Coronavirus

Grackle Medicine – Day 574

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Grackle Going For It – Photo: L. Weikel

Grackle Medicine

I never cease to be amazed by the messages, guidance, and insight I receive from Mother Earth and her many children. Case in point: as I’ve mentioned recently, I’ve been indulging my feathered friends by religiously filling my peanut coil every day – in fact, sometimes twice a day, lately. There are some furred visitors who are also indulging (squirrels, opossums, raccoons), but other than the squirrels, the rest sneak around under cover of darkness! What I totally didn’t expect to learn about, however, was Grackle medicine.

I’ve seen grackles at our feeders every year. They didn’t tend to congregate at our feeders in any great numbers, and I never found them to be so remarkable that I considered them to be messengers of any sort. I can’t say I ever thought much about them other than to be slightly creeped out by their cold, yellow eyes that always seem to stare vacantly.

But this year is different.

Move Over Blue Jays

You may recall that Blue Jay seemed to be vying for my attention several weeks ago, leaving me feathers in many different venues and congregating at my feeders – especially the peanut coil. They seemed to be seeking my attention, so I did my best to follow up and listen to what they had to say to me.

Well, I must report that the blue jays and I are continuing to have a dynamic relationship, and they are quite demonstrative in their displeasure when I fail to refill the peanut coil fast enough. They’re also nudges. And I’m the first to admit – I respond to nudging (usually). Ok, sometimes.

Since around the beginning of April or so, more and more grackles started showing up in our yard. I’ve been watching them cultivate remarkable skills at peanut extraction. And they don’t seem to be bothered by my presence in the least. For the past two weeks or so, as I’ve noticed their numbers increasing, I’ve had the fleeting thought that I should ‘look them up.’ But I admit, as soon as I walked into the house, I’d forget the grackles completely.

Why? Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps the upset of watching a pandemic spread across the world and take hold in our country with a vengeance. The stress of watching a virus that’s highly contagious and can easily be spread by asymptomatic carriers first be ignored by our government, then politicized. And then the horror of witnessing a man’s life callously snuffed out at the knee of a police officer, setting off a cultural upheaval over the systemic racism in our country and the scourge of police brutality. A pandemic within a pandemic. Yeah, I forgot to research Grackle for too many days.

But I digress.

Messengers?

Just yesterday, I again remarked to Karl that I think there’s something up with the grackles. I’d just watched one ever so carefully remove a peanut from the coil, take flight, dodge branches of bushes and trees, veer along our neighbor’s driveway, hang a right over our road and fly all the way past three more houses to an intersection. It would appear we’re feeding a massive population of grackles, including ones that don’t even live adjacent to our home. Clearly the grackle population is making a point to congregate at our house.

When a jillion of anything start to show up in my environment, I pay attention. Eventually. And yes, I’ll admit it – grackles are not a bird I would ordinarily wax poetic over. Did I mention their creepy yellow eyes? And they’re not particularly colorful, either, though I seem to recall them in others years having some striking iridescence on their shoulders. But the ones around here lately have definitely been non-descript. So I’ve been a bird snob. There. I admit it.

But they persisted, I’ll give them that. Not only did they keep showing up, but their numbers started increasing. And they were irritating, truth be told, with their harsh chuck chuck vocalization and, as described in Peterson’s Field Guide, “split rasping note” that, to my ear sounds like a scree!. Just this past week, I wondered aloud to Karl whether Grackle would even be covered in any of my books. Part of me thought they were surely too mundane to have their own entry. (I told you, I’ve been being a jerk of a bird snob. It’s a wonder they even deigned to continue vying for my attention.)

Let my resistance be an object lesson. Never underestimate the power of Mother Earth to simply wow us with her insight and guidance.

More tomorrow.

Grackle Surrounded By Nuts – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-537)

Full Moon – Day 572

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Approaching Storm – Photo: L. Weikel

Full Moon

Today at 3:12 p.m. EDT, the moon was full. The Old Farmer’s Almanac refers to a full moon in June as the Full Strawberry Moon. With strawberries ripening and becoming abundantly available at farm stands and grocery stores, we can safely guess where this moon got its name.

