Listening

Of Course It’s Cloudy – Day 306

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Of Course It’s Cloudy!

It’s so frustrating how often it seems to be cloudy outside when a full moon, an eclipse, a meteor shower, or any other such celestial event is taking place.

Mind you, I’ve witnessed some very cool atmospheric and ‘cosmic’ events. So many, I suppose, that I really have no standing to complain. But hey – it’s Friday the 13thand the last time a full moon will take place on this date until I am 90 damn years old.

I would like to have seen it, documented it in my journal, perhaps even made an, albeit woefully inadequate, attempt to snap a shot of it for posterity. But no.

Now I have to do my best to cling to this mortal coil for another 30 years, just so I can point to this cranky-ass blog post and say, “See? I was aware of the last one, and I hung in there another thirty years just to finally SEE this one!”

Another Score for Journaling

One interesting little vignette, though: I checked and found that I did, in fact, make an entry in my journal back on Friday, October 13, 2000. And the very first sentence I wrote was: “FULL MOON (in Aries, no less).” (The ‘no less’ comment was because my sun sign is Aries. Therefore I obviously felt that full moon might be tweaking me a bit more powerfully.)

I didn’t make any reference to the fact that the full moon was also falling on a Friday the 13th. This was early internet days, definitely pre-Google and pre-FB, so the heightened awareness of occurrences like these (and perhaps even more relevantly, their relative either commonplace nature or rarity) were much less well known. I probably didn’t bat an eye at the confluence of these two events. Indeed, had I known that it would not occur again until this day, one month shy of 19 years later, I would have mentioned it in my journal – and pondered what my life might be like all those years in the future.

Twenty Years Ago

I was entering the final stages of publication of Owl Medicine. Good grief, that’s depressing. To think – I published my book that long ago and still haven’t followed up with the sequel(s).

In that entry, I also discuss creating my website, which I initially set up under www.sagebearpress.com. (If you click on that link, you’ll see I’ve kept that name and simply reroute visitors to my Owl Medicine site, which, back then, I was only toying with setting up as a website.

My Reward for the Day: A Reminder

As I’ve found happens more often than I can say, once I went back and started reading my entry for October 13, 2000, I was drawn into indulging my curiosity over what else was going on in our lives and occupying my mind at that time.

And that’s when I discovered quite a surprise.

A week after that Friday the 13th full moon co-incidence, I’d apparently found a bit more time to write in my journal and therefore covered a lot more ground in my entry of October 20th than I had on the 13th.

As background, a year or so earlier, I had scaled down my law practice to a substantial degree in order to focus upon the final stages of writing, editing, and publishing Owl Medicine. Given that OM was nearly ready to ‘hatch,’ I was contemplating my full-bore return to the workforce, and I was weighing whether I wanted to reinvigorate my private law practice or branch into some other (as yet unknown) area.

Without going into the somewhat maudlin self-assessment I was engaged in that day, I have to admit I was astonished to read that I considered “…the stuff I (…) do ‘best’ is listening.”

Of course, I lamented at that time that I probably could never get paid enough to contribute meaningfully to our family’s well-being by just ‘listening.’

Listening – It’s Been the Theme of My Life

What I guess I’m surprised by is how listening has been such a persistent and critically important aspect of my life for so many years. Actually, it’s the underlying theme of my life. And yet – I’m always surprised by how important it’s always been to me.

I wonder why I’m surprised?

All I know is that on this full moon, on this Friday the 13th, I’m deciding to take my love for and commitment to listening to the next level.

(T-805)

39 Years and Counting – Day 229

Posted on by Lisa Weikel 6 Comments
28 June 1980

39 Years and Counting       

I look at that post title and, just like when I had my birthday back in March, I think, “Wow. How did we get here?”

Birthdays and anniversaries. Markers of the passage of time.

Karl and I were married at 10:00 a.m. on June 28, 1980. And lucky for us, at 10:00 a.m. on June 28, 2019, we were sitting together on a rock that juts into the flowing waters of the Tohickon Creek.

Transported from one sacred place to another in, what only in retrospect, feels like the blink of an eye. The living of it sometimes felt like time was moving ever so slowly; so slowly that it felt like yearned-for change would never actually happen. And other times, the living of it felt like the rug, the very fabric of our lives, was being pulled out from under us. Irrevocable, instantaneous, radical change.

At Karl’s Gathering – Photo: Ellen Naughton

Through these past 39 years (and more, actually, since we met three years earlier), the one constant in my life has been Karl. Through education achievements, career changes, sudden death of a parent, depression, births of children, longer, more prolonged sicknesses and deaths of parents, spiritual discoveries, soccer tournaments, track meets, musicals, graduations, disappointments, college admissions, Siberia, initiations, sudden death of a(n adult) child, weddings, joys, walks…

It’s been us.

