I’ve done better than yesterday. Was it three trips more today? I guess I should thank this cooler weather, or maybe not. I don’t know how many months I have left, but I can tell it’s not much time. Look, the leaves are already starting to flutter off the trees and crunch when I run over them. I could say it gives a new sound and sensation compared to the unforgiving, dry cracks of the tundra dirt, but it’s a short-lived appreciation. Cooler weather just means the summer is ending, but it can’t; I don’t have enough time. I need more time. I need to work. I need to work. I need to keep moving, and I need to work. Too many factors, too many problems that I am not big enough, physically and mentally, to face.

When the summer started, I noticed how especially hot it was this year. The sun burned just a bit brighter, and the rocks around my lodge sent stabs of harsh and nearly numbing heat to the pads of my small paws. I can already tell that this rise in temperatures is draining me. I used to be able to run down to the meadows thirty-five times in a day, but only because the sun had set by then. Now, my lungs won’t even let me carry out any higher than thirty trips. It hasn’t always been like this. I’ve never felt so restricted by the thick fur on my coat or by the compact roundness of my body.

It all just seems to be a snowball effect really. Ha, what an ironic phrase to use in this situation. I remember my first year living on my own; I breezed by. Sometimes I could just lay out on the rocks while the plants were drying to simply enjoy the warmth of the sun. But, how those easy days have plagued my dreams. Is it time to start seeing them as nightmares? Staying on the same mountain peak only made me that much more aware of what’s happening to this land. No longer are the vast blankets of the meadows stained with shocks of yellow, red, and violet. Those long stalks of luscious vegetation that always tore with droplets of water grew so much shorter and limper, now. Some of my neighbors have already started climbing higher up to escape the intense heat down here. Our poor community is getting smaller and smaller as the years go by. I’m used to seeing the dark grays and browns from the taluses of our mountain, but why did this dim color have to spread into our fields as well? As much work as I’ve put in this year, I haven’t even remotely filled up my den with as much hay as I did last year, or the year before, or even two years before that. The more I work, the hotter it gets. I know I shouldn’t push myself as much as I have lately, because this heat is suffocating, but I don’t have as much hay as I should have, considering my exhaustion. I have to retire early, often. When I retire early, I have even less provisions. So, the next day I have to work even harder to make up for my exhaustion the previous day, only to start the unhealthy cycle all over again.

Bringing back all the drying plants I’ve collected this week still doesn’t fill up my abode. My collection will surely not last me all the way through the winter. Again, I find my problems circulating back to things out of my control. I work so hard to dry my plants out on the rocky slopes, only to have a week’s worth of stock be eaten like a meal for those mountain goats.

I used my loudest, most threatening call, but the glazed look in the goats’ eyes spoke their indifference. I remember vividly how worked up I got, beating my paws into the rough texture of the rocks to try to show the goats how insulted I felt that they just came up to steal my food. But in the end, it was all for naught. No matter how upset I get, some animals will never look past my size. How sad that I will never be able to do anything about it, because what can a small pika like myself do against a goat over 50 times bigger than me? Absolutely nothing. But I guess it’s just a reminder that this world isn’t forgiving to the small ones, so I have to do what I can to make my life the best it can be. The plants won’t take pity on me for being taken advantage of and the other pikas in my community have to suffer my same problems, so it’s up to me to make the difference. Yes, it’s hot and I am pressed on time, but brooding doesn’t bring me time to finally rest, work does.

And work I will. The life isn’t the same, surely not the body, but that work ethic, those struggles never end. The rules are the same, but the game is different; the life of the pika has been transposed to my life, as I have discovered how this wonderful, little creature has become my spirit animal. Instead of foraging for food, I’m searching for knowledge in class. Instead of relentless pursuit up and down a mountain, I’d push harder during the scorching field hockey practices at school. Instead of squeaking at the dangerous intruders near my den, I’d challenge my complacent and patronizing cohorts. I’ve also suffered the trials of being the smaller, quieter person in a world that gifts the ones who live larger than life, physically and mentally. But, in light of our similar difficulties, there’s so much to gain from the spirit animals. These powerful creatures will help, “discover what issues you need to overcome, then use them as stepping stones rather than habitually running up against them,”[I] and I know that studying the pika will bring me closer to conquering my difficulties.

For reference, pikas are small, rabbit-like creatures that live in various climes and terrains. The American Pika inhabits the tundra regions of North America, where it spends the summer, “cutting down grasses and plants with its sharp teeth and carrying them back to its den among the rocks,”[II]. But as innocent as these creatures are, they consistently face difficulties. “The rate of pika losses within the Great Basin has dramatically accelerated since prehistoric times,” [III] due to a growing threat to these mammals, not because they are too small to overcome their problems, but because it is something completely out of their control: global warming.

