What Two Dead Squirrels in a Rain Bucket Taught Me About Following Water
Day 3 of developing a water practice showed me what I didn’t want to see
I thought today would be about finding water in the ditch where frogs live.
Instead, I found two dead red squirrels floating in a rain bucket on my patio. Small bodies. Still water. Death, where I expected to find something else.
This is not the water practice I planned to write about.
But it’s the one I need to share. Following water means following the entire cycle, not just the parts we find beautiful or relaxing.
Water doesn’t only give life. It accompanies everything.
What I Found This Morning
Last night I noticed a large bucket on the patio bench, left there by someone helping us with tree pruning.
The recent rains had filled it. This morning when I went to empty it, I saw them: two small animals floating. I had no idea what they were at first, and my stomach tightened with that particular fear of finding death where you don’t expect it.
When I poured them out under the nearby row of Norway Spruce trees, I realized they were red squirrels.
How they got into that bucket remains a mystery. How they drowned, I can only imagine: the bucket was tall and smooth, no way to climb out once they fell in. Perhaps they were thirsty and leaned too far. Perhaps they misjudged the distance. Perhaps they were playing and chased one another, unaware of where they were actually headed. The poor little ones fought desperately, I’m sure, before the water that promised relief became the water that ended them.
I felt sadness. Then fear as I wondered if they were rats. Then sadness again when I saw what they actually were.
Red squirrels have been difficult for us. They’ve gotten into our attic. They’ve gotten into the walls. We’ve needed help removing them more than once. They try to live their lives, but their overlap with our space, like our overlap with water itself, brings all sorts of challenges we don’t choose. As unpleasant as it is, we must still face what is in front of us.
They were just trying to survive.
The Trees I Chose
I poured them out under a row of large Norway Spruce trees that line our property.
These trees have always felt like a border to me. A liminal space between one thing and another. Not quite our yard, not quite the wild beyond. A threshold.
It felt fitting for their death and the prayer I needed to say.
As an ordained Wild Guide who often prays to water goddesses when I encounter clean running water on the Camino, you might expect I prayed to them. But this moment called for something different.
I prayed aloud to Cathubodua instead.
A battle goddess. The one I see, along with the ancient Gaulish Celtic people, as watching over the death of those who live a good life and fight a good fight. These little ones fought desperately for their own lives in that bucket. That fight deserves acknowledgment. That struggle deserves witness.
I wished them peace on their way.
What Water Actually Does
Here’s what I expected to experience today: I would find water moving through the ditch, connecting to the watershed, continuing its ancient cycle of nourishing life.
That’s the romantic version of “follow the water.”
But the water that drowned those two squirrels will also continue into the watershed. The water I poured out under those Norway Spruce trees will seep into the ground, nourish the roots, move through ages of rock, and re-enter the aquifer. Whether in weeks, years, or centuries, that same water will continue its journey.
It might keep others alive by helping the trees grow. It might nourish whatever other kin live beneath those branches. It will move through the watershed long after this moment has passed.
Water does this. It brings new life, accompanies us all along the way, and then continues its cycle long after our time has passed.
The water that saves is the same water that drowns. The water that gives life is the same water that receives death. We like to separate these, to think of water as only life-giving, only pure, only healing.
But water is the entire cycle.
What Following Water Really Means
I’ve learned something developing this 13-Day EcoSpirituality Challenge: the practices don’t always teach what I plan for them to teach.
I thought “follow the water” would be about tracing watershed connections. About understanding where our drinking water comes from and where rainwater goes. About seeing ourselves as part of the hydrologic cycle.
Those things are still true. But they’re incomplete.
Following water means following the whole cycle of life and death. It means acknowledging that the same element that sustains us also takes life. That the rain we celebrate after drought is the rain that drowns small creatures who can’t escape tall buckets.
Our relationship with water isn’t only life-giving. It’s whole-life-accompanying.
Water is there when we’re born. Water sustains us through our lives. Water is there when we die. Water continues after we’re gone, carrying whatever we were into whatever comes next.
The squirrels’ overlap with our space brought challenges neither of us chose. They needed shelter; we needed attics free of chewing and nesting. They needed water; the bucket offered no escape.
Our overlap with water brings similar complexity. We need it to live. We dam it, bottle it, channel it, control it. Or we think we control it.
Then something like this happens and we remember: water follows its own path. We’re just part of the cycle, not the center of it.
Your Practice Today
Here’s what I’m inviting you into: follow water today.
But be prepared to find the whole cycle, not just the beautiful parts. Look for water wherever you are. A puddle. Rain on leaves. Morning dew. A stream. A drainpipe. Even a bucket.
Watch how it moves. Notice how it reflects light. See how it connects one place to another.
Touch it if you can. Remember: this water is part of an ancient cycle linking you to everything. This same water has moved through clouds, rivers, plants, and animals. It will continue its journey long after this moment.
If you know your watershed, trace one connection you haven’t followed before. Where does your drinking water come from? Where does rain from your roof go? What body of water are you closest to right now?
If this is new, just find water and watch it for five minutes.
Don’t expect it to be only beautiful. Don’t expect it to teach only gentle lessons. Water shows us what we need to see, not what we want to see.
I found death in a rain bucket and remembered that water doesn’t judge. It just continues its cycle. Life. Death. Transformation. Return.
What This Changes
After this morning, I can’t teach “follow the water” the same way I planned.
I can’t pretend it’s only about life-giving properties and beautiful watersheds. I have to include the difficult truth: water accompanies everything. The joyful and the sorrowful. The birth and the death. The rescue and the drowning.
This doesn’t make water less sacred. It makes it more honest.
The Earth doesn’t show us only what we’re ready to see. She shows us what’s actually there. Our work is to witness it all, to stay present even when presence is uncomfortable, to acknowledge the whole cycle instead of just the parts we prefer.
Those two red squirrels taught me that this morning. I didn’t want the lesson. But water brought it anyway.
That’s what water does. It flows where it needs to go.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow, we practice breathing with plants. But that practice will be deeper because today you followed water through its whole cycle, not just the parts that feel comfortable.
For now, find water. Follow it. Watch where it goes.
Be prepared to see what you didn’t expect. The Earth is teaching. We just have to be willing to witness the whole lesson.
I’m developing a 13-Day EcoSpirituality Challenge and sharing the unexpected lessons here. Tomorrow: breathing with plants. If you’d like to practice along, consider subscribing for reflections on EcoSpirituality, sacred walking, and the whole cycle of life.
What did following water teach you today? I’d love to hear in the comments below.