Adventures of Black Bean Chihuahua
Follow the Heart
Letter from the Editor:
Adventures Begin
Featured Artist: Storyteller
Murray Dunlap
Featured: Original Fiction
"The Black Oyster"
Ptotem: Ptero-soar
Recipe: Tortillas!
Rooting for Rubyeyes
Verse
Welcome to the Ptero Heart of Luna Taylor
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Pterodactyl Art
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Ptero-Soar: Unusual Flight

My hope as a poet is to leave an image in your
mind that stays next to you alwaysa fossil
mystery embedded
in your memory. If you
close your eyes, can you imagine a pterodactyl?

I once was an undergraduate at the University
of
Texas, and on hot September afternoons en
route to my
art history lecture, I would wander
through the
Great Hall of the Texas Memorial
Museum.  It was first for the
air conditioning.  
Then I
discovered how accurately the Texas
Memorial Museum fits my personality.  It is
cluttered full of minerals and fossils, including
the
suspended skeleton cast of one of the
largest
flying creatures ever discovered.  An
ancient
dragon.  A reptile with a forty-foot
wingspan. A feathered serpent. A
Quetzalcoatlus northropi.  The Texas Pterosaur.

I have a
menagerie of natural symbols, or
intellectual totems.  The animals in my
collection have inspired me by their  
characteristics.  I draw on what I love about
these animals to
richen my experiences.  For
me, the
pterosaur is my symbol for creating.    

Pterosaurs have always fascinated me.  The
root,
ptero, is a Greek prefix that means neither
"
wing" nor "feather", but both. I like the fusion
of a
warm-blooded, hollow-boned, hairy-
feathered
, mammal-hearted, flying reptile.  I
like that they are greatly varied in size,
shape,
and habitat.  I also like that they are
extinct
and yet
factually exist to us, because of our
ability to read the fossil record.  

Most
pterosaurs were the size of birds, but the
one soaring above my head in the Texas
Memorial Museum with a wingspan as long as a
school bus inspired me to think in terms of
How. Did. Something.
So. But. It. Did.

Fly.

When I was a
child I believed in my heart that,
if I tried
intensely enough, I would be able to
fly.  It was a strong feeling.  Because of it I
would
fling myself from the roofs of barns and
from the
seats of swings into the bare air.  And
I would
crush crumble to the ground, a pile
of
bones.  

What ended up
happening was, through solid
faith
and repetition, I was able to
authentically feel myself in that moment I was
flying
.  I flew for one moment each time before
I crashed.  I was able to collect those
moments.
Glue them, or stitch them, or snap them
together.  Make art from them.

I have also found that, as I grow more
understanding
of myself, the more mandatory
for my
peace of character it is to express the
joys and griefs of our
short lifespan on Planet
Earth
.  We are the complex creatures we are
because of our
ability to record art.

I have
chosen the elaborate symbolism of the
ancient pterosaur as the mascot for my new
artistic
journey, soaring through the moments
of
our lives before our bones crumble on our
long
dive into the sea.  

Will
you draw me a pterodactyl?
CHRISTINE NIMOCKS
"Ptotem Stalactite"
Black Bean Chihuahua
PTERO GALLERY
HOME
The ptotem for February is the raccoon.  
Submissions of original raccoon images
should be sent to
pterobones@gmail.com
no later than January 20th.  All submissions
will be included in February's
Ptero Heart.
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