Squirrels and Wonder

Living gratefully today, I appreciate the beverages that have fortified me over recent days: water, coffee, and orange juice. I give thanks to all who helped make these available to me in just a simple walk to a faucet, a coffee pot, our refrigerator.

I am also grateful yet again for squirrel activity I noticed in recent days. We had a significant snowfall over a couple of days last week. It was heavy and wet snow, with some freezing rain and sleet thrown in. Trees, utility lines, and fences were beautifully laden with fresh snow. I watched one morning as a squirrel made its way across a utility line, essentially being their own snowplow. Clearing the way as it went over my head and continued down the line. I smiled. Squirrels just do what they need to do, without a big fuss.

Then yesterday, I saw a brown squirrel and a white (albino) squirrel follow each other playfully across a different stretch of line as I sat at our dining room table. Brown, white, sometimes gray; the squirrels of our neighborhood don’t care what color the other squirrels are. They just see another squirrel. They connect as squirrels. It is as simple as that. Squirrels take the high road in more ways than one.

I stop and wonder. What if we took to heart these simple lessons-doing what we need to do each day to move forward, seeing other people as fellow humans, just like us-if we might have less division and contention, more collective belonging and support.

I wonder about plenty. And then I try to align my daily actions to making a difference in my little part of the world, and in my own heart.

I wrote about my new word for the year-generosity-the other day. WONDER was my word for the year last year. It is wonder that had me pause many times over the seasons of the year and watch our local squirrels. I wonder if squirrels could tell us what they observe about humans, would we appreciate what they tell us?

WONDER can be a mindset or a reflective question with no real answer, providing a gateway to curiosity and deeper attention. It can also be a moment of breathtaking awe at the dance of rising sunlight on snowy trees. Like the regular lessons squirrels provide, WONDER is free and available to all who take time to pause and receive.

Pause. Receive. I wonder what will show up today. Have a wonder-full day!