Lessons from a finch

This morning while in my bathroom, attempting to comb down my well-slept upon hair, I heard a strange fluttery sound. I thought at first it was my husband, choosing his shirt from our tiny closet on the other side of the wall. This idea was negated when he walked past the bathroom and the sound continued.

I looked out the bathroom window to see what the commotion was. We have a large group of finches who spend the majority of their morning in our maple tree out in the back yard, and their cacaphony seemed louder than ever.

Imagine my surprise when I found one of the finches, apparently stuck to the window screen. The fluttery sound was the little guy attempting to fly away, with his feet firmly clamped around the mesh of the screen. Every few seconds, a couple of his flock-mates would come swooping near him, chirping and fluttering around him in encouragement, but the small bird didn’t budge.

Cooing words of encouragement to him, I gently touched his claws on my side of the screen, trying to determine where he was stuck. He responded by hopping along sideways. Hmm, I thought. He obviously isn’t stuck. By this time my daughter and husband had come into the bathroom to see what was going on. The finch hopped on the screen again, up a little higher but still apparently unable to fly away. He’d flutter his wings, but held tight to the screen. His friends continued their periodic swoop-and-chirp campaign, attempting to help him let go of the screen, but to no avail.

Birds are hard creatures to read. They have no facial expression to show how they feel, and I am completely unfamiliar with avian body language. However, I felt that this little guy was really and truly scared. After all, he could let go the screen, but he just didn’t. Even with the encouragement of his flock, he still held on there for dear life.

I put on some gloves and went outside to the back yard, leaving my family in the bathroom. I approached the little guy gently, touching his back in what I hoped was a soothing motion, all the while sending him a gentle swoosh of Reiki energy, to help him with his innate fear of all things human. Gently I wrapped my hand around his soft and tiny body and lifted him from the screen. In a flurry of feathers, he was away from me, chirping to his friends who had settled in my neighbor’s yard when they’d heard me come outside.

Just like that he was free. He could fly, his feet were not stuck in the screen. There was no physical reason that he couldn’t have let go the screen. Even with the encouragement of his peers, the little bird was scared to let go. Being perched vertically on the screen, I can only surmise that he was frightened to let go because of the strange angle and perhaps a fear of falling.

Drinking my coffee later on, and listening to the cacophony that is finches in the morning, I realized that we all need a little help and encouragement now and then. It’s so easy to hold on, to stay with what feels secure and familiar–even if it is slightly scary–because the unknown is always scarier than the known. We need to listen to our flockmates, take the plunge and find out that scared or not, we can soar after all.

Journal: thoughts on loneliness

It has been some time since I have posted here, and for that you, Dear Reader, have my apologies. Things have been interesting in my little corner of the world and I just haven’t had the time/energy that I wanted to devote myself to my spiritual musings.

I have been learning a lot about loneliness. I have been feeling a deficit, like a piece of the puzzle is missing. True, my work hours contribute, as I am working at times others are home and my days off are that–days, when most of the world is at work. Shorter lines at the grocery store not withstanding, I am noticing that my life is not necessarily in sync with the rest of the world’s general daily timeline. Funny thing, though…when one gets feeling too much self-pity, God/dess sure hits you over the head.

I was at the library a couple days ago, listlessly looking at books in order to fill up some empty time. I heard my name and turned and there was a friend from high school that I haven’t talked to in years. We spent a good half hour or so catching up, and found out that we have been living in the same town all these years and not even realized it. I went home thinking to myself that maybe loneliness is only a state of being if it’s allowed in; maybe I have more friends than I think.

That worked, for a day or two. Last night, I was in the grocery store. Again, I was alone and it was during an ‘off time’ when most (normal) people are not shopping. I was actually adding up in my head the number of hours in the last 24 that I had spent alone (most of them) because my kids had been at school, my husband at work, and then in the evening, the three of them went to the movies. (Work schedule dictated I stay home, since getting up at the crack of dawn is easier when not out til midnight). So there I was, partially inspecting the produce and mostly just adding up the hours when I ran into another old friend that I haven’t seen in several years. As we stood there talking and catching up, I started thinking that obviously God/dess is giving me a message.

I came home thinking wow, maybe things really are better and I just have to remember that. My email inbox was empty…still. I had no comments on my Facebook status, and the number of visitors here is roughly the same or a little less. None of my (few) contacts on IM were online, nor had they been in some time.

But this time, I felt better. I realized that while being lonely is a valid feeling, it doesn’t have to be the center of things. There are people out there…you just have to be open to finding them.

