival of my bag in Pisa, and volunteered to ship it to Vienna for me. I reached the City on the Danube about 3pm; my bag finally made it to me at 11:45pm, at Schloss Albrechtsberg, a 72-room castle on a hilltop founded in the year 1100, with ceilings from 1547 & 1604, dungeons, a granary, an ornately gilded chapel (whose upkeep & worship the Catholic Church continues to keep up), three "black kitchens" (whose high narrow chimneys draw up the smoke so well that one can bake in them without suffocating), minerals, fossils, books, half a dozen resident falcons (one of whom I viewed as it perched on a ledge trying to minimize its buffeting by the howling wind), a dozen ghosts, and many other curiosities. Now owned by a friend, my stay in the castle was repeatedly punctuated by the chiming of church bells, whose prevalence in Europe is most pleasing.

Another nice thing about Austria is its white wine, which I sampled at Holzapfel, an excellent restaurant in the grape-growing Wachau region. And the beer, particularly at Sieben Sterne ("Seven Stars") brew pub, where I especially liked the Hanf (brewed with extracts of hemp & belladonna). I drove to Hungary with Zhander & Emma for an excellent week of yoga & chanting, and more World Cup action, including the first-rate quarter finals between France & Brazil, & the semis that pitted France against Portugal, and Italy against Germany.

At the end of the week I flew to Barcelona, after a 1 ½ hour traffic jam that would have made me miss my plane had not my travel agent in fact neglected to sell me a ticket for that sector. A new ticket later I made it to Catalonia anyway, where Dr. Carmen Frigerio awaited me, for co-teaching events sponsored by Yukti (www.yukti.org), a stay in a lovely apartment in the city (containing sixteen violins in one closet), a quick visit to the Black Madonna of Montserrat, and a late night watching the World Cup finals, a good game marred at nearly the last moment by the red card awarded to Zinedine Zidane for his controversial head butt. It was a sad way for Zizou to end his career, particularly since the game went through two overtimes and was finally decided on penalty shootouts. It was Italy's first win since '82 (having lost twice to Brazil in the finals in penalty shootouts in interim). The win was worth an estimated 0.7% increase for Italy's economy; such is the value of sport devotion.

Guru Purnima, the "Mentor's Full Moon," ended the fortnight. Let us all offer profound, repeated, sincere salutations to all teachers and guides, everywhere!

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