animal messengers

An ‘Unusual Butterfly’ and Insightful Message for Us All

Posted by Barbara Techel

In early September my husband John and I packed our R-pod camper and headed to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for a week’s respite.

Answering the inner nudge for rest, time to breathe in lots of fresh air, feast our eyes on nature, and spend quality time together were the priorities for the time away.

Arriving late Saturday afternoon we settled into the KOA campground just a few minutes outside of the city anticipating our first adventure on Monday’s to visit Falls Park.

The park covers 123 acres and on average about 7,400 gallons of water drop 100 feet over the course of the Falls each second. 

When we arrived, I could hardly wait to get out of the van. The views were breathtaking! (I created an album here if you’d like to see photos.)

But it was what I discovered about an ‘unusual butterfly’ while there that brought some insight I felt so fitting especially given the year we’ve all had so far.

South Dakota known for buffalo has given them the unique name of ‘Monarch of the Plains’ dedicated to the buffalo that roamed the falls in the 1800s.

I couldn’t help but ponder the symbology of this. It brought me back to revisiting the saying from the Native American’s, “Be the Buffalo!” 

This means that if you ever have the chance to observe a buffalo in a storm you will note that they don’t run from it, but stand and face it head-on.

Our world has certainly been going through a storm these last few months. It’s been an opportunity to face our fears, lean into our resilient nature, and reinstall within us that we can endure most anything.

Thinking about buffalo as the ‘monarch of the plains’ I see this as when we endure any storm in our lives and when the storm passes and in the time of reflection we realize we have transformed. We are no longer the same but changed, and better for what we’ve learned.

I was grateful for the opportunity to stand beside this buffalo statue as I felt the powerful lesson of this seep into my being.

May we all continue to see the storm as opportunities to strengthen our wings and give flight to all we hold true in our hearts.

xo,

Barbara

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Weekly Oracle Reading: Today We are Going to the Dogs for Guidance

Posted by Barbara Techel

It’s almost October! And we are moving into the season of Libra – which is about balance – and what we need to do to have that within us. Again, you’ll have the opportunity to pick cards 1, 2, or 3 as your personal message for the week, and then I read all three cards together as a message for all of us.

Click here to watch or click on the video below.

If you find this reading helpful and/or inspirational and would like to support my work I welcome donations here (Thank you!)

Happy Autumn and enjoy the week!

XO,

Barbara

Confirmation from Bee and the “Backward” Message

Posted by Barbara Techel

After I did the weekly reading yesterday, throughout the day I kept revisiting the fact I really felt called to read the cards backward (from right to left, instead of left to right). If you’ve not watched the video yet and would like to pick your own card from the three I pulled as your personal message, you can still do that and watch here.  Then come on back to hear how the reading has expanded with a confirmation I received from Bee this morning.

The word reset has also been forefront in my mind the last few days. In part, because I believe that is what the last several months have been about regarding the bigger perspective as we’ve revisited in our own hearts what is important and how we are individually, and as a collective, going to move forward with all that we’ve learned since early March of 2020.

And there’s more we still may each need to be with and learn and what perhaps the rest of the year will be about as we make our way toward 2021. 

Thinking of the reading I did yesterday and the word reset it came even more into focus the reason I felt called to read the cards backward. As I made my way out to my writing cottage this morning I saw this bee on the siding near my screen door. While the temperature has dropped into the low 50s with a sharp northeast wind that has a bite to it, I realized bee was confirming my reading and my pondering the value of what reset means.

At first glance, it seemed Bee was stunned from the cold, which could likely be, but I also sensed that Bee seemed to be taking a pause to conserve its energy and adjust and adapt as a confirmation to the message I shared yesterday, and yes, also to what it was now facing in the change in temperatures.

I thought about my own life and how I’ve been doing my best to conserve my energy and adapt and adjust just like I have no doubt so many of us are doing. For me, I’ve been focusing on what I need to do to stay balanced while also taking steps to expand (clean up) things I need to understand for my own growth. I think for many of us, this is what we’ve been learning to do the last several months— each of us at a different level of experiencing and incorporating this new way of being.

So my ‘backward’ reading:

Again, normally I’d read from left to right, beginning with Bee, and the cards following representing a story in motion. But this reading I see as the great reset and why I felt called to read it backward from right to left. Because we are not looking at life in the same way as we used to and we are seeing things from different perspectives than before.

I do believe we are moving toward a time of more peace, harmony, and community, though yes, we still have some times of unrest to move through.

We are creating in many ways a new story and one none of us have experienced in our lifetime, but yet at the same time, this way of being has been experienced before. 

Turtle Spirit is helping us to stay in this new inner space that many of us have invested in the last several months and is encouraging us to not give up – to stay with it – that intentionally moving at this slower pace, though we’ve been so used to rushing, going, and forcing, and it can feel like we aren’t doing anything and that we are going against everything we know.

Vulture Spirit is reminding us that we still have things we need to individually and collectively clean up. While the big picture and the chaos out in the world can feel overwhelming at times, cleaning up what we can within ourselves, is what I believe is what we each need to be doing, in order that we can all collectively move forward. 

What I feel is so important to remember also is not to beat ourselves up inwardly for the past and the mistakes made, but to take what we’ve learned as the way in which we can best move forward – and so as the message on the Vulture card says – nothing is wasted because it truly isn’t.

Seeing Bee outside my writing cottage this morning was confirmation that this work with Turtle and Vulture guiding us is what is going to lead us to the sweet results. The reset is about valuing more than ever the beauty of pausing and reflecting on what we’ve learned and then sharing that wisdom in community as a way to begin to help shape this planet into a kinder and more peaceful one.

xo,

Barbara