Interview with Joanne Lauck, Author of The Voice of the Infinite in the Small

Interviewed by Ruth Ann Smalley and David Harrison
 

Joanne Lauck, a high school teacher and computer artist, was returning from the mailbox after sending off the manuscript for her book The Voice of the Infinite in the Small: Re-Visioning the Insect-Human Connection (Shambhala, 1998, 2002), a layperson’s look at the relationships between insects and humans. As she climbed the steps of her house, she saw a large insect over the doorframe. Closer examination revealed that it was a praying mantis, a creature she had written about powerfully in her just-completed book. She put out her hand, and the mantis crawled onto it. Lauck photographed the mantis, which now appears on the cover of her book and is included with this interview. Something magical, synchronistic and transformative had just transpired between her and the natural world.
At first, this may seem a strange topic for inclusion in an issue about rites of passage. What do insects have to do with human transitions and initiations? The interview below shows that there is a profound relevance. Lauck believes that insects are messengers — literal, metaphorical, and archetypal — of the natural world, from which the modern era has too often alienated itself. In fact, she says, our attitudes about insects are the most extreme example of our disconnection from nature. This is evident in the fact that, despite their overwhelming importance to our ecosystems, insects are almost universally despised in the modern world— as pests, as disease-carriers, as worthless nuisances to be killed en masse without regret.

As traditional rites of passage sought, in part, to connect the initiate to the world around them, to introduce them into the mysteries of the universe, and define for them a humble role within an overarching context, so it could be argued that any modern rite of passage should seek to re-connect the individual to the forgotten wisdom of nature. There are rifts to be healed, mysteries to be rediscovered, lost selves in need of resurrection.

Lauck’s work is full of references to these kinds of rites of passage, to the internal and external forces that act upon us during times of transition. She discusses such things as the soul and the human shadow, the role of fear and fascination in moving us forward, the need to surrender oneself to the inevitable, the importance of totem animals. She conveys to us through modern stories, ancient myths and timeless archetypes the ways in which the contours of our psyche mesh with the contours of the natural world, a relationship now being seriously explored by scientists and social theorists alike in fields such as deep ecology and social ecology.

Nature, says Lauck, can even serve as a sort of substitute for the human community that was once an integral part of rites of passage. In the absence of elders, extended families and vibrant communal rituals, people may need to turn to the natural world, where they can find and be guided by their own affinities towards a certain community of creatures. Lauck simply asks us not to confine our search to the glorified realm of lions and eagles and bears, or to settle for the comfortable world of domesticated animals. She dares us to look lower, to put our ear to the ground and hear what Laurens van der Post called “the voice of the infinite in the small.” She challenges us to confront the despised, the feared, the grotesque, and find guidance in the wanderings of the ant, patterns in the spider’s web, warnings in the sting of the bee and initiation in the bite of the tick. If we turn away from these aspects of nature and ourselves, abandoning what we have been taught to fear, we lose the help and the wisdom of the oldest and most abundant inhabitants of the natural world.

Dave: You say that our cultural aversion to insects is just the most extreme manifestation of our profound disconnection from nature. What are the implications of this disconnection?

Joanne: I don’t know exactly what the numbers are, but when you think of how many people are on anti-depressants in the richest country in the world, you see that there is a deep misery driving us, a misery that permeates the culture. It is a deeply lopsided society we have developed in our attempts to eliminate what frightens us, particularly those things related to loss and to death. The result is a society that only supports you when you are on the “up” side of life. But then what happens to us when we also have to go through the de-structuring or the losses? We have few contemporary maps or support. We’re told, “Oh, take some Paxil and go play tennis.” We’re told, “Don’t sit there in your room, because people might worry about you if you’re depressed.” Instead of putting our ear to the ground and letting the depression take us where it needs to take us. Consequently, we only honor one half of life. It leaves us feeling very alone. It leaves us feeling that we’re doing it wrong if we’re not always up and positive and wearing smiley buttons.

