If a squirrel eats your prayers, do they still get to God(s)?

According to my father, who gave me the Tibetan prayer flags, Tibetan Buddhists believe that as the prayers weather and fade, the words reach the Deities. So, is a squirrel's digestive track a fast track to God? The answer is probably no. Though it would appear to speed up the weathering process, out of respect for the ancient beliefs of Tibetan Buddhism, I rescued the flags from the hungry squirrel. He was busily shredding them and stuffing the colorful tatters into his mouth.

Watching this act of squirrel sabotage reminded me of a great book I read last year - Suburban Safari: A year on the lawn, by Hannah Holmes - with a picture of a mischievous-looking squirrel on the cover. Packed with information and good humor, it documents nature in a suburban backyard. The very premise of the book challenges the human/nature dichotomy - the Wilderness as (human free) Eden that Abbey, Muir, Thoreau and a long tradition of nature writers portray.

I bring this up for two reasons. Firstly, I don't want to perpetuate the wilderness myth. I want to clarify that, in my post on guilt, I was not intentionally glorifying Wilderness as Eden. The point is to open our minds and souls to nature all around us (within us) rather than burning fossil fuels to bring ourselves out to the Wilderness (though, I admit I enjoy that too:)). In a culture indoctrinated into the myth that humans are separate from nature, and nature is only to be found in remote places with high adventure, it is difficult to notice nature between the cracks, so to speak. It is a learning process to open our eyes and our senses - to be present enough to appreciate the first chickadee spring call from the cedar shrubbery, to admire the red buds on the street trees or even the house plant or how the willow in the neighbor's lot retains its yellow hue throughout the snowy months. It is even more difficult to see nature in our microwavable dinner, in our desks and computers, in ourselves (I'm working on this...).

Secondly, overcoming this human/nature dichotomy is essential for combating the cultural roots of climate change. We have to begin to see ourselves as part of a much larger whole, as intricately connected. If we continue to pretend that humans are somehow distinct and autonomous, we can continue to bury our heads in the sand. And how can we envision a world where humans live sustainably with nature if we don't begin to see ourselves as a part of it? This world view precludes solutions. (For a more thorough discussion and help with myth-busting, see the work of William Cronon and Charles Mann.)

It's snowing outside as I write. A woodpecker (a hairy, I think?) just landed on the home-made, scrap-metal feeder (the product of a weekend welding workshop) hanging from an old climbing rope in our apartment yard. She takes a peanut from the feeder, flies to the red maple leaning over our porch, and nestles it carefully in a scarred, peanut-sized hole where a branch was pruned. She uses the hole in the tree as a cup to keep the peanut still as she pecks it into beak-sized pieces. In the nursery playground beyond the fence, four-year olds in colorful, puffy snow suits bat at the snow with mini red shovels, screeching and tumbling about, covered in snow.

Careful observation can begin to break down the chasm between our species and the rest. It can begin to broaden our awareness and bring nature to us, so that we don't always have to go somewhere else to get it (puffing CO2 all the way).

While the squirrel probably won't help deliver my prayers to the Heavens, he did provide a moment of mindfulness. I stopped work and darted outside to shake my fists. After terrifying the squirrel, I paused out on the porch and felt the cool air on my cheeks and in my lungs, listened to the neighborhood hum - the rumble of a car blended with the creaking trees and the distant squawk of a jay.