Journal: On Love

 

Each time anyone comes into contact with us,
they must become different and better people
because of having met us.
We must radiate God’s love.
We must know that we have been created for greater things,
not just to be a number in the world,
not just to go for diplomas and degrees,
this work and that work.
We have been created in order to love and to be loved.
Love does not measure. . . it just gives.
Mother Teresa
*********************************************************
This is a beautiful quote. It says so much about what to strive for as we bump along our journey. So many people strive for success, be it financial or other, when in reality, all we need to do is just love. Plain and simple. Spirit is composed of energy and energy is supported by love. Whether you believe in God, Goddess, Higher Power…whatever name for it. That energy and pure spirit is just love and a piece of it resides in each of us.
If something isn’t working…if the love just isn’t happening and it is causing great sorrow or pain, then move away from it because it is counterproductive to what you need to do. You should not live thru great sadness or suffering just because you think that the pain brings you to greater insight. It doesn’t. We are not meant to feel emotional pain all the time. We are meant to revel in the joy and love that is given to us in such abundance. We do not need to self-flaggellate in order to find God or to find spiritual strength and being. We do not need to stay in a place that hurts us or others because of the what if or the maybe….Life is to be lived and life is to love. That’s it. This is not to say that we walk away from others that need us because we are unhappy and put ourselves first. But that we open our hearts and allow love—shiney and clear and bright as the sun–to flow. It is there. Remember that when you speak a heated word, or withhold a kind one. You need to be one with the energy that is within us all and that energy is first and foremost love. Its the kind word, the unsolicited compliment, the willingness to learn and grow, the ability to see beyond the physical into the realm of what makes each and every one of us unique yet completely the same. Find within you the understanding that we are all bouncing along the same frequency, it’s a matter of tuning in to see the similarities in each other. We all want to find happiness. We all want to cherish and be cherished. We all desire the closeness and companionship found in a great friendship or a great romance. Don’t deny it to yourself or others. Live and love in the moment. That stranger that you smile at might just become your best friend. That person on the corner holding the will work for food sign might be your father or brother. That person who is crying at night when no one is looking might be you someday. Love yourself, love your neighbor. Love your life. THat is the simple prescription. Be kind to things smaller than yourself. Don’t be afraid to let go of pain, because it is simply not part of the equation.

Journal: Reflection on seeking the divine spark

If God/Goddess is in everyone, and we are all a part of the same cosmic recipe, why don’t people treat each other accordingly? I think its crucial to find the divine in everyone, no matter how hidden that spark might be.

I think that I am doing my best to see the divine in everyone, and that is not always easy. In my line of work I see people at their worst. I have had drug addicts crying and begging me for pills, I have had people swear at me and threaten me. I have also held people’s heads while they vomit, and held grown men as they sob over the death of a loved one. I’ve gone home with tears still drying on the shoulders of my scrubs. I’ve helped deliver a few babies, and I’ve cared for people as they lay dying, and after.

I want to be the person who finds the divine in everyone.

I spend a lot of time looking within myself, hoping that if I can see that spark in myself, perhaps I can see it in others as well.

I make jokes about ‘compassion fatigue’ but its not always a joke.

Its hard to search and look for the beauty all the time. I can only hope it will get easier the longer I do it.

Journal: Dream of endless love

Last night’s dream included a young man, kind of stubbled beard, dark black hair, singing an acoustic song which of course I knew the lyrics to in my sleep but not so much anymore. The part he said over and over, however was ‘Endless love will save you”. I woke up hearing it.

What is endless love?

Isn’t all love endless?

There are people I love and people I LOVE. There are many degrees of it but I don’t think I ever stopped loving anyone I truly loved–no matter what type of love it happens to be.

Love can change…from romantic to friendship, or the other way for that matter as well. It can go from maternal to friendly, or encompass both. It can be a small jelly bean in the candybowl of life or it can be the grain of sand that made the glass bowl that holds the jellybeans.

All things change.

But does love ever go away? Does it ever end?

Goddess/God love us. We are given life, bounty, shelter and the beauty of the experience. Goddess/God are eternal…endless.

Is not their love endless as well? Can you put boundaries and limitations on something that is part of the Eternal AM?

Is it conceited to assume that the love we feel, as chips from the great Light, is as eternal and enless as Theirs? Or is it perhaps sacreligious to assume that our love can be so limitless?
But are we not challenged to aspire to become Godlike–to nurture the wise and loving traits that are gifted to us from God/Goddess? And if so, then to put limits on the love we feel for others is sacreligious as well.

Journal: dream of a dead friend

Last night I dreamed of a friend that died while I was still in high school. I was my age I am now and he was young in the dream…he was about 20 when he died, I was probably 17. I was slow dancing with him in a reality where he was still alive but I knew he would die. I asked him if he loved his life and he said yes. I asked him if he had any inkling of his future and he said “I think I know what you are leading up to and I know it.” I told him he was a fine young man, and that when I was teen, I had a crush on him (true). He smiled and kissed me and said “Just because God gives you one person to love and stay with, it doesn’t mean that you can’t love more than that one person.”
I hugged him and the dream ended.

Journal: Swan Dream

I had a lovely vignette of a dream wherein I was floating on my back in a lovely lake. I was both myself and a watcher from above. I was relaxed and peaceful in the calm water. There were reeds and cat-tails around the banks, the sun was out. There was a swan swimming along next to me as I drifted in the gentle wake. I had a sister there, although not my sister in real life. We were meditating. I remember thinking that I had to hear the sounds and concentrate on them. I saw them as symbols, floating around me. Of course the symbols are nothing I could reproduce but there they were.

