Honouring all life

One of the first learnings I had when initiating my medicine path was recognising my relationship with all living beings, including the teeny tiny ones, such as the insects and microorganisms. When I stopped to pay attention to how much life lived in a square of grass, on a tree trunk, or on the garden flowers. Several little insects just minding their own business and walking through their own life path. While living their journey, knowingly or unknowingly, they participate in this perfect symbiosis of nature’s laws and cycles or life, death, decay and evolution. How beautiful it is to witness this cycle, where all living beings are interconnected and are a piece of thread in the tapestry of life.

Presently, in these moments, I deeply honour their life as much as mine. I realise that the same as us, they belong to Mother Earth and are part of our nature family. Same as me, they have the right to live and thrive. Not only that, but their participation in nature’s cycle is fundamental for life to exist. Without the insects and microorganisms to transform dead matter again into nutrients for plants and animals, there would be no life on Earth.

Since then, I recognised my earlier mistakes when killing small little creatures for no reason at all. I saw a fly, I killed it. That was just about another day, no big deal. The thing is, I was, and many of us are, forgetful of our family relationship with all living beings. When I could restore that relationship, I suddenly could see so many friends around me. I found myself giving good morning to small spiders, giggling when little flies come around to annoy me, saying hello to a slug that appeared on my terrace. How much fun this was!

An important learning for me was to know how to take care without interfering with their own life journey. I found myself carrying snails from one side of a path to the other, to help them avoid being run over or being burnt dry by the blazing sun. Although this was a genuine act of good intention, it also created so much fear on them, having them quickly shrinking back into their shells, terrified. Once I also saw a ladybug walking in circles for many minutes. I thought she was just lost or confused so I picked her up to move her elsewhere, only to end up on a leaf where she fell. After I picked her up from the ground, she was terrified and took her a few minutes to recover herself and fly away.

These experiences brought me to realise that I should not interfere in our tiny friend’s life journey. This is a symbolic learning that is connected to all living beings, including us humans. I learnt an important lesson that is to respect everyone’s life process, the journey of their souls and their sacred point of view. I will always be of support, being there for others whenever needed or asked for, but I no longer attempt to make people see what I see. I choose today to celebrate everyone’s life journey and to be there in every step of healing and realisation. Especially because real change can only happen from within. 

All life paths are sacred, we must respect and honour that.