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A Spiritually Enlightening Online Magazine. May's Theme: "Being Present"
Volume 7 Issue 4 ISSN# 1708-3265

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 		Lifetalks
The Presence of Prairie Dogs
with Dawn Baumann Brunke

Not long ago I was standing with my friends Phil and Patricia in front of the prairie dog habitat at Tucson's Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

It was Phil, a Tucson native, who recommended the Desert Museum. Before I left Alaska, he had been baiting me with promises of plump prairie dogs in Arizona, telling me how active and alert they would be because of the mild winter. I was looking forward to it. I have always liked prairie dogs — their friendly, inquisitive natures; their irresistibly cute physical form.

So, here we were, standing with anticipation in front of the prairie dog area. A huge glass window separated us from their field. Circles of loosely scattered dirt marked the tops of their tunnel holes, no doubt leading to ever more tunnels and burrows beneath the ground. But where were the prairie dogs? Not a single one was visible.

"It's okay," Phil assured us. "They're here." And so we waited. And waited.

It's times like this that we can learn a little bit about ourselves. Expectations of prairie dogs + no visible presence of prairie dogs = what comes next? An interesting equation for sure.

After staring at the habitat for a bit longer, we closed our eyes. We felt for the prairie dogs. And there they were! In the open-ended spirit of 'what comes next?' it was easy — and instantly amusing — to feel their energy. To me the little prairie dog colony felt active and busy, mindful and gleeful. The impression that came to mind was popcorn kernels just before they pop.

One aspect of traditional Prairie Dog 'medicine' or teaching-wisdom has to do with rest and relaxation, retreating from the world for a time, holing up inside oneself to rejuvenate. Following this teaching, we might indeed seem invisible to others. Other aspects of Prairie Dog, however, can include mutual affection, harmony in communal living and a joyful spirit of connection.

I see now that several aspects of Prairie Dog wisdom roamed my thoughts that day. What spoke to me was the deep feeling of connectedness below the surface, even though this was not evident above the surface. When I later tuned into Prairie Dog, remembering my time at the Desert Museum, this is what they shared:

Humans place a lot of emphasis on your visual sense, though you possess many other senses as well. By not being immediately visible to you, we invite you to 'see' us in other ways, to feel us deeper inside yourself without focusing purely on the physical. We are about harmony and happiness — and about raising the awareness of those who live above the surface to remind you that we are all connected beneath the surface.

Prairie dogs hold many aspects of knowledge. If you tune into Prairie Dog as teacher, you may find that we pop in and out of consciousness just as we pop in and out of holes in the ground. We are at home both above and below the surface — "now you see us, now you don't" — yet we are always present within ourselves. And, we are fast; in that sense, we are about quick connections — connections that may not always seem immediately apparent.

The message we share now is about your relationship with Prairie Dog. At times we reflect the wisdom of retreat and escape, of knowing safety below the surface. When you sense us as popping energy, however, then you are feeling the fullness of our energy, our quick spiritedness, our joy in family and colony, which is to say our community.

We hold many teachings, some of which may seem divergent. But to Prairie Dogs all these teachings are compatible, all 'faces' of who we are. We think of ourselves as numerous — we are individual and yet we are closely tied to our family and community. In this way we are divergent, too. We are about being present in many different ways, yet always connected to the deeper presence of who we are.

After standing around for awhile, in front of the not-really-empty prairie dog habitat, Phil said, "Don't look now, but a roadrunner is watching us." Nudged by the contradictory nature of Prairie Dog, I immediately turned around and looked. And there, behind me, wedged tight against the glass on the inside of the habitat was a small, lone roadrunner.

She appeared to be resting, watching, carefully observing us humans. Her bright black eyes shone with calm composure. Perhaps she was reflecting our own contemplations, our recent explorations into the paradox of not seeing and yet seeing, too. She seemed perfectly content, as did I, here and now in the presence of prairie dogs.


Dawn Baumann Brunke is the author of Animal Voices, Awakening to Animal Voices and the recently released Shapeshifting with our Animal Companions. Her books explore the deeper nature of our relationship with animals, nature, each other and ourselves. For more, see Dawn's website.

Be sure to read the reviews of her book "Awakening to Animal Voices" in our May 2005 Issue and her book "Animal Voices" January 2006 Issue.

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