Hooked into Stillness by a Snail
Some years ago, I sat in a darkened cinema hall at the Contemporary Art Museum in Montreal and watched a projection of a snail making its way across the screen for 11 minutes.
The snail was larger than life by a factor of 100, and moved, well, at snail’s pace. It began in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, and over the course of 11 minutes, glided its way to the upper right-hand corner and eventually out of the camera frame.
Some people left in the middle of the snail’s journey, perhaps seeking something more exciting and human-paced. But I was rapt. It was the first time I had slowed myself down for that long, staying with my attention on not only the creature upon the screen, but with a concurrent awareness of what was happening inside me.
Thoughts that arose at first:
🔸Is this really all these 11 minutes will be about?
🔸Will there be some twist in the story, now that we all get this is just a snail crawling in a straight line?
🔸Maybe I’ll be able to use my time better and see another exhibit
🔸I can’t believe someone made this
But I committed. It was only 11 minutes. I noticed that when I decided to stay, my thoughts changed to:
🔹Why do I need everything to follow the same kind of storyline, and for stories to always have familiar elements and pacing?
🔹What does that say about how I’ve internalized rules about how reality should be?
🔹Why do I feel so impatient and jittery while being with this embodiment of slowness?
🔹Is the snail really slow? Or am I fast? Or are we both moving in our own ways through reality?
When I left that cinema hall, I felt something in me had changed. Having stayed for what seemed like an eternity with this snail, I now felt its presence at the periphery of my attention, as though the snail had slid off camera and into the field of all I held in my awareness.
I encountered a snail this morning as I cycled through Tiergarten, with many currents of thought running through me. It was on this park bench as I was rolling past, and just like its cousin on the screen all those years ago, it held me rapt for much longer than I would have expected possible. With it snailing around next to me, I took many deep and slow breaths, and let things come to a standstill inside.
When you come to the end of this snail over your screen, may it also slide out of the frame, and into the wide field of your awareness. And perhaps, if you allow it to, it might gently and insistently bring some of your rushing parts to stillness.
