Killing through Carelessness
Dear friend,
The heat woke us and we were out in the garden watering the plants in preparation for the furnace of a day ahead. I was watering the oregano with the hose and carelessly caught a moth with a drop of water many times its own body weight.
The poor thing got stuck to an oregano leaf, its right wing folded over and glued there. I plucked the leaf, but the moth tumbled deeper into the wet oregano. It stuck to another leaf, which I was able to place in the sunlight and inspect the damage.
The wing was folded, and the creature was stuck—half flying, half falling, with little control or direction.
If it had been a snail and I’d stepped on it, I used to grit my teeth and give it as quick a death as possible. But I read online that snails not too badly injured can adapt, so now I’ll find them a moist place and leave them there if I can.
If it were me, and I had a chance, I’d want to be given it. So I left the moth to theirs.
I started reading about Alfred Adler’s psychology through The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, which is a great book. One of the rarer “self-help” titles that actually has the power to change you.
Highly recommended.
I was sitting in the shade with the book when I heard the scrabbling of claws on guttering. A raven was up on our neighbour’s roof, looking very thirsty. Still hurting for the moth, I got busy making a watering hole—rigging up some shade to keep the water cool, adding some rocks so birds or bees or butterflies could drink safely.
So far the only taker has been a white butterfly on a fly-by. But I imagine the creatures will be glad of the water when it gets dark. We don’t tend to have cats hiding out on account of the dogs that visit, so hopefully I’m not making a death trap for the birds.
It doesn’t make any sense not to try to be compassionate, even if we keep messing up—ourselves, or others. There’s a lifetime of joy and loss to be had in caring for the creatures of the Earth.
And for our shared Mother.
We’re in an entangled universe—related, whether we’re earthworm or sparrow or human -through being.
You can be kept so busy here, you can live for years without really feeling alive.
But when we give ourselves the space to breathe and be, we find life right in the beating heart at the centre of us, and there is no place to get to.
We’re already here—at home on a planet that is alive and conscious and whole.
The Earth will survive us.
The question is, what will we evolve into?
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey