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Photo: Courtesy of RandiNajacPhotography

A friend of mine captured this roadrunner swallowing a rattlesnake.  Her photo is both magnificent and shocking.  It is hard for me to imagine those fangs going down his soft, feathery gullet without puncturing and poisoning him along the way.  And yet, it did, leaving nary a scratch. 

It reminds me how we humans often bear difficult and painful things without so much as a sigh or grimace.  We gulp down rattlers and zoom off as carefree as this roadrunner.  Some do it with such grace that few suspect what they have swallowed or may even be swallowing.  In my line of work, I meet lots of people who swallow snakes and do so willingly.

 It would be foolish of me to ask why for it is a circuitous thread that ties us to each other; one that is difficult to follow to the root because there are just so many branches.  You could spend a lifetime untangling the threads in a person and never reach the end.  There is no way to fully understand their path or pain and no amount of education can prepare you for the task.  That takes patience and a love that few possess.

In our brief lives, we only share a portion of the road together for a brief moment.  That is all.  Shouldn’t that moment be bliss like a deep, impassioned kiss? Too often, we rail against the very connection we long for. We insist on pushing the pieces of our contradictory puzzles into shapes that do not fit and wonder why we ache. No wonder we love dogs.  They provide a love that exists not because we deserve or have earned it but simply because we are there. 

Animals have so many senses that we don’t that it’s a wonder they don’t rule the world.  But they don’t and since we are the rulers, we would do well to preside over our kingdoms with more acceptance: acceptance of those that look or speak differently, as well as those who vaguely appear in the periphery of our very, dim vision. We would also do well to cherish what we hold in our arms as if it might vanish in a breath because it will.  

So, I look at this picture and am amazed that he can thrive on a meal that could kill another in seconds.  I wonder if rattling can be heard from his stomach.  Mostly, I am astonished that what he has done in minutes, a human being might actually endure for a lifetime.  That is more shocking than any camera lens can capture and more torturous than any venom.  As Mark Twain said, “All good things arrive unto them that wait–and don’t die in the meantime.”