The loneliest times in my life have been when there’s been discord between us. Those were the times when I most deeply questioned everything.

Gratitude for the Luck – and the Choices We’ve Made

Given the particular professions I engage in, I’m acutely aware of how much work it’s been for us to remain a true, working partnership and best friendship through thick and thin. But I’m even more aware of how lucky we are. So much of what we’ve endured could have easily torn us asunder. But each of us, at critical junctures, chose to stay. We chose to talk. We chose to take a walk instead of storming out and staying away, perhaps pouring our souls out to someone other than each other. We chose to listen.

We chose to forgive. We chose to have compassion.

We also, as one friend reminds us every once in a while because she simply could not believe it when she ran into us laughing and joking in the parking lot of our local grocery store – chose to enjoy crazy things like renting a carpet cleaner to steam clean our rugs together.

“It’s the little things,” we said, laughing at how odd we must’ve seemed.

I do so very much love those little things we share. And the big ones. But most of all, I’m grateful to have Karl sharing them – all – with me.

At Tohickon Creek – 28 June 2019 – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-882)

Change is Afoot – Day 212

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Wishes Bursting Forth – Photo: L. Weikel

Change is Afoot

For months, I’ve been receiving messages that it was time for me to make some changes to my “work” in the world.

Some of the pushes have centered on what and where I should be focusing most of my attention, at least in the ‘now.’ Many of the shoves have been to increase my hourly rate for the healing work I facilitate. And a fairly significant number of nudges have come for me to expand opportunities for others to work with me.

On the one hand, I’ve done my best to listen to at least most of these messages.

For instance, I’ve expanded my legal expertise by training to serve as a “Parenting Coordinator,” which is a new role established by local rules in Courts in Pennsylvania. I’ll explain about that another day.

I’ve also been spending more time than I was (which, admittedly, wasn’t any at all) on my next manuscript. The drumbeat on that score continues to grow louder, for I’m still barely devoting any significant time to this task. You might wonder, “What’s the big deal? Just sit down and write it.” And I would agree with you. What is the darn deal?

Immersion

The ‘deal,’ I suppose, is my need for immersion. The books I write are memoir. They require me not only to write about a time and set of circumstances I’ve lived, but also require me – if I’m going to capture those times and circumstances as accurately as possible – to immerse myself in the totality of that time of my life.

I’m not good at skimming the surface. I don’t ‘do’ superficiality well, no matter where it might try to intrude in my life. I’m not one for small talk. I’m not a good pretender. I’m either ‘all in’ or I’m not in. And that goes for my writing, and my writing process, as well.

So when I’m working on my manuscript and basically writing from a place of ‘where my head was’ and ‘how I felt’ back then, it is like riding an old fashioned tilt-a-whirl to go back and forth from ‘that’ life to ‘this’ one. I get jerked back and forth from one reality to another. Karl can probably attest to this best, as he can tell when I’ve been working on my manuscript. Out of the blue, sometimes, I’ll snap at him and dredge up something that’s long been over. He’ll look at me with astonishment and, having been in it and reliving it all day, writing about it and remembering our conversations, I’ll be like, “What? Don’t you remember? Did you really do that?”

Ha – great fun. Not.

It’s fresh for me, when I’m writing about it. It’s long gone down Karl’s memory hole, for him, though. So going back and forth is hard. And I resist it. Which leads to procrastination. For years. Hence, I need to give myself permission to just be in it, and with it, and give it the chunk of time I need.

I’m hearing that message. Really.

But on the other hand, there’s the elephant in the room: my hourly rate.

Photo: audubon.org

Elephant = Time + Intensity + Hourly Rate

I’ve been offering shamanic work to the public for 15 years. In that time, I’ve not raised my hourly rate even once (once I started charging at all). For the first two years, I offered my work for free. Then I started charging my current rate: $110/hour.

Because my sessions are unique, they often last an average of 4 to 6 hours – and because that’s an average, yes, some sessions go even longer.

By the same token, because my sessions are unique, when a person comes to me with an issue (or mainly, just a ‘knowing’ that something is awry and needs to be addressed) we stick with it until we get to the root of it. I listen – and help my client listen to their own self – until we get a sense of how their life has woven together the unique picture, circumstances, and – often – wounds that brought them to my door. And then we – but mostly Spirit and their own soul – work together to heal what we’ve discovered.

A Session Is Usually a One-Time Deal

It is rare that a client comes back with the same issue. This work is profound and very often life changing. Almost always, clients feel as though they’re starting an entirely new chapter in their life after a session.

