Impressions from the Forest: The Snail Family

My husband and I have been listening to lectures by Anthony de Mello, a spiritual teacher and psychotherapist from the former century. One of his teachings is to commune with nature in order to be able to observe the wonders of creation. Watching nature shows us how insignificant we are in the vast universe. And if we are insignificant, so are our worries and other emotions. My husband and I have done nature walks for as long as we can remember, but newly we pause now and then to observe something interesting on the way.

Once we spotted a little gray snail climbing up a branch of a low bush. Of course, we did not see it move, for snails move too slowly for the very motion to be noticed. The snail was turned up the branch, that is why we thought it moved upwards. It carried such a cute little pale brown snail house. And it kept stretching his minute tentacles on its head. It seemed amazing how a fragile creature like a snail can even survive the dangerous world we live in. The house is no protection either. I am sure you must have stepped on a snail before. The house crushes miserably.

Soon we noticed two more snails a bit lower on the same branch. They were also headed upwards. They were bigger than the upper one and naturally carried larger houses. All of a sudden, the three snails seemed like a family. Mother and father had let the young one climb further up and had allowed it to explore the world and learn from it. Of course this is pure fantasy. Snails have no families. Most land snails are hermaphrodites: both male and female within one individual. They do mate, but they do not really take care of their young.

The whole concept of a snail family is only a fabrication of my imagination. This shows clearly how our concepts obscure and change our perception of reality. Anthony de Mello urges us to go beyond concepts and just observe like a little child observes everything and makes its parents crazy, because the walk keeps being stalled

Take care,

Helena Smole, author of:

– a fantasy novel with romance Vivvy and Izzy the Dwarf: A series about relationships

– Balancing the Beast, a book offering a bright view of schizoaffective disorder ˗ bipolar or manic-depressive type