Photo by veintecerodos.
I still love this bit from Stephen Hawking’s 1988 book A Brief History of Time:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”
There are many versions of this story, but this is by far the most popularized. My personal favorite goes like this:
An English philosopher was visiting India, and was introduced to a holy man. The philosopher asked the Holy Man the nature of the world, and the old man replied, “Oh the world is a great big ball that sits on the great flat back of the Great World Turtle.” The Englishman of course asked “What does the turtle stand on?” The seer replied “Why on the back of an even larger turtle of course!” Then the Englishman asked “and what does THIS turtle stand on?” The old man shook his head and sweetly smiled and said “it is no use my son, it is turtles all the way down!”
Why is it a turtle that the Earth is sitting upon? Why not a crocodile, or a cockroach, or a mammal even? Because turtles are one of the most ancient species that lives–it is, in fact, the most ancient of all vertebrate animals. It’s not as ugly or filthy as a cockroach, and because the turtle is considered patient, wise, and there’s very little threat of it tipping its head back and eating the planet. The turtle is safe, and with its shell has a solid foundation for the Earth to sit upon.
The turtle is considered in folklore to be a keeper of doorways. Some turtles’ shells have thirteen individual sections, or markings, which led Native Americans to associate the turtle with the lunar cycle and the power of female energies. Being opportunistic omnivores, and being a symbol of Mother Earth, Native American mythos considered the turtle to be powerful medicine, and a reminder that the Earth will provide. Its long life and slow metabolism reminds us to slow down and take our time, and shows us that sometimes it’s okay to live inside a shell.
The turtle appears in modern legends as well. Stephen King uses the turtle in many of his stories. In It, the main character meets a giant turtle professes to have had an upset stomach and sicked up the Universe. The turtle pleads not to be blamed for having inadvertently having created All That Is.
In King’s Dark Tower series, a turtle named Maturin is one of the “Guardians of the Beam.”
See the turtle of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth.
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.
On his back all vows are made;
He sees the truth but mayn’t aid.
He loves the land and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me.
The name Maturin is obviously borrowed from Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, just as the name of the great bear guardian was borrowed from Richard Adams’ Shardik, both immensely cool references.
I found a painting of a sea turtle one time over at DeviantArt, a page which has since sadly disappeared, but fortunately I had saved the art piece, along with its inscription:
Due a very stressful period of my life I was constantly having bad dreams and nightmares. During one, I felt myself sink into deep, blue water. I saw the sun filtering down through the water and waves, and slowly a large gnarled, ugly Turtle passed over me. This huge behemoth of a creature, scar covered, and armoured created a feeling of peace within me. The next day, I painted this.
I do sometimes ponder the Earth and mysticism, and I wonder at the practice of using animal totems or having a spirit animal guide. I have no idea what mine would be, nor how I would find out what it is. I’ve always had a fascination with wolves and hawks, turtles and beavers. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m pretentious and slow and large-toothed. I like the idea of spirit animals, sure, but barring some monumental mythic quest, how would you find out what yours are? I have dreamed about whales. I see hawks virtually every day, but I usually accredit that to the fact that there are so many of them living around here. Suppose my spirit animal was a giraffe. Does that mean I’d have to travel to another continent to commune with it? I have no idea, and most of the web resources I find don’t give much good information, just carbon-copy duplicates of other sites that all share the same mentality and fraudulent air of Sybill Trelawney.
