Of Slugs and Slime and Snails

The 20th-century naturalist Gerald Durrell wrote that one of his earliest recollections as a child was of when he and his caretaker were walking along a dirt road in India.  The earthen road was wet from rain.  As he explains, he saw "two huge khaki-colored slugs brought out by the rain.... I remember squatting down and watching them, enraptured, seeing them slide over the earth without any legs to propel them.... To me, they were not only fascinating but, in their own way, as pretty as [an Indian woman] in her beautiful sari."

Durrell's adult caretaker was alarmed, pulling Durrell away from the "filthy" things. Understandably, even though it aids their locomotion, the sliminess of slugs and snails can be a turnoff to us.  But if we are self-reflective, I think we might conclude that such a repugnance comes from a natural concern about mucous discharged from our own bodies.  We should not blame the little animals for that.

Although both slugs and snail are in the same class of gastropods (having a single foot-pad beneath them for locomotion), snails have an edge on engaging practically-minded adults.  Snails, besides being candidates as food (which we delicately call "escargot"), have aesthetically pleasing spiral shells, sometimes used for jewelry.

sea slugs ("nudibranches")

Meanwhile, as we humans eat our escargot and make jewelry, in the deep ocean, cousins of the land-species live their own ocean lives.  The parallel to our land slugs are called either sea slugs or nudibranches, some of which are highly colorful.  Those marine slugs and snails speak of the ancestry of gastropods going back half a billion years.

Although in our everyday life we usually encounter a lone garden snail or garden slug here or there, some species can live in great concentrations in their usually hidden world.  I remember a biology teacher on a field trip probing into the continually damp ground on a river embankment. He wanted to show us what he thought might be the greatest concentration of snail's possible -- tiny ones, less than 1/4-inch in diameter, crowded "shoulder to shoulder," if it could be said that snails have shoulders.

Am I the only child who, when first seeing a slug, thought that it must be a snail that had somehow lost its shell? Am I the only child who felt a concern for the slug, which looked terribly vulnerable without a protective "house" on its back into which it could retreat for safety?  I cannot believe I am the only child who had such thoughts.

Placing that childhood recollection of mine beside Durrell's childhood recollection, I see similarities in the caring about something and in the finding something to be wondrous.  My caring, and Durrell's wonder.  Both having an element of child-fullness.  Maybe wonder, like caring, comes more from the heart than from the head.

~~~

Do you have any childhood or adult recollections of slugs or snails?  What are they?

(The Durrell quote is from The Amateur Naturalist by Gerald Durrell, © 1982.  p. 9.)

(Photo of blue nudibranches is by Alexander R. Jenner; that of the brown slug by Guttorm Flatabø [user:dittaeva].

Both are used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike licenses.)

A Dog Named Polly

Neither Charles Darwin nor his dog Polly made it to the cemetery of the St. Mary's churchyard, which was where Darwin had wanted to be buried.  St. Mary's was a centuries-old flint-stone church in the village where he had lived most of his life.  But Charles Darwin did not get his way because people outside his family intervened, convincing his family that his scientific legacy called for his being buried in Westminster Abbey, where scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton, and poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer had been laid to rest centuries before.

With Darwin's burial at Westminster, it was not just a scientist who was laid to rest, but also a veteran dog-lover.  When Charles's future wife Emma was being courted by Charles, one thing that attracted her was the kindness he demonstrated toward dogs and other animals.  During the course of his lifetime, Charles had a dozen different dogs.

Charles's daughter
 Henrietta
with Polly

The last of those dogs, and Charles's favorite, was Polly, a terrier.  She had originally been given to one of Darwin's daughters, Henrietta, but when Henrietta married and moved away, her dog remained behind with the family. Polly would usually accompany Charles on his daily walks on a sandy path around the grounds of the home.  And when he spent hours in his study doing scientific research or recuperating from illness, Polly would often be found nearby, resting on her dog-bed.  Charles's son Francis recalled that his father "was delightfully tender to Polly, and never showed any impatience at the attention she required."

drawing of Polly from
"The Expression of the Emotions"

As with other animals Charles encountered, Polly also became an object for Darwin's scientific observation. (Even Charles and Emma's children could not escape his scientific interest in human and animal behavior.) Darwin's aim was to find similarities between not only the anatomy of humans and animals but also between their bodily behavior and facial expressions -- similarities that would be additional evidence of common ancestry. That decades-long project of Darwin reached its apex in one of the later books of his career, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.  That book contained a drawing of Polly, poised, pointing, with one front paw in the air.  The engraving was titled, "Small dog watching a cat on a table."

Polly, the pet who had become most deeply engraved in the affections of Charles Darwin's heart, died less than a month after he passed away.  Polly was buried under the apple tree near the Darwin home.  Being a dog, she would not really have been a candidate for burial in the graveyard of St. Mary's church, the place where Darwin also did not manage to be buried. And yet, then as now, pets were free of the complexities regarding cemetery plots, burial permissions, death certificates, and wills that can make human life complicated.  Nevertheless, Polly, being a pet, had helped Darwin make the case for his theory of evolution.  By including examples of the behavior of dogs, he had taken advantage of the similarities many readers had already observed between themselves and their pets -- animals with which they also had an emotional kinship.

