Dead Squirrel

One morning whilst out walking the dogs I happened upon the dead squirrel you see in the picture. It’s probably not the nicest picture of a squirrel you will ever see, although if you just look at the picture from the neck down it could just be a squirrel at rest, and is uniquely identifiable as a squirrel. It’s just that when you look at the unpleasant spectacle of what should be its head it becomes a little gruesome.

It’s a squirrel that has quite clearly got its head smacked by a car I presume.

Now whenever I see something like that I think, ‘Okay, what’s the learning here?’ ‘What’s the learning here?’ is one of the basic shamanic principles I live my life by.

Bad things happen.

Fact.

If we are to give any positivity to bad things, then it has to be in the learning. If we can’t stop bad things happening, then we should at least learn from them.

What can we learn from a squirrel that has had the worst of accidents?

Squirrel would’ve been doing what he needed to do to survive, whether that is to find food, find shelter, find a mate or even just a playmate. Squirrels seem to have such a lust for life they are a lesson for us all in the way we perceive they behave. I ‘ve never been the greatest fan of squirrels, ‘rats with bushy tails’ is a phrase I have been heard to say on many an occasion. I do respect their enthusiasm though.

This one though had just been doing his ‘thing’ when all of a sudden, his life had come to a very ‘sudden’ end.

You never know when life is going to end.  Even if we live a long, full, healthy life and die of old age, we are only here for a very short time, eighty plus years if we are lucky, why would you do anything other than live life to its fullest. Do the things you want to do as you can, happily and enjoyably, rather than wallow in self-pity bemoaning the things we don’t have, and live for the moment, as at least squirrel did.

We are able to plan for the future, and that can enhance now too.

Squirrel can’t do that.

However, he doesn’t fog up ‘now’ with drink and drugs.

The learning?

Live for the  moment, because we never know if the fatal moment is just round the corner.  

Be awake, and aware, for every waking moment.

In case what happened to squirrel happens to you!

Simon Pollard January 2025.