I live in tropical Southwest Florida and we are inundated with mosquitoes, locusts , love bugs, no-see-ums, and flies, I’m trying to honor all living beings, but I also want to kill these pests to protect my horses and myself from bites. I’m having a difficult time reconciling this conflict and hope you can help me learn how to honor and live with these animals, I’m also having trouble understanding how they can be sentient beings with souls. Randy Cisne Sensible Behavior It is natural to be bothered by insects biting or crawling on our bodies. An ant or fly’s bite or bee’s sting can swell and hurt for a long time.
Horses swish their tales or manes to keep flies off. Dogs snap at them. Elephants roll in the mud to coat their skin to protect from stinging or biting creatures. I jump startled in the night if an insect or spider crawls on me. I sweep or blow them off my body, trying not to hurt them.
As guardians, we have to protect our horses, dogs, cats, chickens, and other animals from flies, ticks, fleas, mites, etc. This involves repelling and sometimes killing them.
We can do what’s needed to care for human and other animal bodies and still have an attitude of honoring the insects or other creatures who are doing what they naturally do as part of the web of life.
Look a Little Closer What it takes to shift our consciousness that all forms of life are fellow sentient beings is looking a little closer and deeper.
Cicada with Kim Ogden-Avrutik Sit quietly with your feet on the ground, feeling your connection with other creatures through the earth. Feel their life like your life, busy and with purpose to fulfill your role on Earth through the design of your particular body. Feel one member of a group of insects and get to know them from the inside out, feeling the intention and rhythm of their life. My book, Animal Talk, has an exercise, “Meditation On Becoming An Animal,” of sharing the space of animals to really feel and think as they do. After doing the exercise, you may now understand why insects bite or sting. You may also be able to communicate with them about it, letting them know how you feel, and how you need to protect yourself and your animal friends. With a genuinely respectful attitude, you may find that you no longer have such a difficult time living with these animals. They may not bite or sting as much, either. You and they may come up with your own creative solutions to co-habiting that works for you.
In the quiet of your communion with insects, you may feel an honoring and even magical feeling of awe that you never felt before about the lives of our smaller friends on the Earth, feeling them as the “anima” or souls that they are. You can then practice flowing with this feeling about them as you live your daily life and see what new harmony arises in your relationships.
To help shift your way of relating to insects, spiders, and other smaller beings as kindred spirits, I highly recommend the book, The Voice of the Infinite in the Small by Joanne E. Hobbs. Further communication with insects and other small creatures may bring you deeper experiences in living with them. In a discussion on Facebook about communicating with spiders on June 3, 2020, Laurie Bentley shared her experience:
I've found that spiders are very receptive to my mind visualizations/communications. When I picture in my mind them crawling onto a piece of paper I'm holding up next to them, and then how things might look from their perspective if they were outside in a forest of grass in the sunshine, I've had several that crawl toward and onto the paper instead of running away from it. I used to be grossed out by spiders but since I've been putting them outside and seeing them respond to my mental requests, I think they're so cool now! I've had them crawl onto fly swatters for me too.
All Are Sacred To walk in a feeling of friendship and appreciation rather than with annoyance or enmity with the billions of smaller crawling, flying, hopping, and buzzing creatures who live with us on Earth is truly a blessing. By being willing to look closer and acknowledge their life and being as sacred, more magic may unfold.
Every Living Creature is equal. Every living creature, from the human to the animal to the plant is the equal manifestation of the Supreme Self… —Ramana Maharshi
Cicada with Kim Ogden-Avrutik