8/19/10 The Life and Times of the Star-Nosed Mole
One year, I was taking nature walks every morning to clear my head, at the creek a half-block away. Every now and then, I’d see little dead critters—mice, voles, even small birds-- apparently abandoned by their predators, as if a cat or a hawk had been leaving gifts. One morning, a perfect, dark kidney bean shape, about 4 inches long, appeared by the side of the gravel path. I bent to look at it, saw the bright pink weird nose, and knew at once what it must be.

It was like seeing something of legends, that I never thought I’d see in person—like the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower when I was in France, or if I ever have the luck to see Mount Everest in person, or a sasquatch, even more rare. Had heard about the mole, knew the name, but seeing it in person came as a shock. to see one revealed so unceremoniously, dead with a few talon punctures in its little hide. This thing had a nose that was a little pink starburst! A star nose!

I did what any decent person would do, which was to see that it had a proper burial. I wrapped the creature up in a tissue from my pocket (I think it was actually still a little warm), looked up to whisper a thank-you to my winged benefactor, and took the thing home for a fitting burial. I interred the mole in the woods in back of the house a few minutes later.

Star-nosed moles are amazing though. Their noses have 21 little appendages that are a cross between fingers and tentacles. They are nearly blind, so they use these nose appendages to feel their way around and to locate food. The tentacles have such a high density of sensory cells that they are 6 times more sensitive than human hands. They are in the Guinness book of world records as the world’s fastest forager. Because the mole also spends time in the water, and eats small waterborne insects, it has to be very fast & efficient at sensing a particle, deciding whether or not it’s edible, then scarfing it down. It is also thought that the star-nosed mole can detect faint electrical impulses from its underwater prey by using its nose appendages. If so, it is one of only two known animals in the world that can do that (the other is the platypus). (that is, if you don’t consider people to be animals, and if you are a scientist and haven’t explored intuitive energy work). It is also thought that the star-nosed mole might be a colony-dwelling animal, more so than other moles, but this theory requires more research. This mole is also the farthest-north–dwelling mole in North American. So many unique qualities.

Phenomenal creature, like Gloucester on the moors in Shakespeare’s King Lear: “I see feelingly.” Or like Miranda in The Tempest: “O brave, new world, that has such creatures in it.”

Why ecstasy? The mole’s nose is an amazing functional pink starburst. A supernova sniffer. A very specialized adaptation. Each mole has its own star. A star as its birthright. A star to follow, to use, to touch the world with. What if we were adorned with tentacled stars for each of the things that makes us unique? We’d have stars around our ears, our eyes, our bellies, our hands. We’d be palpating our plate of eggs in the morning, palpating the closet as we get dressed, palpating one another with dozens of pink starbursts as we met one another, palpating our way to work, where we’d palpate stuff all day, including putting all our papers in Braille, then we’d palpate sandwiches during our lunch hours, detect a few electrical impulses, and palpate all the way home again.

To look different but be completely competent, to see feelingly throughout life, to use one’s blindness in one way to develop amazing skills in another area, to be immediately recognized for your appearance, to live in the abundant, squishy earth, to swim so well, to have little nests for your home, to be so sleek and furry, to have such giant, practical, shovel-like forepaws, to be such a standout, so unique, such a star (yet underground and seldom seen), to be such a paradox.