I woke up wondering if they were the reiki symbols, and I was being reminded to get on back to my reiki meditation. Or perhaps the swan/sister connection means something as well. I will have to look up the meaning of swan and I’ll post in another post. The water was so calm and relaxing.

That dream was so necessary after a very very busy weekend and long hours at work. I feel regenerated a bit from it.

Blessed dreams to all!

Journal: Putting the garden to bed

Yesterday was one of the last unseasonably warm days we will have here in the frozen north. I’d put off cleaning up my garden until the last possible minute, as it saddens me to cut and prune away the plants that have brought me so much joy this past summer.

Truthfully, I probably waited too long. The Poke was keeled over, blanketing some of the shrubbery and the hostas had gone from a fiery yellow to a damp brown. Other annual flowers had dried and withered. If for nothing other than asthetic purposes, I knew it was time.

I got my clippers, put on my gloves and got to work.

 As I took down the drying stalks of poke, the berries fell all over the ground, making a slippery mess where I’d stepped.

Under the old hosta leaves, I found a wooly mammoth caterpillar (is that what they are called?) hiding in the damp.

I sat back for a minute and thought. The birds will like the poke berries, and now that they are not mixed all in the shrubs they will access them easier. I picked up the wolly caterpillar, who was now exposed and at risk of being birdfood, and put him in the sheltered back corner of the garden, where he would be nurtured and hidden within the last bits of poke.

I got to work on the rest and came finally to the corner where my spider had lived all summer, spinning her web between a hosta bloom and a spike on a shrub. I came to that one particular piece of hosta and as has been my habit, bent down to look for the spider. She was no where to be seen, and had been gone since the frost about 10 days ago. I sighed. I really didn’t want to cut down this piece just in case she was still using it or, more importantly, in case her babies were nestled within the pieces she had so meticulously wrapped together with her silk webbing. However, I knew that if I didn’t cut it down and there were babies in there…they would be exposed to the elements and the immenent cold weather.

I cut the hosta stalk down, and with it the branch it was connected to. And then I laid it gently in the back of my garden, safe and warm under some leaves.

Next came the datura, my favorite plant. The leaves had withered but the seed pods were fine, as evidenced by the number of painful pokes I got from the sharp spines. My daughter helped me as I laboriously cut the seed pods off–I promised several coworkers they could have some seeds from my plants–and saved them in a tupperware bowl for later harvesting.

After I was done, I scanned the garden. It looked bare and empty but I realized something.

The dead stuff–it had to go. It was encroaching on the coming green. I know that deep beneath there, tulip and daffodil bulbs lay sleeping, waiting for the call to springtime. Roots of the lavender trail through the dirt, ready to spring new shoots when the winter is behind us. The hosta roots lay in tight balls beneath the dirt, their springtime shoots now had room to grow, now that the old leaves and stems were removed.

And even the spider, should she grace me with her presence next year, will fresh new greenery to begin her task of web-weaving again.

This correlates so well to life.

Letting go of the old, no matter how cherished it is to us, is so important. We have to remove the dead leaves and branches in order to make room for more roots and buds. I realized that my inner garden needs a good cleanup too.

I resolve to let go of the old feelings, old hurts, past regrets. I resolve to trim down the old to make way from the new. Goddess surely has beautiful things in store for me, as she does all of us, and I want to make room for the new and wondrous beginnings that are surely just around the corner.

(poetry as yet untitled)Dedicated to…

We lay on the beach,
You and I.
Lord and Lady.
God and Goddess.
Man and Woman.
Sacred star beneath us
sacred circle around us.
Waves, lapping gently as
the moon shone benevolently
upon our salty skin.
Magic sang in our blood;
our bodies
met and joined
in the sacred dance
the Great Rite.
And as the waves grew and crashed
thus did our magic,
until the stars fell
one
by
one..
upon our circle
from my eyes.
We lay sated
in the sand,
breathing as one
and welcoming the dawn
of Us.

Journal: I did it

Last night, I put out my moon water to recharge, as well as my bowl of crystals and my new necklace.
I brought out the moonwater first, stood with it in my hands facing the moon, and asked Goddess for blessings on it. Next I brought out my glass bowl of crystals with my necklace and money charm in it.
I held this up to the moon as well, asking for blessings.
Then I just stood there, offering myself.
The earth didn’t move, the world didn’t change.
At least, not the world around me.
I asked for blessings, for peace on my path. I asked for love and guidance and knowledge.
Something clicked inside me, a key turned in a lock and I felt open and connected.
When I went to bed, before I fell asleep, I saw myself involved in the Great Rite on a beach, under the watchful and loving moon, with a man inside a sacred circle.
The scene changed and I saw myself again in a scene with the same man.
I vibrated, I felt a connection and a presence…of the Goddess or the man, who is to say.
The man, however, was symbolic I believe. As evidenced by the Great Rite on the beach.
All this while awake, my dreams last night were insignificant.
Today I begin my service to the Goddess. I think I have given myself to her and the God. I think the images in my head confirmed that I am part of both.
I am blessed.