After the session, I write a comprehensive follow-up email that describes what happened during the shamanic/energetic portion of the session. (That’s the part during which the client simply lays down, sets their intention, and let’s the good stuff happen.) It usually takes me 2.5 hours to write it all down, because – as I mentioned above – I don’t ‘do’ superficial. Yes, I’ve managed to take notes while doing the shamanic work. But often I have to get myself back into the ‘place’ I went in order to fully flesh out the notes I took. I need to once again immerse myself in the energy of the session.

Follow-Up Emails are Precious

I’ve found, especially lately (perhaps because I’ve seen and heard from some people recently who were my earlier clients), that those follow up emails hold more information in them than I could’ve realized at the time I wrote them. That’s because things that might not have made total sense (or even a little sense) at the time – to either me or my client – have come to have startling significance upon being re-read years later. So these emails are precious.

And I never charge for the hours I spend the next day, writing them.

My Rates are Going Up

And so it is that I am finally heeding the pokes and prods I’ve received for well over a year, with increasing frequency lately. I am increasing my hourly rate to $350/hour, effective June 30th, 2019.

I realize that this is significant. I realize it may feel daunting. But I also know the shifts I’ve seen in people’s lives; the transformations people have chosen to embrace. And I know the toll it takes on me to provide this work in the deep, precise, and loving manner I do.

Out of My Comfort Zone

Raising my rates drags me out of my comfort zone. So don’t be fooled – this is not a decision I’ve made lightly. In fact, there’s a whole story that goes with how I was doubting myself right up until this morning when Spirit literally plucked a card from my Medicine Card deck as I was shuffling (and asking for guidance one last time on whether I really should follow through with this rate increase) and plopped it into the birdbath I was standing beside.

I’ll write about that tomorrow, though.

(Oh – and remind me to tell you about the new opportunity to work with me one-on-one!)

 

(T-899)

Raven’s Cryptic Message – Day 164

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Raven Grokking – Photo: sciencenordic.com

Raven’s Cryptic Message           

For someone who is genuinely and enthusiastically gung-ho over listening and acting upon the messages we receive, sometimes I can be as thick as two planks.

The frustrating truth is that it is nearly impossible for me to do for myself what I’m pretty good at doing for others: seeing things from a different perspective and intuiting the messages being presented so they can be implemented.

I try to exercise patience with myself, but I assure you, it’s not easy.

Waiting For Clarity

I’ve been on the receiving end of so many messages this year, it’s hard to keep track. But since the start of 2019 in particular, I’ve felt a major shift on my horizon. I’ve sort of been flailing about a little – guessing what some of the ‘signs’ might mean. But it’s also just not felt ‘right’ yet. Sort of like my life is like a brilliant orange-yoked egg sprung from a very happy, free-range hen. This glorious egg is sizzling in butter in a cast-iron pan – but still has a lot of slimy, only slightly opaque, ‘white’ groovin’ around its solar yolk.

It looks so enticing, but you either need to flip it quickly (making it ‘over easy’) or let it fry its course. Congeal a bit more. Don’t want to be too hasty in putting that baby on your plate.

(We had a delicious dinner tonight; I don’t know why I’m writing as if I’m starving and eating vicariously through my words.)

Anyway, my point is that the messages coming to me of impending change have come from all directions. Even son Karl, for whom I engage in this 1111 Devotion every single night, has seen fit to muscle his way back into this Middle World to give me a good push.

Ravens Ravens Everywhere

Something new this year is that Ravens have made a nest high within the crook of a tall evergreen across the road from our house. These birds are incredibly noisy and gregarious. I’m pretty sure these grokking, midnight-feathered, winged ones are Ravens – either that or ‘Fish Crows.’ I know I should be able to tell by their tails, but they’re mostly hopping around a lot lately, building their nests and yakking at each other.

As I’ve written before, Ravens are all about ‘magic.’ I picked it reversed and squared today, which you’ll recall in the ‘Weikel Way’ means it was reversed and the card on the bottom of the deck was a blank. So – extra powerful.

Now this could have freaked me out, since choosing Raven reversed can portend that there’s been an abuse of power, a wishing of ill toward another that’s coming back to haunt the ‘wisher,’  or a general smoky confusion.

When I read my card this morning, I was pretty confident that I’d not been wishing ill on anyone or abusing my power. But I did feel it might in some way be related to my uncertainty how to proceed in the face of all this recent pushing for me to ‘change things up’ and, as another message Karl gave through the three messengers I mentioned the other day, ‘take things to the next level.’

I felt like I was ‘on the brink.’

On the Precipice of Making a Leap

And so it was as the sun started slipping below the horizon this evening that I found myself fleshing out in my own mind some big changes I’m going to implement in the way I’m going to approach my Work and my life.

