What Can We Learn From a Peruvian Fire Ant?

Ants don’t choose to do things.

We can.

I’ve been watching A Perfect Planet on BBC1, another artistic and scientific wonder of TV production. What a privilege to be able to see such incredible work. And Attenborough is a man who understands humility. He’s a master at not getting in the way.

In one scene, a Peruvian Fire Ant crawls to the edge of her known territory, her way forward blocked by the rising waters of the Amazonian rain forest. As the monsoon waters rise, it seems as if hope for her colony is lost and they will all be drowned. But, seemingly miraculously, the colony pool together, using their bodies to form a living raft. This organic boat then carries them for weeks through the flooded forest that was their home, to a new beginning.

The collective is strong.

I’m troubled when I feel into the crisis we are in. How am I really participating - here, indoors? 

How are you adapting? Are you committing to using your creativity purposefully?

In the nearby hospital building at West Middlesex, communities urgently pool together, in creative ways they’ve never imagined possible, to meet the demands of life-threatening rising waters in the shape of hospital admissions.

It’s incredible. What we can do when it matters.

Energy follows attention. How I do anything is how I do everything. We all consciously contribute in every action we take.

I can take responsibility for what I’m given and pay attention to smaller things. I can get present with what’s important in the day while being mindful of taking care of those around me. I can pray. I can be kind.

I can dwell a little longer with the evocative hoots of the tawny owl where I walk at dusk, and let my anxiety fall away along the burgeoning rain-fed rivers, out to the Thames and the sea.