Stepping through the Threshold to Build a Sanctuary #nonprofit

On September 22, 2025September 22, 2025 By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light13 Comments

Photo taken during the medicine walk at the beginning of the day

In the days before my “nonprofit sanctuary building retreat day,” my co-facilitator, Heidi, and I found feathers everywhere. The banded blues and blacks of bluejays and the curled wisps of downy undercoats fell repeatedly along our paths, and in my case the tail feather of a yellow-shafted flicker in the middle of my driveway. The golden center unmistakable. Some things are meant to be noticed.

The invitations had been sent out about two months prior, and almost immediately responses came back, most stating enthusiastically that they were definitely going, or would try to. Yet, life has a way of taking over, and by the time Saturday came we were expecting only four more. That made six of us for the day, with one more, my husband, who appeared periodically. Some things are just meant to be.

For those of you who know me through the mystical world that I walk through, you will know that I have a rather intimate relationship with the hexagram. Not in any nefarious way, as that is religious dogma’s fear of mystical symbols that predate even the written word. The hexagram is the symbol that brought me to Sue, my spiritual mentor, and is the symbol that came as a labyrinth calling in the Warriors of Light in my book series. It is a sacred geometrical alignment of unity and balance. Combining the (triangles) elements of water (feminine) and fire (masculine), as well as earth and air. Its elemental form creates a six-pointed star. In the center is one more, not always visible point, representing the soul as an aspect of the divine. On Saturday, I had my 6 + 1 = 7. A complete hexagram star.

Some things are meant to be, and as the weekend played out I became more and more convinced that Sue was orchestrating, at least in part, from beyond the veil.

So let me tell you about the night before. Heidi and I arrived at the lake at 7pm. Dusk was settling in fast, and the setting sun haloed the hills of the (goddess) land in an aura of gold. Into the cove we walked to watch the alchemy of earth, fire, air and water.

We went to bed early, Heidi to a downstairs bedroom, and I to the upstairs loft. It took me hours to fall into sleep, and when I did I was woken abruptly by the sound of the fire alarms going off. It was 11:01am. Heidi, downstairs, noted the same time, also now fully awake.

We gathered with racing hearts to assess the situation and could find nothing amiss. Climbing back into bed with my mind restless, it took a long period of time to find sleep again. Shortly after I did, the fire alarms went off. It was now 1:11am. Heidi, downstairs, also noted the time.

As we once again gathered to assess the situation, we become increasingly convinced that the alarms going off with three ones each time had not been accidental. Perhaps we were just not meant to sleep, at least not restfully. Heidi did not wake again until about six in the morning, I, on the other hand, woke once more, this time to the persistent hooting of an owl. I was too tired to look at the clock, but the messenger was noted.

The ensuing day unfolded as it was meant to. The six, plus occasional one, shared thoughts and ideas. The right questions were asked, and I had some, but not all of the answers. By the end of the day, lots of pieces of the puzzle were scattered about, but it had yet to be assembled. Our mission was to work on a name, tag line and logo, and we had aspects of each, but the whole was still illusive. Earlier in the day, during a medicine walk, I had heard this phrase inside of my head, “Surrender to not knowing, that’s when the magic happens.”

Tired and packing to go home, I didn’t know what to think of it all. Everything still felt amorphous and uncertain. I was grateful for the efforts of the gathering, but I wasn’t sure what to make it. So I let it settle and be. I went home and unpacked, watched some TV, read, and then went to bed. Almost immediately, I fell into a deep slumber.

At 1:31am, I woke abruptly. My shoulder was aching and so I rolled on my back and started to think. I thought about the pieces from the previous day and what was missing. I thought about how when I had read my vision narrative for the sanctuary, one of the participants had noted there was something missing, yet I could not articulate it during our day together. And then it occurred to me.

Wonder.

How could I have forgotten wonder, which had always been central to the vision, but had somehow not been articulated in its story. And then the name came to me. And then the tag line. I started piecing together an image for a logo, realizing the components were there, laid before me, I just needed to put them together. I thought about the book I had recently read even though, as my husband said, I had “hated” the movie, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Suddenly, I realized who my target audience was in a way that felt more concrete.

And I thought of another message I had received during the medicine walk after I had heard the call of a loon, “Let go of expectations. Anything is possible when you open the doorway and walk through.” After years of holding this close to my heart, I think I had just walked through the doorway with my dream.

When the Bird of Night Bookends Your Day #barredowl

On September 10, 2025 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Reflections22 Comments

It was not yet 7:00am in the morning, I had reached over to grasp the teapot, about to fill it with water to brew a cup of chaga, when I looked out my kitchen window and saw the owl staring back at me. It was perched on the lowest branch of the hemlock just beyond the far side of the pool, a couple of yards away. An “Oh my god,” or something close to it, escaped from my mouth is I put down the teapot and grabbed the phone.

My morning visitor, a barred owl on a hemlock

There was no need to panic. The owl had no plans elsewhere, in fact, it was quite content to spend its morning in the copse of hemlocks, peering into my ~~soul~~ window, and occasionally onto the forest floor for a sign of breakfast. Or would that be dinnertime of an owl?

