The last few days have been very wet where I reside here on this planet. Over 3 inches of rain have fallen, with most of that falling in a 48 hour span. It was already a green spring and now the lushness has exploded. I love to put on my Wellies and raincoat and go walking in the rain with Dixie. I've gotten to do that in the last few days, careful to avoid walking in the thunderstorms. Sometimes the clouds are high and sometimes they are dark and low. Sometimes the rain is a fine mist and sometimes it falls in great sheets. I feel like I'm swimming when I am slopping through puddles, breathing such moist air, and have water running down my body. In my intuitive energy practice I frequently use the elements with all their healing properties. When I work with water, I am often using its cleansing and cooling aspects. I find that many people grasp these aspects of water easily, enjoy using water this way and tuck this into their tool belts for later use on their own. For others, the concept of using water this way is harder to grasp. I often suggest that they practice while actually in water, whether a shower, bath or a swim somewhere. But for the strongest connection to water, go straight out to water in its natural setting. A creek, pond, waterfall, ocean, or a rain shower. We don't all have access to bodies of water, but most of us have access to rain showers somewhere along the way. Just stand in the rain, turn your face to the sky and bring your awareness to where the water is touching you, your forehead, lips, shoulders, feet. Notice what the water feels like on your body. Notice where the water runs across your skin. Notice what it smells like, what it tastes like. Notice all the sounds of a rain shower. Notice the movement of water and how it is never completely still. Notice the clarity, even with a sheet of rain falling in front of you, you can still see through it. I use water to cleanse and cool when there are physical, emotional, mental, and energetic imbalances. And while rainy days can seem dreary, that is just one way of looking at them. With a gentle turn of the mind, a rainy day becomes a gift. A rainy day is a day of cleansing. Just as the pollen and dirt are washed away in the physical world, so is the stuff I've picked up that's not mine, stuff that's not beneficial to me. I open to the gifts of water and I am refreshed. I am new.
Noticing You Are Lost, Finding Home
As an element-based person, I do not remember a time without some form of element connection. I did a lot of dancing when I was little. Dancing which was made a little easier for me because of that element connection. But with the inter-connectedness of all, dancing also allowed my spatial awareness to blossom and root itself in me and in the elements. I am also quite a bit of a home body. I do love to travel, but I will always return home. I think of myself as a tree, one who can take walks. Earth and wood are two of my main elements which means as a rooted tree I am both, and still I maintain connections to water, air, light, fire, stone, metal, ether and star. My roots allow me to stay grounded when I am away from home; my roots are my very feet. When I am home, my roots stretch deep into the earth for all the nutrients and support they need. And when I am home, my view is a bird's eye view from the top of my strongly supported tree. With my spatial awareness centering is very much a 360° experience. As a walking tree, I am usually able to maintain my center after all these years of practice. But there are times and places when maintaining my tree form and my center and my grounding all disintegrates. Sometimes/places, it is a seeping sense of loss. Others, it is a sense of floating in some foreign substance. Others still, it is as if I am wrapped in a gauze and cannot move comfortably nor see clearly. I have learned only some of the markers for this disintegration. I will learn many more as I continue on the journey. But at this point as I continue to walk each step, breathe each breath in the now, I open my awareness to all that is. In this opening to all that is, I am opening to all the lessons, whether it is how to maintain my center and grounding or if it is how to notice when I am off-center and uprooted.
I first must notice I am lost, before I can find my way home. With the breath, I notice there is something strange muting my hearing. With the breath, I notice there is a blurring of my sight. With the step, I notice my leg doesn't move smoothly. With the step, I notice an emptiness below me. And once I am aware that I have lost my tree form, lost my center, lost my grounding, I breathe into the tree that I am. I step into the earth that I am. I breathe into my heart space. I breathe into the center that is all. I have found my way home.
Listen
Open the senses and you open to the All. I practice opening my senses at different times, but perhaps most often, I practice this while I'm on my walks. Today I opened my hearing. While that means I heard Dixie's four feet on the ground in a rhythm with my two feet, I also heard the Meadowlark's whistles through my skin. I heard cars in the distance and new leaves rustling. I heard the crow fly overhead, wings shuush-shuushing the air, and I heard it through the top of my head. I heard the heartbeat of spring through my feet with each step. Sound is vibration. Vibration is not heard only through the ears. It is sensed with all of the physical body. Listening with my entire being draws me into my physical body. Being drawn into my physical body grounds me more which in turn opens me even further. A lovely little cycle. Opening to vibrations, I allow them to ripple through me, I am one. I am still aware of my physical body. I am still walking. I am still listening. Yet, I am no longer separate from the sounds. I become the vibrations. The vibrations of breath, life, light. Open to this space of listening and I am All. What will you hear today?