~~~

Do you have a fond recollection of a particular dog?  What was the dog like?

(The quote by Charles Darwin's son Francis is from his "Reminiscences" in

 Selected Letters and Evolution of Origin of Species, ed. Francis Darwin, © 1892, 1958.  p. 74.)

(The drawing of Polly is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.)

Light from the Woods

Anyone who has seen a play by Anton Chekhov may well have felt that the characters were living in a locked room. Not a locked room of a murder-mystery, in which one of the characters must be the murderer.  Instead, a psychologically locked room, in which Chekhov's characters voice their failed dreams, never achieved projects, and unfulfilled desires.  In one play in particular, however, Uncle Vanya, a beautiful green illumination occasionally shines into the psychologically somber atmosphere.  It is the emerald light of a forest.  And it tells us something about Nature and the human spirit.

Twice in the play, the light glimmers through the voice of Dr. Astrov, a physician who every year has planted new forests.  Some of his lines seem to display remarkable foreknowledge of our current environmental challenges, especially given that the play was published in 1897.  For example, in Act I:

"The forests diminish year after year, rivers dry up,

 wildlife is coming to an end, the climate is spoiled...."

Astrov is able to express the beauty of forests, but only a very personal and individual way:

"When I plant a young birch and then see its leaves turn green

 and the way it sways in the wind, my soul is filled with pride...."

When he describes the human relationship to the forests in more communal terms, he is able to describe it only in a distancing or critical way because he is discouraged.  He quickly bores his distracted listener in Act III when he lays out on a table his series of maps charting the receding size of the forests over many years.  Also, his depiction of any combined life of humans and forests is only grim:

"What we have here is a degeneration, the result of a downhill struggle for existence....

 And so [man] destroys everything and never thinks about tomorrow...."

Thus, even though Astrov has nobly devoted much time and money to trying to sustain the forest, he cannot sustain a vision that will inspire other people.  Nevertheless, the green illumination that merely glimmers through him flares more brightly through another character, Sonya.  This is partly because she loves Astrov, but also because she is able to feel more loving toward all people. She is able to tenderly express a beautiful vision of how Astrov's reforestation work can be transformative:

"He says that the forests glorify our earth,

 they teach a person the meaning of beauty and kindle a spirit of majesty.

 The forests make the climate less severe.  In countries where the climate is mild,

 less energy is spent in the struggle with nature, and so there we find a gentler,

 more understanding person.  There too people are beautiful, pliant, and responsive;

their speech is elegant, and their movements are graceful."

