self-help

October 2023 Animal Wisdom Reading: Time to Go and Embrace Harmony

Posted by Barbara Techel

This month, I first chose a card from the Wisdom of the Oracle asking what our theme for the month is. It is Time to Go. What is it we need to let go of in order to be the best versions of ourselves? Something has to go. What will that be for you?

Then I chose one card from my deck as our animal guide and one card from a new deck I was asked to review, Oracle of the Birds. I’ll do another video in the near future sharing my review of this beautiful deck!

I hope you find the reading beneficial and as always, grab a favorite deck you like and pick a card to add another layer of personal insight just for you asking what it is you need to let go of at this time.

Click here or on video below to catch this month’s reading!

XO

Barb

    

Shadow Animals – How Animals We Fear Can Help Us Heal, Transform, and Awaken: Book Review and Honoring Our Shadow and the Animals Guiding Us.

Posted by Barbara Techel
“Shadow Animals” by Dawn Baumann Brunke & my collaged card honoring Spider and her teaching and healing for me.

The song, “Me and My Shadow” popped into my mind and continued on an endless loop the morning after I finished reading the book, “Shadow Animals.” 

In part the lyrics are:

“Me and my shadow
Strollin’ down the avenue
Me and my shadow
Not a soul to tell our troubles to.”

In this new thought-provoking and timely book, “Shadow Animals” by Dawn Brunke, the line “not a soul to tell our troubles to” brought forth a whole new meaning and expanded my love yet again for the animal world for all the wisdom and guidance they’ve provided me over the years.

It has been a deeply rewarding experience to have healed aspects of my shadow self because of the gentle, caring, and at times, loving persistence of the Animal Kingdom – especially those animals I held some fear about.

So it was an honor to be asked to take part in the chapter on arachnophobia and test a series of questions that Dawn developed that would help uncover clues about my angst about Spider. What it revealed and the insight that bubbled to the surface ushered in a welcome layer of healing!

As we continue to move through these challenging times of divisiveness and fear, it has become clear that the ones we really need to tell our troubles to are ourselves. That which triggers us and causes us pain or angst is an opportunity to go within and heal those shadow aspects of ourselves. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!

And the animals – especially those we fear– called shadow animals – are the ones who can expand us in profound ways. They are here and waiting to walk lovingly beside us and inspire and encourage us to do the inner work to heal individually so that we may heal on a collective level also.

Dawn writes: “Shadow animals are unique teachers that can help us find and better understand the lost and wounded pieces of ourselves of which we are not fully aware. Some hold clues to repressed memories of trauma or abuse.  Some are guides, helping us to explore the puzzling or guarded aspects of our psyche.”

Reading this book I found myself reaching for my Post-it™ note tabs over and over again, marking many passages that resonated, deeply moved me, or invited me to contemplate further. One such paragraph is from the chapter intriguingly titled, “Nightmare.”

Dawn says, “To consciously meet our nightmare invokes a deepened relationship between Shadow and self. What we find when we face our fears is often surprising. For beyond the face of fear we encounter a deeper presence. There, in the dark mirror, we see ourselves. Previously misunderstood aspects of who we are gaze back at us, no longer cloaked by fear but illuminated with wonder.”

The chapter goes on to share a short, but emotional dream Dawn had about a neglected and abused pony. I was moved to tears as I recognized once again that part of me that had suffered abuse as a young child. 

She encourages us to ask these questions: “What is battered, damaged, abandoned, sick, or starved for attention within my self? What small, sad being is at last acknowledged as we open our arms to hold and love it? With care and attention, what might it become?”

While exploring the deeper recesses of our psyche is not always easy, it’s that deeper presence that Dawn speaks to that is the reward and once experienced changes us in a profound way. 

From sharing the well-researched mythology and folklore and the origins of how many animals came to be deemed as “bad or evil,” plus meditations and simple, but powerful exercises, Dawn eloquently shows us how we can not only heal our wounds –  a.ka. our shadow – but how we can also awaken and expand in the truth and bring back into the light the brilliant teachings of the Animal Kingdom.

And so Dawn’s new book, “Shadow Animals,” and the many years she has devoted to the extensive work and understanding of the animal world, I see as an exquisite gift and a wake-up call to our world at this crucial juncture.

The first step then is acknowledging we each have work to do. Then get yourself a copy of this book, take notes, do the exercises, and open yourself to the treasure that acknowledging our shadow is a way to deepen into a more peaceful place within. Most of all, welcome in the animals and share your fears and unhealed stories with them. They are waiting with the utmost love to guide us home to the heart of who we truly are.

So as I wind my way back to the lyrics that looped through my mind, I see “Me and My Shadow” along with the deeply insightful wisdom shared in Dawn’s brilliant new book, “Shadow Animals” as an invitation. An invitation to not fear our shadow, but instead befriend it, acknowledge it, integrate it, and dance in the wonder of it.

For the well-being of humans, animals, and the planet, I highly recommend this book as a way forward to living with more love and compassion not only for ourselves but for all beings.

xxx

You can read more and pre-order here.
You can also read chapter excerpts on Dawn’s website here.
 
AND to read an excerpt of the Spider chapter, visit Wisdom Magazine here. 
 
