Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

It’s been two days of air messages - from lots of different birds. Can’t wait to see what today brings!

Thanksgiving morning, first thing, I looked out the office window to see - Hawk! Beautiful, strong, proud, still. Calm and fierce. I keep binoculars on the desk just for Hawk. When I took a break from admiring to go put in my contacts and have a better look - s/he moved on. Perhaps to find another audience.

Later, as I was driving along the expressway to my niece’s home - starlings swirling in incredible numbers. I have never seen such a dense flock, creating such artistry in the sky. Curves of birds moving and meshing in and out of soft patterns.

And then yesterday, as the early sun popped out I was admiring the sky while feeding The Goddess’ creatures. There was a small group of shiny white birds playing in the sunshine, looking like glistening snowflakes high up directly over me. More came in from every direction, flying in to join the play. As they were on their way in, I could see a brown and striped edge to their wings, and the whiteness and smallness of their bodies. As soon as they were overhead in the Great Eastern Sun-light, they shone as if they were lightly coated in gold. Slowly they dissipated off to the north over the trees. An incredible vision that felt like time out of time.

I don’t think I’m going to look them up in Ted Andrew’s Animal Speak, or in the Medicine Cards, or in the Celtic Animal Oracle. I think I’m just going to keep Hawk’s fierce joy in my heart, along with the message of lightness, playfulness and joy from the Starlings and the Shiny Small Ones.

p s I kept expecting the Starlings to turn into the Eye of Horus, as they did in Sherry’s wonderful dream… : >

Thanks to The Goddess, The Universe, All That Is, My Very Own Higher Self for so much! Thanks for the woods and the deer and the squirrels, the chipmunks, the birds, the kale and collards, the wonderful stone walls, the leaves, the land.

Thanks for my beloved family and friends, and the great students who are now friends. Thanks for turning me into a teacher, who never chose to be one, but ended up there anyway - such joy. Thanks for all the wonderful ’stuff’ that I have been given, and which I allow to flow to and through me to others.

Thanks for adventure and newness, change, challenge and opportunity. Thanks for beauty everywhere I look. Thanks for the moon, the big sky, the slow cycling of the seasons on this beautiful planet.

Thanks for fun clothes, good food, so many ways to exercise my strong and healthy body, the ability to bring healing to myself and Self, to others, to all that is about me. Thanks for the ability to work hard and rest in joy. Thanks for my awareness of the layers of all that is life and the ways I have learned to move through those layers.

Simply, thanks.

One day years ago, I was doing a reading for a client - I think at the Oktoberfest in Covington - for a negative, down, scared kind of person. Unthinkingly - that is, intuitively - I said she should make a list of 50 things that give her joy. Whether that would be the color pink, the fresh air of spring, pasta of some sort, a new car or skirt, friends - whatever.

As I thought about it later, it seemed like a great idea. I have said to many clients and friends since that they ought to make such a list. It serves to keep us focused on how we’re feeling right now, and focused on the positive - not that long list of stuff that isn’t working right in our lives. I’ve also suggested it different ways, mostlly depending on how it comes out of my mouth. Making a list of 50 items right now. Making a list of 1 new item per day, forever. A list about work, a separate one for family, a separate one for self. A list of how you want your life to be one year from today (that becomes a narrative treasure map).

All of these lists become statements of gratitude for what we have, and prayers / statements to Spirit of what we want in the future. Prayer is never quite the right word for me - the supplicant on her / his knees begging for something their poor little selves can’t supply, to this big powerful being way up high somewhere.

We’re also big powerful beings, co-creating with the both internal and external powers of the Universe (immanent and transcendent, to use the academic spiritual language). So for me, it’s not that begging, it’s more like a friendly negotiation with a friend over which movie to see, and where to sit when we arrive at the theater.

And the main reason we don’t have what we say we want is because we don’t believe we can / should have it. So all we really need is to get out of the way!

At any rate, having said ‘You need a list of what gives you joy’ to yet another client in the middle of October - in part, as a confidence builder, so she can see that she already has a great life that she wants to make better - I said to my wonderful self: “You’ve never actually done this. I’ll bet it’s fun. Try it, you’ll like it!”

