Follow-up to The Chipmunk...
I was 8 or 9 yrs old...spending 2 weeks at a YMCA kids summer camp up north in Ontario. We were out on the Big Trip...4 days at the end of the 2 weeks away from the actual camp...we were living in tents, cooking over fires...the whole experience. I had wandered off on my own just to experience nature. At one point, I had the Need...I was standing in front of a tree Taking Care Of Business, when I noticed a chipmunk in my peripheral vision. Didn't think anything of it...then noticed a couple more flitting around me...I looked up and any bio activities froze...there were at least a dozen chipmunks spread out in a circle around me. None of them were acting threatening, but key scenes from The Birds did run through my head...I slowly zipped up, and walked away back towards out campsite, spinning slowly to keep them in my line of sight. Once I started walking away, they kind of broke up the meeting and went their separate ways...leaving me with a feeling I had experienced something a little more than just a nature walk.
Then, years later...just a couple of years ago from today...my wife and I were spending some Away Time at a rented cottage in northern Ontario. It was a pleasant day, my wife was inside doing something, and I was out on the porch sitting in a chair just chillin'. I hear this high pitched screeching and look up...there was a tree just off the porch, and about 4 feet above my head, was this chipmunk. It was on the main trunk, head towards the ground, and was looking me right in the eye, and screeching up a storm. It got my wife's attention, and when she came out, the little guy ran up the tree trunk and disappeared.
I've spent a lot of time enjoying outdoors...camping, canoeing, hiking...have experienced awareness and exposure to a whole range of wildlife, but nothing ever came close to just plain weirdness as my experiences with The Chipmunk.
I feel I was chosen to have this creature as my Totem, rather than any concious decision on my part. Reading and talking with others, I realize that with most people with a Totem, this is the way it happens...you don't pick your Totem...it picks you...
Harry
"Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books."