I started writing out some specific ideas. Then Karl suggested we take a walk and I continued fleshing out my sense of when and how and why I was ready to make some major changes. The sense of excitement and perhaps even of a ‘breakthrough’ in consciousness was flirting with us both.

As we strode along the newer, longer leg of our path (in keeping with my desire to add more mileage to my daily walks), I stopped at one point to take some photos of the clouds that just seemed to resonate with this pervasive sense of delight (and relief).

While the clouds themselves did not so obviously reflect what’s pretty clearly depicted in the following photos, the perspective lent by the iPhone captured the joy and forward movement of a figure, arms raised, skipping happily into the future.

Clearing the Smoky Doubt

My conclusion is that in making the firm decision to move forward with some serious changes in my practice and my life, removing myself from a rut I’ve obviously been reveling in for some time, I cleared away the smoky doubt that Raven reversed was warning me about.

I know I’m being a bit coy about revealing the changes that are coming. But check out these photos. See if you don’t see the joy in the figure running across the sky, breaking free of old habits, mental blocks, and self-imposed doubt and restrictions.

I need to get some sleep. As I’ve been told before, there’s work to be done!

Joyfully running and leaping into the future – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-947)

 

Original Owl – Day 163

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“Original Owl” @ Tinicum Elementary – Photo: L. Weikel

Original Owl           

Last week when I attended the program put on by the Penn State Extension Service on the Spotted Lanternfly, I had occasion to visit the new library at Tinicum Elementary School.

All three of our sons attended Tinicum, and I have to say, overall the school provided them with a great start to their academic lives. The teachers, especially, and Mrs. Wessel (who was principal when both Karl and Maximus attended) (Sage was shortchanged by her retirement) made the school one of those idyllic places where everyone knew everybody else’s child, we were a small, tightly knit but respectfully private community, and we all knew our kids came first in everyone’s minds.

So it was with a cloak of nostalgia draped around my shoulders that I walked into the new entrance to Tinicum’s school library to attend the aforementioned bug program.

Once Upon a Time, a Long Time Ago

The old school library used to have a diorama in it, with most of our local fauna represented in living color for the children to see ‘up close and personal.’ As a result, when Karl and I found the Great Horned Owl that ultimately became the ‘star’ of my book, Owl Medicine, we had it stuffed by a local taxidermist and donated it to the school.

 

At the time of that donation, actually, only Karl was a student at Tinicum. Maximus was in preschool and Sage wasn’t even a blip on our radar yet. Wow. So long ago it almost seems like another life.

Anyway, I’d heard (and could see from the outside) that major renovations had been done to the school and that the diorama had been dismantled. I worried that they’d done something with our owl, but did not have the heart to go look. I just knew it would make me too sad to contemplate it if the owl had been ‘disposed of.’

(Not to mention the fact that in order to get anywhere near the school anymore, you practically have to have six different forms of ID and a notarized note from your mother to gain entry. It is stunning to me the difference between how accessible our school was ‘back then’ compared to the lock-down status most schools keep themselves in now. That loss should go on my list of ‘topics for another day.’)

Waves of Nostalgia and a Sense of Continuity

Which leads me back to last week, when I entered the library and almost immediately noticed “our” owl swooping into the library from the back, in the wonderful pose we’d chosen for it. Warm feelings of nostalgia and continuity swept over me when I caught sight of our very personal and beloved contribution to our elementary school.

Truth be told, relief also swept over me. I’m so glad it’s still keeping a watchful eye on the children.

Seeing it again –such a handsome, majestic bird – and fully appreciating the profound impact finding this bird had on my life, is rather astonishing.

Yet Another Lesson on the Importance of Listening

As I described in my book, I knew when I saw a Great Horned Owl hanging upside down at the side of the road, its lifeless body dangling from a grapevine wrapped around one of its legs, that this discovery was important. It meant something bigger than just a tragic avian mishap.

I can tell you with complete honesty, though, that never in a million years would I have believed you if you told me I would eventually write a book called Owl Medicine and also name my shamanic healing practice Owl Medicine Shamanic Healing. (Indeed – if you’d told me at that stage of my life that I would become a shamanic practitioner I would’ve either laughed in your face or looked at you as if you had two heads.)

But here we are.

Here I am, writing this blog entitled “Ruffled Feathers” on my website (also named after our owl). My sons are men. Karl-the-younger is gone (or is he?), and Karl and I are still taking walks – every day – past the exact spot where we found that owl 28 years ago.

Kind of amazing.

(T-948)

Special Event Announcement – Day 107

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Special Event Announcement                                  

As March roars toward us at lightning speed, I’m excited to announce a special event that’s coming in May.

