When an animal, flower, situation – anything – shows up in front of me several times and / or behaving in an uncharacteristic way, I’ll investigate further. I’m looking for the message / symbolic meaning of the encounter.
So to gain insight about the little towhee, who turned up among the gang eating birdseed on the patio for a number of days, watching me but not being unnerved, I tried to look him up in Ted Andrew’s Animal Speak. It’s a tried and true book for ideas about animals and what they represent. Couldn’t find him there or in any of my resources.
So I decided to look in the bird books, and see if I could parse out some ideas myself. They are said to be a skulking species, foraging on the ground for insects by hopping backward and raking their feet to stir up the ground cover, to find insects and spiders. They also nest on the ground, and sing from concealed perches.
Hmmmm. So this might well be a good time to ‘go to ground’, be quieter, less out front and busy. And that searching for spiders – the message of spider is about creating/writing. And I have at least 2 books in my head.
It has been my intent to draw inward and just get that writing done. I am tired of hearing, everytime I’m near someone psychic (which, given my right-brained work, is pretty often), the question ‘what are you writing?’ or ‘why aren’t you writing?’.
So if I’m less social for a while – just blame it on the eastern towhee.