I remember playing basketball and doing my job with a student this week, when he called out to me, “Ari look, a squirrel”.  Here in the Northern hemisphere, the seasonal transition into Fall is rapidly approaching us and we are venturing back to school, work and getting organized, while saying good-bye to summer.  Meditation on squirrel reminds us that our business can be our pleasure, if only we allow for it.  In a sense, this week’s blog was falling out in the doing, while leaving its passing behind.  And the doing becomes less robotic when we are truly present with what is and our busy doings become awakened and more about being.  Summer is waning and on this Equinox, light and dark will be in balance, if only briefly.  At this junction on Nature’s cycle, the Autumn Equinox is somewhat akin to the Spring Equinox, when masculine and feminine energies are also equal.  Right now, we are looking forward to the masculine-light waning and the dark night of feminine energies rising until their peak on the Winter Solstice on December 21, 2012, the first day of Winter.  Isn’t it synchronistic that squirrel medicine carries a 12 week cycle and the end of the Mayan Calendar is approximately that distance into the future?  Yes, we are living in exciting times on our planet today, but not without the labor pains associated with giving birth to a New Earth.  Squirrels are especially powerful medicine at this moment and when watching them being squirrely, we are reminded of their spirited teaches on being prepared, but hopefully without going too nuts in the process.  Does anyone else out there get a chuckle from watching our squirrel brothers and sisters bursting with nervous energy, scurrying around, while stashing their acorns and sometimes forgetting where they buried their treasures? 

I remember when “911” happened like it was yesterday.  In fact, I knew something like this event was coming–in the sense that I could feel it.  At the time, I was working at a group home for children in State custody that had been severely abused and neglected by their birth families and they were already at school.  A couple of my co-workers came in and asked if I knew what had happened and directed me to the TV in the living room.  Although I was only in my mid-twenties at the time, I had not lived a sheltered life and I understood what was going on in our world geopolitically.  I realized that many folks on the planet, including a growing number of  folks here in America, lived without a sense of security and experienced terrorism in their day-to-day lives.  Sadly, but understandably, terrorism seeks to disrupt the status quo and uses violence as a means to justify the end.  This crazy idea is similar to the fundamentalist belief in the maximum economic profit business model that wealthy nations use to exploit poor nations on our planet today.  But violence, although illegitimate and foolish, predictably begets more violence.  We reap what we sow.  Stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, which the United States continues to hoard more than any other nation, is asking for more of the same.  However, if we want to eliminate this clinically insane nightmare, then we need to start balancing cooperation with competition and clean up the resources that we share by co-creating win-win solutions, rather than adopting a quick fix, band-aid approach.  Isn’t it obvious that the old ways do not work any more?  As humans, we have historically been at our best when we are at our worst.  But the times, they are a changin’ and we need to get out on the forefront and proactively get in alignment with Nature to facilitate our transition into a New Age and Paradigm.  Can’t you hear the arrival of John Lennon’s energy saying, give peace a chance . . . that’s all we’re asking, is give it a chance . . . it’s never been done.

In welcoming squirrel’s spirited streams of energy, we remember how to balance letting go of our stockpiles that no longer serve us and tap into our reservoirs for a future rainy day.  Our spirited Nervous Woodland Creature friends are offering us powerful energies to release dysfunctional relationship patterns, fixed thought processes, programmed beliefs and objects that once brought security, but are no longer serving us–without going too nuts in the process!  This is somewhat akin to a toddler giving up his pacifier and learning to soothe himself, rather than relying on the object of his affection.  In our modern world of 10, 000 things, it might mean giving up some old clothes and giving them away to someone who really needs them more.  Systemically, perhaps this looks like giving up our addiction to foreign oil and replacing it with free energy for the entire planet by tapping into the Earth’s natural energy centers, as true wizard Nikola Tesla once envisioned.  Maybe that is too far-fetched for some, but burning less fossil fuels and finding more organic ways to cultivate energy that is cleaner for all of us is possible.  Bringing in the energy of squirrel is merely one source that is pollution free, particularly if worked in the positive.  For those at the top of the food chain, it might mean giving up tax breaks and sharing a bit more with the overwhelming majority–picturing buying us time and saving us money.  It might mean looking another sentient being in the eyes, perceiving the mirror and realizing that we are all cut from the same cloth.  In tapping into squirrel consciousness, we co-create a safe place for an untroubled heart and mind, where wisdom and caring are gathered and stored and anxious fears about the future magically disappear. 

Stay True,

Ari