Over the weekend I wrote about how John surprised me with three birdhouses he built for me. On Sunday he installed them. The two wren houses on the east of my writing cottage…
And the bluebird house on the back. And yes, eeks, I see that my little cottage is in need of a fresh coat of paint. I will hope to do that in early summer or fall.
So if you know any birds out there looking for a new home, send them on over. The rent is cheep…get it? Cheep cheep like a bird would tweet?
Don’t mind me. At any rate, seeing these little houses installed on my writing cottage just makes me so happy. And I’d think the good juju vibes coming from this space would make any little birdie want to live here!
Today’s reading is a deep one, but I feel very valuable, and I hope it will be of benefit. After I pulled the two cards for today I journaled what I was receiving as insight. I also relate the cards to a deeply personal story because I felt it related on many levels and would be helpful during this time of fears arising for many. I then decided to record the reading as I felt that was important. I do share what I journaled below but also shared a bit more context in the recorded version.
What is it we most need to know now for our highest good?
Here in the United States, we are being told that the next two weeks are critical. We’ve been strongly advised to not even go to the grocery store or pharmacy.
And as I thought about this and prepared to do the reading for the week, it felt odd to even try and come up with a question. What question can even encompass the magnitude of these times, I wondered.
But I realized that asking what it is we need to know for our highest good, while it may seem somewhat simplistic, it also contains the depth of what we are being called to really lean into now.
So I pulled a card from Work Your Light Oracle by Rebecca Campbell because we are in the thick of this time that we need to all be holding the brightest light of love and hope and allow that vibration to flow out into the world.
For our animal guiding us, I pulled a card from The Spirit Animal Oracle by Colette Baron-Reid.
While the card I pulled from Work Your Light can be a difficult one to look at and feel scary, we must also remember to keep our hearts open and trust that there is a glimpse of what can, and I believe, will be, on the other side of all of this.
The card is The Crumbling and asks the question, What are you clinging onto?
As the messages we are getting are feeling more dire and can entice a sense of losing even more control, this is when we are being given the opportunity to not breakdown, but to experience a breakthrough.
I want to share here a bit about what I share in my new memoir, I’m Fine Just the Way I am, as I found myself at what I felt was my breaking point back in the early spring of 2018. I was completely drained of every ounce of energy after having made the decision that I was going to have my dog, Gidget put to sleep due to chronic health challenges and that fact I could no longer cope.
It was after making that decision that friend and animal communicator, Dawn, and I spoke via Skype. She was trying to urge me to reconsider my decision, but I couldn’t hear it. All I felt was a sense of losing control of what I felt was the best decision for Gidget, while I also felt deeply judged for my decision.
After an intense back and forth between Dawn and me she said, “I’m just trying to be an advocate for Gidget.” It was at that moment that the rage I’d held within me for most of my life came barreling to the surface as my throat clenched and through anger and tears I yelled, “But who was an advocate for me?”
I remember feeling stunned when it came out but also feeling relieved at the same time.
This was one of my breakthroughs – of finally releasing the fear, anger, and the loss of innocence and loss of control I’d experienced as a little girl and being inappropriately touched.
Though I’d experience yet another wave of fear about an hour as I went over and over in my mind that our conversation I had with Dawn that I hit the bottom and had the thought that I’d rather die instead of dealing with the pain I was experiencing.
And that was my second vital breakthrough. Instead of clinging to that fear, I realized if things were going to change, it had to be me who would take responsibility for my pain and begin to heal it.
So even though it felt like in those few hours that everything around me was about to crumble and I was brought to my knees, it was within the crumbling that I’d catch a glimpse of the fact I didn’t want to die and that I wanted to live….and more importantly, that I was capable of making my life better even though what had happened to me from my past was out of my control and wasn’t my fault.
And each step I took forward, I began to feel lighter in body, mind, and spirit, and the world around me began to be filled with hope and assurance that I was going to be just fine.
I share this story in hopes that if you are feeling the same way right now and a sense of losing more control, and your fear is feeling amplified, that this is where you have the opportunity to really look at your fears, face them, and understand where they come from.
It could likely be that little child within that needs you now more than ever to reassure them that you are here and will help them through this.
While it may appear that things around us are crumbling even more, looking at the card, we can see that the more it crumbles, the more the light has the opportunity to come through.
The animal guiding us is Pig Spirit and the words, Use your mind wisely. I pulled the card in reverse which is called protection in this deck.
Our mind can be very, very powerful and now is the opportunity to use it to the advantage of not letting the fear take over, but rather to help you remember that you can do this – you’ve got this. The image of the pig having wings and the saying comes to mind of “when pigs fly” I sense as that we can rise above this.
This is a time to call on that higher power we’ve always said we believed in and is now being put to the test. Move into a space of higher perspective that we will learn so much from this time and that together, we will thrive once again.
And to remember that within this time right NOW is that we can do the same.
There are times I catch a glimpse of him. The one I first fell in love with. How I’d do everything in my power to find a way to ‘accidentally’ walk by him in the school hallways.
He was a senior and I was a freshman. It would take him returning from college his freshman year and visiting the high school gym during a basketball game to finally notice the shy sophomore who played flute in the band.
And as they say, the rest is history.
Thirty-five years later there are moments when John still makes my heart swoon just like the first time I laid eyes on him and his piercing blue eyes.
Late yesterday afternoon as I sat on the sofa reading a favorite blog, I heard him come in the back door and heard the sound of something being set on the floor. He said, “I made you something today.”
Not recalling having had asked for anything I said, “You did?”
Thinking he was teasing me, as he often does, like a cat, my curiosity got me. I got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen to investigate.
Just as I came around the corner, he popped up from being bent over and was holding two birdhouses and with a grin like a little schoolboy proud of his accomplishment.
I ran to him and hugged him as tight as I could. That guy I fell in love all those years ago was making my heart swoon all over again.
I don’t even know how long ago it was. Years perhaps? I had the idea of wishing to put up several birdhouses along our lot line. I’d asked if he would build me some. But as life can often go, he just never had time to get around to it.
The past two weeks he’s been working hard in our home office putting together remodeling estimates hoping that when the ‘safer at home’ is through he will have clients who wish to go ahead with their projects.
In between, he has been cleaning up his office when unbeknownst to me he found the paperwork buried underneath other paperwork for building two types of birdhouses. One for wrens and one for bluebirds.
And just like that, he built two houses and one more this morning.
So today is the day after researching where we should place them in our yard for the best location we will install them on our property.
This…this is what I lean into during this uncertain time. This…this is what it’s all about and I never want to forget what this time during COVID-19 is teaching me and how my heart just keeps expanding and expanding until at times it feels like it will burst.
And I forgot to mention that the favorite blog I was reading was sharing a video of connecting with their farm animals, which brought tears to my eyes. I’ve been feeling especially acutely right now the absence of an animal companion in our home.
So all the more special this moment was when John lovingly presented me with the birdhouses that made me squeal with joy!
