Dearest Fellow Earthling,
How are you today? My life continues to be a swirl of activity, but I am finding a little time and space here and there to take quiet walks, and some of my swirls are slowing. In this Coming to Ground offering, I want to share the slow and quiet grace of the creature we call “Snail” with you. This piece contains a little less about scientific ecology and more about poetic and personal kinship with a kind of creature.
I’ll begin by offering a glimpse into a book I’ve been reading about one particular snail, and then share a few of my own experiences with snails, some with children and some on my own. I’ll end with a poem, very simply titled, Snail, that reveals my own sense of kinship with this creature. I hope that you will find these words to be an invitation to connect with your own “inner snail,” or to discover your own kindred creature that invites you into a space you need to be.
If this work moves you, please consider clicking the heart at the end. And if you feel inclined, I would love to read your response to this piece—please share in the comments section!
Something to Read
For the past few weeks, I’ve been reading The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey1, a book that came to life out of the author’s experience of carefully observing a forest snail during her convalescence after suddenly becoming incapacitated by a grave and chronic illness. Her malady was so debilitating that she was able to only lie quietly in bed, day after day, for a year. The snail came to her bedside as a visitor in a friend’s gift of a potted violet, and eventually became a very welcome long-term companion on her slow path of healing.
This gentle book is not very long and could be a quick read, but I’ve been reading it at a snail-slow pace, a few pages at a time, during rare moments of stillness in my currently very busy life. A perfect book for me right now, as it is quiet and easy, but deep enough to weather some re-reading because of the drowsiness that overtakes me whenever I stop moving for a bit, and the length of time that now passes between my opportunities to actually sit and read.
One of the beautiful things about reading this book is the way the reader can become a witness to the tenderness that Bailey expresses for the little being at her bedside. She cares for it in the midst of her own suffering. Her relationship with the snail enlivens her, and she is moved by the agency it demonstrates in its own life at a time when her own agency is compromised. This inspires her to learn more about the snail’s patterns of being. She spends a great deal of time observing it, reading old natural histories about snails, and pulling out the gems from those old texts and sharing them as she tells her story. The book is full of gentle wonder.
In her time of illness, she lives life in slow motion, and as she watches the snail, she finds it to be a wonderful, soothing presence. On page 41, of the book the author wrote this about her companion: “Its curiosity and grace pulled me further into its peaceful and solitary world.” In that world she found a kindred connection and healing rest.
Adventures with Snails
Nobody would ever want to have their survival challenged by the sudden onset of a mysterious and debilitating illness, but all of us benefit from peaceful moments of rest. The desire for connection with other kinds of life is knitted into every one of us: bodily, psychologically, socially and spiritually. This innate desire for connection to the living and to places that directly reveal the wonder of life to us, is there in the depth of our souls. Biologist E. O. Wilson named this natural yearning to connect, “biophilia.”2
For a few consecutive years, until the USDA banned science supply companies from shipping them for educational purposes, garden snails were wonderful teachers in my science classroom of 7- and 8-year-olds—a sweet, biophilic connection with another creature for the kids. I remember my young students learning in wonder about these small, silent creatures, and how the energy of the classroom became quieter and more focused as the kids watched and interacted with the slowly moving snails in their care.
They learned to gently awaken them with by tickling their bellies and simulating a light rain by misting them with a little spray bottle of fresh water. The first time a child saw one of those small creatures slowly emerge out of its shell as they held it was a moment of great wonder and excitement. Exclamations of amazement erupted as they witnessed the four tentacles on its emerging head unfurl and begin to wave around, and then noticed the tiny black eyespots on the tips of the long upper pair.
They were fascinated with the way the snail ate by scraping its toothy tongue, called a radula, across the surface of a piece of fresh lettuce, leaving tiny rectangular openings on the leaf. They enjoyed making a variety of shelters and obstacle courses, and then would stand back to observe how the snail interacted with its surroundings, noticing that it could sense light and dark, moist and dry and would find its way to a place it liked the best. They were learning intimately about the life of a creature that was very different from them, but whom they began to understand as a new kind of person in its own right.
Snail as a Guide
I have always loved snails. Over time I’ve come to feel that the snail is a kind of guide or teacher for me. I often yearn for silence and solitude; to feel more centered within a quiet presence that I believe resides within each of us, and when I see a snail moving slowly and sensitively through the world, or curled safely within its spiral shell, taking rest, I am drawn to it. It reminds me of that silence within and of my own need for rest that I can so carelessly ignore when I’m bustling through overfull days.
