Long after humans no longer walked the earth, ghost squirrels roamed the world. For generations they were without a home, doing their best to survive in whatever culture they found themselves in. The desire for a ghost squirrel state first appeared in a manuscript of Dale the Elder a hundred years or so after the age of the Dragon Riders ended. It was just an acorn of an idea, this dream of a country, a homeland, for all ghost squirrels. Dale the Elder never lived to see what he’d planted grow and spread through the culture of ghost squirreldom and finally take root in what is now the forest island known to all as Oaklandia.

The Nine of Dale the Elder

The Citizen

1  A true citizen of a ghost squirrel state practices relaxation, allowing mind, body and spirit to breathe.

2  A ghost squirrel citizen aligns mind, body and spirit with the skies above and the ground below as the breath travels between the two.

3  A ghost squirrel citizen connects to the world through the relaxation and alignment that flow from head to tail.

The Nation

4  A nation of true citizens is able to govern itself with a relaxed paw.

5  A nation of true citizens is able to naturally align the skills, needs, hopes and dreams of its citizens to create a government of the squirrels, for the squirrels and by the squirrels.

6  A nation of true citizens is able to connect each and every squirrel to the vision of that nation and its leaders.

The World

7  The Ghost Squirrel Nation deals with its neighbors in a relaxed manner, never pushing into their affairs uninvited and receiving any attacks with just enough energy to deflect or neutralize the attack.

8  The Ghost Squirrel Nation first aligns itself with the principles of its citizens and then naturally aligns itself with the rest of the world based on those principles.

9  The Ghost Squirrel Nation, using the principles of relaxation and alignment, knows how to connect its actions – and inactions – to the true needs of the natural and political world of which it is a part.

The tales of Oaklandia’s early days, growth and challenges, brought back in time through the Quantum by a few squirrels who had developed that talent, are understandably a bit difficult to translate and will take some time. Besides the Nine of Dale the Elder, we do have a group of paintings from an unknown artist that highlight the value tai chi played in the development of Oaklandia.