The long weekend of May 16th– 19th, 2019, I will be co-presenting a truly unique retreat with my colleague and friend, Wendy Warner, M.D., in the Appalachians of western North Carolina. The program is geared specifically toward physicians and other healthcare practitioners who might be curious about bringing shamanic work into their practice.

Some Background on Wendy Warner, MD

Wendy is a board certified ObGyn who spent 14 years in a conventional practice and eventually started investigating integrative holistic medicine as a means of being more effective in her work.  She learned botanical medicine and energy work initially, as those things spoke to her. Eventually, she began teaching for the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine (the original certifying body in Integrative Medicine); she also served as President of the Board.  Since then, she has also become faculty for the Institute for Functional Medicine.

In 2004, Wendy left her conventional practice and opened her current office, Medicine in Balance. There she practices integrative functional medicine, with a strong emphasis on botanicals and energy medicine. She shares space with a number of other providers so that our patients will have access to a panoply of therapies. These range from acupuncture, osteopathic manipulation and shin tai, to Rubenfeld synergy and  – you guessed it – shamanic healing.

Upon opening her practice, Wendy loved how much more effective integrative holistic medicine is for chronic illness.  And yet, there were (and are) those patients who are tough. The ones where you fix one issue and, months later, something else pops up.  You fix that and yet another issue arises.  We’ve jokingly referred to this as the “whack a mole” syndrome. She was frustrated.

A Doctor, A Lawyer, and a Shaman Meet in a Bar…

Although Wendy and I have known each other since 2001, we initially met in the context of her service as a board member of our local Planned Parenthood and mine as that organization’s Director of Development.

Sensing a kindred spirit, I confided in Wendy that I was engaging in an in-depth study of shamanic healing techniques, she encouraged me to contact her when I was ready to offer my services to the community. (To be honest, I laughed when she suggested this to me. In 2004, I couldn’t imagine I would be providing shamanic work to complete strangers in connection to a medical practice!)

Well – let that be a lesson!

Never Say Never

Our collaboration on behalf of her patients began in 2008, and overall, the results have been exciting, gratifying, and remarkable. Wendy recognizes that, sometimes, the best solution to a patient’s issues is attending to imbalances manifesting in their energy fields and the depths from which those imbalances are sourced. That’s where my work comes in. Together, we have witnessed some truly amazing and remarkable shifts in patients’ healing journeys.

There are precious few, if any, medical practices in our country that offer the depth and breadth of care and attention to patients’ needs as provided by Medicine in Balance. I am beyond grateful for the opportunity that Wendy and her vision and open-minded approach to healing has provided me to be of service to our community.

Medicine in Balance – One of a Kind

It is precisely because Medicine in Balance is so unique that Wendy and I are offering this retreat. We are excited to share our experiences in bringing the most ancient of healing modalities to a modern, 21stcentury medical practice.

I’ve posted the details of this retreat on the Events page of my website. I would love it if you would consider sharing this blog post, or if you see it on FB, sharing it there – and tagging your friends or family members who are in the healing professions. Of course, if you are a physician or other healing professional – join us!

If you think you know any doctors or medical practitioners (and think outside the box here, too: dentists would also benefit enormously) who might be interested in exploring this work, please feel free to contact me for flyers or brochures. FYI, I make that comment about dentists because I actually have worked on people who were presenting with mouth and teeth issues that were baffling both physicians and dentists…and met with success in getting to the ‘root’ of their issues.

Finally, the setting will be exquisite: the private retreat center known as Amadell, which is located in the great Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina. One thing I know for sure: we’ll nurture the physicians’ souls that weekend, and that has to be a good thing for everyone.

(T-1004)

Good Grief! – Day 102

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Good Grief!               

Things are getting a little intense. To be accurate, they’ve been getting more and more intense for weeks, but good grief!

Just to recap, I’ve been having issues with Good Girl, my wonderful Prius with whom I do not want to part. A lot of my resistance has to do with my slightly competitive nature. Not that I’m competing with anyone outside of myself. Rather, I’m motivated to see just how many miles I can get out of her.

Karl and I pride ourselves on taking good care of our vehicles. We’ve managed to get hundreds of thousands of miles out of every car we’ve owned. Except for that company car he had early on in our marriage…not sure how many times (if any) we got the oil changed in that puppy. And it ended up “throwing a rod,” which turned out to be worse than throwing a fit.

That was a lesson we took to heart. Ever since then, we’ve been religious (there’s an ironic term coming from me, eh?) about changing the oil in our cars and keeping them otherwise well-maintained. And it’s paid off handsomely.

Good Girl

This one, though…Good Girl. She’s gone the farthest of all of our vehicles, and I want to stretch her record out as long as possible.

That said, she’s sort of been falling apart and behaving somewhat haphazardly. Mirroring in some ways, at least you could argue, my own frustrations of late.

