I’ve been meaning to blog about the bee, and found this wonderful post today:
The Grace of Deer #deermessenger #deertotem #deersymbolism
It seems a day rarely passes for me without the gracing presence of deer. Whether I am walking or driving my car, these beautiful animals are passing into my life this spring to remind me that all birth takes grace and patience. When we allow ourselves to embrace the full beauty of our lives and our gifts, we will birth new beginnings with greater ease and abundance.
The deer is a silent creature of the forest. In fact, its ability to be quiet and camouflage into its surroundings is its best defense against predators. That, and its ability to stop and listen and, when necessary, run with swiftness and grace.
The deer is an animal that embodies beauty without being a threat to others. Even the male deer is a symbol of majestic strength without the attachments of danger and fear. Deer reminds us that we can be strong and confident without being arrogant and overt. When we embody this grace and beauty, we attract the awe and respect of others without the trappings of jealousy or malice.
Deer is an animal that does not hibernate, but is always quietly present in and around the forest. It knows how to adapt and survive in a place where danger lurks beside magic and abundance. The adult male deer, with its rack of antlers, can remind us of our psychic abilities and our access to divine guidance and higher truths. Ted Andrews, in his book Animal Speak recommends counting the number of points on a stag’s antlers to gleam greater insight on its message for you. This may also be applied to a herd of deer. Count the number and then look it up and see if this adds greater meaning to the message of this animal encounter.
It is also important to check in with your own thoughts and life circumstances when deer appears for you. What is deer telling you about your life? Connect with the spirit of the deer through intent and see if you receive a message.
Andrews associates deer with the number 5, in particular, because it takes 5 years for a deer to grow the largest rack of antlers. He states that deer may be telling you to look for new growth, especially intuitive/perceptive growth to occur within the next 5 years. The number 5 is associated with change and activity, and also inner strength.
If you are about to have a new baby, or if you have a young child at home, the deer can remind you of the importance of nurturing and protecting your child from outside energies and influences. This can be applied to anyone, not only infants and young children. The deer is a vigilant and attentive caregiver, reminding us of our own need for self care in a world permeated with too much fear.
This morning, when I encountered a deer, it was literally running away in fear. I was walking with a friend and we had our dogs with us. Not coincidentally, we had been talking about the fears we had for our children in a world where we could not always count on them being safe.
When you see a deer, stop for a moment and check in with your own fears. Ask yourself what is holding you back. Is there something, fear-based, that needs releasing? Do you need to trust more? To embrace the beautiful gifts you are reluctant to birth? Are you being kind and gentle to yourself and others?
Take a moment to listen. Deer have wonderfully large ears. What do you hear?
The Butterfly in the Heart #heartchakra #healing #unconditionallove #butterflysymbolism
All of our healing comes back to the heart. The heart chakra is the seat of our soul, and our connection to the divine energies of the universe. When we have a healthy heart chakra, we radiate pure, unconditional love and open ourselves to the return of this love.
When we experience pain, betrayal, and fear, especially during our formative years when we are most vulnerable, we can learn to protect ourselves by closing off the heart chakra. When we are given love with conditions, or suffer abuse, we adopt the belief that we are unworthy of unconditional love, and that this pure, untethered love is obtainable. Instead, we look at love as something with limits, and build walls of protection around our own inner source of love so that we do not run out of its light.
This system of belief is not always easy to change. It takes security, trust, and faith. When we begin to live with a healthy, open heart chakra, we erase the fear of vulnerability and not being loved by another. We understand, with faith, that the energy we send out to the universe comes back to us in multiplied form. When we realize that we are worthy of unconditional love, we begin to see that love is limitless. From this place of heart-centered pure love, we attract the energy of joy, abundance, compassion and the gift of unconditional love from others. We become magnets for these energies, and are no longer an energetic match for fear, conditional love, and betrayal. This translates to the people we attract to us.
I associate the energy of the butterfly with the heart chakra. Often, during healing sessions, I will see butterflies emerging from the heart chakras of my clients as they shift into self-acceptance and let go of their conditioned fears. The energy of the butterfly is pure joy and freedom. It is beauty without limits. The butterfly teaches us that we have within us the power to transform ourselves, to shed the weight of density, and to grow our wings.
What I Shared
Following up on my earlier post today, “Teach Your Children Well,” I wanted to share these two scenes from my memoir manuscript. After talking with my daughter and son about how our words can hurt others and have a lasting impression, I shared these stories with them for the first time. It was an emotional afternoon, but also a healing one. I am so grateful for the opportunity to help instill the importance of kindness and empathy.
