The difference between squirrels and rats
Hau Mitakiepi:
It is the coldest Night of the Winter tonight. Way below zero around here. I Fall asleep in my warm bed thinking of those stranded, stuck or lost in the cold of the night. I think of my Friends, the Squirrels, who live in the Trees outside my window. Francis Yellow used to remind me: “remember, even though you are at your healthiest, you are really no better off than the most ill of your Peopleâ€. I used to nod solemnly like I knew something.
Who are the most ill of “my People†then? Those who are called alcoholic, homeless, and unemployed? The most unhealthy are the ones who live in the Trees down by the River like Squirrels? Or are they the ones sitting out a life sentence up on “The Hill†for committing fratricide? The most sick of my Relatives are getting arrested by the wasicu for panhandling in their own Homelands, aren’t they?
The Trees outside my window hold many Squirrels within the roundness of their trunks and limbs. I wonder if they are prepared for this supercold. I want to offer them a warm place, somehow. I want to teach them that they can come to my window when it is really, really cold, and they can crash out here.
As I ponder the thought more and more, I realize that my Noble Friend the Squirrel would become nothing more than pretty rats if I domesticated them…if I erased their Original Instructions…if I altered their Sacred(powerful) Path(way of being). I realize The Squirrel would never accept the periphery of wasicu society like the rat does. The Squirrel would never choose the warmth of the fringes of fat-taking over the cold of the Trees. They would rather freeze in Health than slumber in disease.
The most ill of “my Peopleâ€, then, are those who are warm in a bed. They are the ones with enough breathing room to consider who is or isn’t “the most illâ€. I am one of those made sick by comfort. I am one struck lame by warmth and health.
Hecetuwelo, Wanbli WiWohkpe He Emacia