Totem Animals: Slugs, Pelicans and Owls

"Illness isolates; the isolated become invisible; the invisible become forgotten. 

But the snail....the snail kept my spirit from evaporating." 

Slugs, Pelicans and Owls are my totem animals along with dogs and wolves. Dogs and wolves are the most obvious of totem animals and resonate most strongly with me. However, I have come to realize over the years that Owls, Pelicans and as crazy as it seems, Slugs - are all animals that speak to the hidden parts of my self.  

I came to appreciate the beauty of slugs through their kinship with snails. The summer I was studying in England I traveled to Cornwall and was stupefied by the number of snails that inhabit the farms and fields there. Snails by the thousands live nestled among grasses munching the day away. My first foray with snails occurred on a warm and early summer day many years ago. I was walking along a winding country road in Cornwall when a profusion of color caught my eye. Stuffed and studded along a hedgerow were tiny round shells in shades of green and yellow so bright in the morning light that I had to shield my eyes. As I moved in closer I could see their tiny antennae moving up and down; side to side. I couldn't figure out what was happening and then I realized there were hundreds of these little round shells with worm like creatures protruding, furiously eating up the blades of grass. I was overwhelmed by their beauty and tenacity, and as I look around I saw them everywhere. Hundreds of them all over the roads, shells crushed, half squashed. Some still trying to cross the roadways, gliding effortlessly across the pavement. I began scooping them up trying to save every little crushed creature I could. It was an impossible task so I gave up and let destiny take over.

Years later while on a camping trip to Frisco Woods I opened a chair and found that we had transported a tiny slug with us. I searched the campground for a new home for my little friend in the shade of a beach house, in the sand near a piling. When I told Chris hours later what I had done he said, "slugs can't live in the sand, they need soil and grass, it will die here." It was near dark and I was panicked that I would not be able to find my little slug. I ran to the house and there it was in the same location where I had left it hours before. I scooped it up and carried it back to the camp site. I found a small cylinder, stuffed it with grass, poked a few air holes and put my little slug inside. For three days I watched it, turned the cylinder around, peered inside my homemade slug kaleidescope to make sure no harm came to it. On the fourth day I brought it home and let it loose inside my garden. Most people I told this story to said I was crazy, that it would destroy my garden - but I didn't care. I saved the slug and it made me happy to do so. I love them, love to watch them slide across my front porch on rainy spring nights, aiming for the leftover catfood. They have immense appetites and will spread their entire bodies over enormous chunks of food, taking their time to ingest every morsel. 

Last year for Christmas I found the most amazing book for my mother in law entitled, "The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating." A small, charming book; not very lengthy. About a woman who develops an auto immune disorder and is forced to lie in bed for two years with no ability to prop herself up, read, watch tv or barely communicate. The only entertainment, joy, life line she had was a tiny snail transported to her via a wild violet. It is an amazing account of the day to day activities and habits of these lovely creatures.To date, she is the only person ever to have witnessed and recorded with such detail the life cycle and habits of snails. So on a  clear, cold Christmas eve I began the book and read it out loud to Chris in bed and finished on Christmas morning as chunks of snow fell outside our window.  I read it twice before I gave it as a gift. My mother in law, a behavioral scientist also fell in love with the book, read it twice and passed it on to her daughter who also read it twice. 

While I understand that for many people snails and slugs are a pest, a nuisance in their garden; they serve to remind me of patience and persistence. They live in my garden under mossy pots and eat my roses but the pleasure of watching them outweighs the loss of flowers. Watching them is like observing a microcosmic ballet where all the dancers glide and slide, leaving only a silvery thread trailing behind to mark their existence.

Next time - Totem Animals - Pelicans :)