I was in the countryside during the weekend doing some labour around the house. I was shoveling some gravel which was to be used for building a new parking place for the cars. Close to ending when I was pretty tired and didn`t pay as much attention as before I unintentionally hit a frog which was hiding in the sand pile. Unfortunately the shovel cut down one of her legs.
It was a small to medium size light green frog. I took her and placed her on a pasture a bit further away. While doing so I couldn`t not notice how calm she was and how warm she was looking at me. Her eyes were watering, most likely because of the physical pain, but other than that she did nothing but to look at me and blink from time to time.
I was amazed by such peacefullness. Don`t think any human being could react this way when facing such a brutal vicissitude of life. However this tiny frog did nothing. Life is life and there`s not much we can do about it but live it and go with the flow. It doesn`t matter if you greet life with open arms or with clenched teeth. What is going to happen will happen whether you like it or not.
Somehow men didn`t learn this lesson. Animals and plants did. They live for the moment while men live for tomorrow with their silly dreams and expectations, fighting and waiting for something that will never come, destroying themselves and the planet we inhabit in their search.
All this time I was looking at this frog wondering what to do to make it better. I can`t really make a frog grow a leg back lol so there wasn`t much to do. However the time I took watching it meant something to me. I borrowed some of that peacefulness myself. Somehow a lesson in awareness has been thought and a frog was the teacher.
All the other beings we share this planet with have an important lesson to teach: to accept what it "is" and to abandon our mind programming and prejudice and everything that keeps us in the past or dreaming about a "better" future, and to live in the now - the only time that is certain.
I will close with a quote from the Bible even if "God" knows I`m one of the worst Christians walking the Earth. However this was quite appropriate:
"And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin" (Matthew 6:28)
There is sth called: freezing behaviour or freezing response, it's a response to specific stimulation, mostly observed in prey animals. When that animal has been caught or completely overcome by the predator, it may response by freezing up in another words by staying completely still. You could have scared A Little Green half to the death, Andrei :-P
ReplyDeleteAs an interesting fact, children at their first months of life can show the similar reaction. It was the scariest 10 seconds of my life when one of my children just turned into not moving and responding wooden log :)).
Yes the poor lil froggy. It's been like 8 years and I can still remember it. I'm not sure if I cut her leg off. I don't remember very well. I hope she was ok :)
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