While walking through my complex, I offered a squirrel a walnut but she already had a chicken’s thigh bone in her mouth. We both stopped to notice each other and we made a pact to connect. I wanted to know what a squirrel would do with a chicken bone and she knew I had more walnuts. So there we were, she was working the bone with an eye on me and the walnut and I was standing motionless studying her chewing on a chicken thigh.
Connecting to a Squirrel
Squirrels are like that. They size you up for the potential of being a provider of food. If you meet the requirements, motionless with something in your hand, they will hold your gaze, partly anticipating danger and partly as boldness to hold space for their hunger. I decided to watch her transform the thigh bone into food.
What Happened Next?
I used my body to block her from others’ view so they would not break the spell. She chewed and chewed on the bone until it began to dissolve. Soon, the squirrel cast off small flakes of bone —first from the center, where I could see some dried-out marrow, and then from the ends.
I wondered how this chicken thigh bone had gotten into her hands. Perhaps, there was a chicken that laid an egg, and that egg became a chicken grew up somewhere eating chicken food.
Eventually, a factory process transformed the chicken into an edible product that someone cooked at a fast food store. Someone bought the chicken and ate lunch on the grass. Then, the bone was left behind and found its way into that lucky squirrel’s mouth.
What a journey! By this time, all the squirrel had left was the bone’s knuckle, which she was making smaller and smaller. She was a recycling machine.
I was reminded of having fried chicken with the leader of a national union. We were organizing the largest anti-Apartheid demonstration ever in New York City. We stopped to eat our fried chicken. I noticed the difference between how I ate my piece of chicken and how he did. For him there was nothing left on the bones. I had selectively only eaten the meat and left everything else. I mentioned that we had a different way of eating a piece of chicken. He explained he grew up in a low-income family and he never left anything behind. He still loved to eat this way. I always had the luxury to be fussy about food and still only eat the parts that that I like.
Grounded Presence
When the squirrel finished demolishing her bone, she walked over to the walnut and ate that, too! I gave her a few more pieces of walnut and went back home. Watching a squirrel consume a chicken bone stimulated many thoughts about life.
Stop, connect to a squirrel, a bird, a flower, a tree and wait, notice one’s environment and wait some more.
Take a look at Kevin McEvenue’s Me and Planet Earth
I enjoyed reading this, Diana. A quiet moment of two living beings observing each other carefully and looking to benefit from that interaction. I like your invitation to stop and be-with something in nature that attracts one’s attention and allows something More to come. For me, it’s trees. And clouds. Trees without leaves against the sky are fabulous etchings. And cirrus clouds are definitely works of art, inviting me to see through and beyond them to The Larger. My Goodness–what riches surround us! Again, thanks for reminding us.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for your comment. I live in a complex that has lots of wildlife. I feed the squirrels and birds regularly and have found that heartfelt conversations are easy to start with the wildlife. Squirrels look you in the eyes. You can point to errant walnuts that didn’t land where they expected, and they will follow the suggestion. They like to have a witness while they eat. I lay down bird seeds in different piles so that small birds can have their own space while the pigeons are attracted to a larger pile elsewhere. Usually, when I start laying down birdseed, there might only be one bird, large or small. Within ten seconds, an army of birds flies in to eat the seed. I love being part of the ecosystem this way.
Ciao Diana. Mi è piaciuto molto il tuo post, la descrizione di queste connessioni tra presente e passato come un processo continuo. Come spesso accade una esperienza riportata tocca le proprie e da origine a giganti bolle piene di contenuti. Contenuti a cui sei legata, unita, influenzata, contenuti pesanti, leggeri, storici, passati. Un tutto che persiste dentro alla nostra esistenza. Così è la vita una grande ricchezza.
Ciao Deni, grazie per il tuo commento poetico. Esprime ciò che ho sperimentato nella connessione con lo scoiattolo. L’intensità della connessione era forte come avrebbe potuto essere mentre si trovava in Presenza Radicata con un essere umano. Mantenere lo spazio per il bisogno di cibo dello scoiattolo mi ha permesso di percepire cosa mi stava succedendo mentre osservavo questo incredibile atto di determinazione. In quel pranzo con il leader sindacale eravamo anche determinati a porre fine all’apartheid in Sud Africa. La manifestazione faceva parte di una collaborazione internazionale che ha portato migliaia di manifestanti a manifestare al Central Park di New York City e in tutte le parti del globo. I nostri sforzi e quelli di milioni di altri hanno contribuito a smantellare l’apartheid. Il ricordo di quell’esperienza rimane vivo in me.
Ciao Deni, Thank you for your poetic comment. It expresses what I experienced in the connection with the squirrel. The intensity of the connection was as strong as it might have been while being in Grounded Presence with a human being. Holding space for the squirrel’s need for food allowed me to sense what was coming for me as I observed this incredible act of determination. In that lunch with the union leader, we were also determined to end Apartheid in South Africa. The demonstration was part of an international collaboration that brought thousands of protesters to a demonstration in Central Park in New York City and to all parts of the globe. Our efforts and those of millions of others helped dismantle Apartheid. The memory of that experience stays alive in me.