This is the path that leads to a small wooded area near my home. The colors are near peak here in Wisconsin and I’m savoring each and every moment.
At times, I must admit, that I feel a bit melancholy as I know fall will be on its way out soon. Because it’s my favorite season, it can feel bittersweet when it begins to descend and let go. My mom often says on cloudy days that we have to carry sunshine in our hearts. It’s the way I feel about fall – I shall carry all of it – the colors, the smells, the sounds, the feelings it evokes in me, and keep it safely tucked in my heart until it rolls around next time.
As I walked along the trails I came upon a fallen tree and stump. It’s been there for as long as I’ve been walking in the woods. Part of the tree is hollowed out from decay. It’s a spot I often see chipmunks, either scurrying through the open areas of the trunk or sunning themselves on the stump.
But today no one was home. I thought silently to myself that likely they were out gathering nuts to store in their home for the winter season. In my mind, I said, “Chippy, chippy where are you?” And just then I heard a high pitched chittering as he scooted right in front of me across the path.
I smiled. Chippy heard me and the brave little one decided to answer my call to let me know that indeed I wasn’t alone.
I feel in a good place these days understanding on a deeper level than I’ve ever felt before, that I’m never alone. It has been at times challenging to remember this. But then something as simple as a walk in nature brings me right back to remembering that all I have to do is make the first move. The universe then responds with its support and wraps itself around me making me feel home once again.
Nestled snug in my writing cottage, with my dachshund, Gidget snug in her pocket blanket (it opens at one end so she can climb right in), the cloudy and dreary skies from the morning have opened to an ocean of blue for as far as my eye can see out the half-moon window that faces west.
Before the sun had even risen, I’d meditated and pulled my oracle cards for the day – Flamingo Spirit from Spirit Animal Oracle deck, Exchanging Gifts from Wisdom of the Oracle, and Rest from Bright Souls deck.
I pondered what message this had for me for the day. In the beginning stages of a not-really-planned kitchen remodel with the drywall stage that began today, I knew right away what this reading was inviting me to do.
In all honesty I was resistant to the remodeling project. I’m someone who likes everything in its place as it helps calm my energy and soothes my nerves if I’ve had a challenging day. My home or as my dear friend refers to it as, my nest, truly is my sanctuary. My zodiac sign being cancer, I fit that to a tee as I’m all about the beauty and comfort of home.
Part of me worried about the financial part of the remodel also. Should we really be spending the money? The “what-if’s” swirled in my mind. But mostly, I didn’t know if I was up for the temporary disarray it would cause. This soon began to diminish as I picked out new counter tops, a new kitchen sink and faucet, and a new range that would replace the microwave I’ve been wanting to get rid of for a long time now.
But before I can get to the fun part of having this all installed and my kitchen back in order, this reading is inviting me to embrace the in-between. Just like anything in life, there are gifts during anything transitional if we open our perspective to invite it in.
BEFOREHalf-wall comes outTwo cabinets come out while inspector Gidget supervisesDrywall in progress
I see Flamingo Spirit as encouraging me to find peace during this time of transition from old to new. Exchanging Gifts is that by being present with things as they are, even when things are not as I’d like them to be, there was a gift last night in seeing my kitchen empty awaiting its new look. The wide open space was inviting in many ways as my imagination plays with how it will all take shape over the coming weeks. The Bright Souls card, Rest asks me to simply be with each stage of the remodel and take each as a gift for what it is.
And so it is with the changing of season’s and of life, too. This reading fitting for the season of winter here in Wisconsin, as we move through January. The holiday season behind us and all the energy that brought, to a much quieter time now. Both season’s a gift in their own ways.
I think about how the winter months are my favorite to write as I continue to work on my newest book, I’m Fine Just the Way I Am. Which had a season of its own today as I came to the point in my writing process where it was time to print the manuscript out so that I can see the typed pages before me and begin shaping it from this vantage point. This will lead to the next step, and yet another, and another until I hold it complete in my hands at some point.
Part of writing for me also that I’ve gotten better at embracing are the in-between places such as when I’m not actively sitting at my computer and writing, but allowing what needs to simmer and move through me before it can come to the page.
January, I see as such a prime example of in-between as I keep my focus on my current writing project, while capturing ideas for future projects that are coming through me right now, with only the intention of writing them down. So too must they go through their own simmering and pondering stages – that liminal space of dreaming and wondering what it could eventually be.
Flamingo Spirit rests her sweet pink head within her soft wing, just as the roots of perennials and trees lie dormant, but with much life in them, in the cold of the earth, blanketed by the snow. All these in-between’s of the world, that lead to growth just as it is meant to unfold.
And just as I finish writing this, the clouds have rolled back in, and so this space of in-between is here sooner than I anticipated, but I know the sun will come again.
