'Tell All the Truth But Tell It Slant'--Exploring What's Inside the Florida Natural History Museum

"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind--" (Emily Dickinson, c. 1868)

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Front and center-stage, a woolly mammoth's skeleton captures your attention as you step inside the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. You cannot resist its allure--unless, of course, the bathrooms off to the right don't grab your attention first. A museum's curators can't help but try to draw you into the mysteries they have to offer. It's the nature of the beast, so to speak. Untold fortunes are spent to make you wonder the time-tested question: "Is it real, or is it Memorex?"

This museum even has a cave of sorts, painstakingly replicated from someone's impression of a cave. Does Florida have caves? Of course! Some are wet and only accessible from underwater, but there are dry ones for the not-so-daring-or-young-at-heart ones among us. Marianna, just west of Tallahassee in Northwest Florida, has a fine state park in which to explore the real thing.


Bringing us back to the topic at hand, some of the scenes depicted at the natural history museum can really stir the imagination, if you are so inclined. Some Native American tribes, apparently, trusted women to lead them and establish trade agreements. I'm glad the exhibit's artisans ask the all-important question: "How do we know?" Some children visiting the museum might be thoughtful enough to ponder the possibility of a thriving, prosperous matriarchal society.

This collection of once-living creatures is real. I imagine this display is truly indicative of what goes on behind the scenes in the museum. Animal, plant, and mineral specimens--all carefully identified, catalogued, and shelved. It's a good thing that museums employ creative, poetic souls to depict what might have happened in the past.

Maybe the Calusa had some insight into the current global circumstance of diminishing returns...

maybe they had too many layers of onion to shed and never got to the center in time...or was their concept of man's development (evolution) not in line with what progressive thinkers had to say along the way?

I wonder what future generations will think of the styrofoam-plastic-food-container and cast-off-plaything "middens" we have created--the ones we call landfills?

I'm glad that the museum has something in place to take your mind off landfills, at least until early September. Entering the Butterfly Rainforest was like stepping into another dimension. Blue Morpho butterflies, not a common sight in Florida by any means--except artificial ones like enclosed rainforests--were not easy to capture in flight. I happened to find them occasionally at rest on some sort of succulent plant...

or high up in the branches, away from the throngs of people crowding the paths below.

I don't know the names of most of the butterflies that I managed to capture on our visit to the "rainforest." My Audubon Society guide only offers help for identifying North American species, and I'm too cheap to buy a guide for species I'll only see once or twice in a lifetime. Perhaps someone would be kind enough to identify them for me?

Whatever this orange butterfly with the fuzzy body is called, it seemed to be nearing the end of its life's work. Its wings were torn and tattered, and it rested on this leaf for a long time, not eating, not flying, not curious at all about the strange person closing in on it with a new kind of net.

I am glad that this kinetic piece, Jonathan Borofsky's sculpture of the Hammering Man was resting for the moment outside the museum. It actually stands between the Museum of Natural History and the Samuel P. Harn Art Museum on the UF campus. Secretly, I had hoped that SAM would suggest visiting the latter museum too, but I know better than to push my luck on a short visit to Gainesville. One museum at a time...