Petting a Flying Squirrel

One of my tracking teachers, Tom Brown Jr. always told us at his classes, “To Touch is To Know.”  For when you finally feel the quiver of an animal as it rubs past your hand or an animal trusts you enough to pet its back or a bird comes to land on your hand or head, you have opened yourself to it’s life, you have learned enough, changed enough, loved enough and become aware enough. This was my mantra for years, as I camouflaged up and hid along trails to touch animals, birds, insects…whoever I may stalk up close enough to.  I had amazing wildlife teachers and as I got better at not only my movement, but most importantly, the stilling of my mind and overcoming my fears, they let me get closer and closer and they in turn started sniffing me.  I’ve lied below a great blue heron, had a deer sniff my nose, an elk nearly stepped on me, a wolf walked over my legs, I’ve touched a coyote, a cougar, a raccoon, walked fields with owls, been so close to a vulture eating a dead carcass I nearly threw up from the stench…and now my neighbor flying squirrel has let me into his world.

For me, I feel blessed from the touch of an animal.  It’s a trusting, sacred moment.  Humans seem to have an inner need to touch animals, unfortunately, it often becomes harassment and dangerous.  We should never force, hurry, chase, trick or frighten an animal into being touched and if there is any fear for either human or animal we must always bow our head and softly walk away.  Every creature, down to the frog and dragonfly has a right to their own space and we should never assume it’s ok to violate that sacred space.  We must always ask permission.  By opening our hearts and truly listening, we can enter into a space of knowing and in this place, we can often share magical moments together.

Perhaps even better than feeling a flying squirrel’s silky fur, is watching them glide from the treetops, silhouetted by the moonshine while sleeping in my hammock. He is just like a magical flying carpet, but that’s for another video.

Discover my life living with Babaji Flying Carpet…(I need to start charging rent, he has a girlfriend now)

He must have listened to my advice at the end of the video.  He started sharing…