Seventy-eight degrees may be comfortable for most people, especially for those of us in the South who brave the sun’s unforgiving rays almost year-round. However, this ideal temperature could actually kill pikas[IV], and it does. Increasing global temperatures have been negatively impacting the North American tundras, bringing forth challenges that are causing the decrease in the pika population. “Because pikas do not hibernate, they maintain a high metabolic rate to compensate for heat loss from their small (approximately 150-gram) bodies during winter,” [V] and smaller, heat-temperamental bodies are a two-way street. Loss of heat comes just as easily as overheating, so warmer temperatures are just impactful as frigid temperatures. But hotter summers are doing more than just making uncomfortable trips down the mountain. “Vegetation changes, the invasion of new predators and pests, reduced winter snowpack and increases in extreme weather events,” [VI] come with these hotter temperatures, which inevitably force the pikas farther up the mountain. So how did I end up with these unfortunate yet hardy mammals?

The process to finding one’s spirit animal typically involves meditation, guided imagery, or detailed discoveries in the form of a dream. Unfortunately, the former two did not assist me and I never experienced the last one. I don’t want to say that I found an animal that I simply related to, because the connection I feel towards the pika is something visceral. A snippet from a documentary about my spirit animal came up on a social media website, and when I watched it, I knew I found it. “There’s no reason to restrict theory of mind to an ability to put oneself into another’s shoes,” [VII] and in watching this video I did just that, from when the pika was tirelessly running up and down the rocky paths, to when it was calling out squeaks of alarm to its community. I fit right into this pika’s life, its purpose, and its struggles. But maybe because I came upon this video in a time of great struggle, it was indeed fate.

My greatest attachments were the pika’s powerlessness. I was facing feelings of frustration, embarrassment, and inadequacy just as my spirit animal faces towards a much larger mountain goat, towards inadequate fields, or towards hostile environments. Yet, against anyone’s better judgment, the pika bounces back, and I drew inspiration from a tenacious animal fraught with challenges greater than itself. Steven D. Farmer says how, “you may acquire a power animal at a time in your life when you most need these particular qualities,” [VIII] and it resonated with me. I can’t prove myself to be strong and capable when I’m so clearly small compared to people I face up against, but I can prove to myself that without their validation I can find confidence in my work. With so much energy, pikas realize that they are “responsible for (their) own life and (their) own destiny,” [IX] and a setback doesn’t defeat them, it strengthens them. Admitting defeat and excusing motivation is easy, but, “there is no expectation for other people to do the work for you or to take you where you need to be,” [X] and the pikas exemplify this lesson, which is something I hope to emulate.

Spirit animals aren’t meant to conform to each individual’s unique personalities. I’ve realized that I don’t work as often as the pika does, nor do I have the strength to tackle overwhelming challenges without contriteness. It’s obvious I don’t live each summer wondering if I’ve worked hard enough to survive the next winter, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn to have those same feverish thoughts. And in time, I hope the pika shows me the way to this confidence.

Word Count:1738 Word Count Without Quotes:1574

[I] Chris Lüttichau, Animal Spirit Guides: Discover your power animal and the shamanic path (New York: CICO Books, 2009), 151.

[II] Sylvia A. Johnson, Animals of the Mountains (Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Co., 1976), 8.

[III] Chris Ray, Erik Beever, and Scott Loarie, “Retreat of the American Pika: Up the Mountain or into the Void?” in Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate, ed. Jedediah F. Brodie, Eric Post, and Daniel F. Doak, 247.

[IV] “Global Warming and the American Pika,” National Wildlife Federation, accessed September 27, 2016, https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Threats-to-Wildlife/Global-Warming/Effects-on-Wildlife-and-Habitat/Pika.aspx

[V] Ray, Beever, and Loarie, “Retreat of the American Pika: Up the Mountain or into the Void?” 246.

[VI] “Global Warming and the American Pika”

[VII] Charles Foster, Being a Beast, (New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2016), 16.

[VIII] Steven D. Farmer, Power Animals: How to connect with your animal spirit guide, (Carlsbad, Calif: Hay House, 2004), 31.

[IX] Lüttichau, Animal Spirit Guides, 154.

[X] Lüttichau, Animal Spirit Guides, 154.

Media Citations:

1) Round Pika on a Talus: http://now.howstuffworks.com/2016/02/25/things-looking-up-american-pika

2) Pika Call: https://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/nature/pikas.htm

3) Pika foraging: http://blog.nature.org/science/2014/04/22/citizen-science-tuesday-pika-project-nature-conservation/

4) Scale of Animal Sizes: Sylvia A. Johnson, Animals of the Mountains (Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Co., 1976), 28.

5) Pika eating: http://magicvalley.com/lifestyles/recreation/pika-faces-extinction-in-craters-of-the-moon/article_d24be600-a5bf-5532-82e0-76762f10b0c4.html