The Dung Beetle - Turning Shit into Sustenance

Hiking the Deep Creek trail in the Smoky's yesterday I came upon a first. No, not just a pile of shit, but a little dung beetle who in his world had found a pile of gold.

He'll use the shit he's been gifted turning it into sustenance for feeding and breeding. I watched him and thought can we do likewise? Can we find the gold in the shit handed to us whether it's a result of betrayal by situations, strangers, friends or family or by those in power, politicians in all parties who have sold out to corporations?

In the seconds it took to get my camera out of its case, the little beetle had rolled his gold over a yard away from the horse manure on the trail. (He's in the far left corner of the photo to the left rolling away.) He didn't call a committee meeting or press conference to outsource or contract his job to someone else. He was deliberate, focused and fast.

Since this encounter I've learned they can roll up to fifty times their weight. How many of us carry that much weight metaphorically when it comes to societal challenges? We're more likely to fight and argue over who's not carrying their fair share of the weight of living. Some folks categorize and complain about welfare mothers while I'm personally more prone to complain about millionaires not paying an equitable share of taxes.

It seems human beings tend to resort to certain locked in responses when given shit. Some folks immediately cast blame, something increasingly popular that was unheard of or less heard during my grandparents generation. These people have one mode, complaining and blaming which becomes more rigid in times of stress, doom, gloom and fear (which according to most media sources we're suppose to be living in the midst of.)

Other folks ask what can be done with what they've been given. They see possibilities in problems. These are the make-lemonade-from-your-lemons folks. They look for the gold, the opportunities buried in the context like the beetle who finds opportunity in shit.

Some of us may disagree politically but these are potentially shit filled times to most all regular folk regardless of one's socioeconomic or political leanings. As individuals we get to choose our response to the times.

As I'm hiking life's trail, I want to be like the beetle, taking what I'm given or find and seeing within it the sustenance, the opportunity for gold. In turn I hope to make the world, a richer place.

How will you respond to the shit in your life?

=Dawn, The Good News Muse, 3 August 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com