Today also marked a partial lunar eclipse. The significance of this eclipse will remain to be revealed. (Ha ha – that’s sort of a play on the fact that eclipses tend to be revelatory in the sense that things that have been hidden for a long time, often even from ourselves, tend to be revealed by an eclipse.) But seriously, we can certainly see this playing out on a macro level – throughout our country – and on a micro level, if we’re honest with ourselves and really look at the state of our marriages, lives, other relationships, and careers.

What is being revealed to us now?

Last Eclipse

The last such lunar eclipse this year occurred at the beginning of January. It also occurred on a Friday – January 10th, 2020, to be exact.

You might want to go back to your journals and check out what was going on for you back then. Was anything hidden, unexpected, or of import revealed to you on or around that date? I have to say, that eclipse was one of the most stunning ones I’ve experienced, when it came to revelations about people’s natures that totally blindsided me. Profound trust was startlingly dashed.

And on a global level, here’s an article that can, in hindsight, give us all pause.

Entering Eclipse ‘Season’

As significant as the revelations were that came on and around the lunar eclipse in January of this year, I have to uneasily wonder what’s in store for all of us over the next month. That’s because, not only did we experience another lunar eclipse today (if partial – and not visible in North America), we have a solar eclipse to look forward to that will occur on the same day as the summer solstice (June 21st), promising an even greater impact, and then yet another lunar eclipse on July 5th.

Bing, bang, boom.

I’m not suggesting that we pay attention to eclipse season – and in particular this eclipse season – in order to generate fear. Rather, my intention is the opposite. I’m simply offering some information that, if we pay attention to it, will perhaps in some small way, prepare us for the unexpected.

Let’s face it, world wide, we’ve been getting curve balls hurled at us. But here in the United States, in particular, we’re dodging a virtual onslaught of major life, values, and reality upheavals.

Expect the Unexpected

It’s really tough to expect the unexpected. But there is good reason for all of us not to assume that ‘the worst is over,’ or ‘things are getting back to normal.’ Actually, there are many good reasons not to make such assumptions, beyond the adage pertaining to assumptions in general.

If there was ever a time in our lives to keep a journal, I’d say this is it.

I’m encouraging you, then, to beef up your discipline and dedication to writing about what’s going on in your life at this time. Be as specific and thorough as possible. If nothing else, it could end up being a fascinating reflection on how – or even if – you can see a correlation between events in your personal life, events on a local or national or global scale, and our experience of the three eclipses of June/July 2020.

(T-539)

Keeping It Together – Day 570

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Spunky Girl Setting the Pace – Photo: L. Weikel

Keeping It Together

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m finding the task of ‘keeping it together’ exhausting.

And the weird thing is, it’s not as if I can feel my energy and resilience being drained in any given moment. No. Instead of creating a bodily tiredness that stems from sustained, productive physical effort, such as mowing a lawn or digging a garden, this exhaustion is mental, emotional, and energetic.

As a result, the profound weariness – at least as I’m experiencing it – sneaks up on me when I least expect it. It’s as if one moment I’m chugging along just fine and the next moment I’m struggling to take one more step up the steep hill we encounter every day during our walk.

Looking to Sheila

“What in the world’s the matter with me?” I wonder out loud. The expression on Karl’s face tells me he’s feeling it as well. We look to Sheila, ever the faithful hound, to save us. She happily (if obliviously) obliges, standing in the middle of the road halfway up the hill to take a breather. We kid ourselves that we’re stopping for Sheila, but we both know it’s as much for us as it is for her.

At the crest of the hill, the land flattens out and we’re greeted to the familiar expanse of the meadows where we often encounter the somewhat aloof horse that resides there. Sheila wastes no time picking up the pace that’s impressive, frankly. We wonder where she gets her energy and spunk at 15 years and 9 months. Yikes. Do the math.