From A Girl Named Truth (for “Sally” and “Timmy”):
There were some things I could not hide, like the food I brought for lunch in grade school when we were still vegetarians. In the cafeteria I would look around the table and watch my friends with their saran-wrapped sandwiches made with bread that reminded me of clouds, all soft, white and full of air. Between those perfect slices of bleached wheat, circles of pink baloney, or squares of pink ham floated atop squares of orange cheese. How I wanted to sink my teeth into those sandwiches!
Instead, I would open my lunchbox and pull out my waxed-paper bundle. My friends, in turn, would watch while I unwrapped thick slabs of my mother’s homemade bread. Peeking through the edges of the uneven slices, stems of alfa sprouts curled into tiny green fists.
One day, while I sat with my friends at the cafeteria table, one of them pointed at my sandwich, while wrinkling her nose. “What are those?” she asked, her fingers almost touching the sprouts that looked like they were struggling to grow out of a bed of bread.
“Sprouts,” I mumbled.
“Sprouts? What are sprouts?”
With the question, my face grew hot, as though I was suddenly standing, against my will, too close to an open fire.
“I don’t know,” I whispered looking down at my lunch, wishing by some grace of the universe, that it would disappear. “They’re kind-of like lettuce, only smaller.”
“Well they look like grass. What are you, a cow?”
The rest of the table erupted into giggles and a chant began, “Alethea’s a cow, Alethea’s a cow!”
The fire in my face flamed, while my eyes watered to quench it. My stomach, in turn, had closed to the prospect of taking another bite.
I never threw those sandwiches away. Instead I wrapped their nibbled forms back into their waxed paper packages and handed them shamefully to my mother at the end of the day. She, in turn, would shake her head and ask, “Alethea, why didn’t you eat more of your lunch?”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
One spring day, when I was in the first grade, I made my first and only trip to the principal’s office. My victim was Timmy, a chubby boy with light blond hair and blue eyes hidden behind thick glasses. Timmy didn’t have any friends, and that day on the playground he sat, as usual, by himself on a bench while the rest of the school played around him.
I began recess on the swing-set with my best friend of the day, Stacy. As we soared over the ground, we giggled and made faces of disgust, pointing our fingers at Timmy, who studied the brown dirt beside his feet.
When we grew bored and hopped off the swings, Stacy whispered into my ear, “I dare you to go over to Timmy and tell him he’s fat.”
I hesitated, “Only if you go with me.”
So, together Stacy and I ran past Timmy, while crying out in nervous giggles, “Timmy, you’re fat! Timmy, why are you so fat?”
Timmy never lifted his gaze from the ground, and although he acted as though he hadn’t heard us, there was no way he could have missed our words. Even the teacher on playground duty, whom we had failed to notice, caught our words as they skipped through the air.
“Alethea and Stacy,” she called after us, “Please come with me to the principal’s office.”
While I sat with Stacy on the bench outside the office, my stomach churred with guilt and fear. Tears spilled from the corners of my eyes as I contemplated the reprimand that awaited us. I had never before been sent to the principal’s office and all pervious reprimands at school had been for talking in class and passing notes. I felt awful for myself, and deep within my belly, I felt bad for Timmy, who was more like me than I wanted to admit.
I never teased Timmy again for being fat, instead I mostly watched, with the mixed pang of relief and guilt, when a child who wasn’t me suffered the ridicule of being different. I couldn’t, though, resist teasing Sally. It seemed no one could.
No one really liked Sally or wanted to be around her. Sally’s hair often looked unwashed and hung in stringy strands down her back. Sally wore glasses, and without them her eyes crossed. Most days, Sally looked like she needed a bath.
When we played tag, Sally was the one with cooties, and my friends and I would run away whenever she came near. If she touched us, we would have to shower under the hemlock tress until we were cleansed of her germs with an invisible cootie-wash. The boys, in turn, loved to chase Sally with their homemade spitball guns, constructed out of lunchroom straws. Their ammunition was saliva soaked wads of paper, which they would shoot with their breath, hoping to land the dripping pulp on the skin, or even better, the glasses of Sally.
“Splat.”
“Got her,” the victorious boy would yell. My friends and I giggled nervously, while we peered over at Sally and the goo that covered the glass over her eye in dripping humiliation.
We stared and waited for Sally to wipe away the trail of slime as it slid down the side of her cheek. Sally, though, never cried. Instead, she held tight her emotions like a seasoned soldier. It took me several years, after I had myself become a victim of almost unbearable humiliation, for me to truly regret my part in Sally’s torment. Only then did I seek her friendship, which although was never close, lasted until we graduated high school and went our separate ways.
