By Marla Kay Houghteling
A lingering sadness has settled over me since the porcupine's death. Some necessary part of the universe is missing. I've come to regard the old fellow as my teacher. Sometimes he represents a single sage, a wise one; other times he stands for all porcupines -- the community that intersects with my human routines.
We live in porcupine territory, acres of mostly red pine, beech, maple, balsam with some white pine and ash. Sooner or later a meeting is inevitable. Often the black dog is the catalyst. A few weeks after we'd brought the dog home from a local shelter, she met up with a porcupine. We were not witnesses to the encounter, only the aftermath when she arrived whining on the porch, desperately pawing at the quills projecting from her face, neck and paws. Although the dog has since kept her distance when she spots one, she still announces their balled up presence in ancient maples, trees that marked the way when Odawa walked through. She's been foolish enough to chase one waddling down the hill from house, but memory of her first encounter has prevented her from getting too close. Now I wonder if this old one is the same who embedded his quills, some of which I've saved, in the dog.
The porcupine is a contradiction, rather like some humans I know: endearing yet prickly. I've read that in previous times, the porcupine was regarded as a boon to the lost or injured; yet the beast will devour brake lines and rubber gaskets on vehicles parked outside at night. Although a vegetarian, the animal‘s digestive system has a phenomenal tolerance for toxic substances. The same quills that inflict serious injury to humans and other animals are prized for decorations and art of the native people. A dead porcupine on the road is often quickly harvested for its quills.
Erethizon dorsatum suffers from a bad reputation and is avoided, yet it presents itself (in an effort to be social?) on decks, porches and other structures that crop up in its habitat. The predator it should most fear is a human, yet it chooses to disregard boundaries and gets close enough to inspect and taste human possessions. The "porky" is vulnerable only on its underside, well protected by its spiny tail and quill-loaded back as it ventures out. So far, humans are the only species that can use a net or gun to endanger it, although the fox is its natural predator. A human or another animal facing the porcupine is not at great risk, but being behind the animal increases the chances of being speared.
Less than twenty-four hours after our house had received a new coat of stain, a porcupine climbed up a support pillar onto the deck to sample the taste of the cedar siding. My husband was awakened that summer night by a loud, grinding sound. The startled porcupine was unable to squeeze its bulk through the railing to escape as my husband clapped, whistled and blinked the lights. It finally chose to jump to the ground. The morning light revealed long gnaw marks, deep gouges in the wood, and more chew marks on other sections of the house.
This gnawing is a necessity because porcupine teeth continue to grow, and the animal uses trees and buildings, or anything handy, to wear them down to an acceptable length. It's hard to be sympathetic with this biological drive when we see young trees recently transplanted in the yard stripped of their fragile bark. Porcupines are experts at denuding large, tall trees in the woods, leaving them white and vulnerable.
Even the arts are fair game. My writing studio has wooden posts supporting the porch roof. We made the mistake of painting them, a sure enticement for gnawing. Then the porky tried the screen door frame and the molding around the door. Short of wrapping the posts in sheet metal, we're unsure how to deal with this. Since the phoebes build their nests in the rafters of the porch, I guess the porcupines should be allowed to have some use of my studio. It does connect my spirit with the animal world, and crossing the porch to enter my one-room writing space, I note nest droppings on the concrete, gnaw marks on the posts -- markings that transmit messages as effectively as the Roman alphabet I use.
We've not reached the point of picking up a shotgun, like many of our neighbors have. I encourage my dog to urinate around the studio. We've wrapped the spindly trunks of young trees in white plastic protectors. Lately, I've considered trying some "granular deterrent" that contains the scent of the fox.
I have no idea how many porcupine inhabit or spend time on our acres. There may be twenty, only five, surely not just one. I can not think of the old porcupine I found dying in the woods as a nuisance, a pest, a destructive undesirable. These labels I attach to younger, less wise porcupine. They are the culprits.
In mid-April while returning from accompanying the dog on her late afternoon walk, I watched through the sparse lower branches of red pine as she veered off the main trail. She headed east towards the dirt road and was watching something. I called to her, but she was engrossed. Curious, I wended my way through the current crop of brambles and wild raspberry canes.
The dog was three feet off to the side of a spiked sphere, shades of gold and brown glinted from it. Perfectly round, perfectly still, like a fat Buddha. What was I seeing? A giant puffball? Of course, it could only be a porcupine, but why was it motionless? And why was the dog not barking at it? Instinct told me a process of nature, a mystery I did not need to solve now, was taking place. Feeling like a trespasser on sacred ground, I called the dog and headed home.
After dinner, my husband and I headed back to spot. Indeed, there was a porcupine. The animal had moved away from the road, farther into the woods and lay on its side. It was dead. We approached it slowly, reverently. It was beautiful; its fur of multi-shades and striations cloaked it in nobility, a fallen king. Its blank eyes reflected the outer world; blood threaded from its nose and mouth. The spiky sphere I had observed several hours before was the creature in the process of dying.
The animal must have been hit by a car or truck, I said to my husband, one of those that speed down our dirt road, oblivious to the living beings crossing it all day -- and night. I had witnessed the dying moments of the animal.
The porcupine's and my paths had crossed before. I was certain this was the same animal I had seen moving purposefully across the road at about this spot. Driving into town at 6:30 a.m. to swim at the community pool, I was privy to regular animal activity on the road. It mostly likely died during its daily routine, died at a spot that was part of its map, died just going about its regular business.
The following night at my weekly sangha meeting, the porcupine lumbered through my meditation. I realized that the very thing I hoped to achieve -mindfulness -- came naturally to the porcupine. It -- like all animals -- was in the moment, attentive and at one with the current activity, whether eating or climbing or dying. Perhaps the porcupine was my teacher. Rather than focusing on what humans perceive as destructive behaviors, I needed to see the animal as operating within his environment in a mindful, not malicious, manner. I had to stop struggling against the wild things, fauna and flora, and develop a more creative way of being, of coexisting in the same twenty-three acres. After all, in building a house, we had encroached on already inhabited territory and then expected the residents to respect the human artificial boundaries imposed.
I thought of a koan in afterZen -- Experiences of a Zen Student Out on His Ear by Janwillem van de Wetering. The author examines and explores the koans that were part of his Buddhist training. Reading this one brought the image of the noble porcupine, hanging from a high branch with his ever-growing teeth.
"You have climbed a high tree. You slip. You clench a branch in your mouth; your arms and legs have no support. Now then, if I stand under the tree and ask you the meaning of Buddhism . . . eh? If you don't answer, you evade my question. If you do, you drop dead.
So how will you answer my question?"
I conclude that the porcupine can answer my question about the meaning of Buddhism either way -- just hanging there or dropping dead. Accepting the porcupine nature is essential if I am to be at peace on these twenty-three acres. The boundaries between human and non-human species dissolve when one starts to grasp the concept of interbeing. I don't want to live in a place with no porcupines, or fox, bear, wood thrush, chipping sparrow, and on down the list of all the teachers around me.
That evening we left the porcupine there in the cool spring air. The next morning my husband buried him in the soil rich with rotting leaves. He constructed a cairn to mark the grave. When I visit the porcupine's grave, I breathe to calm myself. Before the stones, I bow: Namaste.
Marla Kay Houghteling is a writer and editor in Friendship Township, north of Harbor Springs.
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