The barred owl casually hunting for a meal

One thing was certain, I had not been expecting a visitor of night to show up at my backdoor that morning. And, for a bird known for its eerie call that sounds an awful lot like “Whooo Looks for Yooouu?” my visitor never made a peep.

The barred owl was silent during the entire visit

For more than an hour, the owl hunted silently the small woods in my backyard, mostly staying in the same hemlock, and quite frequently peering into my ~~soul~~ window directly ~~through~~ into my eyes.

It was a bit unsettling, but felt like a gift

If you have never stared eye-to-eye with an owl, perhaps you will get a feel for what it’s like through these photos. There is a reason why owls have, throughout time, been associated with darkness and magic. A reason why they are associated with wisdom, secrets, and symbols of what is hidden and perhaps needs to be revealed. Every bit of lore associated with owls becomes unsettlingly clear when you stare eye-to-eye with one.

Since my morning visitor (who appeared again at the end of the afternoon), was a barred owl, I found myself starring into eyes blacker than night set inside a tawny white face with a yellow beak. It’s rather like looking into a sky devoid of stars (planets, satellites, and moons), but that doesn’t exist. Hence the feeling of otherworldliness. It is no wonder owls are associated with magic and mystery.

When I looked at my visitor, I saw my dear and departed friend and mentor Sue with her cloak of owl feathers, I saw my maternal grandmother, and I saw Athena encased inside one magnificent form that more than once I felt like hugging.

My visitor definitely had a huggable quality

Let’s face it, owls are rather adorable, albeit imposing figures. I have a tendency to want to hug pretty much any form of wildlife I see and it takes a fair bit of willpower not to. Instead, I settle with filming and taking photos, when possible. Yesterday brought two opportunities to do so, as the owl appeared again late in the afternoon, just after I had settled onto the sofa to work on my manuscript. It was nearly 4:40pm, and after typing a few lines in book three of the Warriors of Light series, in which perhaps not coincidentally, the barred owl makes a reappearance as an important messenger, my friend reappeared. This time, outside my living room window. Like déjà vu I looked out the window to find the same barred owl starring directly into my soul. Forget the crossout, I was now convinced.

A Forest Walk and a Dream about Beauty #dreams #foresthealing #badgersymbolism #namaste

On April 27, 2020August 31, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Reflections18 Comments

raindrop-1913347_1280 — Photo Credit: <a href="http://Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Pixabay

I have been thinking about ephemeral beauty and how we cling to form like raindrops to branches. Our lives, individual only for a millisecond in the great cosmos of time. One shimmering spark holding onto a momentary existence, and yet the soul sings an eternal symphony. We are born through the woven membrane of light. Released into density for a moment, we cling to existence to become defined by matter.

At night, my dreams show me the clutter of the brain and how it folds memories of lack and doubt until darkness lets them loose to run amok. Our minds form impossible fantasies and horrors we think could never be real until we open our eyes and see the world we have created.

As I released to slumber last night, Badger threw open the veil to stare me in the face. Fearless digger, unearthing what I may try to hide, Badger gave way to Owl before I was flung into the shadowland. It’s almost funny how we tumble restless to the surrender. Revisiting old haunts we thought we had exorcised in the landscape of dreams. Least we think we are watching reruns, familiar specters morph into new forms and find another curtain to tug open.

How exhausting it can be to tumble backwards when life holds you for a mere millisecond, urging you only to let go.

Yesterday, I walked into the woods nearby our home with my family and our two dogs. Zelda led the way, choosing a trail we had never taken together. Only Rosy, myself and Daisy, who passed more than five years ago, had ventured down it before.

Rosy trailing the pack just ahead of me. Zelda, somewhere up ahead with Alex.

The day was over-cast and windy. The clouds, eager to rain, darkened the trail littered with last year’s leaves. While we walked, I took in what the forest reveals before growth unfurls. There were more fallen trees than I cared to count, their bare trunks leaning on their neighbors. Others were already splintering into decay in their final resting places on their forest bed. Beach leaves lightened the ground, bleached by winter to the color of sand. They lent a light to the forest that was absent from above.

You can just make out Zelda here, between Ava and Alex.

As we walked, I found myself wondering about the hand that guides unseen. Perhaps Daisy had urged Zelda’s feet to take us off the beaten path we were used to traveling together. Perhaps not. It doesn’t really matter. What matters was that we were there now, individually and together. Each of us mindful of our own moments.

Me and Daisy 12/25/14. Less than two months before she passed back into light.

“There goes the camera,” my daughter, ahead of me, caught the sign at the same moment I did. She knew I would linger to take a photo. While I did, I found myself wondering how long the sign had been there. If somehow I had missed it walking the path years ago with Daisy and Rosy. Who had placed the sign, and when?

E5B37CE3-D8AA-41ED-8121-450FF72B2E44 — The Namaste Tree that caught my eye.

