On a beautiful spring day after a light rain, I decided to take a walk and noticed that snails were everywhere! There were so many on the sidewalk that I had to watch where I was walking for fear I might step on one.
I’ve had a fondness and curiosity about these creatures since my childhood. However my grandmother was always trying to kill them and the slugs in her garden with salt. What a horrible way to go…drying up to death! My compassion for these helpless creatures compelled me to rescue the snails and slugs from death by salt and or my relatives’ shoes! Squashing bugs was very disturbing to me.
But I have always found them to be strange and wonderful, with their antennae outstretched and feeling about as they travel along. Their antennae make them look like aliens from those old 1950’s movie posters or something.
As a child, I had a strange fascination with insects and liked to watch them, learn what they eat, what they do, learn about their life cycles. I even had a pet grasshopper, which I took very good care of but the poor thing lived its whole short little life in captivity. I feel bad about that now. My family teased me about this and I can recall hearing, “Why can’t you play with dolls?” Bugs were my thing! (I liked all of the creatures.)
I must say that in all of my studies during my bug phase, I hadn’t learned about the disturbing dark side of snails… until that rainy day. While walking along, I stopped to observe one snail while it was eating something, only to discover it was sucking the juices out of another smooched one. I didn’t know they could be cannibals! That was a gross discovery but later I observed another one very cutely eating moss between the cracks of pavers, grazing like a cow eating grass. That is the snail I used to know of. (“Snails on Succulents” painting-gallery)
Nature with its creatures large and small, are so interesting but we are often so busy in our daily lives and even while taking a walk, we are texting or talking on our cellphones. As a society we are becoming so unaware of and detached from nature that all of the beauty large and small is often unnoticed. When I take walks outdoors, I often like to put my phone on silent mode and allow myself a break, to take in my surroundings. Being present in the moment and tuning into the world around us, especially connecting with nature is extremely cathartic. Such a small thing can make such a great difference in our whole being: a sense of well-being, peacefulness and calmness. I think from time to time, it is wonderful to unplug from electronics and allow ourselves to just be.
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