Pondering the Squirrel

I live in an old neighborhood, Forest Hills, on the north side of Indianapolis. I’m blessed to have lots and lots of trees in my yard, so numerous that I’ve recently begun labeling them. When you have trees, though, you also get squirrels. And admittedly, I’ve had a mixed relationship with them. At times I feel that they mock and taunt me from above, chattering and throwing nuts down as I relax in my hammock or Adirondack. On other occasions they’re just annoying, climbing into my bird feeders and causing havoc with the birdseed. And of course they have no fear of my chocolate lab, Halle, which only shows that they’re pretty good judges of character.

Lately though, I’ve taken a different view of the multi-faceted squirrel, spurred in part by two things I read. The first is Bill Plokin’s book Soulcraft, which has me wondering about my own spirit animal (the topic for a future post), and more generally, what we can learn from our wilder companions. Plotkin shares many stories of human seekers having spiritual experience in nature, including hearing messages from wildlife.

The second is D. H. Lawrence’s poem, Escape, which is copied below. I love his phrase, “when we escape like squirrels from turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forest again”. I know that I benefit greatly from escaping into “the forest”, whether it’s the mountains out west, the forests of Brown Country, Lake Wawasee or just the peacefulness of walking on the Monon Trail, 3 blocks from home. It’s painfully easy, though, to stay out of the forest, or not recognize when we’re in it. I fight the battle every day to “be”, to “dwell" (as my friend Brian says), or to just “gaze” at the forested gifts all around. Maybe I need to more regularly run to the forest, like the scurrying squirrels.

Finally, the mystic Franciscan priest Richard Rohr says that “God planted a little bit of God inside of us—-and all things. It seduces us into even more universal love and life. Some might call it the Holy Spirit, some might call it soul, some might simply speak of inner resonance. The practical point is that pure being can move in both directions, up and down, from God to rocks (or squirrels) , with humans as the free and conscious connector in between.”

So now I’m working on being a soul connector to my friends in the yard, and seeing what I can learn from them. What is the squirrel that can teach you?

Ray

May you have gratitude, may you have forgiveness, may you have love

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Escape

When we get out of the glass bottles of our own ego,

and when we escape like squirrels from turning in the cages of our personality

and get into the forest again,

we shall shiver with cold and fright

but things will happen to us

so that we don’t know ourselves.

Cool, unlying life will rush in,

and passion will make our bodies taut with power,

we shall stamp our feet with new power

and old things will fall down,

we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.

— D.H. Lawrence