Milkweed contains a milky latex sap, which is poisonous to most animals. Milkweed is the host plant of monarchs it is an essential stop for them. Her antennae and legs - sensitive to a plant’s chemical balance - identify whether or not it is milkweed. These insects are responsible for cross-fertilizing a third of the world’s food supply.Īnd at this moment, Lucinda lands on a milkweed plant. Pollinators transport pollen from one plant to another, fertilizing and enabling them to reproduce. She doesn’t realize that while seeking out nectar, she’s pollinating plants, an essential role she shares with bees, wasps, lacewings and other insects. Lucinda’s name in Spanish means “light.” Attracted to many of the flowers in this meadow, she’ll feed on their nectar which nourishes and sustains her. If you’re familiar with Charles Schultz’s Peanuts cartoons and Woodstock’s flightpath, Lucinda’s isn’t as convoluted as that - not quite anyway. Lucinda Monarch flies along a winding river bed, then veers into the surrounding meadow amidst its flowers, goldenrod, asters, coneflowers and common milkweed, gliding not deftly with the efficient, seemingly effortless changes of direction as a bird does, instead meandering, slowly, her thin tiny wings fluttering, lifting her along on a curving, wobbling path through the air. The challenges they face reveal the immensity of the threat facing each one of us - and its urgency.

He also reveals our singular solution.Īlong the way there are exquisite creatures, human and non-human. In The Great Healing – Five Compassions That Can Save Our World, activist, author, screenwriter and feature filmmaker Stephen Erickson identifies our Arch-Villain, the main cause of global warming which now threatens to bring about the end of our Anthropocene Epoch - of us and virtually every multicellular life form.

The Monarch by Kylee Baumle