The Ant Doctor & the Power of Community

#74 - I still can't believe what I watched happen on my kitchen counter

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.”
—Gary Snyder

Mother Nature works in mysterious ways, doesn't she? Her hypnotic dance is one of Life and Death. Of simultaneous thriving and struggling.

But neither you or I are meant to brave her forces completely alone, forever. There is safety in numbers, and we are meant to work as a team when necessary.

Yet Hue-Mans aren’t the only species on this planet supported by community. And sometimes when you zoom in, you’ll see things happen in tiny worlds you might normally step on, without even knowing.

And they’ll completely blow your mind as you watch in fascination.

Did I really just watch that happen?

Spring excites movement across The Prairie. The land sleeps peacefully during Winter, but as the ice thaws, it crawls back to life.

And recently, on my clean kitchen counter, I've been finding ants. First there were long trails of tiny workers, searching for food.

Then a few days later, I started to see giant ants scurrying around, alone or in small groups, mapping newly discovered territory.

Over the years, I've come to a place where I don't personally like to kill bugs with fearful intention. Sure, some of them still startle me, and I don't want to live with them, but I'd rather re-locate them to a bush in my yard without ending their lives.

That is, I should say, unless they’re ticks. I do kill ticks, but only ever after they throw the first punch.

So I thought about how I could get rid of the delicate ants in my kitchen without killing them, and decided to use a glass cup like I would with a menacing looking spider. You know, the kind you don’t blow a kiss to while leaving it to eat other bugs in your house.

One large ant made its way across the counter, and I placed my small glass cup down over it.

In my mind I told it to run onto the wall of the glass so I could transport it outside. Yet, the ant froze, and started frantically looking around, sensing it was trapped.

A subtle feeling emerged as I tuned further in. I could sense the ant’s energy, feeling its sudden fear. And after a moment of thinking, it ran right into the wall of the glass, trying to force its way out of captivity.

But in the process it crinkled one of its left legs, and immediately fell down to its belly, shaking rigorously.

I stood there in awe in my kitchen, just having watched an extremely large ant cripple itself while I was trying to gently re-locate it to a safer environment.

I was trying to help the little one, not to hurt it. Yet I didn't know what to do for the delicate creature after what had just happened.

I felt it suffering, and crying out for help as it writhed around on the counter, and my first thought was that I was going to have to end its life.

“This lil guy is so scared. Dang, I can feel it. I don’t want him to suffer”, I thought to myself.

But as I glanced around the kitchen, I spotted another ant of the same size, making its way across the shelf over my sink. So I quickly dropped the cup over it, praying it would climb on. And it did.

It ran up the wall of the glass and hung on, so I placed the inverted cup back down over the injured ant on the counter. My hope was the healthy one could help the injured one, and yet somehow I still could not believe what I witnessed next.

The healthy ant almost immediately became aware of the distressed ant below it, and quickly descended down the glass to help.

I watched in fascination, and could tell the two were communicating, but I heard no sounds at all. They were in their own dimension, their own little world, and I observed from mine.

I felt the helper calmly assess the situation. It let the injured ant know it wasn’t going to abandon it there.

The helper tried to push the injured ant up, but it resisted and struggled.

So the helper then moved over to the other side of the ant and tried to pull it, but it felt as if the injured ant was crying out that it hurt to much to be moved.

There it remained, quivering, in the same spot it fell.

But the helper ant would not take no for an answer. So it walked back over to the injured leg, and grabbed onto it near the tip. Pulling it outward, and back into its natural position, it then let go and backed up a step.

I stood with my mouth gaped, in awe at what I had just witnessed, as a sense of relief washed over me.

"I really just watched an ant re-set the leg of another ant", I quizzically remarked. "That was the highlight of my week."

The two stayed next to each other for a few more moments, and appeared to be having a post-surgery conversation. The frantic energy I had been feeling from the injured ant calmed, and it stopped shaking right after its leg was popped back into place.

And only a moment later, the helper ant scurried away, towards the far end of the counter, and then disappeared over the far side. Its job was done.

I turned my focus back to the dazed ant who still sat motionless, and I wondered what would happen next.

For one minute, it laid still and twitched its antennae around as if it was regathering its senses. And then, just like that, it stood up, and ran off to further explore the countertop, with a strong gate.

But that’s not even the wildest part…

A few minutes after witnessing the ant surgery miracle, one of my friends knocked on my back door to deliver some bread.

When she came inside, she looked down and saw the newly repaired ant running around on the counter. And she instinctively extended her thumb downward to smush it, saying, “dude, you’ve got ANTS!”

“NOOOO—DO NOT KILL THAT ANT”, I exclaimed in response.

Her eyes shot wide open, startled, and she stepped back while lowering her hand.

“Whoa, I’m sorry. I remember you saying you don’t like to kill bugs”, she said. “It’s just my instinct!”

“No, it’s totally my bad”, I replied. “I didn’t mean to get so amped up just now. But, you have no idea what I just witnessed happen with that ant and one of its friends.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I just watched an ant perform surgery on another ant. And that one, right there, was the patient. Trust me, that ant is supposed to live.”

“Ha, dude, you crack me up”, she replied.

Everyone needs an extra hand sometimes

While you and I are Hue-Mans, and those ants are tiny little creatures, their display of Hue-Manity reminds of our connectedness.

Nature is a web of systems, categorized into hierarchies of being. It offers multiple dimensions of living experience in a shared space where every being contributes to the whole.

You and I live in a different dimension than those ants. A different world of experience. Yet, we share the same planet.

Think about what the ant world must be like? It’s one of the many worlds contained within the nest of ours.

How do ants sense the world around them? What do they eat? Where do they sleep? What does their community feel like to be part of?

The core experiences of their lives seem to be similar to ours. To survive, to have shelter, and to be part of a community.

And though we are an inseparable piece of our Mother's Natural Systems, Modern Hue-Manity is full of unnatural stressors which isolate individuals to help us forget this.

But Interdimensional Observers witness the power of community extending well beyond Hue-Manity. They see it everywhere, and it helps them understand their meaningful connection within the Grand Web of Life.

And you, my dear friend, are here reading this now because you’re tuned in. So I thank you for being you. And for being a witness of the extraordinary wonders this Life offers.

See you out there,

Oh, and P.S… Facebook still sometimes delivers useful information.