Teach Your Children Well
This morning, at the same time I was off-line erasing a page of my memoir manuscript into a poem about bringing lunches to grade school that were fodder for shame and teasing, a friend of mine was composing me a message about an unfortunate lunchroom experience regarding our daughters. It was not a joy-filled event, reading about my daughter’s unkind words and how they had hurt one of her peers. Things happen for a reason, the universe calls our attention to places where we need to focus our energies so that we can create opportunities for learning and shifting.
I sit writing this while listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Life is a circle of lessons premised on love. We learn from your children, they learn from us. Our greatest gift is to “teach them well.” This afternoon I will be sitting down with my daughter to talk about love and compassion. We’ll discuss the energy of words and how much it hurts when we are the recipient of an unkind word or action. We’ll talk about how it’s okay to lead, as long as no one is left behind. That to be a true leader, one should lead with love that wraps and uplifts. And we’ll talk about how it hurts ourselves, perhaps even more, when we hurt others. My daughter came home from school yesterday in a foul mood, and I knew something was bothering her from the events of the day, yet she chose not to share them with me.
When I was a child, I was shamed by my unconventional lunches. I looked at the slabs of nutrient-filled home-made bread only partially covering thick slabs of cheese and sprouts curling around the edges, and thought only about how much I wanted to throw my lunch away because my peers teased me. Yesterday, a child threw her lunch away because of my daughter. It breaks my heart. It brings me no comfort knowing that she is not the only child to do this in the lunchroom. Instead, it reinforces the need to teach my child well.
As most of us know, bullying starts from a place of fear. A child will bully to be popular. Children want to be loved and accepted by their peers (just as they want to be loved and accepted at home). I am comforted in the fact that I live in a community where many parents care enough to be involved in their children’s lives, and not to turn a blind-eye when their own child causes pain and suffering to others.
Now, I await the passing of hours until my daughter comes home off the bus, while I thank the universe for sending us this lesson and opportunity for growth. I hope that together we can shift this lunch-room atmosphere into a place of love and acceptance, that we will be joined by other parents and children who sit together and learn from each other in order to create an environment where everyone is treated with respect and compassion.
Waterfall Purification Meditation #waterfalls #waterhealing #healingmeditations #naturehealing
Have you ever stood beneath a waterfall? If you have, you will understand that there is something both sacred and powerful about the energy surrounding you. Waterfalls are portals for purification. The soul seeking light is drawn to the waterfall to release fears. Three years ago, on a trip to Oregon, I took these photographs. You will see that two of them are filled with orbs. Some of these orbs are souls in transition, seeking out the purifying energies of the waterfall to cleanse and release the fears accumulated during their lifetimes before they make the transition into Light. We, in human form, are drawn to waterfalls for the same reason, to cleanse and release our emotional bodies, whether we are acutely aware of it or not. When you look at these photographs, you will also see orbs bringing healing light energy into the space (often in rainbowed hues), while other orbs are working to absorb this energy (notice the dull colored orbs that are not fully round).
You do not need to stand under a waterfall to feel its energy (although I highly recommend doing so when you have the opportunity), instead you can enter this healing portal through meditation. A great time to cleanse your emotional body is during the waxing, or full moon, whose energy works naturally with the rhythm of the tides and the water element. Many people, as they become aware of the cycle of the moon, will notice a pattern to the cycle of their emotional bodies. As the full moon builds, you may feel the pull to release fears that no longer serve you, and this waterfall meditation will help you to do so.
As you prepare for meditation, find a comfortable place to sit, lie down, or if you have the privilege of working with a waterfall directly, you may wish to sit or stand underneath it. Wherever you are, find a safe place to go within and connect to Earth and the element of water.
Close your eyes and take three deep belly-breaths. With each exhale, allow your breath to come out in a long, drawn-out “Ahhhhhh,” or imagine this sound if you do not feel comfortable uttering it in your space. With each breath you are bringing your fears to the surface and exhaling them with the “Ahhhhhh.” You need not dwell on what these fears are, just allow your body to release and prepare for meditation.
After your three releasing breaths, allow your body to relax into a meditative state. Your breathing is now calm and quiet as you enter the portal of your waterfall. You may use these images, or allow your own waterfall to materialize inside of your mind if you are not meditating beside or under one. Know that you are in a sacred place of healing. The water spirits and angels in this portal are here to protect you, surrounding you with their protective energies of light, as well as working with you to release and transmute your fears.
