On Being A Squirrel

Some of you know (and some may not) that I am of dual tribes: I am of the Tribe of Judah (Jewish) and I am also of the Tribe of Native spirituality. My seminary studies have, of course, forced me to look only at being of the Tribe of Judah. This is not a bad thing by any means, but in the process, I have let go too much of my native side, my native spirituality which supports and informs me in critically important ways that the Jewish side does not. They are both excellent paths G!d has gifted me to walk and in which I have been trained; both are informative, excellent, and have their own unique gifts of spirituality.

Yesterday’s appearance in my dreamtime of Sister Squirrel was a reminder to come back to balance, walking hand in hand with both my Jewish Tribe on one side and my Native tribe on the other. I have two hands for a reason: one hand to hold my Jewish heritage and the other to embrace my native heritage. It takes both, for me. And I have been walking a bit off balance lately because I focused on the Jewish tribe to the exclusion of the native tribe, a natural occurrence from prolonged seminary studies. Sister Squirrel brought me back to remember I am both, and it took my dear friend, Rev. Jan, to remind me of that. (Thank you, dear Jan!)

In my native heritage, everything can be a messenger of the Great Mystery, the Holy Process of Life. Paying attention is the most important thing I can do. So Sister Squirrel’s appearance holds a key message I need right now. What might that be?

Accepting that I am a common, ordinary squirrel does not contradict that I am uniquely created and have a unique mission that only I can fulfill. In fact, every single creature and rock and blade of grass is uniquely created with a unique mission only it can fulfill. I am a unique snowflake, but no more unique and special than any other snowflake!

One response to yesterday’s post indicated it might be okay for me to be a squirrel, but then, I must be the BEST squirrel. And yet, what does this “Best” mean, really? Does it mean to keep becoming better and better and better and better, to keep besting my best, to let yesterday’s “personal best” be not good enough today because I must keep besting my best? That on days when I struggle and fail and don’t do as well as I did the previous day that I am therefore not doing my best? Is there such a thing as CANI, an acronym for Constant And Never-ending Improvement? Isn’t that this same “Holy Process” concept I have written about previously? Constant And Never-ending Improvement? Always becoming our Best Me’s?

What I can say with certainty is that there is no such thing as CANI in daily reality, nor does it occur in nature. I can also state emphatically that no, Holy Process to which I have spoken in the past is not the same as Constant And Never-ending Improvement. This is a topic I want to further explore, but it will have to wait for another post, as today I want to address: On Being A Squirrel.

As I concluded yesterday, I will never become a butterfly, because I am a squirrel. A common, ordinary squirrel with my own squirrely gifts and mission and uniqueness. The message is that I should embrace my squirrelness and stop pushing myself to become a butterfly. Sister Squirrel ain't got no butterfly DNA, and really, being a squirrel is pretty cool.

While people like butterflies because they are flashy and pretty and only around for a limited time, in reality, Rev. Jan reminded me, butterflies are very fragile creatures. They cannot fly in the rain or the wind, and when winter comes, they are no more. They are fair weather creatures. Eye candy, yes, but at the end of the day, can she type? Why no, she cannot.

Squirrels, on the other hand, are rough and tough and ready to change direction on the head of a pin. They are not fragile; they are all-season. They don’t even hibernate through the winter. They prepare and hunker down and get through it as only a squirrel can. Squirrels get down and dirty, and they can also perform death defying acrobatics. And they can play like nobody's business. Their antics are highly amusing!

Even with this, really, who wants a squirrel for a Power Animal in their totem? I didn’t, because a squirrel is so, well, common and ordinary. So non-exotic. So not very pretty. Let’s face it: squirrels aren’t eye candy in the same way other big beautiful beasts, or butterflies, are. Nor are they massive in appearance that just seeing them commands a sense of awe. Squirrels can be a bit pest-y, too. But in my native tribal heritage, every creature, every twig, every rock, every blade of grass has its message and its mission. Squirrels are unique and important.

