Did you know that many critters are revered for their essential spiritual qualities?
Ted Andrew’s book Animal Speak is a terrific reference when you find yourself wondering about the significance of certain creatures in your daily life. This weekend ants reared their lovely little heads. They crawled up out of the floor, up the wall and then just rambled aimlessly about. Unfortunately, several (plus a few) found their way into my bed. I even brushed one off my forehead while reading. Enough is enough – I’ve invited them to go somewhere else – Even my kitchen is more acceptable than my bed! Like spiders – I am comfortable coexisting until I find them in my bed or on me…
I decided, since I am looking for signs and messages and meaning everywhere these days, that I would see what my favorite animal totem expert had to say.
Andrews says that ants represent: industriousness, order and discipline.
Ants are social and they are community-oriented. There is discipline and order… everyone knows his or her place.
The ant – a skilled architect – represents one’s ability to construct his or her own life. Ants show us how with persistence great success is possible.
Andrews says: “Ants can teach you how to harness your own power to design and recreate your life and it’s circumstances from the ground up. The ant can show you how to best work with others for the good of everyone. Ants teach us that regardless of circumstances, if the effort is true, the rewards will follow… “
Examine your own industriousness, Andrews says.
Are you disciplining yourself enough to accomplish the tasks at hand?
Are you laying a good foundation?
Are you being patient with your efforts? yourself? others?
Are you making things greater and more difficult than they need to be?
(Andrews, 2001)
After reading the wisdom of ant energy, I look at my little friends with slightly more fondness. I would still rather not have them in my bed. AND I definitely do not want them crawling on me. However, I appreciate their industriousness. I can learn from that. I’ve been deeply interested in community-building, conscious-community, creative-community, etc… Discipline, without a doubt, keeps me on track when I wander astray. And I know that I am currently making things far more difficult than they need to be! Ahhh… that surrender thing again! 
Effort, discipline, industriousness, focus, commitment, design, harnessing of power, order, persistence, patience, collaboration, creation – all required – minus the attachment, the need to control and the exhaustive self-doubting.
August 24, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I love Ted Andrews’ book. The message is always right on.
I have been visited by ants twice over the past couple of weeks. First they showed up in my bathroom. Always one to relocate rather than kill, I swept them up, put them outside and sealed the crack in the baseboard where they seemed to be coming from.
However, what happened two nights ago was extremely disturbing. My daughter and grandsons moved in with me over a week ago. At 4:30am the 16-month old woke up SCREAMING! I went to his crib and tried to soothe him. He insisted on being picked up. I asked him if he wanted some milk and he said yes, so I took him to the kitchen with me. Suddenly I was getting stung on my legs. I flipped on the light and there were thousands of black ants EVERYWHERE! Not in a neat line, but covering every square inch of the floor throughout the house. I ran to the kids’ room. Sure enough, there were a bunch of them in his crib. Luckily they were not in the 4-year-old’s bed. My bedroom was the only place they were not swarming. I put Kyle on my bed, grabbed a broom and started sweeping like a madwoman. Of course they are fast so it was hard to keep them under control. There was no way I was going to be able to relocate them all. I had a can of tick spray that is relatively non-toxic as it’s meant to spray directly on dogs and cats. Thankfully, it killed them pretty quickly. I went back through with the broom and got the rest, then pulled the mattress out of the crib, sprayed the bottom of the crib and around the baseboards. I still felt bad about having to kill them, but I had no choice. It was truly frightening, like something out of a Hitchcock film.
Why is this happening? Well, I am VERY behind on a technical writing project. I am procrastinating like hell and the deadline is looming. My self-discipline stinks right now. I also have found I sometimes have very little patience with the kids. I yell at them a lot. I love them but was used to having them in small doses, not in my space 24-7, tearing my house apart and getting into everything.