Draw upon all of your senses to enhance your experience. Imagine that it is a warm day. Your body is bare, yet it is warm like the air around you. Gently allow your emotions to come up, and without judgement allow them to pass through your body and make their way to to the surface of your skin where they are lovingly washed away by the falling water. You might see your emotions manifest as scenes so that you understand where they originated. Allow each one to appear in form, and as it appears feel the cooling drumbeat of the waterfall on your body. Hear its rhythm. Smell the fresh, cleansing body of water as it falls on your skin. Each drop, each drumbeat, is taking your particular fear, or unwanted emotion, from the surface of your body, where you have brought it for release to carry it down to Earth.
While you are standing under the waterfall, cleansing, you might want to visualize the transmutation of your fear(s) into an emotion or scene that brings you joy. As you do this, you will feel the energy shift and become lighter. Stand in your waterfall for as long as you feel drawn to, allowing whatever emotions that need cleansing to surface and be released. Know that there are both divine energies as well as Earth energies working with you, along with the water spirits, helping you to take way your fears. Some fears will release effortlessly into the light, lifting into that divine energy of the universe, while others may be draw with the droplets of water into Earth to be mulched and recycled into new growth. Imagine these fears finding their new life as they are broken down by the powerful, unconditional love of Mother Earth, who is willing to take their energy and transform it into new life.
Inside her womb, Earth is filled with crystals caves, where healing is enhanced. Perhaps you will find yourself drawn into one as you use these powerful energy center to cleanse and recharge your cells. Imagine your cave filled with the crystals of your choosing. Perhaps your cave is studded with purple amethysts, or the soft hues of rose quartz. Maybe it is filled with clear crystals. Whatever you imagine is right for your healing at this moment. Reside inside this cave for a few moments, soaking in the healing energy it offers.
When you are ready, bring your awareness back to your body. Feel the Earth or floor firmly supporting you and slowly move your body and gently go on your day.
Next time you are fortunate enough to find yourself in the presence of a waterfall, do give yourself the gift of its energy. Take time to be beside or under the falling water. Breathe and release. Notice the shifts you experience, notice the energy around you. Chances are, you will not be alone, and what a wonderful gift to share with other souls seeking rejuvenation.
Updated August 25, 2015
Flower Fairies
A Walk to School
I spent the early part of the morning, after I’d loaded the kids off to school, stressed. I could feel the tension rising in my chest as I searched my home office for the packet of photographs my birthfather had sent me months ago, then, when I found them, how to scan the ones I wanted from my printer onto the computer.
While I was looking for the photographs, I shifted through piles of debris, hardly giving these stored mementos a second glance in my panic to find the photos. Instead, there were the barely perceptible pauses as I catalogued the contents for later review. As my mind wandered to many places, I kept hearing the voice inside telling me to get outside. Downstairs the banana bread I had made for my son’s class was sitting on the counter cooling, and the voice urged, Why don’t you walk it to school?
As I showered, having given up on my efforts to scan the recovered photographs, the voice kept coming back. I thought about the time it would take (the school is only about a mile from my house), and whether the dogs would protest. But, as I sliced and wrapped the bread, popping a heal in my mouth to make sure it would pass the taste bud test of 7 and 8 year olds, I thought, What the heck, I’m going to walk.
The dogs barely noticed, as I wafted by them with my bag of bread and quickly opened and closed the front door. They knew, as I did, they’d still get their daily allotment of 3 walks/day. It’s a rare day when they don’t.
There’s something about stepping from the enclosure of a building into the open air that has an immediate effect of lifting one’s mood. Well, at least for me. Especially on a fine, spring day. Instantly, I felt lighter and the tension began pouring out of my cells. I had, I realized, through the urging of Spirit, given myself a gift.
Even though I stayed on the roadside, I was surrounded by bird-song and that showy abundance of chlorophyl one finds only in spring and summer. There’s a reason why so many people go into the cathedral of nature to find themselves, and to heal. Green is the color that vibrates from the healthy heart, it’s the aura of a healer, and it’s the expression of life in nature. Unless one is metaphorically asleep, you cannot help but feel the uplifting effects of being in the presence of plants and trees.
As I walked to the school, I inhaled the color green with each breath, and took in the gifts Nature had to offer me. On the way home, I asked Spirit for a plastic bag (an easy request, as they’re often tangled in the undergrowth of trees), and found one minutes later caught in the hands of a small shrub. The roadside was full of discarded debris, and I began piling soda and beer cans, disposable coffee cups, cigarette packages and butts, and all manner of plastic inside my too small bag.
If I hadn’t taken the extra time to walk to my son’s school on this beautiful day, I would not have seen the black bird fly across my path. I would not have taken that deep breath to absorb the gift of its energy, and in turn, hear its message of reassurance, You will find your way. If I had driven my car, I would not have paused, while retrieving bits of styrofoam, to seen the pair of orioles spreading sunshine through the pines. And, I would not have paused beside the fire pond to watch the light dance on water.