Others might scoff at how I entertain the possibility that experiences with my automobile could somehow be indicative of a message applicable to me and my life. But that’s how I roll. I do my best to pay attention to what goes on around me. Notice the details. Remain open to possibilities. And listen to the messages.

So when I let you guys in on my ‘ripping the ass off’ my car the other day (“ripping her a new one?” Karl suggested), I realized as I was writing about it that I was using a specific word to describe what had happened that was consistent with another event that had occurred only a week earlier.

Even the Loaner Failed to Escape Unscathed

The evening before my two day CLE seminar in Philadelphia, I ran out to the grocery store for some frozen spinach. I parked the car my mechanic had generously allowed me to use while he and his men tried to figure out what was wrong with Good Girl. I went to hop out – and the lever that opens the car door on the inside snapped off in my fingers. I just sat there for a moment, stunned. I stared at the hunk of baby poop brown plastic in my hand. Good grief, I thought. I cannot believe this. I’ve succeeded in breaking the loaner car.

Not thinking clearly, I crawled over to the passenger’s side to exit the vehicle. Snagged my spinach. Returned home.

I’d texted Karl in the store and he greeted me in the driveway, helpfully suggesting that I could roll down the window, reach out, and open the door that way. Yep, better than crawling across the console.

What’s the Message, Kenneth?*

I didn’t write about that situation in a post – even though I did get the metaphor of snapping, and it did feel significant – because I found other, debatably more interesting, things to write about.

But as I wrote about all  the plastic and all the metal connections snapping on the back end of my Prius the other day, I have to admit, I was not feeling all that cavalier about the potential message I was receiving. I have been under a lot of stress for a fairly extended period of time. So has Karl. Was I somehow unconsciously transferring pent up frustrations, anxieties, or other energies into the objects around me causing them to snap? Were they warning me that I’d better pay attention? Perhaps be extra careful with myself, my health, my attitude?

Yikes.

So I laughingly shared the story with you, but didn’t delve too deeply into the possible implications other than to breezily remark about the potential metaphoric application to my life.

Et Tu, Printers?

Cue another weird experience I’ve been having with our printers. We have two, one of which is a great but ancient color laser printer from my law practice days, an undeniable workhorse, and the other a more recent vintage black and white laser printer/copier/scanner. Earlier this week, Monday I believe, the black and white simply stopped working for me. No error messages come up. It appears to accept the print command. Yet  nothing comes out of the machine. It works fine for Karl and his laptop. It even prints from his stupid phone.

Fine, I thought. I’m not going to get bent out of shape over this. It’s just another odd glitch. I’ll use the color laser printer. So I did. It’s been fine.

Karl needed to print some stuff out in color for a presentation. He got most of it to print, but a couple times the paper got jammed. Not a problem. This morning, he was printing out one last thing before leaving. It jammed again. I corrected the problem and thought it had all cleared. I closed the machine and it started whirring, as it normally does when it needs to bring itself back up to speed.

It continued whirring. And whirring. And freaking whirring. I was standing there, getting really annoyed as I waited to see if it was going to spit out any additional pages for Karl, because what was with the freaking whirring?

Suddenly, it stopped. Its lights were blinking. I walked over, irritated, and looked at the message on the printer. Believe me, I felt a chill. I think I need to pay some serious attention.

Good Grief!

(T-1009)  *A reference to a bizarre incident involving Dan Rather that only those of us of a certain age will get.

Little Things – Day Ninety Seven

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It’s the Little Things

This title could lead me down many, many roads, some more savory than others. But as you can tell from the accompanying photo, the road I’m choosing is pretty benign. And that’s the whole point.

You see that little bit of blood lurking at the corner of my pinky? I’ll admit it; it’s the product of me picking at myself. Not one for manicures, I nevertheless have reasonable looking fingernails. Most of the time, at least.

Not as of today.

Lately things have been coming to a head around me in a variety of ways. Chickens coming home to roost (and no, not Duckhead’s girls, although I did get the chance to bond with the ladies for five days or so last week), or just time taking its toll. Maybe just life happening, and I’m being called upon to deal with it.

I find myself trying harder than usual lately to walk my talk; to practice what I preach. What I’m driving at here is I’ve been straining to listen. And every time I think I’m being pointed in a particular direction or given a certain message to follow through on, it feels like the rug gets pulled out from under me. Or a door slams shut. Or the RT of D turns on.

And I have a sneaking feeling that sometimes I give the mistaken impression that listening is easy. Or rather, receiving answers or discerning guidance is easy. Those aren’t necessarily the same as listening, since listening, to me, means acting upon what the message you’ve received.