Anton Chekhov

What does the playwright Chekhov himself think about these matters?  We have a solid clue in that he gives to Sonya the final words in the play -- the most beautiful and loving speech in the entire play.  We also have a more subtle clue in that the name "Sonya" is a Russian variant of the name "Sophia," which means Wisdom.

~~~

Do you know someone in whom the love of nature shines? Can you describe their spirit?

(The quotations from Uncle Vanya  by Anton Chekhov,

are from Anton Chekhov's Plays, translated by Eugene K. Bristow, © 1977.)

(A most accessible adaptation of the play is the movie version Vanya on 42nd Street.)

An Imaginary Island

In order to cultivate analytical thinking, philosophy teachers seem adept at devising situations we will never encounter.  (Such as:  "If you and two other people were adrift in a boat with no drinking water or food, but then one of those people died, would it be immoral to eat the body of the dead person?")

Despite the contrived nature of such thought-puzzles, there is one imaginary situation that still seems to evoke interest, even among non-philosophers.  It is the scenario of being stranded alone on an island.  I think that scenario engages our interest because it does not simply ask an ethical puzzle but asks us what we like most:  What would you want to have with you if you were marooned on an island?

My slim "Dover Thrift" book entitled Books and Reading: A Book of Quotations tells me that G. K. Chesterton was once asked what book he would want to have if he were stranded on an island.  The Bible?  A volume of Shakespeare?  No, Chesterton, replied he'd want to have a guide to shipbuilding.

It is a cleverly humorous reply.  But I think it ultimately evades the point of the "island question."  Namely, the question of what book is of most enduring value to you.  Surely Chesterton, if not on an island, would not want a book on shipbuilding to be his only available reading for the remainder of his life.

The "island question" does not, however, have to be asked or answered in terms of literal books.  The medieval theologian Meister Eckhart wrote:

"If I were alone in a desert and feeling afraid,
 I would want a child to be with me.

 For then my fear would disappear
 and I would be made strong.

 This is what life in itself can do because it is so noble, so full of pleasure and so powerful.

 But if I could not have a child with me
 I would like to have

 at least a living animal at my side to comfort me."

Meister Eckhart chose from the world's library a different kind of "book."  He chose what Christian tradition has called "the Book of Nature."  It has been considered to be a "book" so valuable that it can even be viewed as a window into God.

Meister Eckhart gave a different kind of answer to the "island question" because he looked deeply into himself, asking what was his most enduring need, not just what would be a quick fix to get out of the desert (or get off the island).  Interestingly, in looking into himself, Eckhart found that his need for belonging could be filled with the companionship of forms of life that were in some way different from himself:  A child.  Or an animal.

~~~

If you were marooned on an island, what things in Nature would you like to have around to comfort you?

(The Eckhart quote can be found in the theologian

Sallie McFague's book The Body of God, © 1993, p. 98.)

A Shawl Wrapped All Around

One of the first things I was taught about God (even before I entered elementary school) was that God loves me and everybody else.  Another of the earliest things I was taught about God (just as early in my life) was that God is everywhere.  I still hold to these two basic principles, even though I admit to the complexity of using that word "God."

But how can I ever imagine that God is everywhere?  (Especially when I have been cautioned against elevating anything in the world into a god, an idol.)  How can I ever imagine that anything is everywhere?

For me, growing up as a child, it was the sky that helped me envision how God could be everywhere at once.  God was invisible, but the sky, which I could see, expressed a kind of "everywhere."  When I stood outside and looked up and around me, the sky seemed to surround everything on the Earth.  As I scanned the sky and guided my sight back down to the Earth, the sky seemed to wrap around the edge of the Earth at the horizon, no matter which direction I was facing.

Today, I know of an open, inclusive church that has in its mission statement in the worship bulletin the phrase "God's all-encompassing love."  Even though I myself struggle with how anybody could actually love every person on this planet (so ornery do we humans often become), I do have a sense of what "all-encompassing" is.  I learned my sense of that from the over-arching, all-surrounding sky I could see when I was a child.

There was a second way, as a child, that the sky gave me a visual experience of "everywhere." For, after all, church-school had also reassured me that this God who loves me is with me no matter where I go.  I got a sense of "no-matter-where-I-go" by watching the sky as I rode in the car at night.  You can experience this yourself the next time you are riding in a vehicle at night (with someone else safely driving).  Look out the side window and notice how the objects here on Earth zip by.  A parked car flashes past the side window of your vehicle.  And there's a tree a little further away from the road, so it moves less quickly -- but even it first comes into view and then is gone!  That's how everything in life is:  Things come, and things go.

But now notice, in contrast, the moon or stars up in the sky.  Notice how they seem to travel with the vehicle you are in as it travels.  Just like God.

My high-school English teacher taught me not to mix metaphors.  But religion loves using multiple metaphors, and so I'm now going to do so.  I'm going to mix metaphors because I think this metaphor of the heavens wrapping all around us resonates with another metaphor used a few times in the Bible (such as Psalm 61:4 & Matthew 23:37).  Namely, the metaphor of God being like a caring mother bird sheltering her tiny chicks under her protective wings. We are like God's chicks.

~~~

Have you ever tried to imagine God "everywhere"?  How?