The Master Teachings of a Snail by Michelle Hanson
If mankind’s ideal is to achieve a place of compassion and unconditional love, all we need do is regard our domestic pets to see they already possess these qualities. If you are willing to concede that these animals are pretty high up on the evolutionary ladder… what about a snail? Surely man is more highly evolved than a snail. Allow me to submit this story of the helmet conch, a member of the snail family, for your consideration.
Helmet conch shells grow to be 8-12 inches and were so named because their appearance resembles helmets worn by ancient warriors. In Shells Alive, Neville Coleman, the Australian author and biologist, writes in great detail about his encounter with a group of helmet conch snails.
During his normal recording functions underwater, he came across three helmet conchs in a triangular formation, each about five meters away from the other two. Two were positioned properly to get around, but one was buried in the sand on its side. This conch was left exposed to any predator in the vicinity. Even if it somehow avoided that fate, being stuck prevents it from foraging for food and it would eventually die.
Neville admits that it never occurred to him to turn this animal over because his mind was full of the recent observations from his swim, and he had to return to change film. He barely took notice of the three conchs except to observe their position. He assumed that other divers had gathered these shells on a boat and tossed them overboard after being informed that they were a protected species.
A few hours later, with fresh air tanks and new film he made his way back and he nearly froze at what the torchlight revealed. The two upright conchs had moved closer to the one in trouble. Being a trained scientist, he sat back and observed the action. After the two liberated conchs reached the one buried in the sand, he discovered they had furrowed out a depression around the immobile shell, having dug away the sand as efficiently as if they were a pair of miniature bulldozers. He says: "I just didn’t believe what might be happening, but I took the pictures anyway."
As he watched in awe, after loosening the sand around the conch that was stuck, the two mobile conchs came around behind it, climbed up on the shell and toppled it over. Neville was nearly in tears as he witnessed two "dumb, unfeeling invertebrates without vision or any known form of communication, with pea-sized ‘brains’ and no reasoning mechanism that we are aware of, combine their actions to assist another of their species in trouble."
Let’s consider this scene Neville witnessed. These conches had to: 1) know a comrade was in trouble, 2) care enough to travel for hours to respond, 3) cooperate in figuring out a plan of action, then 4) carry it out…and, they did. Is this simply animal instinct? We can choose to believe that, or to believe that through compassion, intelligence, and dedication, they accomplished a rescue that neither could have achieved alone. Contrast this to human victims whose cries for help fall on deaf ears because nobody wants to get involved.
If I may make a suggestion, perhaps animals so obviously possess traits that we aspire to, that the only way we allow ourselves to be comfortable with their capacity for unconditional love is to label this as instinct. Otherwise, if they possess this altruistic spiritual trait we desire, logic dictates that they (animals) are the more evolved beings. What if a dog does have a choice whether to run into a burning building, or to dive into freezing waters to rescue a family member? These acts of love could be the genuine article, and writing them off as instinct does us all a disservice.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the animals were mirroring our own potential — the loving beings we really are? I believe that energetically we are all light beings. One of us comes to Earth and zips on a “human suit,” another a “dog suit,” another a “snail suit,” but underneath we are all the same light beings. At this energetic level, no being is above or below another on the evolutionary scale. We are all one. Instead of looking upon this demonstration of animal compassion as "less than" because it is only instinct, why not see the gift they offer us — teaching us who we are, even in the behavior of a snail.
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If mankind’s ideal is to achieve a place of compassion and unconditional love, all we need do is regard our domestic pets to see they already possess these qualities. If you are willing to concede that these animals are pretty high up on the evolutionary ladder… what about a snail? Surely man is more highly evolved than a snail. Allow me to submit this story of the helmet conch, a member of the snail family, for your consideration.
If I may make a suggestion, perhaps animals so obviously possess traits that we aspire to, that the only way we allow ourselves to be comfortable with their capacity for unconditional love is to label this as instinct. Otherwise, if they possess this altruistic spiritual trait we desire, logic dictates that they (animals) are the more evolved beings. What if a dog does have a choice whether to run into a burning building, or to dive into freezing waters to rescue a family member? These acts of love could be the genuine article, and writing them off as instinct does us all a disservice.