Squirrels solve puzzles. Just ask the birder who’s tried e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. possible to keep them out of her bird feeders! Squirrels persevere. Although squirrels are prepared for what may come, they have a tendency to forget where they store things. Yet, Squirrel has an incredible ability to remember where she buries the majority of her food. The 25% of the nuts she forgets contribute to the next generation of trees and plants to populate the forest. This forgetfulness is often the result of running in too many directions at once, yet it, too, is a gift. 

I can’t tell you the delight I experienced when I lived in Boston and every year new crocuses would pop up in the early spring because a squirrel had made off with a crocus bulb and buried it in the middle of the yard. It brought color and delight to an otherwise boring lawn. Squirrels also create bogus caches out in the open, tricking other squirrels, birds and animals into thinking their treasured storage is somewhere it’s not. This is likely where the crocuses came from, as a crocus bulb is not something a squirrel would normally bury as a future food source. So the squirrel is part artist, and part conservationist, and part of her mission is to beautify the earth and bring a smile to the face of home owners enjoying the new, randomly planted crocuses!

Squirrels are sociable and communicative and can be very vocal in both work and play. They have a tendency to erratic, almost frenetic energy contrasted with complete times of shutting down and being in their nest. Squirrels are not good at long term projects requiring sustained focus on a single goal; they spread their energy in several directions at once. They work best by short bursts of high intensity energy and concentration, always heading back to their nest for rest.

Squirrels are playful and extremely curious, and sometimes a bit of a daredevil. For all their playfulness, they are still practical. They have lightning fast reflexes and an ability to seek the highest place to stay out of harms’ way. Squirrels use their quick, nervous energy to enjoy life’s adventure.

Squirrels mix well with other woodland creatures, and have even conspired with birds to work together to get food. Squirrels are very adept at reading body language. They use their whole body, especially their voices and tails, to communicate. Squirrels know how to weather natural cycles of boom and bust, feast and famine, always clued into the cycles of change in the earth. Yet, even while Squirrel gathers for the coming winter, she always has time for play, and she always keeps an eye out for dogs and cars. Sometimes more successfully than others.

The name squirrel is derived from the ancient Greek word skiouros meaning “shadow-tailed”. There are over 265 species of squirrel worldwide, with the Eastern Grey Squirrel being the most commonly seen mammal in the United States. The family of squirrels includes not only tree squirrels but also ground squirrels, flying squirrels and chipmunks.

The tree dwelling or “arboreal” squirrel has an additional advantage. She has a mobile ankle that allows her to turn her foot backward and run down a tree face-first. This is a rare trait in the animal kingdom. Flying squirrel has special skin flaps between her front and back legs that makes it possible for her to leap and take great glides from one tree to another. She doesn’t actually fly like a bird, but rather glides like a paraglider. This reminds me to be willing to take giant leaps, and trust that I carry a built in parachute. (This ability has come in handy numerous times in my life.)

Squirrel medicine brings great mental agility for reaching great heights, and also the courage and audacity to plunge head-long into endeavors, along with the ability to remain well grounded and not remain stuck in the tree tops.

Sister Squirrel reminds me to release that pressure I have felt to keep pushing myself to become better and better. Even comparing myself to myself, that is a self-centered focus, and a self-centered focus and goal is not my mission in life.  My mission is not to keep besting myself; my mission is to simply BE the squirrel; to settle into my squirrelness, work a little, play a little, and let the results go, even if it means forgetting where I planted everything, and especially if it means planting a bogus cache here and there to surprise the world with an unexpected pop of color or a bit of whimsy. Some days will be more grounded and others will be parachuting in the tree tops, and some days, I will simply hang out in my tree top nest and BE. All have their place.

Who knows how G!d might need my brokenness more than my strength some days? Others may be called to always stand and appear strong, to be the Big Cat who shows no fear. I am the squirrel, and some days I am fearless and acrobatic, and other days I hide in my nest. This world needs both the Big Cats and the squirrels. What the world does not need is for me to feel so pressured into always becoming something better or attaining some level of "bestness" than I already am, that I cannot feel comfortable in simply being who I am, here and now, a simple, common, ordinary squirrel with my own unique gifts and mission.