Once in a great while, I might find a snail and build a little moist and mossy habitat with a sampling of dead leaves for them to dwell in for a little while. I never tire of watching them move and explore their surroundings. I soon set them free again.
A couple of weeks ago, shortly after I began to read Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s book, I set out for a much-needed walk. I was thinking about the snail in the book and thought to myself, “I wish I would find a snail. . .”, and suddenly right before me in middle of the sidewalk was a snail. (I’m not making this up!) The poor soul had gotten stuck in the afternoon sunshine on the concrete sidewalk and had cemented itself to the hard surface with its own secretions--probably to avoid being cooked on the hot pavement.
I gently pried it up with my finger, put a little water on it and dropped the snail into my shirt pocket. It rode back to my house that way, sleeping within its shell, nestled safely in my pocket. Snails are solitary creatures, so I didn’t worry about a family missing it. I set up a temporary home for it on my front porch with soil, rocks, moss, a lot of leaf litter and a small bottle of water with a wide Hosta leaf in it for shade during the day. I put in a bit of raw mushroom the way Elisabeth Tova Bailey did with her forest snail and there was evidence of a little nibbling the next morning when I misted its habitat with water.
The snail was with me for about a week. I even carried it with me to the funeral of my Uncle Richard in Ohio. It traveled within a special snail carrier, improvised out of a plastic jar with holes drilled in it, that my neighbor, Matthew, helpfully dug up from his basement. The snail was an easy guest among all of the family that gathered for the weekend.
Back at home, I spent a few early mornings with it, and then one morning I came out and it was gone. Back into the world it went to find some greener and moister place. I hadn’t intended for it to stay for long. I just I enjoyed it for a little while, and felt its reminder of my own capacity for stillness as I watched its slow and graceful movements with wonder during our cool early mornings together on the porch.
If you need to rest your mind and body, move more slowly or go where the light is gentle and there are green and growing things, I highly recommend finding and following a snail.
My Snail Poem
(Note: For accurate formatting, it is best to read this poem on a computer screen rather than a phone screen.)
Snail
As a child, I lived in many houses,
twelve in seventeen years.
I was acclimated
to turmoil,
chaos,
reorder;
a rhythm of packing,
carrying,
unpacking
all of my precious,
winnowed possessions.
Containers drew me in:
painted boxes,
baskets, bowls,
fossils, empty shells,
all that embodied a capacity to hold
beloved things,
soft, vulnerable bodies,
and time.
When I was in college, a friend gave me
a small, green, wicker case
with a latch and handles,
where I carefully placed my artifacts,
Talismans I could carry easily,
unpack in any hospitable space,
name it:
Home.
With fascination, I’ve held a garden snail in my hand.
I’ve watched the slow emergence of its body,
seen each slender eyestalk sensitively unfurl,
felt the moist slide of ruffled body in my hand,
witnessed it glide toward green, mossy coolness.
My eyes have followed the perfect,
spiral geometry of helixed shell,
a constant quiet promise
of both shelter and unfolding,
both journey and return.
A snail’s shell is a part of its body,
a refuge that turns
outward as it grows.
The shell’s surface is adorned by its years,
each fresh turn of new calcium colored by life,
a center balanced in its pattern.
The fleshy, yielding body is all senses
and strong muscular foot,
a design for movement and survival
a form for feeling a way in the world.
This creature shows me patience and gentleness,
sensitivity, courage and action.
Its life, both containment and opening,
mirrors my own yearning to offer,
to stretch forth, unfurled and soft,
discerning the dry and moist patterns
of the world.
The snail mirrors my need for retreat and protection.
We are kin, the snail and I,
in the rhythm of our spiraling lives,
the turning of our seasons,
the growing of our openings.
Enjoy a couple of minutes of Snail Time:
The book/author link includes a wonderful video trailer of Bailey’s book, which features her snail and the actual sound of it eating . . . check it out!
E. O. Wilson, “Biophilia,” In Biophilia; The Diversity of Life; Naturalist (New York: The Library of America, 2021), 5. (Originally published in 1984, Harvard University Press.)
This is a lovely post, snails are wonderful creatures. The Sound of a Wild Snail eating seems like a very worthwhile book to read.
Michelle and all your readers/listeners - This is such a wonderful combination of essay, poetry, revelation. It drew/draws me into the feeling/awareness that my Beloved Guru , Adi Da Samraj inspires. How wonderful it is how your science knowledge and teaching blends so seamlessly with your “heart knowing”. Adi Da speaks of “prior unity” that is the true Reality of our existence, and to which we can and must awaken. It is something that “seeking for” is fruitless; “awakening to” is what is needed. Your piece served that for me. 🙏🏻❤️