Osprey Magic
They perch on branches at the edge of trees, trees that are just now starting to green up and fill out. From a distance they are dark slashes on dark branches that catch the scanning eye. A sharper look brings the white head to attention. For hours they will sit on a branch. Then with a quick wingbeat or a gentle wingpush they are wing on air. They move from a space of being one with the tree to being one with the air in an instant. They soar on big winds, they coast on small winds. They hover above the water, keen eyes zeroing in on a fish. They drop with great speed to dive into the water to catch that fish. While only in the water for a short period of time, they are one with the water for that time. Crossing the boundaries of the elements is just some of the magic of the Ospreys. When fishing, they look closely, make a decision to move and then move. And when they move, they move with efficiency, speed and grace. Where I am here on Earth in Virginia, there are Ospreys who are year round residents and there are Ospreys who stop by on their migration. Last spring, there was a day when there were seven Ospreys on the one pond up the road. So far this spring, four is the most I've seen in one day. Most days this week there has been at least one, often two. With their white underbody and sharp M-shaped wings, they are easily recognizable when they are on wing. Their masked face is more noticeable when they are near. I find them to be the wise wizards of the big birds. I call on them when I need clarity in decision making. I call on them when I need help shifting quickly from one thing to the next. When I'm just in a hurry and have lots to do or when I'm moving from being friend to intuitive energy healer. When I'm traveling and crossing time zones or when I'm healing old patterns that no longer have any place in me. They appear when called upon with all their magic, willing to share.
When next you are stuck, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or energetically, call on the Ospreys. Breathe in their essence, feel your connection to them, and soak up their magic. And keep an eye out, they just may appear to you soon.
New Client Special Rates!
Do you have a new dog or cat in the house?Do you have an older dog or cat who has slowed down and the rest of the household is having trouble adjusting? Do you have new work-related stress or is there anyone ill/injured in the house? Has the dynamic with your 4-leggeds shifted with the addition of a new human companion? Schedule a session with me today! We'll check out the household situation from an energetic perspective. We'll open to any information that may help ease into a new balance. We'll create space for patterns to shift. We'll strengthen and bring your awareness to the energetic connection between all the creatures in the family. Special Rates: 30 minute session: $20 60 minute session: $35 Sessions are by phone. Please email me elizabethbain11 [at] gmail [dot] com or call 434-249-9786. Let's find a new balance!
Poem 4/5/13
When I walk the fields, I walk through time.When I walk the paths, I walk the realms. When I walk the earth, I walk life.
I see colors and shapes via my eyes and I have learned to see colors and shapes via my tongue. I have crossed the boundaries of the senses, hearing becomes touch, smell becomes sight. I reach out and touch the webs of life and find that I am spider, I am petal, I am fire.
Breath fills me, vessel that I am, to overflowing light. I vibrate at new levels and lose myself in the flow of grace.
Yet still I walk.
Elements within Us
I do not just work with other people and their nonhuman animal friends. I spend plenty of time working with my own energies. While it is certainly wonderful practice, it is also a necessity for me and my own spiritual growth. Whether I am opening to new experiences of the divine or focusing on something specific, there is always plenty to learn. One of my favorite ways of finding a balance especially when the physical body is the focus, is to use the elements. As I have written here before, we are each made up of a unique blend of the elements. Knowing the gifts each element provides, allows endless healing possibilities. For me healing is about acknowledging and accepting wholeness in the now. I try not to come from the dualistic perspective of find a problem and fix it. I find that is a limiting way of seeing things. Instead, I work with awareness of the now and move toward shifting patterns, even in tiny ways, to allow a balance that is more in line with the true me or really the divine. For a simple example, if I have a muscle that is sore from overexertion, I call on water and wind to clear, cleanse and cool the area. Then, I call on earth, wood and stone to rebuild anything that needs rebuilding. Using these elements I am allowing that of which I am made to rebalance. Having worked with the elements for some time now, I can feel the elements shifting on a cellular, sometimes even smaller than that, level. Each element has a different feel to it, different weight, brightness, speed. I am more than my physical body. I have more resources than just those provided by my physical body and my brain. The divine is within me. I am of the divine. Asking for guidance and assistance is more than just asking. It is also opening and receiving. And both the opening and the receiving are never-ending. Remembering that we are co-creators, awareness of the now is an important step in this entire process. By using the elements for help in healing, I am opening to resources beyond the physical. I am reaching out to the web of elements and drawing strands of that web over to the web of the physical. I am making a stronger web. In the interconnectedness of all that is, I sense these amazing webs of light. I find that weaving and reweaving these webs provides stronger support, thus providing a different sense of balance.
