 Our climate crisis group’s discussions continued last week with lived stories of our own interactions with non-human creatures. Our personal stories were wide ranging and included tales of raccoons who have shared our back gardens and attics!, rabbits who reminded us they were more than pretty faces and, when brought indoors, had minds of their own, an African elephant with a steely eyed look backed up by several tons of body weight clarified her territorial boundaries and a lion cub (paws the size of Ping-Pong paddles) who was rejected by his mother at birth so being reared by human caregivers, could be petted and played with (at least for the moment!). But my favourite story was originally told by Thomas Berry (well known ecologist / theologian) and retold in our group as follows:
“A mother set her small daughter down on the deck of their home in the country with a bowl of milk and cereal. Mom went back into the house keeping an ear on the deck. A big, fat garden snake slithered up to join the little girl and the mother heard, ‘One for me and one for wormy … one for me and one for wormy’. Mom gently moved the harmless snake to the far end of the deck and provided a separate saucer of milk. When humans are not taught to fear or abhor nature, chances are they won’t.” These were all stories from our human point of view, but if you would like to hear a story from a raccoon’s perspective, here is a link to Story Soup Enterprises podcast for the story, Good Neighbours, written by Sally Armour Wotton and ready by Charles Wotton.
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