Thank you ants, and thank you caucus99
Submitted by janis b on Wed, 04/27/2016 - 12:23am
I just watched two ants quickly pass each other in opposite directions (intent on wherever they were headed), wondering whether they greeted each other as they passed. As they travelled down the road of a corrugated length of decking, I wondered whether what we've lost as a culture, is the ability to both live with intention, and communicate with love along the way.
Thank you to all here, who do just that.
Comments
In the end
that's why we are here.
"If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back" - Regina Brett
Thank you Muddy Boots
for a lovely first comment to my first essay here.
I don't know about you, but I find it touching coming from you. We share in common, that we are living in the other's birth place.
It won't be long before those boots become muddy, hopefully. As you probably know it's been unusually warm and dry.
Thank you Muddy Boots
for a lovely first comment to my first essay here.
I don't know about you, but I find it touching coming from you. We share in common, that we are living in the other's birth place.
I could watch ants all day.
I could watch ants all day. Not long ago, I was sitting outside when I spotted an ant trying to get from point A to point B. From my perspective, he sure was taking the hard way - up and over and around and through a maze of grass and sticks. From where I sat, it seemed obvious that if he moved just millimeters to the left he could walk on smooth pavement. I thought about using a blade of grass to scootch him over but sometimes when I think I'm helping I'm actually making things worse, so I just watched. And soon I discovered that the little guy knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going. From my human perspective, the ant was wasting time and over working himself. But he was just being an ant. And that's ok.
Another ant story? I used to live in an apartment complex and one day my neighbor noticed a huge ant bed on our shared patio. Not being an ant-lover, he immediately drowned the bed in vinegar. After it dried I went to check on the bed and noticed that the ants who had survived where pulling their seemingly-dead ant brothers out of the rubble. These little guys were dragging bodies all over the place. And then some of the "dead" ants started moving again. If ants had CNN, the headline would have been "Hundreds of Survivors in Vicious Vinegar Attack." So I hopped on google to see if this ant resurrection is a known thing. It is.
Now I don't know if ants love each other and I often doubt humans do, but I know we could learn a lot from our brothers and sisters in nature. We're often in a hurry when there is no need. We tend to think our perspective is the reality. And just, when we think all hope is lost, quite often some small courageous soul will step up and help us out with our troubles. Great lessons from tiny little creatures.
A video
One more thing...have you ever watched any of The Pinky Show videos? http://www.pinkyshow.org/projectarchives/videos/ant-appeal-please-respec...
Watched this one years ago but it stuck with me.
Here I was,
thinking, that I was mistakenly projecting my human thoughts on to ants; when in reality we are thinking of each other. At first, because they passed by each other so quickly (without a pause in their step) I thought “wow, they’re so determined they didn’t even take a second to acknowledge each other”. My next thought was, “you don’t know that janis, because you have no idea how they communicate”.
Thank you for contributing to the mutual understanding between ants and us. And for introducing me to Pinky’s ant farm.