Guest Post: What is a squirrel for?
Amy Seese-Bieda (among many things, my wife and friend) offers these beautiful reflections for the season, inspired by the life of warm-blooded creatures amidst the trees.
On this 8th day after All Saints, in company with the many Saints of old who themselves kept company with ravens, bears, wolves, dogs, otters, and other animals including squirrels….
Mr J looks for the voice-source
douglas squirrel up the douglas fir
What is a Squirrel For?
Fur flash. Burst, flash, fur zip. Zip, zip, up, where? Slink, slink. Where? Hiding? Where? Where? Trace here, trace there, then around, up. Too far, too far, fur flash I see you!
Nose can’t follow. Where?
You! You who came to me so forcefully: what now gives you the right to hide?
I wait and I wait and I wait, sometimes quiet, sometimes bark, bark. Your silence is my grief. Where are you?
Yes, this place belongs to us both. But you came to me, and now I follow. There is scent and there is memory. Where did you go?
What are you for?
And where did you go?
I will wait. (Until pulled away.) But I wait.
***
Fur beast, mouth animal, run, run, run. Beat-beat-beat heart. Up. Safe. Acorn world.
The mouth animal runs at me; reasons unknown.
First, and only, is up.
Why? How I came to this acorn world, why the mouth animals come, why everything worth having is worth hiding.
You, mouth animal on the ground: you speak of chase and loss.
You speak of want.
My voice is a mystery.
VJAnderson, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
***
Autumn in the Pacific Northwest, as in many places, is squirrel season. In wooded areas near the Washington State coast, one is most likely to see Douglas Squirrels, or “chickarees.” Tiny and fierce, they trill at humans and other animals from far above ground, aggressively announcing their presence. Many times, they are heard but not seen, calling from the high canopies of cedars and firs.
Forty miles inland, one is more likely to see the larger gray squirrels common in many urban and suburban parts of the country. Less vocal than chickarees, their presence is announced through their movements: running, climbing, digging, and often pausing mid-dash. During my own daily walks with a dog who is strongly inclined toward the chase of prey, no squirrel movement goes unnoticed. And, while truly knowing nothing of the squirrels’ inner states, might they be just as bewildered and curious about the world as the humans and dogs who observe them?
I was recently re-reading some earlier works of the poet Louise Glück, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in October 2020. One volume in particular, The Wild Iris (1992), brought a newfound appreciation for how those poems imaginatively express the voices and perspectives of botanical beings. The spirit of creation and destruction pervades the poems, sometimes explicitly referencing a named God or spiritual being, other times, less so.
Rereading Gluck’s poems inspired a deeper reflection on the daily dog-squirrel interactions I was observing. While imagining the interior narratives of dog and squirrel, simple questions emerged that may be familiar to humans in their own spiritual lives. Faith traditions, diverse as they may be in theology, culture, and beliefs, share a common attention to some universal uncertainties:
Questions of creation and destruction, the presence of a higher power, reasons for the unknown and unpredictable things that dart in and out of our lives
Actions that occur without purpose or reason, either seeming to resolve or lingering past our understanding
To be the dog on the ground, searching and seeking, or the squirrel above, watching and waiting.
Who are you?
Where did you go?
What is this for?
Thanks be for the wild and domestic creatures who inspired considering these questions anew.
“Mouth Animal” J, lifting his eyes in the old living tree. Photo by Amy Seese-Bieda