Hello, friends. How has your week been? How have your last two weeks been?

Last night I watched a space video on YouTube called “The Most Horrifying Planets Ever Discovered,” and at the end of it I was left thinking that our planet has all of them beat. Our beautiful planet Earth, which won’t poison us or vaporize us or hurl shards of glass at us, is yet the most horrifying of all to me at the moment. Why? Because Earth hosts a terrifying life-form: Us.

But there are millions of creatures on Earth, and most of them aren’t heinous. They go about their meaningful lives. For me, getting outside and connecting with nature inspires wonder and joy and gratitude for the existence of the innocent wild, especially in the thick of unspeakable tragedy.

In these particularly dark days for the human race, then, it was with much anticipation that I went over to my hiking friend’s house with the intention of trekking out into the surrounding desert after nightfall. We would admire some intriguing and elegant creatures out in the wild. Beautiful, even. It’s scorpion season here in the desert!

We first noted some scorpions on the backyard wall before starting out on our walk (you’ll see those wall pics further down in the post). 11:30pm turned to midnight as we walked over two miles into the desert, scanning the ground with our black lights so as to illuminate the scorpions, who glow in the black light when it’s dark. Our lights revealed quite a few of the little guys. They were mostly off to the side, though there were a few in our path.

I took pics with my phone – no flash, so you can see the scorpions as they appear in the black light – while my friend took pics with a camera using flash, so the scorpions can be seen in the flesh, so to speak.

No-flash pics first!

This is the thing, isn’t it? We think that we’ve adequately concealed sensitive materials or information or ourselves, but there’s always going to be those people roaming around with the black lights that reveal us to the world.

Now for my friend’s pics, taken with flash:

I love their structure and their muted desert colors, their sweet alien faces and their ingenious design.

It was a splendiferous night with the scorpions aglow on the ground below, and the stars aglow in the sky above. (Yes, I did get to find my favorite alpha stars: Arcturus, Vega, and Antares.) Interestingly, Antares is the alpha star of the constellation Scorpious, which resembles a scorpion.

I wish you peace and love and safety, my friends. Take good care. And thank you for being here.