Spring Snow or Moving from Patience to Acceptance
When I was little, my parents often called me RightNowBain, a good indication that I was impatient. Years later I am bigger and a bit less impatient, but it certainly hasn't been easy. There are times when the universe keeps throwing things in my face because I keep missing them. My impatience is one of those things thrown in my face over and over again. By no means am I perfect, I've just actually managed to learned some of the lessons I've been given and patience is something of which I now have a better grasp. The more I have focused on living in the moment, the more I have realized that time is a figment of the imagination. All is one and all happens at once. For me, this means I have leapt into the flow of grace that is the divine. I trust that opening to the gifts of the divine that make me me, will allow me a role as co-creator, with love as the common denominator, to flourish in this amazing experience of being a human on Earth. Knowing that I am of the divine, allows me to let go of worries and just be. As co-creator of my existence I have power to choose. And I understand that there are choices my soul made before entering this human experience that I have yet to remember if I ever will.
Let's take a little foray into the world of etymology, shall we? (Please excuse mistakes, this is really just my attempt at some etymology.) A brief look at the root of the word patience takes us to the Latin pati which means to suffer or to endure. Suffering is not my focus. Instead I choose to focus on acceptance. Acceptance comes from the Latin acceptare which means to receive or to take. Receiving or taking shifts the vibration to one with which I prefer to resonate. I choose to take or receive that which is. I choose to turn toward the power of choice. I choose to turn toward all is one. I choose to turn toward the divine.
At the moment here on this part of Earth, it is officially spring. Often that means that we have sunshine, warmer temperatures, wind. And if there is precipitation it tends to be in the form of rain due to those warmer temperatures. This year we have sunshine and wind, but so far the temperatures are not that warm and the precipitation has been some of the frozen types. The weather is something I love to talk about and observe. I am aware I have no immediate control over it. It just is. Long ago I chose to turn away from enduring the weather and turn toward receiving it. I enjoy each day as it is and I continue to be fascinated by the intricacies of the weather. I open to the gifts of the weather each day, a close communing with the elements. I choose to vibrate with acceptance.
Fire of Spring
Lately the element of fire has been popping up everywhere for me, from neighbors burning brush to quotes about fire on facebook. Fire is the element of heat and passion. It can be slow or fast. It can rise tall or be embers. The typical colors associated with fire are orange, red and yellow, but all the colors can be seen in fire. There is a strength in fire that we can draw upon, an excitement and an illumination. At the moment, I see myself here in spring as a tree with my sap rising, but my sap is the element fire. It is burning away any and everything that is not mine, that is no longer beneficial to me. It is igniting a new sense of wonder, a new me here in this new life as I experience the excitement of being human. I can ride the flames of fire in the physical and beyond. Star, made of fire and light, is one of my major elements. I reach into my star essence and feel the burn of fire. I feel the burn of passion for life, joy, love. So this season of spring is a metaphorical season for me as well, as I spring forth into each moment with fire feeding my existence. New, new and new again with each breath, each blink, each pulse of fire in my veins.
