Look here. There’s a badger.
They’re nocturnal.
No, in the window well.
Is that an omen?
No, that’s the wolverine, but some of the details of the old stories got mixed up in translation.
What’s the badger, then?
He’s in the window well. Can you call––? I think he needs help.
Sure, but I mean, what does it mean?
That he followed something and got trapped, I guess.
No, I mean in the stories.
Hardworking, protective. They’re generous providers. The Lakota have a story.
Hello? Yeah, we have a badger in the window. He’s stuck. Can you–– okay. Hello?
Are they coming?
I think so. I think that guy was in the middle of something involving a large snake.
Well, hopefully not in the middle. Anyway, in the Lakota story, Badger hunts with arrows and he’s so successful that his lady is in the kitchen all day making the next feast for the den of chubby babies. Then one day a mangy, hungry bear shows up, eyeing the racks of meat drying in the yard.
And then what?
What do you think? Badger says he doesn’t look so hot, offers bear a meal. Bear eats his fill, goes away happy, comes back the next day. The badgers welcome him. Lady of the house even sets a rug out each night for the bear, so he has his own place.
Awwww.
Yeah, but the bear is greedy. The whole time he’s eating at the badger family table, he’s eyeing the bags of arrows, the stores of dried meat, the home. One day he says to badger: You have what I want, and throws the whole family out, tossing them like feathers with his fat paw.
Then what?
They howl, they cry. Badger begs for mercy. For the children, he says, but Bear won’t hear it. The Badgers build a new shelter, but they have no arrows, no stores of dried meat. The babies are starving. Badger goes back to bear, begging. He gets tossed away. Bear laughs and mocks.
But on the way out, Badger finds a bit of buffalo blood in the grass. He takes it back to the shelter, offers a sacrifice, begging divine intercession. And who do you think shows up?
I can’t imagine.
A human brother with arrows and means. They head back to the old home, which the bear family has been ransacking and getting fat on, and the bear doesn’t even need an explanation for their arrival. He knows what this is. He had it coming. He sees the magic arrow. He shouts to his family, Let’s go! and they flee.
Did the human stay with them?
The avenger left the badger family then, to do other work. The badgers resumed their lives, and the bear never bothered them again.
So, what’s this then, the badger in the window?
Is help coming?
I think so.
Well. Just a reminder, then. I hope.
Of what?
To help who you can whenever you can. To resist the impulse, I guess.
The impulse to what?
To focus on whatever you think you need.
Okay, well they should be here soon, to help. I’m gonna make a sandwich.
What did you say?
I said–––
?
I’m going to wait right here, until they come.
This morning I came across the headline, “Wildlife Officials Rescue Badger Trapped in Colorado Window Well,” which inspired this post. And, in case anyone finds themselves wondering, as I was, about the exact nature of a window well, here is an explanation: “A window well is a U-shaped, ribbed metal or plastic product available in most home hardware stores. It’s designed to fit around basement windows, providing a space between the window and the surrounding earth to allow light into sub-grade structures” (squarone.ca).