Book Excerpt: Joanne Lauck on the Language of the Sting

Excerpt from The Voice of the Infinite in the Small
 

On this day God is the name by which I designate all
things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly,
all things which upset subjective views, plans and intentions
and change the course of my life for better or worse.

—C.G. Jung

Linda Neale, former director of Earth and Spirit Council, an interfaith environmental action group, discovered her uncommon affinity for scorpions on a hiking trip to the Grand Canyon in 1987. She was with her young daughter and niece when a scorpion stung her at the base of her thumb. She tried to brush it off with her other hand and was stung again. Shaking her hand violently, she managed to dislodge the creature. The pain was intense, and she realized how vulnerable she was, with only two little girls to help. The only thing she knew about scorpions was that they can kill you, and that the small ones are more dangerous than the large ones. She sat down and called the girls to her, trying to appear calm while explaining what had happened. They went off and returned with a Boy Scout troop, but no one in the group knew what to do.

It was then, she recalls, that two paths opened up. She thought of them as the path of life and the path of death. The death path was waiting around for help, for someone to tell her what to do. The path of life was walking back to the village and getting whatever help was available. She started walking, and the pain became even more intense. She sang a chant from a tape someone had given her. The words were, “Be still and know I am God” (a biblical quote, from Psalms). The scout leader accompanying her wondered if she was becoming delirious. They arrived at a nearby Indian village, and an Indian woman questioned her about the size of the scorpion and whether or not she had any allergies. She said no, and the woman assured her then that she would probably survive.

Sense heightened, Neale continued to be affected by the scorpion experience after returning home from the hiking trip. She started reading about scorpions and thought about her own path, wondering if she was “choosing life” on a regular basis, feeling that something wasn’t quite right in her life. Then she had a dream of a giant scorpion outside her bedroom window.

The next day her husband found a metal belt buckle by the side of the rural road where he had been running, very near the spot where her dream scorpion had been. In the center of the buckle was a real scorpion encased in resin—almost identical to the one that had stung her—surrounded by Indian-head nickels. The sight shocked her. She was speechless and suddenly afraid. She knew the buckle was for her.

The sting of the scorpion marked the beginning of a transformation in her life, a death and rebirth. The “deconstruction” took five years and was as painful as it was important. She gave up her life as she knew it and moved in a different direction. The scorpion experience sustained her, although she wondered why she needed such a jolt to help her change her life. “I think it is because commitment and loyalty and stubbornness have always been so important to me. It had to be something big to get my attention,” says Neale.

The language of the sting commands our attention, invoking pain and fear and, after the danger has passed, fascination and a heightened sense of awareness.
 

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