The Gifts of the Vulture
Here on this part of Earth it's almost spring and there are lots of animals on the move whether they are in mating season or already nesting or feeding young. And in this part of the world, there are many humans. In this day and age, humans around means roads and cars. All of this adds up to opossums, raccoons, squirrels, birds of many varieties, foxes, even deer who end up hit by cars, their bodies left on or by the side of the road. Where there are dead bodies, there are vultures, the carrion eaters of the world. Here we have turkey vultures and black vultures. Both are magnificent creatures with giant wingspans and featherless heads. They walk about rather well for birds of such size and have a call that is like a raspy dog bark. When Dixie, my dog pal, and I are walking and come upon some vultures by their meal, there is always a fascinating interplay of ancient history. Vultures are old birds in the greater scheme of things. Dixie, canine descended from wolves, starts reading the air by nose. And her eyes are focused on any movement. Vultures tend to walk-hop a short distance away as we are heading toward them, then once we're closer they may use their wings to move a little farther away or actually fly off. And somewhere in this dance, the vultures often make this bark sound. I will never forget the first time Dixie was close to a vulture and the vulture barked. Here is a creature dog sized even if not particularly dog shaped making a dog sound. Dixie paused and tilted her head and just soaked in information. Even years later, they are still just as interesting when they bark. It's as though they are speaking a language that sounds just like dog, but somehow isn't. It makes me wonder if they could understand each other with just a slight tilt of reality as we know it. I believe it's Claude Swanson who theorizes that our reality is like a tissue thin piece of paper in a giant stack of tissue thin pieces of paper of other realities. All these realities are very close and perhaps even easily accessible. For all I know, Dixie is accessing another reality with that head tilt of her's. While vultures are commonly thought of as symbols of death, they are really much stronger symbols of cycles and rebirth. They do not kill their food, they eat what has already been killed so they are not even that close to the act of death. They are recyclers. They take the dead and transform it into energy to sustain their own lives. We humans could learn a lot from them. From their ability to soar for long periods of time on whatever winds appear, to their ability to maintain their place in the cosmos via a spiraling of cycles of rebirth. Watching a vulture take off from the ground with powerful wing flaps shoving the air out of the way for lift off is amazing. Watching them tearing into their meal with sharp beaks while balancing their large bodies on their two feet is amazing. And watching them soaring and soaring and soaring, I can watch them for hours. They teach me the wisdom of creation when I see them eat. They teach me grace when I see them lift off the earth. They teach me to soar on the winds that are available to me now. And they take me to distant realms in the beats of their wings. For I believe there are peeks into other dimensions in the wingbeats of birds. So when I see vultures on wing, standing tall in old snags, or hunkered down by a meal, I greet them and thank them for their gifts.
Mid March Special!
Clear out your connections! With new life bursting forth all around us, it's the perfect time to focus on the connections you have with your dogs, cats, horses, birds, or even the natural world. For the rest of the month of March, I am offering 30 minute sessions for just $20 and 60 minute sessions for just $35. Please email me to set up a time: elizabethbain11 [at] gmail [dot] com (The email is in this format to limit spam.) Please share with anyone you know who might be interested.
The Turning of the Season
Last week was one of those weeks where opening to the moment and all that it has to offer was key. Here on this part of Earth we had a March snowstorm. While it is not an every March occurrence, it does occasionally happen. And 11 inches of wet snow changes more than just the landscape. The mountains I look at every day got over two feet and so I will enjoy white mountains for quite a long while even with the mild temperatures of March in Virginia. The branches of evergreens and deciduous alike had trouble withstanding the weight of all that snow and many fell, knocking out power lines. But a few days without power, which means no well pump so no water out here in the country, allows a lull in time. And at this turning of the season, a bubble in time is a gift. It allows a check-in with my body, physical and energetic, that can be a little deeper than the everyday allows. And a check-in with my body means a check-in with the natural world that makes me who I am. The quiet of a snowstorm does not always end with the end of the snowfall. If there is enough snow, there are no cars out on the roads. And if the power is out, there are no electrical hums. Instead, there are the sounds wind brings: whispers of hemlock needles, shushes of boxwood branches with a rhythm gradually increasing as their load is lightened from the snow blowing off, tops of maple trees roaring as they swing to and fro. There are birds out searching for food everywhere. There are deer munching on the buds of fallen branches, branches that were far out of reach overhead before the storm. And with warm temperatures there is the constant drip of melting snow accompanying the sigh of contentment from the Earth as she soaks up the moisture. As we spin toward the sun each day, we are following our circuit in the galaxy which at this time of year on this part of Earth, brings us more light each day. And with more light, the rhythms of my body pick up like a symphony moving from adagio to minuet. I feel the support of the elements shifting with me and I am buoyed up by them. I am flying into spring. Spring, where the colors are brighter, there is new life both plant and animal, and joy pulses from the Earth's heartbeat.