There’s a Difference Between Listening ‘to’ Others and Listening ‘for’ Ourselves

I should clarify here: to be a good listener for others, we usually need to break ourselves of the habit of wanting to take action in response to what another is telling us. We need to refrain from trying to solve their problem or fix their issue.

But when we are seeking guidance either from our own souls or our Higher Selves, our guardians or guides, or whatever you want to call the receipt of insight or wisdom or direction from a mostly unknowable or indefinable source that resonates deeply within us, a primary way of acknowledging receipt of and respect for that guidance is to take action in alignment with it.

My difficulty lately has been receiving the message, not listening to it. Well, I probably shouldn’t jump the gun on that, actually. Because who knows? Once I finally move beyond this impasse and gain clarity on what I’m supposed to be doing ‘next’ with my life, I can only hope that I will accept the message and listen to it (i.e., act upon that message) with grace.

I want to think that will be the case. But I’m not there yet, so who knows. (I will keep you apprised.)

In the meantime, I’m fretting. I have to admit, I loathe asking for guidance and receiving the proverbial dial tone. (And wow – I just realized how outdated an expression that’s becoming. Quite literally, there are probably a lot of people who have only known cell phones and therefore aren’t even aware of what a dial tone is or what one sounds like. That’s unsettling.)

A Reminder to Be Patient – and Kind

I want to take action. I want to listen. I want to be a catalyst for improvement. But I want to act when appropriate. I want to take whatever steps are asked of me when they will be most effective.

All of which entails waiting – at least in the short term. As I mentioned above, it’s not as if I’ve been standing still. I continue to ask; and when I think I’m receiving a response, I follow through by exploring it. Lately, as I said, I’ve felt the bruise of doors slamming in my face (or maybe on my fingers?).

Ha ha. No. Not on my fingers. That bloody little pinky is a casualty of my doubt, my insecurity. It’s evidence of my worry that maybe I’m not going to receive a message or an answer ‘in time’ to make a difference. It’s evidence that I’m picking at myself.

And the funny thing is, throughout the entire process of writing this post, it’s hurt like a bratty little bitch. My pinky is nagging at me, taunting me. Calling me to pay attention to what I know. Calling me to be kind to myself and trust that sometimes other things, things we have no knowledge of, need to fall into place before we can take the next step to act on our listening.

(T- 1014)

Instagram – Day Eighty

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Photo by L. Weikel

Instagram…      

Or “what I did on this frigid cold day.” OK, full disclosure: this may not be the most scintillating Ruffled Feathers ‘1111 Devotion’ post you’ve read. But the fact that my desire to be read by as many people as possible is pushing me to actually start creating a presence on Instagram  is big news in my living room.

Talk about getting messages. And being resistant to listening.

Face It, Facebook is Becoming Passé

I’ve watched and listened and observed first hand that younger people are eschewing Facebook. I’ve not wanted to acknowledge what I’ve been seeing because, heck, I’ve been busy feeling all ‘not-archaic’ for posting my blog’s link on my personal and two commercial FB pages!

While this realization about the fading status of FB wasn’t exactly breaking news, it seemed to culminate over the holidays, and I did. not. want. to. hear it. I did not want to admit that Instagram has quite obviously supplanted the popularity of Facebook – even if I was seeing it with my very own eyes. Well, through my kids’ eyes. So I just looked the other way.

How Many Times Did I Have to Hear It?

Then about a week ago, I’m in the local health food store and recognize a young person who used to stay at one of the places I would give Listening Retreats. When we started talking about when I would be scheduling my offerings for 2019, I asked her for her email.

She looked at me a little funny and said, “Gee, I rarely check my email.”

I wondered aloud if she was on Facebook – I could ‘friend’ her and she would see when I posted a Hoot Alert there… I let my voice trail off as I could tell she was going to lay on me the same comments my kids had. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I try to stay away from Facebook. It’s just too…” she reached for the right word.

“Yeah, I get it,” I said, interrupting her search. “I bet you’re on Instagram, though, right?”

I had a hard time hiding my irritation at the way her face brightened at the mention of Instagram. Not with her, but with my own annoying resistance to learning a new technology platform.

And then, again, when I was attending that CLE seminar in Philadelphia last week, weren’t there a few what I can only presume were Millenials standing near me on one of our breaks, waiting for hot water for tea. (And I make that presumption because I am pretty sure none of them had hit the big 3-0 yet.) I could see them scrolling on their phones, occasionally stopping the scroll, thumbs flying over the keys as they elicited that soft ‘slup slup’ keyboarding sound as they made comments or posted something of their own. One of them caught my eye and I laughed. “Instagram?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, smiling. “It’s how I keep up.”

