Possum Luck

I Believe in the Karmic Gifting Cycle of the American Opossum.

Baby Angel

I believe in the Karmic Gifting Cycle of the American Opossum. That kindness, freely given to these snarling, hissing, awkward monsters is rewarded by systems in the universe I am not privy to—but I have partially decoded. I will share with you what I have observed.

Simply put: if you go out of your way to be kind to these critters by following a general live-and-let-live policy paired with occasional gifts; you’ll be rewarded beyond measure. 

Admittedly, my sample size is small—but I have been practicing this for a decade and have harvested the rewards. I have my own pony and once had a girlfriend that liked to play European board games; so that’s proof positive enough for me to stamp this as canon. I may be this practice’s only adherent, but as far as spirituality goes, you can do worse.

Possums are not traditionally attractive. Their ears are pinned and cut. Their eyes are small and black. Most resemble a matted wig with a serrated knife jutting out of it. But despite their grotesque outward appearance they’re elegant creatures. I’ve watched young possums dance up iron railings. Seen them masterfully use their prehensile tails to wrap around bars and hold their weight upside down until they gracefully land one of their four perfect hands down. Possums do not scurry. They do not crawl. They pour.  

Like us, possums are opportunistic omnivores. Also like us, they are braver and stupider when they’re young. Their desire to eat anything the world will offer them takes them close to human living spaces. If they can get their fleshy phalanges on a hen’s egg they’ll take it, but are just as thrilled to eat pizza crusts or the savory remnants in poorly-rinsed containers in your garbage. Which is why there isn’t a farmer around here that would flinch if I told them I shot possums as soon as I saw them near my trash cans. It would be a bold lie. I do not subscribe to this ambush. A trash can is a great place for prayer. 

Incidentally, the trash is where I first met my local possum community; a baby rummaging through my recyclables in my unfinished mudroom... 

It was over a decade ago, and I  was working on some writing when I heard a clatter. I went to investigate. I caught the flash of a long pink tail and some wiry gray hair before it all disappeared into the bin of empty cider bottles. He was deep among the debris, blissfully ignorant of me looming above his small vertical sack of booze. 

I was surprised to see him! I expected a rat—since they’ve  sometimes made their way into the house from the barn—but this here was an unmistakable woodland guest. When he finally noticed me, he regarded me with unblinking black eyes and an open mouth of small sharp teeth. He followed this up with a dry hiss that sounded faintly of zydeco. Then he went rigid and laid back amongst the bottles like the happy corpse he wasn’t. I was in love.

Now, I am not the kind of woman to be nervous around wildlife. I’m a farmer, hunter, and falconer. Wildlife is often my roommate. But this was years ago and I was more unsure. What I did know was he couldn’t stay this close to my kitchen. How would this little guy react to a large primate touching him while he’s half drunk? 

I put on the heavy leather gloves used for handling logs inside the wood stove, and reached into the bin to extract the small, limp, marsupial. I don’t know if his blood sugar reacted or instincts, but he let out a pathetic attempt at another hiss and flopped back to dead in my hands. My heart. 

I looked around the mudroom. He had obviously made his way in through the dirt crawl space behind the broken washing machine. This room mostly belongs to my barn cats and now it was clear to me he’d been pilfering dry cat food for weeks. I’d been refilling their large communal bowl every morning wondering how they could go through so much, so fast. So it was this Little Guy (now his given name) and here he was, barely breathing, with his eyes closed in my hand. Not much larger than my palm. 

I brought him outside and set him on the cord wood pile beside the house. The wood pile had a roof over it, wind protection, and seemed as good a place as any to spend a night. Since he’d already been feasting off the food inside my home it seemed moot to not send him off without a little something. So I put a half eaten chicken wing beside him from the compost bowl in the fridge and watched him come to. He ignored my lavish gift and dissolved into the stack of piled hardwood.

In the morning the chicken wing was gone and that day I made enough money in farm sales to make a late mortgage payment. That small reprieve from the edge was enough to make me truly grateful. I had four more weeks on my farm for certain. Another month in my mountain home, the one place in the entire world I was equally terrified of and madly in love with. I gave credit to the possum. I made a silent vow to never harm one again. 

I can sense your raised eyebrows, but listen, this house has stood firm since the Civil War. It can handle a small marsupial eating some Meow Mix. I know all varieties of nature experts are getting pissy about this — since we all know the many consequences of feeding wildlife — but this isn’t a black bear padding at RV doors at a campsite. This is behind my washing machine, in my house, which as far as the bank is concerned and as far as I currently know, I still own. Trespassers will be fed. 

So, till this day, I am kind to every possum I meet. I love them. I love them so damn much. They’re awkward, crafty, optimistic, and generally harmless unless fervently provoked. All traits I admire in my friends and aspire to achieve myself.

I want to believe my kindness to them over the years has turned them into totems, living luck pieces. Because those first possums appeared almost a decade ago and I am still living on this farm. Living here after quitting my miserable 9-5 corporate job and turning feral, now deeply rooted to the world of animals, hard work, and hopeful vulnerability; my holy trinity.

Listen, there’s a lot of ways to live a good life. But if you’re looking for some tips:

Be nice to possums. 

These pics were taken the night I found him. He has his little chicken wing.