I think that nature teaches us there are seasons, and that there is a time when, in order for a new, more authentic version of yourself to occur, there has to be a breaking down of the known identity, the familiar self. Just like there is in nature. The leaves fall off the tree; they don’t cling to the branches. There is a wintry phase where it looks like nothing is happening, everything is dead, and all the creativity is way underground. And it’s the same with people. At some point, the things that once supported us no longer work. It’s like that line from Dante’s Commedia that says, “In the middle of the road of my life/I awoke in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost.” This happens to all of us periodically, in a very cyclical fashion. All of the patterns we go through in our physical bodies and in our psycho-spiritual growth are mirrored in nature. To the extent that we remove ourselves from nature and invent this world where we only honor the two phases that make us feel good— spring and summer— we will find that we don’t have any bearings. We will miss the bigger story, that we have new energies coming in, that there is a more authentic self that wants to be born. And even though you’re afraid, at least by naming it right, you have more of a chance of going through with a little more grace, and allowing the fullest possible expression of yourself to manifest. By cutting ourselves off from nature, we lose the map that would reassure us.

Dave: How are people trying to heal this disconnection?

Joanne: There are many things happening at this moment in time. The area I have been looking at for the last decade is the impulse to reconnect with insects. Thomas Berry states in the introduction to my book The Voice of the Infinite in the Small: Revisioning the Insect-Human Connection, that our culture has traveled as far away from the insects as it can go and now it must return. The basic law of existence, he explains, dictates that after separating, all things turn back to an underlying unity where each is fulfilled in the other:
“The time has come for humans and insects to turn toward each other. Such is our wisdom, the source of our healing, our guidance into the twenty-first century.”

And so we are at this moment of turning, riding on an impulse to reconnect with these kinds of creatures. Witness for example, the growing popularity of insects evidenced by insect zoos, and a broad range of merchandise with insect images and themes like insect stamps, ceramics, fabrics, and even furniture.

There is also a large number of recent books identifying butterflies as messengers. The idea dates back centuries, but its manifestation in our culture is new. Like Berry said, “The time has come for insects and people to turn towards each other.” And that is one way of healing the rift with nature. I’m talking about bringing together all the things we’ve pushed away out of fear, the things we have been taught to despise. And interestingly, it’s coming on the heels of this fear of bacteria, which is another invisible blind spot in the culture. I addressed this fear of bacteria in the original version of the book, but left it out of the second because it was coming out on the heels of September 11th and anthrax. I felt that the culture needed a little distancing before they could hear what I was trying to say about bacteria.

Ruth: We live in a culture largely devoid of ritual, and that doesn’t place much importance on life’s transitions. As you put it, “We lack a life-sustaining, supportive context in which to move through our own human passages.” Can you talk about what role nature, and insects in particular, can play in bringing an awareness to when a transition might be upon us? How might insects play a part in “modern rites of passage?”

Joanne: Animals have always been the messengers and the initiators, so I think that all the animals can play a role in rites of passage. But insects are starting to play a bigger role because we’ve locked up and imprisoned the larger animals. They can’t reach us, except through our dreams. The insects, in particular, have a wonderful presence because they can’t be tamed or bargained with. If you need to be bitten, you’ll be bitten. When insects are directed by your soul to give you a particular experience, then they will give you that experience. One of my favorite stories is of Sharon Callahan, who was bitten by a tick, contracted Lyme’s disease, and fought for her life for over a year. When she was closest to death, she had an out-of-body experience that brought her to a place occupied by the other animals. She was told to go back and make flower essences for the animals, to help them do their job with people. And that’s what she does today. She has a business in the Shasta Mountain region of California. Years later, she came back to thank the tick for the initiation. This is unheard of, thanking something for making you sick. But the tick had brought her to a place where enough of her life had dropped away in order for a new life to be born.

Another story has to do with Warren Grossman, who wrote the book To Be Healed By The Earth. He was a very comfortable practicing psychologist in the Midwest. He went on a vacation to Latin America and got a parasite. He was told he would die in a year, so he came home to die. As he got close to death, he dragged himself outdoors and collapsed on the earth. When he did that every day, he began to experience the energies of the earth so intensely that after a while he could actually see them and feel them. He survived, and became a healer. As far as I know, he hasn’t gone back to thank the parasite…but he might someday if he reads my book! (laughter)

Now, these are extreme examples, but at the same time, what both these stories say is that when the soul needs to move you, when it needs to break through the familiar self, the comfortable life, it doesn’t care about the status quo. And it doesn’t care what your ego wants. The soul wants you to experience what you came to earth to experience. The soul won’t let you get locked into these comfortable forms. It’s like the guy in the spider chapter who is terrified of spiders, who had one run up his arm when he was five-years-old, and who finds himself enrolled in a college biology course that, to his surprise — because he didn’t read the syllabus — is focused on spiders exclusively. That’s the soul’s trickster energy, the trickster coming in and saying, “Excuse me, you have a path to take here.” The trickster created the situation that turned fear into fascination. Fear and fascination are related. I think that our fear of particular insects indicates the presence of an affinity, or a special connection with that creature. There is potential there for growth. We need to pay attention to the creatures that grab our attention, recognizing and accepting that they often do it through paralyzing fear. By working with what frightens us, we can turn our fear into an ally.

