I had flipped back my insulated Hot Tub cover on my outside hot tub and was faced with a quandary. Most of you not having given Ahimsa Vows in the early 80s like I did to not kill anything (which was one of the best things I ever did in my life by the way) was having me puzzled as to how to deal with this quandary.
The quandary I faced was that while I was gone from my hot tub for 2 days somehow little sugar ants had moved into my insulated hot tub cover and I wondered how I should handle this.
But then, I thought of Thoreau's battle of the ants which is interesting reading if you were never forced to read this for High School English class like I was.
Today, it made me think (the ants in my hot tub cover moving their eggs around) about how everything in life is multiple use. For example, it made me think how animals minding their own business (literally anywhere they live in the U.S. or world) often become road kill because they don't know the rules of the road because they are not taught like human beings to even know what a road is and so often are victims of their ignorance and dead along the road especially as young ones.
But, it also made me think about Earth in how we think it is ours as humans not realizing the millions of years it was here before we were and who thought they owned it then or now? Galaxy wide?
So, as I moved the cover completely off the hot tub I thought about all these things as was grateful to the universe and God for sharing this wisdom with me today.
I moved the cover off so they wouldn't accidentally fall into the water and drown.
However, it doesn't mean my wife and our housekeeper have taken Ahimsa vows too because they haven't. It just means I try to save the life of all creatures on earth that I can when they are in my jurisdiction (home space).
I personally find mosquitos and black widow spiders the hardest to deal with so I usually dispatch both. But, I usually keep one daddy longlegs spider in our bedroom or bathroom because they cannot pierce human skin because their jaws aren't big enough. But, simultaneously they are the most poisonous spider on earth.
I have often realized that humans would be extinct likely now if daddy Long leg spiders could bit through human skin and kill us but they can't. So, i use them to kill all the other spiders in our house so I don't have to put them all outside which I will do one by one as they let me. However, if a spider won't let me put it outside or bites my wife or I they are dispatched too.
Ahimsa is about practicality, you save all the lives of creatures you can and still stay alive yourself. IT's a practical way to the ecological survival of our planet and ALL it's species.
Walden - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden
Walden is a book by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon .... Thoreau's interaction with a mouse that he lives with, the scene in which an ant battles a smaller ant, and his frequent encounters with cats.
Author: Henry David Thoreau
Published: August 9, 1854 (Ticknor and Fields: ...
Original title: Walden; or, Life in the Woods
Genre: Memoir
begin quote from:
Thoreau's 'Walden': 'The Battle of the Ants' - ThoughtCo
https://www.thoughtco.com › ... › English Grammar › Readings & Resources
Sep 26, 2017 - Revered by many readers as the father of American nature writing, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) characterized himself as "a mystic, ...
Missing: treatise
[PDF]The Battle of the Ants Henry David Thoreau One day when I went out ...
www.public.iastate.edu/~bccorey/105%20Folder/Battle%20of%20the%20Ants.pdf
Missing: treatise
Thoreau's 'Walden': 'The Battle of the Ants'
Classic From America's Preeminent Nature Writer
/getty_thoreau-463976653-56af9af55f9b58b7d01afad0.jpg)
/left_rail_image_languages-58a22da068a0972917bfb5ba.png)
Revered by many readers as the father of American nature
writing, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) characterized himself as "a
mystic, a transcendentalist and a natural philosopher to boot." His one
masterpiece, "Walden," came out of a two-year experiment in simple
economy and creative leisure conducted in a self-made cabin near Walden
Pond. Thoreau grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, now part of the Boston
metropolitan area, and Walden Pond is near Concord.
This excerpt from Chapter 12 of "Walden," developed with historical allusions and an understated analogy, conveys Thoreau's unsentimental view of nature.
You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.
I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another.
Originally published by Ticknor & Fields in 1854, "Walden, or Life in the Woods " by Henry David Thoreau is available in many editions, including "Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition," edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer (2004).
Thoreau and Emerson
Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, also from Concord, became friends around 1840, after Thoreau had finished college, and it was Emerson who introduced Thoreau to transcendentalism and acted as his mentor. Thoreau built a small house on Walden Pond in 1845 on land owned by Emerson, and he spent two years there, immersed in philosophy and beginning to write what would be his masterpiece and legacy, "Walden," which was published in 1854.Thoreau's Style
In the introduction to "The Norton Book of Nature Writing" (1990), editors John Elder and Robert Finch observe that "Thoreau's supremely self-conscious style has kept him continuously available to readers who no longer draw a confident distinction between humanity and the rest of the world, and who would find a simpler worship of nature both archaic and incredible."This excerpt from Chapter 12 of "Walden," developed with historical allusions and an understated analogy, conveys Thoreau's unsentimental view of nature.
'The Battle of the Ants'
From Chapter 12 of "Walden, or Life in the Woods" (1854) by Henry David ThoreauYou only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.
I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another.
Having once got hold they never let go,
but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking
farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such
combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a
war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black,
and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these
Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the
ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black.
It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only
battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war;
the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the
other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any
noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely.
I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in a
little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight
till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had
fastened himself like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all
the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one
of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by
the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side,
and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of
his members.
They fought with more pertinacity than
bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was
evident that their battle-cry was "Conquer or die." In the meanwhile
there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley,
evidently full of excitement, who either had dispatched his foe, or had
not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost
none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his
shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished
his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He
saw this unequal combat from afar--for the blacks were nearly twice the
size of the red--he drew near with rapid pace till be stood on his guard
within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity,
he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the
root of his right foreleg, leaving the foe to select among his own
members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of
attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to
shame.
I should not have wondered by this time
to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some
eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the
slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even
as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the
difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord
history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a
moment's comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or
for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage
it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the
patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here every ant was a
Buttrick--"Fire! for God's sake fire!"--and thousands shared the fate of
Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have no doubt
that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and
not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this
battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as
those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.
I took up the chip
on which the three I have particularly described were struggling,
carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my
window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the
first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing
at the near foreleg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler,
his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to
the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too
thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes
shone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They struggled half
an hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black
soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and the
still living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly
trophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever,
and he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and
with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds,
to divest himself of them, which at length, after half an hour more, he
accomplished.
I raised the glass, and he went off
over the window-sill in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived
that combat, and spent the remainder of his days in some Hôtel des
Invalides, I do not know; but I thought that his industry would not be
worth much thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor
the cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had
had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle,
the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door.
Kirby
and Spence tell us that the battles of ants have long been celebrated
and the date of them recorded, though they say that Huber is the only
modern author who appears to have witnessed them. "Aeneas Sylvius," say
they, "after giving a very circumstantial account of one contested with
great obstinacy by a great and small species on the trunk of a pear
tree," adds that "this action was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius
the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer,
who related the whole history of the battle with the greatest
fidelity." A similar engagement between great and small ants is recorded
by Olaus Magnus, in which the small ones, being victorious, are said to
have buried the bodies of their own soldiers, but left those of their
giant enemies a prey to the birds. This event happened previous to the
expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden." The battle
which I witnessed took place in the Presidency of Polk, five years
before the passage of Webster's Fugitive-Slave Bill.Originally published by Ticknor & Fields in 1854, "Walden, or Life in the Woods " by Henry David Thoreau is available in many editions, including "Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition," edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer (2004).
No comments:
Post a Comment