04 - Lessons From An Eager Beaver
“ It’s cool to get eager and excited about things. It’s not always cool to every human to be met with an overtly animated beaver who is trying to force them into my eagerness by thrusting twigs in their direction. ”
Dear Internet Diary,
Reintegration takes time for this Beave. Outside of operating The Lodge, I’ve been a busy beaver.
All the humans I have been meeting with have been so warm and welcoming. Everyone has been encouraging my beaver ways and sharing their creative ideas with me. The excitement has been such fun that I noticed I was spending more time beaving in the wild than showing up at The Lodge. It has taken some time for me to learn the human ways of transportation, bus schedules, and city streets. I was spending more time getting my beaver bits in order and setting up a nice flow at the newsstand. Like a beaver lodge, the flow to stick ratio has to be just right, unlike the arrogant concrete dams I’ve seen human engineers building on rivers that completely block flow. The imbalance is so obvious for us beavers that it’s hard to believe the practice has been repeated across space and time in the quantities it has. But I digress.
The point is, speaking of imbalances, I have a propensity for tipping scales myself. Spending more time in my head, plotting, scheming, and creating, than I was in my body, present, in the third dimension, regularly at The Lodge to flow with people. The whole reason for tipping the scale towards creating objects of explanation was to help people have an easier time understanding why I’m there to begin with.
As imbalanced devices for measurement tend to do, I recalibrated. Just like manual adjustments, it took some errors in judgement for me to re-balance. First error was dialing up the eager beaver a little too much. Bless my heart. Lil’ ‘ol me was struttin’ and dancin’ up and down the city sidewalk in front of my loge door trying to hand beaver literature and complimentary sticks at anyone who would take it.
It’s a little embarrassing to admit but I was a teeny bit disheartened, even down right mad, that so many people turned down a perfectly fine, free stick! I even made sure they were smaller twigs for easy transport and hand-off. After several shifts like this, I started wondering if beavers would ever be able to get through to humans. Maybe the language barrier was deeper than I thought. I felt so naive.
One thing about Beaverella Beaver is, I don’t stay down too long and I always come back with more know how. A lovely human introduced me to something she calls hot yoga. I went to some classes with her and walked many long mystical strolls surrounded by an abundance of future food and construction material. Did you know wood is the rarest material in the universe? Look it up!
Basically, I grounded myself and regulated my nervous system with lots of rest and self-care (an activity beavers pride themselves in doing for several hours every day). Calming your ass down really helps the ability to see different perspectives. Same with inversions, regular yoga practice ensures plenty opportunities to be upside down.
Are you ready to get to the point? Want to finally read the epiphany? Here it goes!
I was being an overly eager beaver. It’s cool to get eager and excited about things. It’s not always cool to most humans to be met with an overtly animated beaver trying to force them into my eagerness by thrusting twigs in their direction.
What I learned about nervous systems is that some of the people denying the precious gift don’t even mean to say no. It could be an involuntary reaction to being shocked and surprised. Their nervous system reacted before their conscious mind could register what that unexpected interaction was all about.
The poor little humans! I was scaring them! Even if they were nice and giggled with me. Their rejection of my offerings was a clear indication that an eager beaver can disregulate their sensitive nervous systems. Even if that disregulation left them feeling gitty or silly, I was still causing too much of an abrupt change in their enviornment for them to feel at ease enough to stop their commute and engage.
So, I have embraced the lesson and will be practicing a different approach. Rather than thrusting flowers, I will tend to my garden and let the butterfly come to the beautiful blooms that come after tending.
Excited to share how my new ideas unfold.
xoxo,
Beaverella Beaver
July 8th, 2026