If you are called to be a big Cat or a butterfly or a whatever, BE that! For myself, I am going to have fun settling into being a curious squirrel. No big deal. No great eye candy. No striking fear into the hearts of those who see me.

I am honored for Sister Squirrel’s visit to me, and her message, about which Rev. Jan joggled my memory, that my mission is not about me or some self-competition to always be my best; it is not about becoming someone else’s expectation or assessment of me, especially if my very real limitations are not fully understood or accepted. My mission, that is, G!d’s will for me, is about simply being who I am and doing the work as I can, limitations and all, and not forgetting to play, to work, to rest.

As Rev. Jan reminded me, “You know, the thing about squirrels?  They are grounded.  …They are a constant presence. Yeah, butterflies and the image of transformation is nice.  But butterflies can't fly when it's cold or rainy.  They can't tolerate wind or snow.  They are too delicate. Squirrels, however, know how to survive.  They can live among those who are different than they are (birds, chipmunks, and others).  They know how to adapt.  Butterflies? … Limited by the environment. G!d loves you just the way you are!  Why try to mess with that? Hugs, My Squirrel Friend!”

It’s nice being accepted as I am, right now today, even if a bit broken and beat up around the edges; without the pressure of becoming something better, something more, something else. In the words of someone on a documentary I once watched: "Be what you is. If you is old and ugly then be old and ugly, but be what you is." Sister Squirrel reminds me to stop working so hard to overcome the limitations which I was given in my early developmental stages. Perhaps, like Jacob’s permanent limp, the limitations are a badge of honor from a struggle I survived. They aren’t fixable; my task is to accept. Work hard, play hard, and rest as much as I can in between, but never ever keep trying beyond my very real very human limitations to be someone I simply cannot be. And to keep trying to be this unrealistic "better/best" is to deny the gifts, and limitations, G!d has given me.

Perhaps what G!d most wants to use of me is the very brokenness I try so hard to deny, cover, or improve upon. When the denial, covering, and improving has failed time and again, that is exactly when Sister Squirrel came along to remind me to simply be who I is without the constant, countless, vain, self-centered attempts at becoming something more, something better, something else. If I is old and broken, then be old and broken. If something is unfixable after repeated attempts at fixing it, even if someone else tells me it is within my ability to fix, then I waste time constantly trying to fix what is unfixable.  Other people have a different experience, a different perspective, and what they see as fixable comes from a far different place than my lived reality. The deeper message at work––and at play––here is acceptance: to be who I is and to stop wasting precious energy trying to be who/how someone else thinks I should be. Really, G!d may find my brokenness of more use than my constant attempts to fix the brokenness.

Acceptance is the key, then. Self-acceptance is paramount. I need to simply be who and what I am, even with my limitations and battle wounds, and release myself from the very self-centered notion that becoming better better better best, constantly striving striving striving, might be someone else’s mission, but it is not mine. Mine is to accept myself as I am, here and now, and to simply relax into being a common, ordinary squirrel that has been beaten up a bit by life, but who still manages to do squirrel things. And that is enough.

There is no need to keep trying to best my best, to outrun my very real limitations, to overcome the defective parts. I am simply at my best even on my worst days. My mission is acceptance, not better better better best. It is enough for G!d, it is enough for those who love me without conditions, and it must be enough for me.

The world needs its squirrels, plain old ordinary, common, squirrels. Be what you is. If you is a tattered, worn out, beat up, old, common squirrel, then be that tattered, worn out, beat up, old, common squirrel. Rest in the nest until your strength returns, and play when you can. Work when you must, but don't focus so much on yourself that your entire focus becomes consumed by being better than you are right this very minute. That is MY mission; yours may be different. And my mission is good enough for G!d. It is my honor and privilege to be what I is and leave it at that. I can do no more, nor would G!d have me do so.

Amen v’amein.