Ruth: You mention at one point in your book that “Some deep aspect of self must activate the internal and external experiences we need to initiate our own rite of passage…The soul will use whatever it can to move us along.” I’m curious about how the soul “uses whatever it can to move us along” and how it “activates” these experiences.

Joanne: The story that comes to mind is about Sally Callagher, a nature writer, who talks about growing up with an abusive mom. When she was a young girl, she found a little mongrel dog, and pleaded with her mother to keep it. Her mother was mentally ill, and in one of her attacks on her daughter, she told her, “Take that dog and lose it, or I’m going to kill it.” So here is this girl taking her beloved white dog down to a strange street, leaving it, and getting on her bicycle and riding away just as fast as she can. She looks back and sees her dog trying to keep up with her but can’t. This memory, this betrayal of her dog, just haunted her. Later in her life as an adult, and in a moment of despair, Sally decided to commit suicide. She had a handful of pills, was ready to take them, when all of a sudden, she heard the bark of this dog. Of the white dog, Sally writes in her autobiography, “How did I know it was my little white dog? I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew.” And she threw the pills out the window. The soul brought that little white dog to her. The bark. Where did the bark come from? I don’t know. Life is mysterious. Was the dog outside? I don’t know. All I know is that the soul intervened because it wasn’t her path to end her life, but perhaps to deepen into the mystery of her connection to life.

Or, you take the story of the man who formed the Pelican Rehabilitation Center down in Florida. He’s just walking on the beach, retired and full of despair, and there’s a pelican dying on the sand. The pelican is looking at the man; there’s this moment of eye contact. In that instant, the man saw the being in the pelican’s body. He picked the bird up, nursed it, and later formed this big center for pelican rehabilitation. The bird lived with him. What’s that about? I just love stories like that. It’s affinity coming through.

The contours of our psyches match different aspects of nature. It’s why some people collect owls or cats, or some people are dog lovers or snake lovers. And what the culture has done by perpetuating the belief that certain animals are worthless or pests is that people won’t find that aspect of themselves. Or their affinity gets twisted, like the man who kills cockroaches for contest money. He has an affinity for cockroaches, but the culture has told him that they are things to be killed and hated. His killing them, or mounting them and dressing them like people, is a path for creativity that has been distorted.

Dave: I’m still curious about how affinity works, the mechanism that triggers these experiences. I’ve read The Soul’s Code by James Hillman, whom you refer to in your book. Hillman talks about the “daimon” as what activates the soul. Do you have any further thoughts on this? You also mention the concept of “deep ecology,” which states that there is a seamless connection between human identity and the natural world.

Joanne: I guess I think of the “soul’s code,” the “daimon,” as a kind of living blueprint inside each of us. It is full of possibility and potential. There are things that can activate a certain part of us, and I think the goal is always to create the most authentic, fullest version of our unique selves as we can in any one lifetime. I also believe that nature is both inside and outside, and that seeded in nature are those beings— whether it’s a plant, animal or stone— that are connected to our particular blueprint, to the contours of our psyche. I talk about the “inner zoo.” That’s James Swan’s idea that we are populated by all of the animals. I do believe that there are certain beings and elements of nature that are closer to our awareness. When you see that aspect in nature, there’s something activated inside of us. Think of something like landscapes. Somebody loves mountains, or craves big trees. Or someone has to live by the ocean, or collects stones. Other people are green thumbs. Look around. You see people living out these connections all over. You just don’t see it in its fullness, because the culture has broken from a deeper understanding of these things. We couldn’t have done to the earth and the animals what we’ve done if it hadn’t been broken. We’ve stopped seeing our connection; we want to elevate ourselves above nature and protect ourselves from what is frightening.

Dave: Insect lore is connected to powerful archetypes and ancient mythologies. Your book is filled with wonderful stories of individuals, and whole cultures, that have regarded insects as teachers, messengers, and “spiritual directors.”  Why are insect archetypes and myths so important? What role can they play in our lives?