It’s Everything, Of Course

Keeping it together in the midst of a global pandemic that some believe is a ‘hoax’ and thus refuse to inconvenience themselves enough to even wear a mask that might protect both us and them is a stress. Add to that the horror of watching our country cry out in pain only to be met by the angry fist of a petty, insecure tyrant. And then, lurking at the back of all of our minds is the question of whether the coronavirus is spreading like wildfire as thousands upon thousands of us march and gather in protest to the corrosive effects of systemic racism and abuse of power.

Efforts are made to practice social distancing and the vast majority wear masks…but still. The crowds are massive in some cities. The risk is huge. The price of demanding justice may become stunningly dear.

Yeah, it’s exhausting. But this is when we need to tap into our reserves. We need to drop into our core and remember what we treasure most in life. We need to find our own unique, spiritual center of calm resolve and strength. What color is it? What does it look like? Is it a place? A feeling? A knowing?

Hmm. Good questions for pondering in these volatile times.

I might be exhausted now, but I’m going to permit myself to sleep. Rest up. You should, too. We’re going to need our wits about us in the days ahead.

Sheila setting a good example – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-541)

Risk – Day 565

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Severe Storms Ahead – Photo: L. Weikel

Risk

Watching reports of the protests occurring nationwide in response to the reprehensible acts (or failure to act) of the four Minneapolis Police Department officers that resulted in the death of George Floyd is upsetting enough. But when you stop for a second and realize these protests and marches are taking place in the midst of a global pandemic, in the midst of a virtual plague, the fact that so many thousands of people are willing to put their lives at risk to demand justice speaks louder than any words they could chant.

A couple times today I heard or read someone express surprise that people are in fact gathering in these huge crowds, considering the considerable risk of spreading the coronavirus – particularly given that black and brown people seem to be harder hit, proportionately, than the rest of the population.*

But doesn’t their very willingness to risk exposure to the virus show how desperately our country needs profound systemic reformation – immediately?

What Trumps Who

If we’re honest with ourselves, black and brown lives are at risk no matter what. Sure, if they catch Covid-19, they’re at greater risk of being hospitalized and dying from it. But as things stand now, they’re at risk of being hospitalized or dying simply from being what they are. And yes, I’m consciously saying ‘what’ they are as opposed to ‘who’ they are.

For who they are doesn’t matter in the least. It’s all in the color of their skin, baby. That’s all that matters to far too many people who have access to instruments of power and lethal force, be they cell phones to call 9-1-1 on a ‘black man’ daring to call her out for breaking the rules to guns or choke holds or knees to the neck.

As we’ve nauseatingly seen time and again, people of color are not allowed to be in our country. They’re not permitted to play, or to jog, or to watch birds in the park. They’re not allowed to sleep in their own beds without being subject to lethal force when idiot police try to execute a no-knock search warrant in the middle of the night on the wrong apartment.

Mother Rage

As a mother myself, I cannot imagine the rage and fear experienced by mothers of children of color. And yet my sense that I would not be able to contain my outrage and terror is an indicator of my privilege. Why? Because my sense of justice burns hot for my babies. And yet mothers of black or brown children dare not risk expressing the rage I, as a white person, cannot imagine not expressing.

How do they live with that inexpressible terror and rage, simmering deep within? Any of us who contemplate such ongoing hell know – they can’t breathe. We can’t breathe.

There’s a plague hitting our country all right. While it exists all over the world, it is deep and ugly and pervasive all over the United States, but especially in places of power. And it’s time we  stood up, link our arms, and say in one voice, “NO MORE.”

We’re all brothers and sisters no matter the pigment of our skin. We bleed. We love. We grieve. We breathe.

We must actively take a stand. We must demand systemic reform. We must demand that this scourge be condemned and actively eradicated by those holding positions of power. Now. No more waiting. And if they won’t do it?

Vote. Them. Out.

And if that’s snatched away from us?

Cletus Contemplating the Impending Chaos – Photo: L. Weikel

 

*To be fair, the footage I’ve seen shows the vast majority of protesters wearing masks – and in many places, actually marching and assembling while maintaining some semblance of social distancing, which is no mean feat. This shows respect and reverence for life – theirs and those around them, as well as those with whom they live – which, I suspect is precisely why they’re willing to risk it all.