Space
I don't remember when I first became aware of the fascinating way I create a map in other dimensions when I'm given directions to a place. If the directions say to turn left at the gas station, inside of me I feel a space that I move through as I create my way to this place. I feel the distance and turning in relation to my bodies, both physical and energetic. I travel in space to the place I will be going on the physical plane. Even if it's a place I've never been, when I actually go there in the physical plane, it's a revisiting because I've already traveled there via other paths. I am spatial. (Special, too, but aren't we all?) I love this way of being! As one with spatial knowing, I have noticed that finding new directions or coming at things from different directions is a way of grasping the complete picture. Whether I am approaching something concrete and physical or more abstract (just as real and important) like a mental or emotional concept or even something on the subtle energy level, spatial awareness helps me know that thing in a whole way. While visual, auditory, and kinesthetic awareness get more attention in this sight and sound focused physical world, spatial awareness is not a part of the common dialogue. The more I learn about myself, the more I learn about the universe. The more I learn about the universe, the more I learn about myself. Even this for me is spatial. In this plane of existence, space is mostly thought of as what's between us; it's what separates us. But, I think it's more than that. It's the medium I use when I'm relating myself to other. It is even the medium that I use when I delve into oneness.
When I'm working with more than one being, say a human and a dog, I get a spatial sense of their connection. I sense the beams of light that connect us all at heart level. I don't see images or hear sounds or words that show this connection. I feel blurred edges of the beam, different colors, the strength of the light. I feel how the energy bodies and physical bodies of the two beings are relating in space. I feel the rough spots, the smooth spots, the gaps, the meshing of bodies. It's a spatial perspective. And all the while I'm focusing on this connection, I'm coming at it from all directions. I'm opening to new information and new ways of receiving that information with each breath.
These examples of spatial awareness are just the tip of the iceberg. As with so much learning and knowing, there are new levels appearing as we are ready for them. So, too, is spatial awareness an ever-unfolding way of experiencing this world.
Please feel free to share any of your spatial experiences in the comments.
The Force of Gratitude
While our world is large, we are growing ever closer. No longer is physical travel the way to get from one place to another, there is real time video calling. And for many of us, astral travel or remote viewing is becoming a part of our existence, too. As we grow closer, I find that we can affect change at ever faster rates. Lately I've been focusing for at least a few minutes each day on being grateful. I try to start my day by thinking of something new for which I am grateful. I can actually feel the patterns in my brain changing after a few weeks of this. There is a new rhythm in the pulses in my nervous system. There is a new vibration in my upper chakras. And in the last week, all sorts of awesomeness has occurred. With this intention to be in a space of gratitude, has come a deeper trust in the divine. And with this trust in source, miracles shine around me. It's as if they have always been there, but my eyes have now opened to a new dimension and the miracles are clear, not just a shimmer of hope at the edge of my vision. Miracles of healing for an older dog who is finding her way toward the transition from the physical realm on to new realms. Miracles of a client cancelling, only to get another client more in line with my new services (my business is in transition from hands-on to energy work). Miracles of my friend Lisa sharing this humble blog with the multitudes of her followers on her wonderful blog. So, on this blue-sky-sunny-warm-February morning in Virginia, I am grateful for the love that is. And whether you have just found me on the interwebs or have been following me, thank you for visiting and I am grateful for your presence.
Allies
There is much in our brains, mostly fueled by our culture and society, that is divisive. We are separated by sex and gender, by skin color, by age, by loyalty whether it be to a religion or a nation. This list could go on and on, but I'd rather focus on the unity. There are plenty of times I feel alone in this world, but I have come to a new way of being that allows me to shift perspectives quickly. Shifting perspectives provides me with a way of being in the moment and of the moment, a sort of timeless existence. With each breath, each blink, I am new. With each breath, each heartbeat, I am. And what am I? The question of the ages. I am separate in the physical plane, but there is so much more than the physical plane. I share the same general characteristics with all the other humans, which are not that different from all the other animals here on this planet. And ultimately I share the energetic makeup of the elements just like everything else that is here in this world now as we know it. All of this means that while we are here in separate forms, we are all allies.
Just take a breath, feel your heartbeat, feel the pulse of blood in your arteries, blink, and sink into your heart-space. Here in the center of our beings is the connecting point. The connection to each other, to the source, to all that is. It is the unity point. It is where we can become aware that we are one. Even when I think I am doing something by myself, I am just one tiny wave of light shining brightly amidst all the other waves of light that are the divine. It is the brain, the thoughts therein, that create the veil and thus divide us. But with each step I take, we all step, with each rise of an ocean wave, we all rise. Even the falls, be they into a hole of literal or emotional proportions, are falls we all take. Only to rise again with the take off of an vulture rising into the sky.