Joanne: First, I would have to refer to the work of Michael Meade, and his belief that the old stories really mask the processes of the human psyche. There are really no people or animals in the stories; they are aspects of the psyche. There is the fairy tale about the gentleman whose house is invaded by flies. Instead of killing them, he feeds them. When it comes time to win the princess’ hand, it’s the flies who return the favor, and tell him how to answer the king’s trick questions. What’s that story about? You’re talking about befriending what is small, what is humble, what is usually despised. That thought recurs throughout my book, because it just happens in our society that “bigger is better.” The small— like insects— just doesn’t matter. The humble isn’t valued. Interestingly enough, in the original Bushman stories, it is always what’s small and humble that is transformed into what is radiant. And psychologists tell us that it is what is small and overlooked that has power. Even in Christian symbology, you have the savior being born in a stable, having humble beginnings. So you see this theme in psychology, religion, and mythology. It’s like befriending the toad, the ugly amphibian, which Joseph Campbell talks about. He says when we embrace what is insignificant and small and ugly, great gifts can come. The secret is unlocked. Befriending the small is part of the trick of moving ahead in the journey towards the treasure of the Self. So insects obviously play a part in this, because they are small, because they are seemingly powerless. You can easily kill them. But almost every story dealing with insects has an aspect of a person helping the insects, and the insects returning the favor.

Ruth: One of the main messages of this issue of JFL is that when we live in a culture that doesn’t value and mark life’s transitions, it often falls upon us individually to develop our own awareness of these transitions, and, if necessary, design our own rites of passage. But traditionally, rites of passage were group experiences. They sought to connect initiates to the mysteries of the world around them, to show them their proper place in the universe, to humble them before a power greater than themselves, and to put them in tune with the life they share with other creatures. How can people recover this lost wisdom and reintroduce it into their lives in a practical, everyday manner?

Joanne: There’s a big problem without the community. Yet I think there are intentional communities forming and mentors being initiated. For instance Michael Meade, Orlando Bishop, Malidome Somé. Luis Rodriquez and other people from Mosaic are creating the container for initiating young people, mentors and elders. And another example is the work of author/activist Deena Metzer who has formed a healing community called Daré that seeks to initiate and heal participants in the monthly gatherings. And there are people from every walk of life who are ready to step forward as elders, who have thought about their own experiences and can hold the ground while young people find their gifts.

I think Nature can also initiate us in the absence of human elders. Wilderness is a fierce teacher that can take you to the edge of fear, strip you of the trappings that stagnate and bind your energy and then return you to your life and the culture energized and changed. It happens all the time. The dreaming consciousness marks the passage and working with your dreams is another way to faciliate or midwife your own passage.

When initiation doesn’t happen, however, we have young people who are not finding the right gifts, or are having their gifts turn against them. They look for spirit in drugs and for family in gangs. All of the so-called “youth problems” are really just a reflection of the lack of mentoring, the lack of giving them attention and blessing them. We’ve abandoned our children. They are left to TV to get their images. Look at the advent of the fear shows, the “reality” shows. These shows are trying to activate energy, but they’re doing it in a false way. They’re taking you right to the edge of the fear so you feel alive again but then they get lost in the posturing and fascination with the ego’s responses to the imagined threat.
Ruth: And that seems to be the attraction of those shows…

Joanne: Yes. These shows are dancing with the shadow. They always bring in the cockroaches. They bring in the rats, the worms, the despised. They glorify all the disgust responses, but it’s not real. It’s why we go to the movies and watch people being terrorized by bacteria or spiders or rats. It’s a way to relieve anxiety. It’s a cry for the authentic, for something real, for an encounter with nature where there is no certainty. This is what drives people nuts about insects. You take a walk through the woods and you don’t know if you’re going to get a tick on you, or be bitten by a black widow or a brown recluse. We need to remember that when the body needs to die, when the work is over, the body will find a way to die. And sometimes it will be through the gift of an animal.
I also think that there are more and more people like myself who are trying to answer the call, who are trying to pay attention to the young people. I live everyday with young people’s cries for help. I can see a society that is afraid of them. It’s very similar to the insects. If you take their appearance, their spiked hair and piercings, it goes to extremes because they need our attention. Perhaps if they can’t get it through normal routes, they’ll resort to piercings and tattoos, which are actually rather indigenous. These are all of the appearance issues that give adults and seniors living in gated communities ways to justify being afraid of young people. Then we get things like “three strikes and you’re out” laws…excuse me, youth is a time for making mistakes. Sending young people to prison and teaching them how to be criminals is not a solution. It is a mistake that will return to haunt us. Michael Meade is always saying that a culture gets the youth it deserves. I look at all the troubles like school shootings as indicating where we have neglected to put our energy, love, and attention.