(T-546)

We Can’t Breathe – Day 563

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Photo: L. Weikel

We Can’t Breathe

This will not be a long post.

I spent the better part of this evening celebrating something wonderful – the third anniversary of my middle son’s marriage to my daughter-in-law Tiffany. We love each other. We maintained safe distance between us and they did not even come into our home. Rather, we sat outside enjoying the smell of freshly cut grass, the flicker of lots of candles on the porch, and the ribets of what must be massive bullfrogs in the pond behind our barn.

We used to be able to see each other often – once a week, if we were lucky. Tonight was only the second time in three months that all four of us were within twelve feet of each other at the same time.

A Realization

But while I was lucky enough to be able to celebrate this anniversary with my family, so many other people are suffering unimaginable and utterly senseless loss. And the thought of what those other people are feeling and experiencing takes my breath away.

I do not say this lightly.  For days and days following my son Karl’s death in 2011, I would find myself feeling as though there was a huge invisible weight on my chest. I’d never felt anything like it – even after my own parents had died. This grief was different.

As I may have written last night, when I watched the video of the incident in Central Park and then saw the still photos (and read the description) of what happened to George Floyd, I started feeling that weight in my chest again. It is as if the world is so heavy and so unimaginably cruel that it’s impossible to take another breath.

The Microcosm and the Macrocosm

After our celebration this evening, I came inside and watched some reporting on MSNBC. I watched the interview by Lawrence O’Donnell of George Floyd’s sister, Bridget Floyd. And I felt that weight again. I saw her shirt with her brother’s last words, “I can’t breathe.”

I remembered the words of the man in NYC, Eric Garner, who also said, “I can’t breathe,” and was killed by NYC police officers.

They are the microcosm. The macrocosm, I realized tonight, is the coronavirus, the root of Covid-19. How do I arrive at that? What are all of the people dying from Covid-19 feeling before they die? “I can’t breathe.” What do they say when they arrive in the emergency departments of hospitals all over the world? “I can’t breathe.” What is the state they are in when they’re put on ventilators? They can’t breathe.

Our world – but in particular our country – can no longer breathe. We are choking on our own injustice, inhumanity, greed, systemic racism, and simple cruelty.

Yes, it hit me tonight. There’s a theme to all of the suffering we’re seeing play out around us and within our homes, families, communities, and countries. We can’t breathe with the continued injustice we’re witnessing and experiencing.

We can’t breathe with the overwhelming cruelty we’re witnessing day in and day out, perpetrated by our supposed leaders and elected representatives. We can’t breathe if their actions truly reflect our hearts. Because there’s no way anyone can breathe and endure this awful, unbelievable, grief.

We must find a way to heal this. I know we can. But first, we must each take a deep breath ourselves. Feel that life force enter our bodies and ask how we can help others breathe, too.

(T-548)

Reprogramming – Day 560

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An idea just pecking its way out – Photo: L. Weikel

Reprogramming

I’m just having a thought – and I want to flesh it out, but I’m not going to have enough time to do it this evening. It’s a sort of weird sense that maybe we’re undergoing a reprogramming.

Ha ha – just rereading that first sentence I have to laugh at myself. “Lisa! You’re having a thought! Good on you, girl! Let’s celebrate!”

Seriously, though. I was just having a brief online conversation with a friend and fellow mesa-carrier. As you may recall, my mesa is my sacred medicine bundle, called a mesa (or misa) in the Q’ero tradition. Anyway, we were talking about the recent suggestion we’d both heard from a respected Paqo (the Q’ero word for shaman or medicine person) that we need to ‘reprogram’ our mesas.

Cosmic Unplug

While I want to contemplate this more extensively for myself, it dawned on me that perhaps at least part of what we’re all experiencing with this pandemic is the equivalent of Spirit unplugging all of us in a huge effort to get us all to re-set ourselves back to a baseline from which we can rebuild a new way of being in the world.

