Kepa Junkera

Published by DEIA, Sept. 8, 2011

Life is full of small miracles that follow one after another and that, in being an ordinary thing, we disregard them. All the beings that we form this planet’s biomass have carried a series of “improvements” always in terms of our needs for the hoped-for survival. But if all of this seems incredible for us when we talk about human, animal beings, etc… our amazement blows out when the characters of the story are insects that hardly surpass by size half of a human finger.

Without going any further a little while ago I discovered that, in the Mexican state of Michoacán, every year million of Monarch butterflies gather together to pass the winter amassed on the branches and the trunk of some spectacular so-called trees Oyamel. The motive is very simple but at the same time as amazing. In order to protect themselves of the freezing temperatures that the butterflies reign in those places, piled up one over another, they spread their wings skywards as if they were solar collectors reflecting the light of the sun toward their neighbors and sharing the heat.  What a fascinating adaptation!

And I remember another incredible strategy that the Asiatic bees carry out when they suffer the attack of the sadly famous Asiatic wasps also. When the bees are attacked they crowd around on top of the wasp and they glue themselves till they reach the 45º C that it’s the temperature in which the Asiatic wasps perish.

What kind of mechanism begins to function in order that as much in the case of the butterflies as in the one of the bees among others, not only evolve the brain of a member of cologne, instead “contagious” the whole cologne and even the species?

Already there have been several attacks of the Asiatic wasps to our beehives. Einstein said that, if the bees extinct one day our land, the world such and as we know it would disappear in no time. We already messed up by bringing the wasp here. Now we can only trust that life obliges again our bees to uncover the key that turns on survival’s secret mechanism.

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Published in DEIA, May 19, 2011

It’s has been pondering in my head for quite awhile about the different adaptations that throughout history of the many animal species as in the plant world have carried out. And the most mind-blowing of them is the role that the planet and its circumstances play as like architect of the molding of each and everyone and one of them in terms of the needs of the individual.

Some days ago I visited the city of The Lagoon, in Tenerife, (The Canary Islands) to collaborate with my friend Rogelio Botanz in his recording of a CD-DVD, in which he glimpsed back at his career surrounded by different friends.  Rogelio was born in Legazpi a small town in Guipuzcoa, but leaving to do the military service in Tenerife and, ever since, he lives there, dedicated to teaching in addition to the music. So much so that Rogelio has become an absolute specialist in island sonorities in which I would personally highlight one that is of the “Silbo Gomero”.

Aside from having been declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and of being an expression of the cultural folkways of The Gomera, the “Silbo” (Whistling) is one of the most incredible adaptations carried out by the man. It consists in using a complex variety of whistles and to make with it a means of communication, which makes them to be understood for people that are far away from others. As well said by my friend Rogelio, expert in this area about the “Silbo”, it is not a language in itself, but a substitutive way and, of course, the correct reflection of the capacity of the human being’s overcoming.

This way of communication, not only demands a great power when whistling, but also a control of its technique cause, for the wealth of its vocabulary, the acoustic resources of the oral cavity are used to its fullest.  Although before the “Silbo” was showed from teacher to pupil today and thanks to the effort of a great many people they give Silbo’s classes in all the schools of the island, achieving its use, knowledge and survival between the new generations. A huge treasure.

We are a result of what we need and the sum of what we have turns into a reflection of what we can become to be.

www.kepajunkera.com

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