Dave: Can you talk about the work you do with young people?

Joanne: I’ve been a public high school teacher, but I was laid off three weeks ago because of the budget cuts in California. In high school, I met a young man who was in crisis and told he wasn’t going to graduate. He began to stay in my classroom and pour out art, these powerful archetypal images. I knew something unusual was happening, and I started paying attention. I found out his story of tremendous neglect and abuse, and saw that his unique gift was emerging through this time of crisis, when he was told he wasn’t going to graduate. So I began conversations with him, and started opening doors and opportunities for him, just with my contacts and by feeding him supplies so he could develop his art. He had been pretty much homeless and working his way through his teen years so he could have a place to sleep. I saw him begin to blossom. I saw the gift and the connection he had to another world to bring these images forth. Seeing him develop and improve inspired me to form a non-profit last summer called Catalyst for Youth. It’s an attempt to provide non-traditional support for thirteen to twenty-five-year-olds. I did this because I saw that when you’re eighteen, the programs stop, and these are young people who still need help. If they haven’t found their way in a traditional academic track by the time they’re eighteen— and they usually can’t do that unless they have a lot of parental support— then they’re lost, and they’re the ones who are ending up in jail. I’ve received a tremendous amount of support. Michael Meade gave some of them a scholarship to one of his retreats. The author of Always Running, Luis Rodriguez, a former L.A. gang member who had his life saved by words and poems, helped this particular young man, Curtis Manzano, put on a solo exhibit in January. My first grant is for a “Youth on Fire” exhibit that will feature the work of nineteen to twenty-five-year-olds, and give them a chance to develop their gifts.

Ruth: Do you work specifically with insects with young people?

Joanne: No. What I do is use computer art to help them find out who they are. If I find that they love a particular thing, then I develop a curriculum around that. I believe in individual curriculum. General curriculum is only useful when the person doesn’t know what they want to explore. Then they appreciate a little more direction and structure. Some of the assignments have to do with finding their unique affinities for nature. Then I get a chance to teach them about dreams and about what the connection with nature looks like. We talk about self-esteem. We look at the images that feed them, so they can see how powerful words and images are together. And when I work with young people, I teach respect by modeling it. They know right away that they don’t kill anything in my classroom. You help it out. There are opportunities all the time. You get a ladybug in your room, or recently we had a wonderful opportunity with a crane fly, showing people how to help it gently out of the room, showing them that it doesn’t understand walls and windows. Kids learn who you are by osmosis, but first you have to love them. That’s what they need and that is what they require before they will learn from you.

Ruth: What I’m hearing you say is that we need to be more aware and more attentive to the kinds of signals we may be getting from our environment. And we need to be willing to be mentored or to be mentors. How can people move towards recognizing when their soul is activating something, and how do they respond once they get the sense that something is happening? I’m sure a lot of us would just feel puzzled. I recently had this experience where in three separate locations a wren was sitting in a Hawthorne tree singing, and I’m thinking, What do I do with that? What do we do once we become aware? How do we proceed?

Joanne: Often the sign is just to tell you that there is a pattern, that you are blessed. There’s always an eye upon you, something is always watching and blessing. I don’t know that it’s necessarily about doing anything, but psychologists say that if you don’t notice any synchronicities in your life, then something’s wrong. You’re not paying attention. You have to pay attention. You’re not going to pick it up if you’re busy rehearsing what you’re going to say to your boss because you’re late. Or worried about what you’re going to have for dinner. It takes being present in the moment, which of course is the core teaching of all the spiritual paths. You have to be paying attention, you have to be in the present moment, in order to receive the gift, the reassurance that there is a path, even if you don’t know where the path is. You have to be watching for the things that move with the blueprint. Anything that moves with the blueprint is going to be different than when you’re fighting uphill. We’re so guided without even knowing it. That appointment that we end up being totally late for because of a nine-car pileup on the freeway may have saved us from a path that wasn’t ours. Our lives are orchestrated in such a wonderful way. And the same presence is being asked of us in return. When you receive a sign from nature, it just weaves you into this incredible earth experience. It brings the community we’ve lost back home inside.

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