Admit it: how many of us have often freaked the heck out when our computers or cell phones went on the fritz and we couldn’t get them to respond appropriately no matter what we did? In the old days, especially, when these amazing electronic marvels would suddenly stop doing what we were just getting used to them doing, we’d want to melt down ourselves.

“Oh my God, it’s going to cost me an arm and a leg to get this repaired.”

Or “Oh good grief. What if I never get this thing running again? What will I do?”

Miracle Cure

And then our IT person (be it someone literally from the IT department where we work, or – more likely in my case, at least – one of my sons), would ask, “Did you shut it down and restart it?”

We all know, nine times out of ten, that was the Miracle Cure we were looking for.

Well, I’m wondering if the societal ramifications of the coronavirus are forcing us into an involuntary shutdown. Actually, the answer is an obvious yes in a literal sense. Our economies across the world, but especially here, have been forced into a shutdown in order to prevent the spread of the virus.

But I’m wondering if we might benefit from sitting with this concept and playing with it a bit more. How might we choose to ‘restart’ our lives, or what might we want to have our lives look like when we ‘restart’ if this shut down was meant to force us into rearranging the way we think about ourselves. Rethink how we want to BE in the world.

If we were able to reboot ourselves, how would our newly re-ordered internal perceptions line up?

(T-551)

A Second, Scarier, Quarantine – Day 559

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Storm Clouds, Portal of Blue – Photo: L. Weikel

A Second, Scarier, Quarantine

Only one short year ago, I wrote about the Spotted Lantern Fly (SLF), an invasive species that is decimating forests in Pennsylvania and spreading into other states as well. In that post, I discussed the quarantine our state is under and the efforts being made to eradicate this pest. But what I found most stunning when I re-read that post a few minutes ago was my use of the word quarantine – and the weird reality of this second, scarier, quarantine we find ourselves in.

My discussion of the need for us to work together to keep the SLF from spreading seems almost sweetly naïve. I was entreating us all to work together to kill off a bug with no natural predators in order to protect our forests. And of course, I assumed we would.

Surely we would work together to fight against the spread of a ‘bug’ with no natural predators for the good of us all. Right?

Kick Off Summer Right

I don’t need to tell anyone reading this post that Memorial Day Weekend 2020 is on track to be one of the strangest any of us have experienced in our lifetimes. As a direct result of our behavior, it could very well turn out to be potentially the deadliest of holiday weekends as well.

Only time will tell if that relates to humans as well as Spotted Lantern Flies.

I’d prefer to think this is a worse time for SLFs than my fellow two-leggeds, but it will take a lot of work to make it so. That’s especially true if humans feel the need to be petulant and wilful. Especially if we demand that nothing in our lives change in order to keep each other and ourselves healthy and ‘bug-free.’

Do Our Part

There are two ways we can do our part to make things worse for Spotted Lantern Flies than ourselves and our fellow humans.

The first is to make a point to be vigilant when outside, as surely all of us will be this weekend – and throughout the summer – to be on the lookout for the bug we can see: the Spotted Lantern Fly.

Here is a great article I read today encouraging all of us to take up the cause I advocated last year.  As I said then, and as I reiterate now, it takes all of us working together to beat this scourge.

Of course, the second way we can make sure this summer is worse for the SLF than for us humans is to kill (or at least minimize the spread) of the bug we can’t see. We need to use our heads. Not be dumb. The research is out there; it shows just how virulently the Coronavirus spreads through water droplets and aerosol particles that come out of our mouths and noses through coughing, laughing, talking, and singing.

Wear a mask when out in public. Stay away (by at least six feet) from people generally  – but especially from people who don’t care enough about anyone but themselves to wear a mask.

This isn’t a case of freedom. Or liberty. Requiring people to wear masks when it is scientifically proven that masks can prevent up to 80% of the spread of Covid-19 is a simple matter of public health and welfare. The right to live in safety from the spread of a highly communicable disease (that can be carried by people who have no symptoms and may not even know they have it) ‘trumps’ the so-called ‘infringement’ on the right of anyone to refuse to wear a mask.

