I spent a great deal of time as a child twitching in reaction to mosquitos during fire pujas, the Hindu rituals my father led throughout my childhood at Kashi Ashram. In these moments, I felt keenly aware that the love and devotion to the world that I was meant to be cultivating during these ceremonies was meeting a sharp edge in my reaction to my body being pierced by these insects.
There is something monstrous about mosquitos, something that repulses us. I am interested in moving toward the repulsive, as I feel there’s an incompleteness to our capacity for wisdom and growth if we only stay with the sweet, the attractive, the easy. This interest has strengthened me in my life as I’ve moved through seasons of life filled with death, chaos, decay, pain, violation and becoming. All of these and more are the shadows present in motherhood, and I feel my capacity for holding them has grown as I’ve taken a dive into the dark, monstrous underworld of soil, of decay, of mycelia, of the womb, and of insects.
Gratefully, in college, I took an entomology class which brought me deep into the world of arthropods. One day, a day without classes, I took mushrooms with friends and went out into a field. Laying in the grass, a mosquito landed on my arm. Rather than twitching her away I settled into deep presence. The presence of the mushroom teachers in my body sharpened my senses and I could see every sclerite on her beautiful body. I saw her abdomen swell with my blood and I knew she was feeding her babies. How could I begrudge her this small offering of my own life, so small I wouldn't miss it? Eventually she tumbled down from my arm into the grass, so heavy with her bloodmeal that she couldn't fly. I watched her digest and release her honeydew until she could fly.
This experience stayed with me in a deep way. In fact, I believe it changed my biology. I now no longer experience any reaction whatsoever to mosquitos, either during or after their bloodmeal. This species is the most hated, most derided, the species that so many people fantasize about eradicating, and I am so grateful I have an intimate and generous relationship with her.
Shortly after this experience I received a creative writing assignment in my entomology class. It was an unusual assignment for a natural sciences course, and particularly challenging as we were asked to adopt a very specific literary voice and apply it from the perspective of an insect.
It was so easy for me to know exactly what I would do: I would write about my experience with the mosquito in the style of James Joyce, particularly drawing from the erotic stream of consciousness of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy at the end of Ulysses. Here it is:
I, Aedes albopictus
rushing
and i was in the field and the green the green below the blue above the green angling toward the green i must feed my children. it’s the fresh the bright and fresh green which has no use to me now, the green wet not the wet i need i need the red wet red wet will feed my children. my antennae are small they cannot tell me where the red wet, through my compound eyes there is no red wet only hexagons of green, green fresh and bright blinding blue i must feed my children. it’s a white, yes, white hot, white fleshy fleshy hot under the white there must be the hot red wet i must feed my children. and when i find my place (itbreathes! carbon dioxide!) i will fill myself (icansmellthelacticacid) please let me feed my children. yesyesifoundit i need to land this will not be restful crude violence swats me away, again, again, again, again, i land crude hot hard cruel violence frightens me off please let me feed my children.
something has changed i cannot say what but i am allowed rest, allowed respite, i land and please don’t kill me! four big eyes staring at me they know i am here they are not killing me here i land, unfurl proboscis clean it fresh clean it fast, here i am i will feed my children! excitement and fear and thirst i am ready to pierce this is life or death this the moment this is point of entry this is-
aahh[pleasedontkillme]hhh
in goes the anticoagulant!
ihavenotbeenswatted
time slows as i g u l p
it is sweet i fill my belly i g u l p awarenesssharpensihaveneverbeen
more e!x!h!i!l!i!r!a!t!e!d
it is sweet i fill my belly it is
danger it is life it could be death
i am feeding my children
g u l p
i may burst
this host may kill me
this hot red nourishment is sweet
imayburstbutstilli g u l p
filled up there is no more room in my abdomen, my mission accomplished i am suddenly immersed aware in my body my body may burst this has been delicious and slowly gently so as not to push my luck i [gently] withdraw [slowly] from the warm hot flesh. this isn’t what i need anymore, and remaining here means danger. still, there is no reason to be this compact if i am not to be meticulous and i lift my forelegs to delicately clean my long dark proboscis thoroughly, wiping it clean with each tarsus before moving any of my mid or hind legs. the smallest shift in my weight could alert this hostbody to my presence, could cause a massive heavy indelicate flesh mountain to kill all of me and mine. my children. this is what all of this is for. i must keep my children alive.
oneswiftmotion i lift from the skin and can’t go far i
d
r
o
p
onto some green fresh wet grass below
i think i’m safe. i think now i can R E S T
now is the moment of truth. rumor has been spreading of the Homo sapiens developing a new poison, a poison to kill us through killing our kidneys. without the ability to filter the bloodmeal we will be heavy and helpless and unable to lay eggs. i wait the full minute until my body begins to quiver- i am releasing it, i have not been condemned by my meal.
o
u
t
it
p
u
m
p
s
into a perfect droplet- oop! it fell down down deep into the grass’s soil home. kidneys all well, body all well, my children, unformed, are getting their dinner.
