A Year Later. A Love Letter to Gidget.

Posted by Barbara Techel

There won’t be a full oracle reading today, but I did do a short message on my Instagram page if you want to check that out. Today I want to honor the one year passing of my sweet Gidget girl – she indeed was, and still is, one of the most potent oracles for me in her teaching of helping me to “know thyself.”

Dear Gidget,

A year ago – the day before Mother’s Day – I didn’t know how I was going to live my life without you. 

As I sat holding you in my arms knowing I had a very difficult decision to make, I was reminded by our dear friend, Dawn, that this wasn’t about my fear, but rather about what you wanted.

I knew in my heart it was time for you to move on, but how to let go?

While our work together was done here on the physical plane, your teaching of loving all aspects of myself remains. It always will – in honor and respect of you and in honor and respect of the love I now have for myself. Your love and devotion brought me to this new welcome space within me.

It’s been almost a full four seasons that have passed since I last hugged you. As each season has passed it has reminded me of you in some special way.

In the summertime how my heart would overflow with love as I watched you enjoy soaking up the sun lying on the deck and then in the evenings as we’d hang out by the fire in the chiminea with you snug as a bug in your bed between the Adirondack chairs.

As the leaves turned crimson shades of yellow, orange, and red, I reminisced how we’d relish in the change in the wind as I’d take you for a walk in your dog stroller. I loved watching your ears fly in the wind as you’d raise your snout to the new smells in the air.

Wintertime brought memories of the extra snuggle time on the couch or you resting in my or papa’s arms, your tiny front limbs bent in front of you in the most endearing way, snoring so very loudly for a little dog and content as could be.

As the sun moved closer to the earth this spring I was brought back to the sweet images of you and how you loved to hang out in the garden with me. As you’d close your eyes to take in the warmth of the sun I dug in the dirt planting flowers while buds were beginning to burst from the trees.

Now 365 days later I see that my life has gone on even though you are no longer here. But guess what? I still feel you with me. But you already knew that, didn’t you? It is one of my greatest comforts and treasures.

The difference is now the ache on my heart isn’t as crushing as it was – it’s a softness that has settled in – though at times a sharp ache will still shoot through my heart as a reminder that to have loved you means I must also accept the pain of loss. I do little one, I do.

But you know what my heart knows most? That to have loved you means I will never ever lose that feeling and that in essence I never had to let go. The love of you is here now and always will be.

Love you always my sweet girl…

xo,

Barbara

Windowsill Meditation

Posted by Barbara Techel

Teach us the delight of simple things. ~Rudyard Kipling

Most Fridays I try to set aside as my self-care and errand day, though I do sometimes sprinkle in a bit of work, too.

But part of my self-care of what I titled this post as “windowsill meditation” is that I take delight in my ever-changing windowsill in my kitchen because it is like a form of meditation to me.

This time of year I’ve taken back out of storage from the blue curio cabinet in my living room a few of the small vases I’ve collected over the years. This vintage one in the photo is one I’m particularly fond of.

I knew it would be perfect to hold a single ranunculus flower I cut from a pot of them I’m growing. And after placing it in the vase, I moved a few things around on the windowsill to create this little vignette.

Something so simple that produced so much joy and gave my mind a rest. 

There is so much we can’t control, but how often I continue to be pulled back to the simple things and how it doesn’t take much to remind me what matters most.

xo,

Barbara

The Tree’s Shadow Had a Message for Me Today

Posted by Barbara Techel

I was sitting at my desk in my writing cottage this morning with a heavy heart. I couldn’t shake it. A moment later, I glanced out the west window and the tree outside caught my eye as it was casting a shadow. I couldn’t help but be pulled out of my chair and just stared at it for a few moments. I sensed it had a message for me.

Yesterday afternoon I had grabbed the watering can to fill it with water from the spigot on the side of our house so I could water some outside plants. It was then that I noticed under a nearby shrub baby bunnies snug as could be under it. I stayed at a distance, but from what I could tell it looked like four of them. My heart just burst with joy at the sweetness of their features with their little soft-looking faces, light pink noses, tiny ears, and eyes still closed. 

Such a beautiful thing to see – this new life right before my very eyes. For a moment a thought ran through my mind that in nature many newborn bunnies don’t always make it. But I quickly dismissed it.

Before I turned in for the night, it was still somewhat light out, so I peeked out the east window of our bedroom where I could see the shrub, but wasn’t able to see the little ones. Yet I knew they were there and it made my heart smile. I looked forward to just being able to check on them in this way until they left the nest.

But Mother Nature had other plans for the bunnies as I’d soon discover when I opened the blind on the window this morning. I won’t go into the details, but something had found them during the night.

While I know this is the cycle of life and how nature works, my heart ached for the loss of those bunnies. But as I sat thinking about it, I was being reminded that they were nourishment for another critter and perhaps that was the sole reason for their coming into this world at the time they did.

It was then that I had looked up after that thought and saw the tree casting this shadow— reminding me there is also beauty in the shadow – to feel love for something as I did for the bunnies and then to experience their passing—both emotions crack the heart wide open.

And it had me circling back to what we’ve all been going through in our world right now with the virus crisis – so much grieving as a collective and also in our own individual lives of what was and what is still yet to be known. Things we have had to learn to let go of in order for something new to come in. The lives that have been lost but perhaps left in the divine planning of it all to guide us to a deeper understanding of the preciousness of life.

It reminded me again of the bigger perspective of being able to hold it all—the difficult emotions and the beautiful ones— and still, remember and know that there is so much goodness in this world now and yet to come.

It was also another reminder for me to just move through these emotions I was feeling. No need to block them out or push them down, but just allow them to flow through me. And I came to a point that no matter the heartbreak of life, I’d not trade it for all the moments of happiness I get to experience too.

xo,

Barbara