Consider the Opossum

Sent in from “Possum Bob”

In bygone wiser days, when sawbones studied bile and phlegm as the hidden currents of the human body, it was understood that certain beasts of the land and sea had qualities naturally harmonizing . Among them, humble and pure, the opossum was said to be a wandering apothecary of the wilds. Not by intention, of course. The opossum does not practice medicine. It simply exists in such a away that the universe, embarrassed by its own excesses, begins to fix itself.

For consider the opossum’s temperament: calm, nocturnal, unbothered, stomach full of ticks. It does not rage like the choleric hawk, nor brood like the melancholic owl. It shuffles gently through the world like a small gray monk, carrying within its gentle heart a perfect apathy. To observe an opossum is to feel one’s own blood cool, one’s yellow bile retreat, one’s phlegm settle politely into place. Even the black bile, so difficult, so overbearing, begins to sigh and relax, as though reminded that despair is rather silly in the presence of such a creature.

And then there is the opossum’s most famous art: the sacred secret of fainting. The ancient humoral scholars insisted that this was not fear, but transcendence. When the humors grew too turbulent, the opossum simply collapsed to rest and reset the body, a living demonstration of equilibrium through strategic surrender. In this way, the opossum became an emblem of perfect internal harmony: neither too hot nor too cold, neither too wet nor too dry. The wise marsupial provides us proof that rather than medicine, sometimes the body heals best by taking an extremely dramatic nap.