Be More Snail – snail medicine for self-preservation

Be More Snail – snail medicine for self-preservation

No, you will be relieved to know I am not touting the skin cream that uses snail slime as its main ingredient.

I’m a fan of the snail as long as it stays away from my tender plants. You can’t blame any creature for wanting an easy meal, and in a balanced ecosystem, natural predators like thrush, blackbird and the humble duck tend to keep slug and snail numbers at a reasonable level. As a small child, I kept garden snails as short term pets and my brother gave my daughter a giant African land snail; said creature lived with us for 8 years and taught me a great deal of amazing things about the species in general. If you want a rapid overview of this animal, have a quick look at wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snail or https://www.snail-world.com/

But the message of Snail as a guide is a powerful one I think I need to listen to. “You tend to be a creature of habit and have a great deal of of patience. You know how to take things as they come. More often than not you prefer to be alone, are not very social, and sometimes very timid as well. You are constantly having to balance protection with trust (not easy) and often never show your true self to the world. Your feelings are generally at the forefront of most of your decisions and actions. A person with this totem also needs to be careful about hiding in their shell. They need to make a point of dealing with their emotional issues or they could withdraw permanently.

You have a strong work ethic and will often put in much longer hours than everyone else, however, you do tend to work very slowly and meditatively. Everything you do is very well done and maintains a high standard of excellence. You have a tendency to rely on yourself to get the job done.

People with this mollusc as their totem are very deliberate people. Once they set a goal to achieve there is no diverting them from their path.” from: https://www.spirit-animals.com/snail/

A snail is a sensitive creature; their horns are actually organs of sense, with which they smell and feel their way in the world. The phrase “pulling in one’s horns” has come to mean a retrenchment or a retractment, but curiously enough, it’s origin is directly linked to the humble snail: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/pull-your-horns-in.html . I feel like I need to pull in my horns, and hide in my shell. I know I need to embrace the slowness that seems to be a feature of my life, and to step aside from the hurly burl of the world and just be, slowly, slowly, moving forward but never rushing. The writing world is full of rush, of pressure to get work out, get published, never let up, never take a quiet month, get that word count up up up. (Roz Morris wrote in praise of slow writing, of taking your time here: https://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/writing-fast-writing-slow-and-why-one-book-a-year-suits-hardly-anyone/)

People who remember the children’s TV show Fingerbobs will know the song associated with the tortoise in the show: Slowly, steadily, I move at my own pace, they call me Flash, but I won’t dash, who wants to run a race? As long as I get there, why worry? What’s the hurry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sBCJ7KQ7I0 The song works just as well for snails, who are even slower.