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Doubt

Universal System (30" x 22")

I am drinking water from a hole in a cloud and pissing it out in a puddle on the ground

Vital Brazil: Father of Serotherapy

Totem Animals: Sloth

Totem Animals: Sloth

The three-toed sloth of Amazonia is the slowest-moving animal, relative to its body mass, on Earth. It spends most of its time clinging to tree trunks eating leaves, where, when absolutely still, the animal resembles a giant, round wasp nest. Once a week, the sloth descends it feeding tree to poop on the ground, and possibly move to another tree. More often than not, the sloth buries its poop and climbs back up the same tree where it resumes its imitation of an insect hive.

The sloth’s only natural enemy is the harpy eagle, a giant bird of prey with talons as big as softball mitts. However, the chances of an individual sloth getting attacked by a harpy eagle are about 1 in 50, and the chances of it being killed and eaten by a harpy eagle are one in 3,000. In the rare event of an encounter with a harpy eagle, the sloth will use its only defense: its knife-like claws. No currently living human being has seen a sloth being attacked by a harpy eagle, but we know of its occurrence from stories passed down from distant generations.

Because of its sedentary habits, and the high moisture of the rainforest where it lives, the sloth’s fur harbors algae, which gives its coat a mottled, greenish appearance. The algae, in turn, is eaten by symbiotic moths which keep the algae in check and derive all their nutrition from the single-celled plants. Every sloth, during the first two years of its life, accumulates its own population of moths which will stay with it until death, eating the algae on its fur and laying eggs on its skin, giving rise to generation after generation of algae-eating moths.

On very rare occasions when the sloth decides to cross a river (sloths are very good swimmers), its moths follow in a swarm above its head and resettle on the sloth’s fur when it emerges from the water on the other side.

In certain traditional Amazonian groups, sloth fur is burned and the smoke is blown over newborn babies to ensure that their bones will be strong and the will always have an abundance of friends.

If sloth is your totem animal, you will have strong bones and lots of friends.

I'm on Art World Chicago!

I'm on Art World Chicago at http://artworldchicago.com/sharon-parmet/