I don’t remember too much from my jumbled dreams last night. Perhaps it’s because I choose not to. There were travels with familiar people, and those who were not so familiar. There was lots of clutter and the feeling of being pulled into too many directions, through no will but my own. There was the feeling of tending more for other’s wants and need, while neglecting the self. Perhaps it is not so surprising that there is one scene, in particular, that lingers with me.

I am sitting on a bus filled with people, traveling to some forgotten destination. A woman sits beside me. My guide for the night. She looks with intention into my face, then presses her hand to my heart. “I see the beauty of the light that is you,” she tells me. Even though her words are genuine and almost urgent, I’m not sure I believe them. Yet, it’s enough. Enough to weave the darkness back to dawn.

The word “Namaste,” is Sanskrit in origin. It is a greeting of one being to another. A bowing to honor, often with hands joined at the palms above the heart, of the light that resides in the other, that is also in the self. It is a gesture of reverence and of unity, and through Namaste we are reminded of the tapestry of light that threads through all life.

I like to think we are being reminded of this thread right now as we reside individually, yet together, in our shared millisecond of life. Reminded that within each form resides the beauty of the light that finds a temporary home inside each heart. A beauty that perhaps radiates more readily in some than in others, but only because of the block of fear.

yoga-4849683_1280 — Photo Credit: <a href="http://Image by 李磊瑜伽 from Pixabay” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Pixabay

The (dead) Crow, the Red Fox & the Turkey (feather) and a New Book about Warriors of Light #visionaryfiction #animalmessengers #middlegradeseries

On August 14, 2018February 8, 2022 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, the labyrinth12 Comments

I used to keep a journal of my animal encounters. Not just animals, insects too, and birds, and all manner of non-human life forms I met up with each day. I was interested in their symbolism and what it might mean to me. Synchronicities and patterns. The universe talking in code. I used to do a lot of things I no longer do, and these days I am acutely aware of how much I am allowing myself to be wrapped up in the mundane, favoring it over the magic of life. Not because I want to, but because I have somehow convinced myself that I must. I must not search for encounters, but for what feels like artificial messages. Messages that I must send to get readers for my new book. It is a task I do not like, but that in itself is a lesson and, therefore, a gift. How do I make magic out of the mundane? Somedays it’s easier than others.

When the jobs we feel we must do become a chore, should we continue on in toil, or should we pause and breathe into the depth of being to find the magic contained within the moment that is always offered to us? The moment upon which we trail our breath and our thoughts, whether they be rapid, or peaceful? Today there were many encounters throughout my day which felt forced, labored, and without the fruits of joy. Yet, there were also pauses when I stopped to be present.

I watched the squirrel, boldly wearing red fur as it masqueraded as an acrobat climbing up, then down my “fairy” tree stealing apples in its mouth and leaping through limbs as though gravity is a ruse. I could almost believe anything was possible until I returned to the drudgery of musts. “You must do this to sell books.” “You must do that.”

The voice inside my heart forever whispering against the pull of musts, “just let it be.” “They’ll find the words you wrote for them, somehow.” I don’t always believe in somehows, but the voice inside me tells me I should.

The crow that stopped my feet today was dead. Its head pointed downhill. Black feathers tucked above the vibrant green of grass on this sunless day. I couldn’t help but think of magic extinguished. It had fallen beneath wires. Was it electrocuted by too much force? Energy coursing outside its bounds? The owl had been found in nearly the same place, also dead, one month before. I cannot help but think of the two bird messengers in my book. Grandmother Crow. The owl who haunts the last pages with a warning…

Yet death, I am reminded by yesterday’s snake, is not an end, but a beginning. Decayed life breeds new life in that ever-lasting cycle. How can I forget the wisdom of Shesha? Did I not write his story upon the pages too?

Briefly, today, I thought about fairies. Sue had reblogged a post about the fey and for some wonderful moments, I was transported into the realm of magic not often seen. Perhaps that was why I was led by the turkey feather, which floated up from the blackened road as though wanting to be seen. To be caught, as I drove home. So I took the ever-willing dog for a walk, and there it was. In the middle of the road. Large, curved, and perfect. Banded in brown. A solitary turkey feather waiting for my hand to receive its gift.

So I twirled it in my fingers, feeling the life still present. Blessed life. A reminder of abundance. Down the road, a red fox wandered from the twilight woods and stopped to fix my gaze. We stared as though each daring movement, until a car passed by. Some say foxes hold the secrets of the fey. Cunning, bold, stealthy. Red, like the squirrel. Have I lost touch with the red blood of Earth? I wrote the words in this book, in part, to save her. Created six warriors with a mission to repair her broken veins, forgetting, after I had finished, that one must care for the inner body, always, while caring for the outer. And so I look back upon today. To the red squirrel taking with ease the fruit of the apple back to its nest. The dead crow charged with too much power. The lone turkey feather in the middle of the road. One perfect blessing waiting to be held. And the red fox who had ventured, for a moment, out of the hidden realm to say hello.