The rights are not equal. You do not have the right to kill me. Or my friends. Or my relatives. Or even those I may not like or do not know.

Kill the Bugs – Not Each Other

While I’m not a big fan of killing anything, truth be told, I would much prefer we all focus our attention on kicking the need for quarantines of any kind. Let’s kill those Spotted Lantern Flies. (Here’s another link to good info on this.) Let’s also kill the spread of the Coronavirus. Every time we wear a mask we do our part to starve the beast.

Call me naïve, but I do think we can work together to save us all. I’m not liking this second, scarier, quarantine. But let’s hope I’m not writing about a third quarantine next year at this time.

(T-552)

Cycles – Day 537

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Illuminated Willow – Photo: L. Weikel

Cycles

I’m sitting here in my usual spot on our couch. Our front door is open and I can hear a powerful wind whipping through the tops of the 30’ pines across the road. The huge stand of trees is actually dying out, much to the relief of my sinuses, which have been dearly taxed by the pollen that’s wafted from these trees for decades. The quantity of now barren branches of these huge sentinels makes me sad nevertheless. I’m reminded, of course, that everything in life comes down to cycles.

Everywhere we look in our lives, cycles prevail. Indeed, our lives themselves are ultimately the cycles that both drive and haunt us at the same time.

Some cycles are much greater than a simple human life; and by that I mean they play out over periods of time measuring much longer than even the longest of human lives. And of course there are other cycles that begin and end in the blink of an eye.

Endings and Beginnings

Of course, if we’re talking about cycles, then surely we must consider beginnings and endings. Endings and beginnings. We really can’t have one without the other because nothing lasts forever, except eternity, I suppose.

Pine trees have life cycles, as do maples and dogwoods, sycamores and weeping willows.

Recently, while I feel they’ve been staring me in the face almost everywhere I turn, I’ve been contemplating a couple of cycles in particular. It’s fascinating to realize just how unwilling we are to let go of the familiar – even when we know it is both time to do so and ultimately for the best.

Global Scale

I am sure that all of us are capable of pointing to half a dozen cycles we’ve taken for granted in our lives that have been completely upended in the past six weeks or so. Cycles we didn’t even realize were cycles – until they were no more.

One cycle that we’re currently experiencing is actually reflected in the stars. Well, the planets, more specifically – an astrological cycle. And the similarities of configurations that were present in 1918 and are occurring once again in 2020 are remarkable.

It seems to me that it’s incumbent upon us all to learn from the past. If we don’t make a point of learning from and evolving as a result of what’s transpired before, won’t we end up finding ourselves just repeating the same patterns, possibly even mistakes, over and over? Wouldn’t we rather evolve? Isn’t that ultimately the point of life?

Check out this latest astrological Pele Report by Kaypacha. There’s a lot of good stuff in it, including similarities of cycles from 100 years ago, as well as links to other sources. The mantra resonated with me right down to a cellular level. Maybe it will with you, too.

(T-574)

Two Weeks From Now – Day 531

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Photo: L. Weikel

Two Weeks From Now

Well, it sure seemed like today was a huge test for a lot of us here in the United States – even a bigger test than the special election in Wisconsin a few weeks ago. And I have to wonder what consequences we’ll be witnessing two weeks from now.

I was astonished when I drove to my office today (where I didn’t encounter a single person, by the way). But the traffic was shocking. Cabin fever, it would seem, has hit our country and hit it hard.

Not only was there a steady stream of traffic racing past my office for several hours today, but when Karl and I took a walk early this evening, our neighbors revealed what a hellacious day they’d had. Apparently people are losing their minds in the state and county parks.

Give a Little, Take a Lot

All of you who’ve been reading my posts know that I am an ardent advocate of people getting out into nature and taking walks, biking, whatever, as much as possible. In fact, when this pandemic was just in its infancy (as far as us realizing that social distancing was going to be our single best tool in keeping transmission rates down), I voiced upset over Pennsylvania’s initial choice to close the parks.