XO
Barb
 
    

Channeling my Inner Flying Nun

Posted by Barbara Techel

Who needs wings to fly?
Certainly not I,
I prefer to take up on the breeze,
Follow any swallow that may please my fancy.

I just close my eyes,
Tiptoe through the skies,
Long as there’s a habit standing by,
Who needs things like wings to fly?

~Lyrics from The Flying Nun

Many mornings last week I found myself grumbling under my breath upon waking to see the trees blowing in the gusty winds. I wanted it to be calm for my morning walk. I didn’t want to fight the wind. And so some days I didn’t walk.

Today it was windy yet again. But this time I decided to not fight against what was. So I bundled up and out the door I went. These days I truly walk more for my mental health than anything else and when I don’t get in a walk my energy feels different – not as energized.

Upon returning home today I caught my reflection in the storm door. With my hood up, I felt as if it looked like I was wearing a nun’s habit and I felt as if I’d just channeled my inner Flying Nun!

I posted the above photo on my Facebook page and my thoughts about my hood feeling like a habit and channeling my inner nun. My mom commented she was pondering my thoughts. Perhaps not seeing and feeling what I did.

A friend posted the opening line from The Flying Nun, Who needs wings to fly? Certainly not I, I prefer to take up on the breeze…immediately I heard myself inwardly say, “Yes!”

Though I found myself feeling bothered that my mom didn’t understand what I was seeing and feeling. I admit I felt deflated for a few moments. But then I paused and sat with what I was feeling. I realized I was falling back into an old pattern. I didn’t feel heard or understood. Though I know this wasn’t my mom’s intention. It was my projection. It was also just something she wasn’t perceiving as I did. Nothing right or wrong about it.

It didn’t mean that what I felt and saw in the reflection in the door that morning was wrong. But how often is it that we wish to be understood? Especially by those we really love.

But again, I realized it was my projection and it was just that my mom didn’t see what I saw. This was perfectly okay. It was up to me to not let that take away from the truth of what I’d been feeling – and more importantly – the magic of what I’d felt coming home to seeing myself as The Flying Nun.

And why did I feel like I was channeling my inner Flying Nun? And why did I see my hood up over my hat and head as a habit that nuns wear? Well, that along with my friend sharing the opening line of The Flying Nun lyrics really had my mind flying (pun intended) in a flow of excitement wanting to go deeper with this…

It begins with the fact I made the choice today to go with the flow of Mother Nature and not against it. My hood up over my head and hat created this safe and cozy sanctuary against the element of the wind. I was contained within myself but yet a part of the elements.

Researching the habits the nuns wore in The Flying Nun TV series I discovered they were called cornettes.

According to Wikipedia, a cornette is a piece of female headwear. It is essentially a type of wimple consisting of a large, starched piece of white cloth that is folded upwards in such a way as to create the resemblance of horns on the wearer’s head. 

The cornette was retained as a distinctive piece of clothing into modern times by the Daughters of Charity, a Roman Catholic society of apostolic life founded by St. Vincent de Paul in the mid-17th century. The founder wanted to have the sisters of this new type of religious congregation of women, that tended to the sick and poor, and were not required to remain in their cloister, resemble ordinary middle-class women as much as possible in their clothing, including the wearing of the cornette.

It is said that the cornette worn by Sister Bertrille (The Flying Nun), that due to her being light in weight and the heavily starched cornette is what gave her the ability to fly.

Then from IMDB.com along came the episode in 1969 where: The Mother General has issued an edict for the sisters to wear a new habit. The sisters are all thrilled by the new, modern habit, that is until one by one they all realize that the new cornette with which will no longer allow Sister Bertrille to fly. Not only is Sister Bertrille devastated by the fact, but all the sisters are as well.

But as the plot continues it ends with The Mother General having the sisters returning to wearing the old habits once again.

This means Sister Bertrille could fly once again! But isn’t it interesting to note that we can all fly, no matter what, if we just remember the truth of who we are? And how we sometimes let our projections or old patterning, or that of not feeling heard or understood deflate our wings?

I’m also pondering my feeling connected to The Flying Nun played by Sally Field, who also played in another TV series called Gidget. And it will be two years next week since my dachshund named Gidget, petite and sweet just like Sally Field who played Gidget, will be gone.

While my pint-sized doxie was oh-so-sweet, she was also a light warrior and master teacher who guided me to finally accept a memory of a childhood trauma that haunted me for over two decades. As I walked through that self-healing journey, I came to realize I was, and will always be, worthy just as I am.

I don’t need a heavily starched cornette to fly nor do I need to wear a habit to feel safe. But it’s by continuing to do my inner work when I feel not heard or understood, digging into why that is, that I can course-correct old patterning. This is what gives me the ability to fly!

Who needs wings to fly? Certainly not I, I prefer to take up on the breeze…I just close my eyes,
Tiptoe through the skies…

Connecting in with my higher self and with the universe I give myself permission to explore all my feelings, reminding myself to do so without judgment, and remembering I’m always being supported by something bigger than me that has my best interest in mind at all times.

I close my eyes, connecting with the stars, the sky, the Divine, and the breeze of all that is brings me back home to the center of love and all that I am. This is the space I strive to be in more often where life isn’t a struggle, but a gift that reminds me that yes, I can indeed fly.

XO,

Barb

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