This is a true story. The observations are accurate accounts and my interpretations of them are simply my own ideas....really, the story of this led me to reflect on human nature.... I use this story now as a metaphor for our mental/emotional/physiological reactions and attitudes towards the experiences we encounter along our journey through life.
Many years ago, I lived in an old farmhouse in the country. We came to realize that there were mice in the attic of the house. My husband and I were both lovers of animals, so we began to feed them. Soon, they started running around the house and leaving deposits everywhere. Realizing that this was getting out of hand (we thought they would stay in the attic), we began to catch them in friendly traps, using cheese as bait. One particularly comical memory I have was while doing a holding position for my kung fu practice one day. I was facing the wall holding horse stance, when a little deer mouse came around the corner, sat down right in front of me, looked up at me and began to clean itself. I didn't move and neither did it. We simply looked at each other quietly. Finally, after some time, it walked away.
Because it was winter, and I did not have the heart to throw them out into the elements, we bought a cage, put a wheel in it and fed them all winter. In total we caught about 7 deer mice that winter. We placed them all into the cage one by one as we caught them. It was very interesting to watch them. Deer mice are gentle creatures. They will usually not attack - even when caught ...but I do say usually, because each one is a bit different. We noticed this by observing them over time in the cage. They had different personalities. One seemed to be a fearful mouse; it sat in one of the little shelters we provided and only came out to eat. It would chatter its teeth every time we came to look...and it shook. Over time, this one got very fat. Others were content building little nests, eating the food and wandering about the cage...scurrying when we came around. One of the mice was very interested in the wheel. Every time we came down, it was on the wheel...when other mice tried to get it off, it would try very hard to keep its position there. This mouse was the most fit after the winter...and it wasn't very scared to see us...sometimes stopping on the wheel to sit and observe us when we came to see them. Are we so very much different?
Years later, here we are in the country again - though in a different part of Ontario. After settling into our home, we began to hear scurrying sounds coming from the vents. My son was sure he saw a little face with whiskers one day when he peered into the duct. I was hoping it was deer mice again - I really love these little creatures! After our first trap was successful, we soon realized that we were dealing with a totally different creature. We identified it as a shrew. Ah! The taming of the shrew ...???... highly unlikely with these creatures. They are extremely aggressive and fearful. They are tunnel diggers...they have been known to ruin many a lovely garden with their many tunnels.
These creatures have a very distinct odour as well - and it is very unpleasant...possibly their urine? There is a a poisonous shrew variety here in Ontario - the Northern Short-tailed Shrew.... its poisonous saliva can kill and paralyze its prey. I never knew that! Anyway, due to the odour, we decided we were not willing to keep it in the house for the winter like we did with the deer mice, so we left it in a container to decide what to do. Watching it for several minutes, we could see how intensely aggressive it was...clawing, gnashing its teeth and backing up all hunched up any time we would come close to it.
We saw none of these behaviours to that degree in the deer mice...once we caught a deer mouse with our hands and after we put it down, it sat very quietly, looked up at us, and proceeded to clean itself!! No emergency in this moment! Is this how it is for them? Regardless, there is a lesson for us in that... react only to what is in the moment ...and only to the degree to which we must for survival - it is healthier .... many of us are reacting to life, experiences and imaginations which are not even real... or we are reacting to things in a way that will hurt us ... whether we realize it as so or not ... like the shrew. If we can come to see this as so, we can then embark on a journey to learn a new way of being.
So... back to our little friend the shrew...we went upstairs to do a few things and then we got ready to take the shrew to the truck and to be released somewhere away from our home. We went downstairs to get it, but when we looked into the container, the shrew was dead. We were very surprised. Soon after this incident, we heard more scurrying in the vents, so we set another trap, figuring there could be a family of these little creatures in our house. Sure enough, we caught another one. This one behaved in the same way...high-strung and very aggressive. We decided not to observe it or disturb it very much- hoping that we could take it out somewhere more quickly this time and let it out. This one died too. This happened to us four times. We finally figured out that it was very likely that the shrews were dying of stress...perhaps a heart attack or something.
Consider these two creatures and the difference between them. It is really quite astounding and a great study for us in understanding human nature...and illness, in particular. Are we any different?
In all of the healing modalities I have studied, including even mainstream practices, stress is known to be a killer. We know that stress creates tension and that this tension interferes with the balance and harmony of the intricate systems of our body. This is a very basic way of looking at it, and it is true. We also know that our mental/emotional states directly impact our physiology...muscles (tension)...impacting the meridians (energy flows in the body) they are related to...impacting the organs they are related to..and then creating energetic imbalances which impede organ function and eventually a label (illness of variety of labels) appears. If this is not corrected, and the imbalances continue to accumulate (energy blockages ...accumulations...in the flows within and around), health continues to deteriorate until death.
With the shrew, we could see this process within a matter of hours. The shrew's body was very tense once it was captured ... any time we went to observe it, that is what we saw ... and it relentlessly ran around the container digging, pawing without stopping for more than a few moments here and there. It would jump up in the air with a squeeking sound if we put our hand in the container. We observed quite a different response from the deer mice, some of which would sit quietly in the container, cleaning themselves and just sitting there looking at us. Sometimes they would jump and move around the container to look for a way out, but never with the aggressive intensity of the shrew. Overall, they were more relaxed. They lived.
Ask yourself ... quietly ... am I more like the shrew or the deer mouse? ... to what degree? Were there situations or periods on my past where I was more like one or the other? How about right now? What situations might trigger a shrew-like response in me? What might I do now in my life to cultivate more of the deer mouse qualities? Spiritual practice is one such tool. Honest reflection allows us to go on with our Soul Work ... denial and resistance keeps us where we are.