I Get By (or Got On) With a Little Help From My Friends

So today, with some shepherding and encouragement from Sarah (mysustainablechoices on Instagram), I took some steps, big to me, to actually make my Instagram account ‘live.’

And of course, when I excitedly shared my breakthrough with another of my tech-savvy friends (probably the most tech-savviest), cosmic.meta.crow, she helpfully (if a tad tongue-in-cheek) mused that I will now have a forum for all the photos I’m discovering and organizing. Ha ha. (But hey, at least that shows she’s been reading my posts!)

So this is the extent of my post today: to let the world know I’m going to be making my Ruffled Feathers blog, and 1111 Devotion posts, available on Instagram. And hopefully posting some cool photos, too.

Stay tuned you guys. You never know what’s going to happen when I start getting the hang of this. (I know, though. As soon as I really start to feel comfortable with it, some way cooler platform will come along and I’ll be going through this metamorphosis yet again.)

It does give me pause to wonder: Was getting over myself enough to give Instagram a try maybe at least one of the messages being sent to me by my Bat? It’s entirely possible.

Oh – and in case you’re wondering, my (what’s it even called? Account? Handle? – Don’t worry, I know it’s not that) is: owlmedicine29.

Join me! No. I guess it’s “Follow me!” Ha ha. And if you have any tips, feel free to share.

(T-1031)

Sometimes It’s Not Obvious – Day Seventy Five

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Sometimes It’s Not Obvious          

Even though I haven’t talked about it in quite a while, Karl and I continue to pick Medicine Cards each morning. And even though we’ve been consistently picking them every morning for the past, oh, twenty five years or so…sometimes it’s not obvious what Spirit’s trying to say through them.

For instance, I’ve had Bat in some configuration of my cards for the past four days in a row. And that damn Beaver’s shown up with it half the time. (You may recall Beaver was underneath my Prairie Dog on January 1st, setting the agenda for the year.)

Bat, Bat, and More Bat

So, yeah. On Tuesday I picked Bat/Beaver. Wednesday, Beaver reversed/Bat. (How’s that for weird, when you remember Karl shuffled and chose his cards between my two picks). Thursday I chose Fox reversed/Bat. And today I chose Bat/Eagle.

To be honest, I’m a little frustrated. Bat is one of my favorites. I love when it shows up in my cards. Not only do I love bats in the wild, but I also love what Bat represents archetypally, which is rebirth. And of course, in order to bring about rebirth, there has to be death.

Birth/Death/Rebirth

Bat is all about the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

On the one hand, that’s a tad scary. It’s a cycle of rather cataclysmic experiences, when you think about it. Giving birth is no walk in the park, although I can honestly only consciously reflect upon what it feels like to give birth. Not be born. And even if the cycle doesn’t pertain directly to our physical bodies, there is a finality to death that can be unsettling, at the very least.

And sure, there’s always rebirth. But will any remnant of that which died be recognizable in that which is reborn? Who knows.

Truth be told, I like to look at Bat as an opportunity to start anew. Yeah, something has to die. But I’d prefer to think I’m being asked to give up a way of being that no longer serves me (or maybe never did, and I’m only figuring that out now).

“Symbolic Death to the Old Ways of Life and Personal Identity”

“Bat embraces shamanistic death. The ritual death of the healer is steeped in secrets and highly involved initiation rites. Shaman death is the symbolic death of the initiate to the old ways of life and personal identity. (…)”

I love the idea of initiation, because for me it speaks of the sacred and signifies beginning – a fresh start – the act of setting foot on a new path of exploration and growth. I love the mysterious challenge inherent in the prospect of learning something unique and (hopefully) heretofore obscure, for when the word initiation is used, it always calls to mind, for me at least, something esoteric.

For the life of me, though, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be relinquishing.

Another paragraph that leaps off the page when I read Bat is:

“If Bat has appeared in your cards today, it symbolizes the need for a ritualistic death of some way of life that no longer suits your new growth pattern. This can mean a time of letting go of old habits, and of assuming the position in life that prepares you for rebirth, or in some cases initiation. In every case, Bat signals rebirth of some part of yourself or the death of old patterns. If you resist your destiny, it can be a long, drawn out, or painful death. The universe is always asking you to grow and become your future. To do so you must die the shaman’s death.”

I’ll be honest: I do not want to be so obtuse that I force myself into a long, drawn out, or painful death. And I am willing to embrace, and am even a bit excited at the prospect of, growing and becoming my future.

I sincerely yearn to ‘get the message.’ And I would much rather figure it out and consciously  let go than dither around bullshitting myself. So that’s what I’ll be contemplating this weekend.

Sometimes it’s not obvious.

Or maybe it is, and I just have to open my eyes (and my ears) and pay attention.

I’ll keep you posted; (wink). Pun intended.

(T-1036)

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