The other day, I was in the garden and came upon a slug. So I did as I normally do, which is to conscientiously remove it and place in my organics bin.
Feeling the slug in my hand, I took a moment to examine it and to spend some time with it. Because as much as slugs eat the food I want to eat, they are a necessary component of the ecosystem that enables me to have food to eat. And so, I took the time to look closely at its colouring and behaviour, and to recognize my gratitude for its presence in the garden.
Then as I placed the slug into the organics bin, along with all the other cuttings and trimmings that I chose to remove from the ecosystem of the yard, a thought crossed my mind. Perhaps this moment of my picking up the slug was so unique and peculiar to everything else the slug has experienced that this was a transcendental moment for it.
When I touched the slug, pulled it from its knowing of the soil, the vegetation, the moisture, and then held in my hand along with my careful observation and my genuine feelings of gratitude, the slug was Of a moment that was so shockingly different and disorienting that it could not fully digest and assess it as per its understood everyday living. Yet it will be affected by the moment for the remainder of its existence - nothing it has known before will be the same.
And then I thought, could this moment not be the same for me?
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