The World of Imagination

At night, porcupines shriek in trees around our house.

They could be mating. Apparently, they are quite vocal (something about the male doing a dance and urinating on the female’s head.). They will moan, grunt, wail, whine, cough, and click their teeth. It’s the freakiest thing late at night. Like a baby’s desperate wail.

Jamie Sams and David Carson say that porcupine is about faith and trust. In Medicine Cards, they say they are at the south of the medicine wheel, the place of childlike innocence and humility. They remind us “not to get caught in the chaos of the adult world where fear, greed, and suffering are commonplace.” Porcupine medicine is about relieving severity and seriousness and opening ourselves to the world of imagination.

I once told my dad about hearing two porcupines in an apple tree in our front yard. He was in a nursing home, so I was always trying to think of clever stories to entertain him. I remember him smiling and muttering something in response. He was in bed, covers up to his chin.

“What did you say, Dad?” I could barely hear him, and I squeezed his hand. He had had a few strokes and TIAs, and he sometimes struggled to articulate himself loudly.

“The two porcupines…” he said, coughing slightly.

“Yeah?”

“Better…to be seen and not felt,” he whispered.