And so I have. I made the heading, ‘What Gives Me Joy’, at the top of a piece of paper with a green lizard printed on the bottom - seems apropos of me, which is why I bought it in the first place. I made my first entry on October 23, with the simple statement ‘Fall rain’, and was very faithful to the task in the beginning. It is right on the refrigerator door, and I would make my morning listing as I was waiting for the tea kettle to whistle.

(Note that the list should be some place where you see it often - like the inside of your clothes closet door. Sharing it with the world by putting it on the refrigerator is optional!)

Then one day, I had an early morning meeting, and decided I would do it later on. Which didn’t happen. Or the next day. I’m glad I never started dating each entry, so I can’t make myself feel guilty about skipping.

Other entries on the first page are: seeing the waning moon in the morning, grandson Patrick asleep in his bedroom, a wonderful cup of green tea, sunny fall days, ear candling and conversation. Today I made the last entry on that page - the joy of getting up early in the morning when all the world is still and dark, and writing.

I got a fresh page already up, same energetic green lizard down at the bottom, and can’t wait to see what I say tomorrow about all the joys in my life!

In the years here since I’ve been paying attention, the chipmunks are usually down and gone by mid-October at the latest…. Last year, it was closer to the end of September. This year, with dire predictions by the weatherfolk, little Chipper is still running around, out and about! So I’m discounting those predictions, especially since I haven’t seen a wooly worm yet. Last year’s wooly worms were pure black all over - not one speck of brown. Definitely shouting out warnings about a bad winter. This year….we may luck out.

The Chippers live in the rock walls along the driveway and the organic garden in the back yard. Some old smaller walls are near the street, so I warn these little striped-coats not to go that direction, and to stay on the edges of the driveway. These dry stone Irish walls are one of my favorite parts of this whole wonderful space. These tiny little guys (no longer than my hand, including that perky tail) have an extensive network of tunnels, and are also among the world’s fastest darters. Super quick and very funny. A lot of bang for the entertainment buck.

They avoid confrontations with the birds and squirrels. I have seen them take each other on occasionally, over choice peanuts and other treats spread out on the patio. Seems to be more about alpha-ness than about aggression. I love watching them dart under the collard and kale leaves with any perceived threat - when a crow lands, for instance. Some mornings, they come straight out of the wall and down to the patio, and sometimes they cut through the garden, to scout out the territory first. Zipping here and there, little tails straight up in the air. Great and positive energy. And the cutest creatures in the whole yard.

I am puzzled about a behavior I saw for the first time just a couple of weeks ago. The Chipper was sitting on my back step, busily stuffing oak leaves into her/his mouth, which could clearly be seen to being going right into the cheek pouches. Not food, but oak leaves. Hmmmmm. Three huge leaves disappeared while I was watching. Not chewed but folded and then stuffed. These were carefully regarded and then chosen, obviously having met some criteria of which I was not aware.

I haven’t really seen them stuffing food into those pouches. They take their fair share, but I haven’t seen the squirrels’ seeming greed and rambunctiousness exhibited in these little guys. Perhaps because everyone else, mostly bigger than they are, is out there at the same time, busily meeting their own needs. Perhaps because they know / trust tomorrow will come with more good food. But that leaf stuffing… very interesting! Maybe for nests? Maybe for water protection and keeping things dry in the tunnels and tiny rooms hollowed out in the walls?

I just checked both the Medicine Cards and Ted Andrews’ Animal Speak. No Chippers! Amazing. So I guess I’ll just have to make up my own. And then follow it!

Chipmunk:
Keynote: Energy and Enthusiasm
Cycle of Power: Spring and Summer

When Chipmunk crosses your path, celebrate the new energy and enthusiasm she brings your way. These perky creatures take care of their own with nests in old stone walls and other places, providing warm and dry retreats. They emerge from winter hibernation on the first warm spring day in early March, darting from here to there as they expectantly scavenge for their first food in months. This positive energy will support you in new ventures, bringing optimism and buoyancy to all endeavors. So make your plans in the dark days of winter, and be ready to get started as the sun returns. It’s nature’s way and Chipmunk’s gift to you.

I didn’t look at the front page of the local news in yesterday’s Enquirer until early evening. If I had, we could have averted a short lived and intense family crisis!

