A Day In the Life of a Mouse
by Maggie Griffin Taylor, RYT 500
Once upon a time there was a little mouse — a creature so small that it could press itself through tiny gaps, just like fear has the capacity to sneak into small crevices in the mind. Mouse language is very hard to translate, so let's just call him Fred.
Being tiny in a big world has its challenges, but fear has a subtle way of making the world seem small enough to manage. Fred stayed close to the earth seeking safety in its contours and corners as he was taught by his father who was taught by his father and his father before him.
Patterns of survival run deep. Fred's journey was anchored to caution and persistence. The scurry of a mouse is not graceful, but the hyper-vigilant stops and starts eventually got him where he needed to go.
Fred had a large family that often snuggled together—a few members had been lost to contraptions that promised food but delivered snapping blows of death. There were reasons to be afraid. Danger lurked everywhere.
The tiny eyes of the mice don't always see well, especially in the dark, but they had been granted a boon—two sets of long whiskers The whiskers were like small antennae that sensed the movement of air, detected subtle textures, and gauged the proximity of nearby objects. To be a mouse is to understand the world through touch—up close and personal— the way you understand a person whose breath and heartbeat is close enough to feel.
One day, Fred went out to forage for food and noticed some acorns that had fallen from a tree in an open field. He knew it was dangerous but Hunger clashed with Fear. It’s hard to resist an acorn when you are starving. So with some hesitation, he scurried as quickly as he could.
An eagle silently sailing on a thermal spotted the little mouse and began its descent. Fred's whiskers quivered a warning. He saw the gigantic shadow, but it was too late. The eagle gracefully snatched Fred with one claw without even touching the ground and began a slow ascent.
Untethered from the earth and terrified, desperate and afraid— the little mouse closed its eyes and awaited its fate. In the pit of Fred's hungry little belly was a sensation he had never felt before: He knew there was nothing left to do, nowhere left to go and nothing left to lose. The fear that once stirred and steered his mind and movements vanished.
So he opened his eyes and saw the world from above--a vast world with colors and patterns he never fathomed existed. With nothing to cling to, no ground beneath his feet, Fred's body softened- For the first time, he felt free. Just then, the eagle lost its grasp and the little mouse floated back down to earth.
What happens later is a mystery.
Maybe he went back to his mouse home and tried to explain what the world looked like from above, but such experiences have no language--just like the word "balance" means nothing to a child who has never ridden a bike.
Perhaps he was punished like other heretics who had similar preposterous claims—like the earth is not flat. The earth is not the center of the universe.
Perhaps Fred became a skinny mouse living in a tiny cave, meditating on the experience of two worlds coexisting.
Perhaps he contemplated other mysteries, other worlds, other ways of knowing, other modes of perception.
Perhaps he tried to build wings.
Perhaps he wondered what would happen if the aloof and aloft eagle had an opportunity to understand the curves and corners and secret tunnels of the earth in the intimate way that mice do.
Perhaps one of his relatives became Ganesha’s chauffeur.
Perhaps one of his offspring is living fearlessly in your attic.
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Meditation:
What would it be like to live fearlessly?
What would it be like to reach beyond the Kleshas?
