The Wasp and the Cockroach

I watch maybe a bit too much television. It helps relieve an active brain at the end of the day, but I’m also captivated by the stories, anecdotes, myths and humour that I pick up sailing from one program to another.

Occasionally something I see leaves an indelible mark, stimulates further contemplation. This happened to me watching an episode of the British comedy infotainment show, QI. Host Stephen Fry was describing the habits of a certain species of wasp that preyed on a type of cockroach. Rather than killing the cockroach, the wasp’s bite released venom that drugged it. The wasp would then lead the befuddled victim to its nest, lay eggs on it and the hatchlings would progressively eat the insides of the still-living cockroach. After telling this story and showing some vision of the wasp in action, Fry declared in disgust: "I challenge anyone to tell me there is a loving God!"

For those of us who’d like humanity to move to an ecological or earth-centred consciousness, Fry’s challenge is a very appropriate one. We cannot simply see nature as positive and nurturing without also appreciating its destructive side. Killing is a fundamental reality of the created world – life lives upon life. The wasp kills the cockroach for its survival and that of its progeny just as we humans do the same to a multitude of beings, from bacteria right through to sentient animals. Life lives upon life: the Earth Mother and the dark goddess Kali, ever hungry for sacrifice, are one.

Of course in this we are required to see the big picture, to realise that the various interactions of living beings are contained within larger biological systems. The wasp and the cockroach have purposes within their ecosystem, contributing to particular cycles of life. The processes of nature move outwards from the smallest sub-atomic particles to the interactions of stars and the universe as a whole, each process relating to and nested within other, larger processes.

For me, Fry’s response to the story of the two insects points to what humanity’s purpose in nature may be. His outrage is the sign of a being aware of the quality of things. The development of human consciousness allows us to stand back and look upon nature, making independent choices and decisions and distinguishing between right and wrong. In a sense this process is an illusion because we’re not outside nature but are nature like everything else; what is actually occurring is life looking upon itself, creation understanding its own self deeper.

Codes of behaviour that set down what is right and wrong, and by extension what is good and evil, have been part of cultures across the world for thousands of years. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were forced out of the Garden of Eden, banished from a simple undifferentiated existence in nature into one marked by knowledge (or awareness) but also suffering. Human consciousness, as an aspect of the consciousness of nature, had discovered the existence of good and evil, or that which furthers life and that which negates it.

Good is essentially about aligning with the processes of life in their ongoing evolution, embracing and furthering them in the understanding that all is ultimately one and that everything is interdependent. Evil entails denial of unity, separation and self-interest in opposition to other beings, and often leads to domination and abuse. Humans have been struggling with this most fundamental polarity, good and evil, and its implications for millennia.

In expressing disgust with the wasp and sympathy with the cockroach, Fry is not necessarily saying that evil is occurring in that situation, but his reaction does come out of that singular human appreciation of quality. This discernment has always brought out the best in us: from loving human relationships to love of nature, great art, architecture, civilisations, systems of thought and knowledge, magnificent leaps of creativity and inspiration. Without quality all life, not just our own, suffers. That’s the human gift to nature – an awareness of and aspiration towards quality, or soul.

What do we make, then, of the present situation in which we humans have overrun the planet and are progressively destroying so much life? Perhaps it all comes down to fundamental polarities and choices: how many of us are prepared to aim our lives in the direction of quality instead of following the path of ignorance and greed? What is at stake cannot be underestimated – it’s about the radical transformation of humanity and the planet as a whole. With good acts some forests may be saved, some people’s lives improved, some disasters averted, but the big picture is nothing short of a full-scale birth of planet Earth into a new era of life. It’s the new creation that Jesus was said to have initiated 2000 years ago ... if we pay attention, we can see it stirring all around us.