This morning my husband and I watched out the kitchen window, bemused, while a small squirrel wore itself to a frazzle, defending the hanging new birdfeeder from hungry birds, who flocked from all zones of the frozen forest to restore the calories their little bodies had used up getting through the night. Squirrel can’t even stop and enjoy the seed, as there are so many others who are waiting to take it from him. His poor little brain is scorched from the worry and vigilance and anger. Because Squirrel had become bolder in recent months in asking us to donate to its well-being, to the point it was nearly underfoot as we walked up and down our porch stairs (we did little to encourage this behavior), the squirrel regarded anything we offered Nature as it’s own personal stash. An intelligent and self-serving little bugger, Squirrel had a longer range plan in mind for it’s getting through the cold months. Most seed it gathered was put into the ground as soon as possible. The various branches of The First Savings Bank of Mulch. This is a tactic that has served squirrels quite well for millennia, I am sure. And not being tribal creatures by nature, their nature is to take care of themselves. Period. Sharing the wealth is not an option. Their future is not the wellbeing of community, their future is stored seed at a time when there is no food, and snow and ice cover everything.
And so Squirrel has no alternative, with this artificially-provided container of seed, than to chase off all the other creatures that want to share from it also. For Squirrel, this container of seed is likely all that will be, ever. Squirrel can’t remember that somehow, there was always a fresh container of food that magically appeared. Every day. Squirrel can't even reflect on the forest being heavy with fir cones, full of seeds. Faced with accumulated wealth, Squirrel is also faced with the fear it can be taken away.
Squirrel is not evolved enough to have a Faith.
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