In the last few weeks, I've been visited by a Mouse family. They've been wandering freely mostly in the bathroom and bedroom and scurry away to hide when any motion startles them. Since they are tiny and so cute and harmless-seeming, I have been entertained by their wanderings in and out of my vision.
Despite my feelings of appreciation of their adorableness, my human response immediately was that I must get rid of them as soon as I could obtain a trap, preferably in a painless way, with one of those little wooden spring traps that I'd used with the intended results in the past.
My upstairs housemate had successfully used these little spring-traps five times the month before to send her visitors to mouse heaven. I acquired a couple and set them with first almond butter and then cheese bits. In all cases, my little visitors were able to de-materialize the bait and leave the trap clean without being sprung.
After several of these attempts at a painless execution with no results, I lost my cool and got one of those nasty trays with the sticky spread which gets their feet and fur stuck before they can get to the bait. Unfortunately, the little dears are not dispatched by these devices, just unable to free themselves, and requiring a fatal drowning to send them off.
I performed this awful action reluctantly on the first little unsuspecting victim, ignoring his pleading eyes, and was conscious-stricken about killing such adorable sentient life. I resolved I would have to try an alternative that would not result in an execution, painless or otherwise.
The next day my housemate and her visiting friend, who had just seen another member of this cute mouse family in her bedroom, suggested that we three should form a circle with the intent of asking the Mouse Deva to assure the family would leave the house.
She had the Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson and we pulled out the Mouse card for inspiration. It should have been no surprise that the Mouse Medicine was an almost exact description of my energy in the last year. The message of Mouse is "to scrutinize" because 'every detail carries weight and has its perfect puzzle place to stop "the three-ring circus.""
As we read more, we learned that Mouse people may be fearful of life but very well organized, with a compartment for everything, to the point of nit-pickiness. They are about systemization of knowledge.
I have spent the last year since my best friend died, sorting through her things, discarding and organizing the keepers. I'm also fond of looking at more than one side of things to find correlations to expand my understanding of a subject. However, I frequently get overwhelmed by the amount of things to review and consider and put into my expanding world view.
This seems to be the weakness of Mouse to spend too much time on matters of seeming great consequence (to me anyway) and not paying attention to housekeeping details, dealing with accounting and filing, or in other words, what is right in front of me that needs attention.
Apparently, Mouse needs to see the big picture, but only assimilate the big picture a little at a time. In other words,, "stop chasing your tail or being confused by the maze and start observing the details of your present pathway."
When I read this, it reminded me of Ram Dass' iconic mantra, "Be here now." How amazing that the universe should remind me of this eternal truth I have been forgetting, by presenting me with a Mouse in my house, and a whole family to boot!
Well, we three did our little prayer circle to the Mouse Deva and local relatives, thanking them for this profound message, assuring them we have received it, and requesting they move on to new quarters to spread their medicine. To date, we have had no further visitations.
It has been an amazing connection with the Spirit world that Mouse has given me. I had "Ho'oponopono"ed my offensive action and forgave myself for my all-too-human reaction. I realized then that that little child mouse was in Mouse Heaven and was now a guide for me in connecting with this invisible world just beyond our current vision, yet as close as a thought.
By offering his sacrifice, he also saved his family to carry their Mouse Medicine to others seeking contact with Spirit wisdom. I am grateful for the opportunity to scrutinize my habits, and for the reminder that the present can be the place of magic and manifestation in the most unexpected ways.