Tortured Turtle by Sara Wright

Yesterday I attended a community event where someone from a rescue organization was holding up the biggest painted turtle that I have ever seen. More than a foot in length. An equally large snapper was lying on the grass surrounded by people.

The point this woman was trying to make is that turtles grow up into large turtles that can end up in rescue organizations. I froze in horror as I took the pictures, tried to get details but the woman was occupied with someone else while she held this creature in the air.

This morning I gazed into a forest that is dripping with dew. Astonishing golden autumn light is gilding the trees as tears fall through the leaves. Achingly beautiful until I see an image of the turtle in my mind. Remembering times when I was young and didn’t pay attention to what a sensitive child KNEW.

All creatures are sentient; all feel pain and fear. The image of yesterday’s turtle highlights everything that is wrong in a world when most people believe that only humans are sentient. Once I thought I believed that too, although the child in me did not. I couldn’t deal with the terrorized child, so I left her behind as soon as I could. As a young adolescent my second (rejecting the child was the first) crisis of faith occurred when the religion I adhered to created no space for the rest of nature or geological time.

By late adolescence religion went dead. It was natural for me to turn to the rest of nature for sustenance because I was in love with natural beauty and because Ki had been with me all my life, but this turning was a process and it was complicated by a desperate need to fit into a culture that made little sense to me, then or now.

Opposites collided continuously. It’s no wonder I made so many mistakes. Or thought I was crazy. I had no real sense of self. No one intervened on my behalf. Still a child myself, I blundered with children, with people, with animals, baffled beyond comprehension. How did people manage to live as adults in this world? How could I develop genuine relationships when I lived in a sea of confusion?

I have spent my life trying to answer that question. Nature did intervene, and slowly I began to learn about and eventually own my contradictory selves. I also learned who I could choose to become through my relationships with animals and trees. Although I have never had a clear sense of cultural direction, in retrospect I see that a serpentine path gradually opened for me first through images, through dreams and visions, thinking, and most importantly by developing relationships with individuals in nature. I also had a mother who cared deeply for animals and plants that modeled this behavior to both her children. My relationship with dogs gradually blossomed into one whose compassion and unconditional love opened a door to the rest.

Yesterday’s cultural event was one of many fall festivals and one I volunteered for. I was supposed to work at the bird table, but a child was running the wheel (of fate?) so I wasn’t needed. The attending adult told me to go visit the turtles.

Animals are part of the side show at this festival (as they are elsewhere). When I saw the giant turtle, I was riveted by the amphibian’s size, this was the biggest painted turtle I had ever seen. Ki’s feet and claws were frantically swimming in air as the woman, an animal rescue person, held the amphibian and was discussing what can happen when humans find cute little turtles and bring them home to raise. Her educational intent was laudable, but her behavior with the turtles indicated that something fundamental was broken. How could she stand there advocating for these animals and not realize that the terrified turtle in her hands was suffering acutely? Looking into this animal’s face unhinged me. I felt helpless, angry. Haunted Turtle Eyes clouded my mind.

Later, I realized that this woman had been taught that animals had no feelings and were not sentient. This is what we learn at the feet of western culture, a culture so disoriented, so disconnected from the rest of nature that many of us are in the process of deliberately destroying the planet we live on. Part of my distress stems from the fact that this was a festival held at a ‘conservation’ center. The word ‘conservation’ needs clarification here. To conserve is to keep something the same. The problem is that all of nature continues to evolve and humans cannot stop the flow. Humans need to evolve as well. I do not blame this woman for her ignorance. She bought into the cultural story; once I almost did too. However, this rescue center needs help. I have been to others, one in Arizona where all the animals lived like they would in the wild. The other was in Espanola New Mexico. This center specialized in damaged birds that were kept in large comfortable outdoor cages and were given adequate protection from people staring them down. When I think about that turtle, I can only hope that some natural force beyond myself was able to assuage the fear that turtle experienced while hanging in thin air…

Upon arrival I had one real and meaningful conversation with two people who were able to be emotionally honest and present while we ate. The rest except for the turtle and Coalie was a blur. I had allowed too many children to pat my dog who was immobilized in a pouch. After recognizing we weren’t needed it was time to leave. When Coalie saw the entrance to her favorite pine studded walk on our way out she almost jumped out of her pouch. Ok I said as I put her down and she trotted down the well-worn path with her tail held high, both of us relieved to be alone.

This morning Sky Woman’s story is on my mind. Sky Woman fell through the sky into a black hole and kept falling until the geese intervened and stopped her fall. Below the animals scrambled to put mud on Turtle’s back to create the Earth. When Sky Woman arrived, she danced for joy on Turtle’s back and flowers sprung up all around her. Turtle was so pleased that S/he painted the earth with all the colors of the rainbow that were hidden below a dull brown carapace marked with thirteen squares. This is my story of how Painted Turtle came to be!

Blessing to you Turtle, you hold up the world.