The unofficial mascot for the year 2020.
When we were living in South Africa, we had the opportunity to go on several game drives. There are few pleasures greater than driving across the savannah in an open air jeep as the sun brings the world alive. On particularly hot afternoons, when the trackers had exhausted their tools for locating the big five— elephants, rhinos, buffalo, lions and leopards— they would slow down and bring our attention to “the little five”, the insects that were the architects of the landscape we had been traversing.
There were millions of termites collaborating on mounds of mud that function like giant lungs, exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen. There were giant walking sticks that regrow limbs if caught by predators. And then, the Dung Beetles.
Behold.
Found on all continents save for Antarctica, the Dung Beetle has an enviable ability not just to deal with shit but to thrive in it. They use it to create shelter and nourishment for themselves and their offspring. As the saying goes, one creature’s poop is another's pleasure.
The Dung Beetle, known as the scarab, was revered in Egypt and symbolized transformation.
As we exit 2020, may we find inspiration in our small friends who have been diligently, without recognition, for millennia, showing us how to create our own fertile ground from the debris.
See you all in 2021
—Sue Jaye Johnson and The Pleasure Report team.
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