Page 126 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2

As a girl I was told that squirrels didn’t matter, neither did crows, hummingbirds or the bright red

cardinals in our yard. They were decoration, background. The natural world was lovely, but it was also

angry and rough; it had no actual soul. Only God lived and was sacred, somewhere in the sky. The stuff

around us was landscape, or resource. The animals, trees and plants were there for the taking. We

needed food, wood, fur skins. Feathers for blankets. Leather for shoes and coats. Steaks for our plates

at dinnertime. These things had no spirit to them, no ancestors, no soul life. Use what you wish and

make no thanks.

Did keeping the paws and tail enhance the sacredness of her life, or degrade her in some way? What

does it mean to keep the hair or teeth or bone of a creature? Of someone we love? Instead of burying

Grandmother Squirrel, what if I had done as our human ancestors have done since time immemorial,

and skinned and eaten her?

I know a woman who has lived in the redwood forest for forty years. She built her small cabin with

redwood from the nearby trees, who are her long-­‐time companions. Two living trees literally hold up

one end of her small house. When I asked her about this, she smiled and said that trees wish to be of

use. They do not wish to be overused or taken without gratitude. But when done with thanks and for

good purposes, yes, she said, trees wish to be of use. As I considered it, this was not so selfless really.

In the end, isn’t this what we all want? We want our lives to be of use, to have made a contribution.

Generosity. The wish to be of use. Gratitude. The urge to offer thanks. That is the energetic flow at the

core of the earth that the squirrels and the forest showed me. This is what humans have somehow lost

in relation to the earth. When the indigenous peoples of America hunted animals, it was done within a

circle of giving and receiving—generosity and gratitude–wherein humans made offerings and gave

thanks to the animal herd that provided the very sustenance of their lives. When modern life came to

America, animals began to be killed in a soulless way. Today billions of animals die each year in factory

farms. It goes without saying that these creatures and their life force–that they suffer and love, bond

with others and feel pain–are not honored or even acknowledged as real. Yet most of us depend upon

these animals for our own vitality and growth.