My mind is at last at ease. I am heavy but content. Tall sharp blades of grass shade and protect me and not I am able to focus on my body. I am processing my bloodmeal and releasing that water which I do not need. Each perfect ball of salty urine I expel from my abdomen sends a rush of relief through my body, lighter and more nourished each time. My mind is clearer. I carefully clean my maxillary palps. I have time now to do nothing but sit with my mind, occasionally feeling a similar rush of coolness as my crystalline excretions evaporate and refresh my whole body. Each passing leaves me feeling stronger, more clearheaded, and lighter. My swollen abdomen becomes slender again. This will take some time, but I am safe and I am patient.
I take this time to thank the species I drank from, for their protein, and to think of the fear and gratitude we all feel for them. Homo sapiens are the reason we have succeeded so greatly, and Homo sapiens will likely be the cause of our downfall. Who could blame us for hungering for them so dearly though? How could we have known that in our evolution of a strong attraction to this species scent, we would be cosigning a seemingly eternal struggle with Homo sapiens and their sciences of death? They always have blood to spare and they are always near water; they are a perfect host for our lifecycle. They are hairless and live together, this is ideal for ease and efficiency of feeding. We cannot help that our species evolved alongside one another to lead me to this moment. I cannot and I will not apologize for the thirst and attraction which led me to this one. Perhaps one day I will be capable of thanking them, but my gratitude could never outweigh my fear of their chemical spraying, their traps, their dripping oil. Fear is tinged with guilt, though. I know that the Homo sapiens violence is not without reason. This guilt wracks me. There is always the chance that I bring death as I try to bring life to my children. My species tells stories to one another, in our brief encounters, of our ancestors, distant in space as well as time, bringing pain and death to Homo sapiens. We tell one another of Honolulu in 1945 when disease was upon our bloodmeal hosts. It was not us who killed the Homo sapiens, we never would kill them, we want our bloodfood fresh! The dengue virus slid through from our probosces into their bloodstream without our knowing. We have no say, and we have been on this earth for 100 million years, but now we pay the price of mass extermination. My fear and my acute awareness of my species’ delicate balance in this struggle often leave me terrified for my children, but I must go forward, I must lay my larvae’s eggs.
Checking in with my body, I have digested much of the bloodmeal. My body has cooled and is lighter, and I can feel my hundred eggs, my darling little ones, developing inside of me. I must find a new place, a damp warm place to finish my digestion, to wait until We are ready, my little ones and I, to start our species anew.
With new hope and life for our species.
I stretch out my wings.
I begin their fluttering, at three, then five, then nine hundred flaps per second!
Exhilarated, I am off again! Darting first in and among the grasses then up, up, toward the fading light of day, I will flick and fly until I find shelter for me and mine.
Knowing I am not fast relative to other insects, I still am deeply joyous at the miracle of flight! More than mobility, more than survival, the sounds of my wingflappings are the songs we sing for our lovers and I cannot help but find endless beauty in this sound, the sound of freedom.
Looking down I see it! A blob of black radiating heat, an old abandoned tire, yes this will do marvelously! Detritus and puddles and rubber warm from day’s sun, what a wonderful place to develop a family. One hundred small squirmers, and three days to nourish them with my body until I am to leave them. The pond nearby- this is where I will lay them. It is after all where I was hatched, and I am strong and have survived, just as they have. One hundred little ones, and three days later another hundred, and after that, more still. I will cherish this time with them and impart chemically the knowledge of our foremothers. Through my abdomen, they will know. They will know how we evolved to desire this blood that fed them, they will know the dangers we face, as well as the dangers we present.
I am tired now, I must rest now, but as they grow and prepare for life I say go little ones! Go and live. Not only to taste the wethotredsweet, not only to know the freedom of flight, but to feel the silken pleasure of laying a raft of one hundred perfect white eggs in the cool still water. To know that we survive, that our genetic story is being told and added to. This is why we live.
It’s been many years since that experience, and I am now a mother, and every day I feed my baby from my body. I know, acutely, the hunger that that process stimulates, a hunger that brings me deeper into compassion and devotion to all other species who feel the deep biological impulse to feed their children.
In the Tibetan Buddhist cosmology I am a student of, we say a prayer often which begins with, “I and all mother sentient beings equal to space,“ a line which connects us with the idea that we all have been one another's mothers through time, and that the numbers of mother sentient beings are so vast they are equal to the space of our cosmos.
That's a lot of birth. That's a lot of hunger. And it's a lot of shared experience, woven into the very fabric of life. Understanding this, let's dive into a practice of radical empathy.
Take a Moment: Close your eyes and take three deep breaths.
Tune In: Think about a time you felt a deep, biological urge. Maybe it was hunger, maybe it was love, maybe it was the desire to protect someone. Feel it.
Expand Outward: Now, take that feeling and scale it up. Imagine every mother, every creature, every lifeform experiencing that same urge. Understand you are but one note in a cosmic symphony.
Send Compassion: With each exhale, send out compassion to these sentient beings. With each inhale, receive their collective wisdom and love.
Acknowledge: Open your eyes. Sit with the understanding that your experiences, both complex and primal, are shared far beyond your immediate perception.
This practice isn't just about understanding the other but also about deeply connecting with the essence of life itself. When you engage in this exercise, you're not just practicing empathy—you're recognizing the interconnected tapestry of life, stitched together by fundamental experiences.