It is a remembering, this knowing of oneness. I am one with the clouds, the stars, the birds, the trees, you. All is one and one is.
Red Messages
There are times that I ask for help with an issue and start seeing messages everywhere. And then there are times that I have not asked for any assistance from the divine, yet still notice that there are messages everywhere. Many of my messages appear in some form in the natural world, though there are plenty of times when I am reading a book and some word, phrase or entire sentence will jump out at me. Just today I have had repeated messages from the birds. While in the kitchen this morning, I looked out the window and saw the first red-winged blackbirds of the season. (They will come in waves now in mixed flocks with starlings and grackles all so shiny and black.) And while watching the red-winged blackbirds feeding on the ground, movement on a branch caught my eye and there was the red-breasted nuthatch. There was a tickle at the back of my mind--red. A little later in the morning I headed out into the cold, windy, blue sky day for my walk. I was focusing on placing each foot and being the bird on the wind. And I was listening to the sounds of a windy day: the roar of the tall trees on the ridges, the scraping and whining of the branches rubbing against each other, the crows in the distance, the startled mourning doves fluttering off. And then a red-shouldered hawk flew up behind me and landed on a branch in the field. As I watched the hawk settle on the branch, I heard the red-headed woodpeckers chittering in the oaks. No longer was there a tickle, the pieces fell into place. In this case red is the marker color and the part of the body where the red appears shows the chakra for my attention. The names of the birds in this instance even tell where the red is. The wings are the arms of a bird, and arms correspond with the heart chakra. Thus, the blackbird is about the heart chakra. The breast of the nuthatch again points to the heart chakra. The shoulders of the hawk again correspond with the heart chakra. But the woodpecker has a red head which is actually the location of two chakras, the third eye chakra and the crown chakra. Red itself is also important as it is the color of the root chakra. So with all theses pieces of the message put together, my feathered friends have been telling me today to focus on my heart chakra and open to the information that appears (third eye and crown chakras) all while being present in my physical body (root chakra). (This is a bit simplified as there are levels of this message that will open to me as I focus on these chakras which I will do in meditation.) All of this is almost circular in that I was open to the information that appeared and thus got this message which just makes me smile. I tend to ask my guides for messages that are straightforward and hard to miss, and I am grateful that is what I get.
Layers
A chilly morning walk today with high, flat clouds, and a hint of February sunrise. The fields are a pale buff orange, a little paler when the sun is hiding. There is still some snow on the mountains, and the faint shadows today give the mountains strong textures for an overcast day. Seeing layers everywhere these days, I am finding that there are layers of the layers. Layers of colors, textures, sights, sounds. Layers of thoughts, feelings, dimensions, realms. And the fox has appeared a few times lately. The fox often has to do with the magic of camouflage, invisibility and shapeshifting which is really just more layers. My eyes find the hawks who blend into the trees. My feet find the steps that carry me from this plane to other planes and back again. My heart finds the beats that bring comfort and joy. And this morning, while stopping to enjoy the pond environs, who should come loping along the edge of the pond? The coyote, the wise fool. She did not stand out with her tawny coat against the frosty field. With her long legs, she moved at a steady pace. Not that different than a fox in some ways, but just with that movement, my eyes knew her to be a coyote. Foxes at that pace glide. Coyotes definitely have an extra bit of movement to make it a looser lope. So, from camouflage to play, the fox to the coyote. And again, layers. I see layers in the camouflage on the physical level. I see layers of wisdom on the level of meaning. And all the while I'm walking, my feet are taking me from realm to realm so that I may receive the wisdom of the animals and walk it back into this realm and share it with others.
Our families are often multispecies families in today's world. And as the planetary consciousness shift is occurring, these multispecies families assist in a big way. Living with another species, or two or three, opens our minds to new ways of thinking and our hearts to new ways of knowing and loving. As we transition into living from the heart, we have the support of the other beings on this planet: the trees, grasses, lichens, the birds, whales, shrimp to name a few. And most closely, we have the support and assistance of those other species we welcome into our families: the dogs, cats, horses, rodents...And the list could go on for those species that we have chosen as members of our families (or who have chosen us, as is more often the case). As I work with humans and other species alike, I find that the work is an exchange of energy that lifts all of us involved to a higher vibration. I feel like shifting vibrations is peeling away a layer and tuning in to the divine vibration. See? I really am seeing layers everywhere.
So I thank you fox and coyote for allowing me a glimpse of the interconnectedness of the layers this morning. And I will keep on walking and finding the layers.