Well, I stand corrected. I had a lot more faith that people would use their damn heads if and when permitted to use our state and county parks. No. Such. Luck.

We have people parking in places that were never meant to be used as such. (Let us hope no one slips and falls at High Rocks, since there’s a huge risk that emergency vehicles wouldn’t even be able to get to the park, there are so many cars parked bumper to bumper on the sides of the roads leading to the park.)

And then there are the roving packs of people. There were groups of 10-12-14 people walking together today, laughing and having a great time together – as if they haven’t a care in the world. Not a face mask in sight.

They were given the opportunity to spread their legs and get out into nature – and they are taking too much. Those packs of people walking shoulder to shoulder up our country roads, blocking those roads with their cars, and not even seeming to care one whit about the people they’re ‘sharing’ trails with (or parking in – at their own homes), are reverting right back to the selfish ways that got us here in the first place.

We’ll See

Another example of this is reflected in the news reports that beaches in Florida and California are teeming with people desperate to ‘get back to normal’ and ‘soak in some rays.’

Well, for as much benefit as sunlight provides in killing the virus, I have a feeling, two weeks from now, we may see that sunshine wasn’t enough.

Case in point: just fifteen days following the election in Wisconsin on April 7th, 19 people have tested positive for the coronavirus.

I guess we’ll see how things fare two weeks from now. The worst part of all of this is that it’s not just people taking risks with their own lives. That would be one thing. But it’s another thing entirely when people decide to risk giving the virus to others. More and more, we’re discovering that asymptomatic people can easily be unwittingly spreading the virus like wildfire.

If you haven’t been tested, how do you know you’re not the ticking time bomb that will explode someone else’s life?

Two weeks from now will be interesting. I hope it’s not terribly depressing.

(T-580)

Unexpected Opportunity – Day 528

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Last Night’s New Moon/Lyrid Night Sky – Photo: L. Weikel

Unexpected Opportunity

When I woke up this morning, I never guessed I’d be presented with such an unexpected opportunity. But there it was – a text message, asking if I would be willing to be interviewed for a segment on ‘Spirituality in the Time of Covid-19.’

The sheer fact that I was given the chance to voice my perspective is surprising enough. But on KYW Newsradio? (Yes, all of you from the tristate area surrounding Philadelphia, say the jingle aloud with me:  “KYW, Newsradio…1060!”)

Nope. I have to admit it; I didn’t see that coming.

But when I received that text message this morning, I immediately flashed to the fact that today is the new moon. New beginnings. A perfect time for planting the seeds of what we want to create in the future.

My Passion

I love the world that has opened up for me over the past 35 years through my studies of, and experiences in, shamanism. Embracing my relationship with Mother Earth and the interconnectedness of all beings, and exploring the different realms that exist around us, changed the course of my life.

My passion for this perspective on life and my direct experience of astonishing shifts in both my relationship to life as well as those of my family, friends, and clients, strikes a chord in me that is difficult to shush once you get me going.

Pretty Low Key

Nevertheless, overall, I think I come across to most people as pretty low key when it comes to my relationship with ‘the spiritual realm.’ I don’t shout from the rooftop the nature of my work. I don’t try to persuade people to ‘believe’ anything in particular. But I do love introducing people to our inherent ability as humans to access information from and establish relationships with unseen forces and archetypal presences that want us to remember and recognize that they have sentience.

Whew. That was saying a lot. Luckily, I didn’t wax quite so rhapsodic in my interview.

Speaking Out

Given that I tend to mostly only speak of this passion to my family, friends, and clients (and to those of you who care enough to read this blog), I have to admit, when I was invited to participate in the interview today, my first inclination was to say no.

But I do try to ‘walk my talk.’ And given everything I’ve been writing about lately, the choice seemed clear and unequivocal – even if it did make me really nervous.

So I just wanted to let you all know that I planted the seed of one of my intentions today. And I’m so incredibly grateful for the unexpected opportunity to do so.

I hope you planted some as well.

Maybe you’ll catch the segment if you tune in tomorrow.

Photo: L. Weikel

(T-583)