Son Brian called me at the CDC Association office at 3 p m - he’d been contacted by Keegan’s (Patrick to all of you and to me) social studies teacher - Keegan had skipped 7th bell at Walnut Hills. I’m sure he was envisioning all sorts of dire situations, and I went straight into that mode as well. Brian’s request was that I go by their house, since the office is 5 minutes away, and check to see if Patrick Keegan had arrived. After finishing one last task, I drove along Central Parkway and up the long hill of Clifton Avenue. Agitated enough that I passed their street and had to double back. A pretty small agitation, but nonetheless…

I knocked on the locked door and eventually Patrick opened it. He went back into the kitchen to finish getting his afterschool snack / meal (he is 14, after all), and I went into the living room to call Brian - who reported that he had already talked to Patrick, who had skipped his last class to join in a walkout to protest the war in Iraq. What a relief!

“The organizing group, Concerned Students for Peace, previously had built a soldier’s graveyard around the school’s flagpole and protested military recruitment on campus.” So said the Enquirer, if I had but looked. ” Cutting their last class will likely send them to detention after school, said Traven LaBotz, a senior and member of the group. They’re timing their walkout with that of The World Can’t Wait, a group pushing similar walkouts nationally.”

And so it has transpired. All of them have 2 hours of detention after school on Friday. And thus the family history of protesting has passed to the next generation.

I cannot tell you how proud I am!

One of the pleasures of my house is the blue jays who come to call - or rather - screech, in small troops, from time to time. Such a day was Monday morning, when I had just finished filling the big bird feeder for the deer, making sure there was suet for the flickers and woodpeckers, sprinkling corn and other feed on the patio for everything from the mourning doves to the chipmunks, and than flinging out 2 handfuls of shelled peanuts (did you know they are way cheaper than peanuts in the shell? makes no economic sense at all).

Hadn’t heard the screech in a while, so I stopped to view the action. They are the perkiest of critters, bouncy and upbeat, so striking to see, fun in action. Natural born rowdies. The thought, all unbidden, came - ‘I wonder what Ted Andrews says about blue jays?’

I can laugh or groan at such thoughts - means a lesson is on the way for sure! I already knew jay is not in the Medicine Cards and not in the Celtic Animal Oracle, so Ted’s book Animal-Speak was going to be the source of the lesson. Here are some key ideas and phrases that I’ll be musing on for the next few days / weeks / months. However long it takes to integrate / re-integrate / spiral higher or perhaps deeper.

Keynote: The Proper Use of Power
Cycle of Power: Year-round

Jay comes from Gaia - Mother Earth, the Great Goddess for the early Romans. Her union with Father Heaven (Uranus) produced the first living creatures. “This reflects much about the intrinsic power associated with the jay. It has the ability to link the heavens and earth, to access each for greater power.”

The black and white markings reflect the same ability - the blue sky separates the white heavens and the black earth. “This is a totem that can move between both and tap the primal energies at either level. The jay is aware of this ability…reflected in its blue crest - higher knowledge that can be used.

Here comes one of the lessons for a double Gemini - “The main problem will be dabbling in both worlds, rather than becoming a true master of both….to wear the crown of true mastership requires dedication, responsibility and committed development in all things in the physical and the spiritual.”

Now for the good news: “The blue jay reflects that a time of greater resourcefulness and adaptability is about to unfold. You are going to have ample opportunities to develop and use your abilities. The jay does not usually migrate…so look for there to be ample time to develop and use your energies to access new levels. It will stay around and work with you as long as you need it.”

And more good news: “The jay is fearless, and it is because of this that it can help you to connect with the deepest mysteries of the earth and the greatest of the heavens.”

Mixed news: “The jay is an excellent mimic…and derives pleasure from this activity…at the expense of others….(which) can reflect an imbalance.

The wrap up: “Blue jays have a tremendous ability for survival with the least amount of effort. They reflect great talent, but that talent must be developed and utilized properly. If the jay has flown into your life, it indicates that you are moving into a time where you can begin to develop the innate royalty that is within you, or simply be a pretender to the throne. It all depends upon you. The jay has no qualms. It will teach you in either direction.”

AND the jay flew in the day before I embark on the great self-chosen adventure of writing 50,000 words in 30 days, along with other unknown whacky persons around the globe, all of us joining NaNoWriMo so we know others are out there, though we can’t see them. National Novel Writing Month rolls around every November - this is the second time I’ve climbed on the train. Not to write a novel, but to focus on writing the several books I have inside. And now I’ve completed a substantial chunk of the 1,667 words that are required each day to reach that powerful goal. Hurrah!

And many thanks to Jay.