Birds!
For a long time now birds have been an integral part of my existence. I see and hear birds everywhere I go and they are with me in my dreams and meditations. While I have learned plenty about them from ornithologists and books, much of what I know about them is a knowing that is beyond traditional learning. It is a universal consciousness knowing, a knowing from the birds themselves. A typical day for me includes at least 20 different varieties of birds. Many are birds I see every day, but there are plenty of others who appear as they are either migrating or just stopping by for a visit. While I do live in a rather rural area these days, even when I lived in the city there were birds everywhere I went. While there are many messages and meanings for specific birds, my relationship with birds is one that goes beyond the messages and meanings. With each meeep, whistle, flit, and whhoosh of wings I am refreshed, renewed, healed. They teach me about awareness of surroundings, how to be one with the elements, what economy of motion looks like. They present me with colors, shapes, sounds, movements that shift perspective in an instant. I listen to the feathers of the wings moving the air as they fly and notice that they are not the same. Like we, as humans, have different footsteps, so do birds have different wing beat songs. And for all the differences I notice, the essence of bird is the one that soaks into me the deepest. And that essence is one that bolsters my spirit when I need it whether by bringing me out of my brain and into my connection with the elements or by sprinkling my eyes with colors that renew.
I am a nature based human and as such I spend a lot of time with the plants, animals, elements and planets. I open to the wisdom of the natural world and wonders abound. My relationship with birds is an open, ever changing one. In a meditation recently I opened the back side of my heart chakra with my focus on my guides and I was instantly covered in birds. I became a new type of being. I still have not learned all that I can from this experience, but what I do know is that the birds have my back in ways I have yet to even imagine.
Winds and Birds
I awoke this morning to a light dusting of snow. And the winds that have been visiting for the last few days are still present with their loud voices. They are busy tossing the powdery snow in the air so that it sparkles in the sunlight. And they are busy roaring above the trees and whistling through the boxwoods. Walking in these big winds is hard, but I find that it actually helps me stay grounded. I have to firmly plant my feet whether I want to stand still or actually move. The winds blow, blow, and then gust really hard in a rhythm hard to catch. With each step I don't know how much to brace myself, so my connection to my body must be full and the connection my body has with the earth must be complete as well.
I am in awe of my feathered friends as they move on, in and through these winds. From carolina chickadees to mourning doves to mallard ducks to turkey vultures, they are all amazing. I watch birds crack open a seed while balanced on a branch swaying in the wind. I see birds turn on and in the winds as they prepare to land on the water. The ability to be one with the wind while still maintaining their course is astounding and something to which I aspire. Moving through the world fully in my physical body, aware of the essence of each of the elements (water, air, earth, fire, wood, metal, stone, light, ether, star) that is within me, I know on a different level. Open to all my senses, beyond the physical five, I experience being in a whole new way. I am the bird on wing.
Where Things Meet
Edges. The ceiling at the wall, the silhouette of tree against sky, the air on my skin, the bird on water. There are edges everywhere I look. Some are sharp, some are softer and some I cannot quite find though I know they are there. Edges are often considered the separating point, the division of one thing from another. I like to look at edges as where things meet. This seems more fluid and flexible.
I've enjoyed practicing Reiki for more than 10 years now, but it was only a few years ago that it became a shining example of oneness for me. I had just finished reading Cyndi Dale's book The Complete Book of Chakra Healing and Laurens, my cat, was suddenly limping. With my Reiki training I was taught the 7 chakra system. Cyndi uses the 12 chakra system and it resonates with me. Previously Laurens was very particular, like many animals humans included, about receiving energy work. I decided to give it a try. Dixie, my dog, came over to join us and everything shifted. What had started out as a 12 chakra Reiki session with Laurens, became an amped up level of energetic connection between the three of us. We were focused on Laurens and his limp, but we went beyond that and found a new balance for the three of us. In that moment there were no sharp edges between us. There were blurred meldings of Laurens, Dixie and me. While I had one hand on Laurens and one hand on Dixie and the edges of our physical bodies were clear, our energies were meeting and transforming. We were one and we still are.
When I take my walks I look at the individual leaves, the individual trees, the woods as a whole. I practice seeing the pieces and then the pieces as the whole. I am looking for where things meet. I am looking beyond the physical to the subtle energy level to see the softer edges. I am seeing that everything meets somewhere and all is one.