All Creatures Great and Small – Love Them All.

Posted by Barbara Techel

IMG_2104 eCan you spot the small creature on my honeysuckle bloom?

Friday and Saturday I hosted a workshop in my home on animal communication taught by my beautiful friend, Dawn. While I’m still not quite ready to share what I learned, as I’m processing much of it, I feel changed in a way today that I really didn’t expect. A part of me is even finding it hard to express in words what I feel. Much of it is welcome and good. I am simmering in all of it.

In a way I feel myself still coming back into my physical body and feeling my feet firmly planted on the earth. Maybe that sounds rather strange, but again, it is hard to express the energy that transpired over the last two days.

Just a few moments ago I decided to take a photo of the honeysuckle plant that is blooming in all its glorious colors of orange, pink and green outside my writing cottage. As I was doing so, I saw this small green critter through the lens of my camera. I’m not sure I would have spotted him otherwise.

When I sat down to write this post, all the emotions and energy from the last 48 hours still finding there way with me, I thought about this green bug and it came to me, all creatures great and small, love them all.  Each one has something to offer us.

I then chuckled silently to myself because while I understand this message, I know I’m going to get hung up on spiders, snakes, flies and mosquito’s. Okay, I am a work in progress, I told myself. And maybe I’ll never come to love them in the sense of wanting them to be around me, I can love them for their purpose in the world. And maybe that is enough.

The Secret to Life. The River Knows.

Posted by Barbara Techel

20140806_130945 e 12Gidget along the Mullet River. Album on Facebook.

Yesterday I felt called to walk along the Mullet river. I wasn’t sure why. But then I’d also been thinking that I’d like to explore other areas to walk with Miss G other than our neighborhood. She is so portable after all. And I thought it would be something fun just her and I can do together.

On the other side of the river, it is all wooded and a concrete path unfolds down the middle. Chipmunks were clearly having a great day as I could hear them chirping everywhere. Gidget heard them too. I loved watching her ears stand on end and her body go into full alert stance. If not for her leash, well, let’s just say, the chippie’s would have had to be on full alert also.

As we walked, the flow of the river drew me in to its quiet space of calm. I thought about how much I’ve begun accepting and embracing my life by being more in awareness of the choices I can make. I also thought about how I’ve been learning to let go more, letting go of control, and just trying to allow things to unfold as they are meant to.

We funny humans think we have so much control, but we really don’t. If only we could really get that. Something I continue to work on. But I realized as I walked along in a sort of meditation walk that the river knows the secret of life.

It just flows, allowing nature to do its thing. Not thinking about where it will end up or what’s next. Gidget was doing the same thing. All she knew is what was right in front of her. The path to walk, the woods to sniff, the chipmunks to listen to.

We can’t force the water down the river anymore than we can force our lives into what we think they should be. Sure, we have choice, but how often do we make choices because of outside factors instead of listening to what really resonates with us? Too often our mind gets bombarded with so many questions that the answers can’t be heard.

Something called me to that river yesterday. Though I don’t have a definitive answer as to why. And maybe I don’t even need to know why. But to just relish in the fact I followed what I heard. I found serenity in that half hour of being with the river and Miss G. That is all that matters and it is enough.

I Am An Unfinished Woman.

Posted by Barbara Techel

woman-960x565Today I am quite honored to be a guest blogger on The Gift of Writing blog which is one of my favorite sites for weekly inspiration!

It starts like this…

I am unfinished.

Understanding this at its core continues to come in waves for me. It’s an awareness I now carry with me every day of my life. I am a work in progress. There are many layers to who I am and I will never be complete.

Feeling an unexplainable void in my early 40s and caring for my chocolate Lab who was terminally ill with bone cancer, I found myself questioning my purpose. Why was I here? I also seemed to have lost the joy in my life that used to come so easily to me.

It’s not easy asking for help. Come on over to read the rest!