I don’t buy food with chemicals in them. We do not spray any chemicals on our grass, fruit trees or garden. I do not put chemicals inside or on the outside of my body. But yesterday, I found myself within the stroke of a pen to agree to cover the outside of my house with chemical toxins. Why?

Wasps. Always the wasps with me.

I have such a live and let live attitude outside of them. Even with the ticks. But when it comes to wasps, I see red. I want to annihilate them. I hate them. And I look for every chance I get to seek out their presence as a kind of affront to me and my life. How they are ruining it for me. How scary and dangerous they are.

They have no idea of course that I feel this way. But if they did, I just wish they would know how uncomfortable I am and be different. Not so waspish. Not so “sting first and ask questions later.” Not so ugly with that weird thing hanging down. Not so swarmy and floaty around the front of my house. Or in the places where I want to be outside and not feel like I am in the middle of a war.

In the midst of all of this, I lose myself. Enough to have a pest control company come to my home. Truly, nothing could be further from the truth of who I am and what I believe. Caught up in my feelings, I just wanted them gone and I did not care what it took. I think the hardest thing of all is to stand in relation to another being (human, insect or animal) whose very behavior you do not understand. Or hate. Or are afraid of. And still say “yes” to their right to be here. To their right to live as they see fit. To move as they move. To choose as they choose.

I know, but what about how it impacts me, might be what a part of your mind is thinking. To that part I would say, open up your perspective to include more than just you and your particular beliefs. Root out the fears you hold about something or someone that is different than you. Especially when that difference brings up fears in you around how your life will be affected.

In the end, I did not sign the contract. Why? Because in the midst of talking this out further, suddenly the knowing that I was going to harm other forms of life, like the honey bees we are keeping, was enough to stop me cold in my tracks. Was enough to bring me to my senses. And therein lies a Truth. We cannot eradicate Life on any level without harming all Life. We cannot coerce living beings into being what they are not, or doing what we want them to do, just to make ourselves comfortable, without bringing great harm to All.