Although we humans tend to go to great lengths to make something happen – scheme, ponder, plan, detail after detail, change after smallest change – often it is the unplanned, the unexpected, which has the greatest impact. Such events happen quietly, as if anticipating the magnitude of approaching consequences. And so it was, one fall day.

I was sitting where forest meets field enjoying the peace of the setting sun. Autumn days are shorter than those of summer, yet somehow, they feel much longer. Maybe it’s the sun’s sleight of hand using pockets of lingering light caught in the scatter of red and orange to trick the eye. It was at that moment of celestial pause when my gaze happened upon a Ground Squirrel.

He was sitting on a rocky outcrop, two tiny-clawed hands clasped, resting high upon his chest as he stared out over the burnished field. He wore a transcendent expression of awe and appreciation. There was no mistaking that the Ground Squirrel was, similar to me, taking in the beauty of the day’s last light. The Squirrel was in rapture. This realization was startling.

Until then, Ground Squirrels were not on my best friend list. They intrude into everyone and everything. Nothing and no one are safe. Squirrels shamelessly and fearlessly push away full-grown Deer and Wild Turkeys to get at greens and seeds. They ravage shoes, boxes, cars, bags—anything that serves their nests. The cabin’s dining room floor sank a good ten inches below the iron woodstove after vigorous Ground Squirrel tunneling. In all fairness, how were they to know that the pioneer-aged structure was built directly on Nature’s skin and that their work would eventually open a crack large enough for the slender form of a Rattlesnake to enter the room and take temporary residence under a chair. I regarded Ground Squirrels as marauders—cute, but marauders all the same.

All these less than positive thoughts vanished when I discovered Ground Squirrel aesthetics. Suddenly, the objectifying wall behind which I stood dissolved, and my perception radically shifted. The centroid of my reality sank into a space far and away from the choppy surface waters of conceptual mind.

After the sunset encounter, I began visiting a Ground Squirrel zendo—a grassy slope that roofs their burrowed castles. I followed the Squirrels as best I could. Not only are they remarkably agile, but Ground Squirrels have a knack of telescoping their seemingly boneless bodies and disappearing, snakelike, into hairline cracks. It was here that I met Asa.

She was an elderly female Ground Squirrel. Asa was one of many Squirrels who raided hearth and home, but unlike others, she had a head tilt. For some reason, she took me on to show me her world from her point of view, sense, sight and scent. She insisted that we commune beyond form, beneath the individual suits we happen to wear. Asa demanded that I take a step deeper from mere observation. I had to drop the veil of human privilege – the composite of imperceptible barriers which tell us that we humans are different, better and apart from Nature.

In tacit agreement, Asa and I began to rendezvous every dusk. Soon, we were meeting regularly sharing morsels of baguette and berries and a glass of wine for me. The other Squirrels obviously understood the exclusive nature of our friendship as they never tried to partake of Asa’s fare.

During these sessions, Asa periodically retreated to her burrow to store some of her meal. After a few moments, she would emerge from the hole and resumed sitting next to me. Our evenings of breaking bread continued for several months until fall when Asa’s visits shortened and became less predictable. Nonetheless, I sat in our spot every dusk, glass in one hand, baguette in the other, waiting. One day, she did not return.

Winter was coming and the train of storms had begun to roll in. The Squirrel community had—as their name bespeaks—gone to ground to hibernate. Because Ground Squirrels sometimes venture out briefly when the cold lifts, I always put a few berries and a piece of baguette at Asa’s door. Once, I was lucky enough to spot her darting out to retrieve her goods. She looked up —head tilted to one side, the upside eye meeting mine—then dragged the food in and disappeared. It was the last time I saw her.

I don’t know whether she died during or after hibernation. She might have been grabbed or dug out by a Fox or simply passed. I hadn’t ever grieved so deeply. It was not the acute, engulfing, debilitating kind of grief. My grief for Asa was a slow soft ache at the level of the soul. To this day, I mourn her. I hope when Asa and I meet again, I will have evolved to the fineness of her mind and heart.