Pop 89: Brother Mouse, Sister Robin
By Madonna Hamel
madonnahamel@hotmail.com
My sister and I were lying on the wharf at Spruce Coulee when she pointed at something I’d written in ballpoint pen on my thigh.
“What’s that say?”
“It says: ‘kakithaw nawakomakanak.’ It means ‘all my relations’ in Cree. I’m trying to remember it.” I held up ‘The Power of Stories’ by Harold Johnson: “I got it from this book.”
“I thought it was a tattoo,” she said, then added: “It should be a tattoo.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking that too,” I said, then started reading aloud.” Almost 99 percent of human DNA is identical to chimpanzee DNA. We also share 80 percent of DNA with dogs, 60 percent with bananas, 50 percent with cabbage and 16 percent with lettuce. The DNA story explains how we are related to every other life form on this planet ... As Aboriginal people, we have understood this for a long time. We are related to everything around us. It’s part of our spirituality.” Kakithaw nawakomakanak.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my relatives these days. Not just my flesh and blood family, but also the critters and plants who share space with me, the rocks and grasses with their own stories, their own version of the world. If I stand still long enough, I hear their whispers. The stars and birds, who fill the sky, day and night, and buffalo and antelope, who still roam, they too are family, with power-filled renditions of life. And not only do they keep loneliness at bay, they give a healthy rhythm to my day.
“Start a gratitude journal,” a friend suggested recently. I was grumpy at the time. “It’s a hokey idea,” I grumbled. “Go through the alphabet, listing all the things you are grateful for, from A-Z,” she insisted. I groaned but acquiesced. As I get older, I realize that gestures that seem “hokey” and “corny” are usually saving graces, goofy ways of being light-hearted in a heavy-hearted world. But even more to the point, I know at the top of my gratitude list will be Animals. Then, Birdsong in the morning. Coyote calls at night. Dogs. Egrets. Foxes. Gulls. Horses. Ibises. You get the picture.
Just before I moved to Memphis, another friend introduced me to the animal totem cards, a form of tarot that introduces us two-leggeds to the wisdom-medicine of animals through the teachings of North American Indigenous traditions. I pulled a card every day on my journey to the South and for a long time since. Not only did the counsels of critters teach me scrutinize my day actions to the minutest detail (Mouse), they also reminded me to look at life from the big picture (Eagle). And for a month I kept drawing the Ant card. Ant’s medicine is Patience. “Not again!” I complained. “I don’t have time for patience!” But ant medicine, I was told, ‘will lead me from chaos to order and help create harmony among others in order to get the job done’. Ok Fine!
But I also regularly drew cards that thrilled me - Turtle. Alligator. Lizard. Snake. Yes, lots of reptiles. Ancient creatures of transmutation, tenacity and dreaming. I had mysterious encounters with animals that served as powerful indicators of a Great Mystery at work. Often they would enter my dreams and then appear the next day. For example, I drew Hawk three days in a row, and on the night of the third, I dreamt of a hawk swooping down over my head, squawking: Expect a message! That morning I received a bracelet from my boyfriend on Haida Gwaii. He paid a local artist to carve a hawk into it.
The most astounding dream I had was of a turtle sitting in the heart of a compass. I woke the next day and painted it on my bandana, then departed on a pilgrimage to the crossroads, where Highways 61 & 49 meet and where Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the devil to become the greatest bluesman ever. When we drove up to the crossing, I got out of the truck to take a picture. I looked down to find a turtle at my feet. “I dreamt this last night,” I said to my companion and took off my bandana to show him. I don’t tell many people this story because I believe it has a sacred component. But, after reading Harold Johnson’s book, I believe there’s a need to remind ourselves of the sacredness inherent in everyday stories and encounters. And so I tell it here, if only as an effort to balance out the daily stories of desecration.
A flicker just flew into my window. I ran outside to see if it survived the crash and held it in my hands as its eyelids slowly opened and closed. Thankfully he recovered and flew off. I hate to see an animal die. I hate trapping mice. One winter released one from the mousetrap onto the snow-covered ground; it actually limped away, trailing blood. Not quite dead. Hell, I think, if Robbie Burns can thank a ‘wee mousie’ for making him Scotland’s eternal poet laureate, then I’m allowed, even in this farm community, to be soft on mice.
A couple days ago, a hawk swooped down on and eviscerated a baby robin in my backyard. The baby’s mom dive-bombed the hawk, but the killer won. My sisters watched the whole thing in dismay. “The hawk is just being a hawk,” I said. But they remained alarmed and saddened (as I was over the stunned flicker and the dying mouse). “Snap out of it. It’s the cycle of life and death,” I said, trying to sound like a tough ol’ farm lady. Still, I doubt I’ll ever get over seeing my brother mice and sister robins mutilated in front of me. But isn’t that the way it should be?