Yesterday, part of my summer solstice celebration was cleaning out my storage unit. I sorted through a lot of clutter in the heat of the day and found much to give away--actually, I've decided to have a yard sale and add the proceeds to my traveling fund. My passport is neatly tucked away and my accounts are growing. This process of digging in and sorting through, felt very cleansing and I found a few objects to use in the little little summer solstice celebration I did with Lover Who Is My Lover's wife. B. made up a lovely altar and we created some ritual. It was very nice. I made an image box for the year--my plan is to add an image each day of the year. While digging through my storage I found a box full of old tarot decks and animal medicine cards. As I was looking at the pictures I resonated with the squirrel card and knew instantly that Squirrel was my image of the day.Squirrel energy is a great gift. It is about gathering and planning ahead, being prepared. It's about loving myself enough to gather the goods that will meet my needs in the times ahead. It's about honoring the future by readying myself for change in the present.
Squirrel energy is also about lightening my load of the many possessions that no longer serve me. It's about getting rid of clutter. Not only the clutter in my storage unit but also the clutter in my body and mind. There is a delicate balance to gathering. Collecting what is most valuable to me currently while preparing for my future and to keep the energy of what I'm gathering circulating so I'm not hoarding.
One valuable lesson from squirrel is about preparing for anything by observing the obvious. It's about accepting reality as it is, and responding to what life offers me. It's about protecting what I gather and keeping it in the safest place--an uncluttered mind and heart. It's about gathering what is most valuable--wisdom and caring, peace and love.
Credit is due to Jamie Sams & David Carson, who wrote, and Angela C. Werneke who illustrated, Medicine Cards--The Discovery Of Power Through The Ways Of Animals, for these squirrel ponderings, as I've basically paraphrased what they have written. Here's a direct quote, a poem from the book:
Squirrel...
You have gathered
Nuts by the score,
Exactly predicting
If you'll need more.
Teach me to take
No more than I need.
Trusting Great Mystery
To harvest the seed.
4 comments:
The squirrel is my power animal. This is an interesting point of view about it. Thanks!
Pagan, You're welcome. I'd like to hear what you have to say about squirrel, seeing that it is your power animal.
My connection with the Squirrel is different. I see squirrels as paradoxically being always efficient in their motions, but never graceful. Always jerky and staccato, but always accomplishing what they need quickly and easily. They always seem to be in either perfect stillness or overwhelmingly rapid motion.
At some point about twenty years ago, I recognized the power connection I have for this way of moving, and ever since, watching squirrels has taken on a strong significance for me. It is very much connected, also, with the fact that I loved studying ballet, but was never properly graceful in its execution. Acknowledging this and embracing it as how I am, as a personification of Squirrel, was an important transition.
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