The Adventures of an HBS (Human Banana Slug)
As we left the house this weekend, we saw a huge and beautiful spotted banana slug super-slow-strollin' across the patio. They (most slugs, including banana slugs, are both/and, so they is singular—plus, I asked and they told me their pronoun preference) were intentionally carrying a few Douglas fir needles and part of a red leaf with their antennae. "They're fall decorating!" I thought as I guided bouncing Cora dog well away from their path. I'm not a slug expert, so I could be wrong that they decorate for fall. But they didn't correct me, so I'm likely not too far off base or they don't care if I am. Then I realized I was wearing the same colors they were. Twinsies! The next day, at my autumn writing circle, as the wisdom of mostly elder women writing, then sharing what writing brought forth, washed over me, I received the words adventure and, somewhat shockingly to me, banana slug. Banana slug? What?! What a coincidence. Or not.
Physically, I may be a lot slower that I used to be—thanks to crushing long Covid chronic fatigue and body aches—but the universe now needs to send just two signs, at most, for me to notice. Moving Ridiculously Slowly has its perks.
As an herbalist and as a writer, I draw/hold/share the deep-and-cross-generational wisdom of women and other highly sensitive, consciously woven together/interconnected, beings. So I've had many wild companion animals and plants and places—guide or spirit animals and plant elders or land kin to some—across my life. Have you? I challenge you to remember and list all of them. Just how many there have been might shock you. It shocked me... In childhood, for me it was the whole of the natural world at first, and then specifically horses, then lake fish, then stray dogs, robins, then a beaver who swam directly to me as I sat writing on a lake shore in the woods having escaped the human world for a while, and then sunbeams, in particular. Yep, sunbeams. Sitting in sunbeams felt like talking directly to Mother Earth/God. It still does, she's awesome. Yes, if the sun must be gendered, she's definitely a woman. Hold/share loving myths, and retire too-tight-to-hold-you myths like that "all women are passive, pale reflections like the moon" crap. Women are wild fires. We are rage. Flooding rivers. Protection. And the bringers of unstoppable change for the whole place. But I digress.
In the city, the shockingly wise and powerful giant octopus found me. A lot of us, actually. I'm convinced they do telepathic marketing for themselves in coastal cities like Seattle. Then, Herb, and later, Ms. Herb, a chickadee team, showed up to advise me. Ms. Herb never has given me her name. Maybe some day. Then apple trees. Then wild chickens. Then all old, big, mossy trees with ferns in their branches. Trees speak to me, I learned one day, after I'd read several years worth of what I once thought was my own poetry. Apparently for me, poetry is often just translating the natural world for myself and others. Even "dead" trees speak to me. So much life within, around, and under dead trees!
When I visit the middle of the country, where I grew up, the soil, land, and sky now speak most loudly to me. Here on the island where we've lived for 13 years, first it was a nesting pair of eagles, then deer, then orcas and gray whales, then seals, jellyfish and sea slugs, even stones (yes, I talk with stones), and then rabbits (who are my rabbis, I once wrote, and that's still true for us: holy, comic, relief), then the Douglas fir trees and stellar jays here. I know 5 Doug fir trees here by name now. The others will trust me eventually, as I see them more fully. Then, my advisors became whole beaches, whole forests and whole fields here. So I've had a lot of guides across my life, including cephalopods, cetaceans, and conifers. But I've never had a land-going mollusk, a yard-decorating gastropod(!)—a land-going being in which the hard outer shell is reduced to an internal plate, a series of granules, or is completely absent—as a guide and inspiration before! Woo hoo!!!
Oh universe, elders, women, and all sensitive beings. What an absolutely perfect guide for us/me now. I stubbornly refuse to stay in places where I need a hard outer shell. Where I can't be soft, loving, open-to-wonder, open-to-life me.
According to the National Parks Service, banana slugs naturally blend seamlessly into the forest floor. They can move as fast as 6 1/2 inches per minute. That knowledge instantly moved me from feeling sorry for myself/my long Covid chronic fatigue to thinking I may still be moving too fast to really learn well with and from slugs. To stay moist (they don't mind that word: they embody and own it), slugs secrete a layer of mucus over their bodies non-stop. The mucus is also a defense against predators, numbing the mouth and tongue if something attempts to ingest them. So smart. They also have symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationships with the tallest, oldest trees in their forests: the slugs don't eat their shoots so the big trees multiply and grow well while the large-tree-centered forest provides the exact habitat slugs need to thrive. Not to mention the wealth of natural fall decorations offered. ;-) (That last one was me, not NPS). I absolutely love that in a year where the violently misogynistic, racist, and bigoted U.S. federal government has attempted to remove all mention of the contributions of most women and people of color and the LGBTQ+ community and other sensitive beings from all U.S. national parks online content and buildings, they seem to have completely missed that trees, slugs, and forests teach the same thing... We work better together. We're part of an ecosystem where every being is connected. The smallest beings are powerful and stunningly crafty, generous, and joyful. Those whose love-of-life includes all their neighbors win together, because we co-create the environment we all need to thrive.
We learned so much about the world, our community and country, and ourselves from Mom living with Alzheimer's for more than 20 years. Today, I'm learning even more with long Covid chronic fatigue. Deeper things. Stranger things. No wonder the banana slugs reached (stretched?) out to me. Long Covid doesn't feel personal like Alzheimer's often did. It's not genetic. Long Covid feels global. It feels like the earth herself requires far more attention, and she's demanding we slow down. She's demanding more careful listening by us and a louder voice for herself and all those being harmed. I can do that. Be that. Anyone who slows way down can hear her. Feel her. Stand in awe. Wonder. Translate. And most importantly, share what the earth herself has to say. In our work-yourself-to-death-mostly-so-obscenely-wealthy-thieving-men-can-grow-richer country, many people don't get to slow down this much until they're in their 80s or 90s (I have an 82-year-old friend who still has to work to cover medical costs). Or until they have an accident, or are disabled, get a chronic illness, become homebound for other reasons, or start living and working as larger collectives.
Yes, long Covid SUCKS. And, I am, once again, feeling lucky to be here. With this. Some days. Thank you, banana slugs, the forest's slipperiest spokes-gastropods.
I'm embracing my new teachers, the banana slugs. I saw one this morning in the woods wearing usnea lichen like a tiny crown and heading toward a feisty Douglas squirrel who grabbed a small apple out of the path right in front of Cora dog as we approached and then ran up a tree. Do banana slugs dress up for the autumn? Or Halloween?! Do they get together for apple cider with squirrels? Get annoyed when we interrupt their plans? I wonder. And I welcome the adventures we'll go on together. I welcome this new me, HBS (Human Banana Slug). I will use this extended fallow time to hear and see and receive and share even more advice from the earth herself. Feel far less guilt for just being who I am and where I'm at. I will open to receiving far more community help. And by slowing down further in nature, I will receive far far less from the men of Always Angry Always Violent Land: a terrible place where those who move too fast, aggressively, and recklessly hardly notice beings like me unless they slip and fall over us or until their numb and poisoned mouths fill with their own fluids, silencing and stopping them.
This currently unshakable illness of mine calls for considerable, whole-world-changing, reimagination to make it survivable and feel joyful, especially here in the U.S. where we so quickly and easily go bankrupt trying to heal and where, in the eyes of the government, even having long Covid makes me either a liar, worthy of ignoring completely, or a drain on society to be eliminated. I have joined the ranks of the people my government strongly feels would be better off dead. What remarkably amazing, fierce, beautiful, and global company that puts me in.
Stay tuned for more adventures of HBS!