Spider: The Writer’s Totem #spidertotem #spidersymbolism #spidermessenger #writerstotem
Spider weaves and waits
a silent spinner of tales
eight hands shaping fate
Yesterday, while eating lunch with two of my healer friends, I glanced up to see a large spider tattooed on the forearm of a waiter. I had been talking about my book, and the appearance of the “writer’s totem” was apropos.
If you are a writer, it is likely the stories you create are aided by the eight hands of spider. When I picture my spider totem, I see the black widow. I have learned from this totem, and others, that words have the power to sting, and also to heal. They can carry us into the darkness within and pull our truths out into the light. They can teach us about our fears, and about healing through writing (the black widow wears a red hourglass on her back).
Spider, with its eight legs, and a body in the shape of a figure eight, links us to infinity, and, as Ted Andrews notes in Animal Speak, the wheel of life. One might wish to study the Wheel of Fortune card in tarot for more insight. The spider, from the earliest of times, has taught us to see the mystery of life and of the universe. In doing so, she teaches about balance. Spider shows us that how we shape our stories determines the texture of our destiny. She models for us how to find self within the span of life’s web.
Andrews points out how the delicate bodies of spiders embody the balance of gentleness and strength. The writer must remember the effect the energy of her words will have when they are spun into a story, yet she must endow them with strength.
In one of my former lives, I was a female scribe in Egypt. I carry this life and its gifts with me today. Spider is considered the creator of language, as well as a guardian of ancient alphabets. She guides the writer to bring beauty and light into the weavings of the imagination, which emerge from the place of dreams. The writer, like the spider, creates from the place of silence, working from the inside out to bring her work to life/light.
If you have a spider as a totem animal, it is beneficial to study the type. Not all spiders weave the same style of web (some don’t even weave webs), nor do they all eat the same prey, or wear the same colors on their skin. Most spiders have poison in their bites, but some leave a more lasting mark.
Crow – A Trickster Totem? #crowtotem #crowsymbolism #crowmessenger
Frequently, during healing sessions with my clients, animal energies will appear as messengers or totems. Recently, a crow made its presence known by appearing on a woman’s left shoulder. I felt a chuckle escape from my mouth, clearly this one was a bit of a trickster.
Often, our bird totems will perch themselves on our shoulders and travel with us throughout our days. They offer us guidance and wisdom even when we don’t know they are there, much like our spirit guides do. In fact, I view them as spirit guides specialized in the energetic characteristics of the particular animal they represent. As I told my client, sometimes they come and go as needed, sometimes they are with us for the span of our lifetime. I think crow, in her case, was what you might call a primary totem animal. Her shoulder was even fatigued from its weight.
Although she could not “feel” the fatigue and muscle strain the way I could, it was significant that it was there. Crow as a totem animal guide can be a bit complex and mischievous, much like its counterpart appears in nature. They are smart survivors, and will go through any means of trickery needed to get to their desired goal.
Watch for crows in nature. You will often find them perched on the top of trees as sentinels, looking for opportunities. Their black, feathered bodies evoke the energy of mystery and magic. Their piercing eyes mirror wisdom. They are adaptable birds. Crows find the means to survive in any situation they encounter. When needed, they work together to locate food sources, even if it means stealing from another animal. Their diet is not limited, they’ll eat pretty much anything at hand. They’ll even turn on each other, if a circumstance threatens their individual survival.
At other times, crows act together, using sentinels and messengers to relay information regarding food sources and danger. Listen to the crow’s voice and you cannot help but feel its power. It is not a pleasant sound, like a songbird’s, but it holds an undeniable strength. When a crow passes overhead, even if it is silent, one may feel the impulse to shiver. Yes, there is mystery in the crow, which often pulls us to the place of magic and secrets.
Black is considered the color of creation, and the feminine energies of the universe. As Ted Andrews points out in Animal Speak, black represents the womb where new birth occurs. The crow, as a totem animal, can help us with this aspect of ourselves, showing us how to go within to find our inner magic and to pull out hidden gifts.
In the case of my client, the crow on her shoulder had been with her for some time, helping her to survive, but not always ethically. It was time to shift the crow’s energy, and I urged her to shake the crow off its perch from time to time, and let if fly around, switch shoulders, etc. Since she has already done much healing, I have no doubt my client will start working with crow in a new way, using its energetic gifts to delve into the truths of her soul, and use her intellect in ways that will bring light to not only herself, but to others.
Crow can draw us into the mysteries of the womb and stir it to life, but we must take care to ensure that we bring those gifts into the light in a means that will offer more than personal gain.
The Light Behind the Story 