Dolphin

Crikey!  – Day 100

Posted on by Lisa Weikel 2 Comments

 

Crikey! 

Bet you guys are thinking I started this post out with that very English expletive because I hit the triple digits. Amiright?

And you would be forgiven in thinking thus, since I am pretty chuffed (that’s my Irish talking) to realize I’ve actually reached the 100 mark.

But alas, my Crikey! derives from the circumstances depicted in my photo, above.

That, my friends, is Good Girl. She of the 306,500+ mileage fame, who has been flirting with the RT of D. (Indeed, while relentlessly hammering me with the ‘check engine’ light, loud screechy beep and Red Triangle of Death on the day I’d written that post, she’d recently taken pity on me. I thought maybe she was calming down or perhaps just choosing to be gentle with me as long as I didn’t turn on the heat.)

An Oh-So-Short-Lived Reprieve

Let me set the scene: I stopped to pick up a 40 lb. bag of sunflower seeds for my very spoiled birds. We’re running low, and with the forecast calling for snow and ice again tomorrow, I wanted to make sure I have enough to fill all of our feeders. So I stopped at my local Agway store and the strapping young man who waited on me volunteered to haul the bag out to the car for me.

I say ‘haul it out’ for me, but let’s face it: if I had carried it out to the car, it would have been an act of hauling. For him, it was a toss. A nonchalant sling over his shoulder, as if it were a sack of feathers as opposed to food for the feathered. In fact, as I held the door for him I teased, “Oh sure. Look at you. Being all he-man for the little old lady. Showing off your brawn.”

We laughed.

I stepped up to the back of my car and went to pinch the handle that opens the trunk of my Prius and “Crrraaaaaacckkk!” I was suddenly holding in my hand the entire back assembly of my car. I’d literally just ripped the ass off my car.

The young Agway man stepped back, a look of astonishment on his face. (Did I also detect a hint of fear cross his brow like a passing storm cloud?) “Umm, well…” he stuttered as I struggled mightily – mightily! – to curb the expletives that were begging to be released from my mouth like hounds chasing a rabbit. “I think you have me beat.”

Oh. My. Freaking…

There I was, holding this big chunk of my car in my hand, with nowhere to place it because it was essentially dangling by a sole clump of electrical wires. It was like a piece of broken pottery; I could see where each of the myriad points of attachment had simply sheared off.

I tried putting it back on, fitting it together like the pieces of a puzzle. While it did all technically fit together, it didn’t look stable. And when I sort of leaned against it and tried to open the hatch? Nope. Wasn’t happening. Yes, I could fit it back together. But it didn’t matter – every single piece of plastic and metal that comprised that back assembly had snapped.

He placed the sack of seeds across my back seat, marveling that he’d never seen anything like that before. We decided that duct tape was in order.

So there you have it. I discovered as I drove away that the back door isn’t sure whether its closed or ajar, so it blinks the ‘door ajar’ light and the inner dome light flickers on and off as I drive off into the sunset.

I turned my dome light off so the battery doesn’t drain over night. I can no longer lock my car, because the system screeches, telling me one of the doors is ajar.

My car is giving me a message, and I think it’s a lot bigger message than just “You need a new car.”

And don’t you know it? DOLPHIN, telling me to BREATHE, was my ‘underneath’ card today. Again.

P.S. – My mesa asked to stay out again tonight to bask. Or cool her heels. Chill the hell out? I don’t know. Take a look at the weird photo I took last night after opening Sacred Space and placing her in the moonlight:

(T-1011)

Breathe Through It – Day Ninety Eight

Posted on by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment

 

Breathe Through It         

My pinky finger is hurting even more tonight. Why? Because I apparently didn’t give it enough attention by writing about it last night. No. It yearned for more, as many a rogue pinky does; so it made more of a hang nail apparent early this afternoon, which I rewarded by practically maiming myself by gnawing at it with a vengeance not seen since the movie in which that guy was mauled by a bear. Ah yes, The Revenant.

I’ve even succumbed to the suggestion made by a few of you: application of a Band-Aid. For the record: I don’t have any WonderWoman Band-Aids. So I traced the weird outline created by the blood-letting that resulted from my gnashing – and voilà – a work of art. And given that I’m an Earth Pig, there’s no way I was going to wrap my pinky in a Band-Aid that resembles a strip of bacon. But thanks for the suggestion (I think?)

In the meantime, in case anyone’s wondering, I keep picking the damn Dolphin card. On Friday, I picked Dolphin squared (you’ll recall, that means I picked Dolphin right side up, with a blank card on the bottom of the deck). Then Saturday I chose Skunk reversed with Dolphin underneath. And today? I chose Dolphin reversed/Buffalo.

So, if I were one to ‘judge’ the cards (which I try not to do, but when I become petulant, I’ve been known to engage in some pithy repartee with my ego), I’d say I’ve impressively gone from bad to worse in record time. Or more honestly, from great to crappy.

Dolphin Up, Dolphin Down, Dolphin Inside Out

Dolphin is all about breathing, which is ironic, given that my 1111 Devotion  is dedicated to Karl, who drowned. Yes indeed, it is true; we cannot live without oxygen for more than a few minutes. And quite frankly, I feel sad every time I read those words because they remind me of him, and frustrated as they apply to me. I’m literally starting to feel claustrophobic and my breathing becomes a little shallow when I look around and consider how complicated everything feels at the moment.

Particularly when I read (as I did so long ago , upon choosing Dolphin reversed another time) – and received such startling clarity from it:

“…Dolphin was given a new job. He became the carrier of messages of our progress.”

And “…This can be a time when you are to link with Great Spirit and bring answers to your own questions or to those of others. (…)”

As I said yesterday, I’m getting dial tones in abundance, both for myself and for many of the people around me who seem to be struggling as well.

So breathe, I tell myself. Stop going after your pinky as if you’ve chosen the Beaver card – or Bear.

Hoping Clarity Will Arrive With the Full Moon

I realize this post has been a bit haphazard. But the full moon is approaching and, with it, perhaps some elucidation will arrive on Tuesday as well. At the very least, I’m hoping a shift will take place and answers will begin revealing themselves.

While I may seem as if I’m kvetching, I want to assure you: I have the utmost faith that my path will be made clear. I’m just sharing the love with you guys because it feels important somehow not to sugar coat this stuff.

I certainly, definitely, without question, and unequivocally do not have all the answers. But my ‘peeps,’ as I lovingly but perhaps slightly irreverently call them, do. Always. Especially when I’m asking on behalf of others. But if I’m saying always, I mean always (even for me).

My point in sharing my anguish is to foster transparency. Too often these days, I get the feeling we give up if something doesn’t come through at the tap of a finger or the moment we ask.

We need to breathe through it. We need to relax. We need to be still and listen to the signals being sent to us.

Thanks for keeping me company – and for holding the faith with me.

thehonestbison.com

(T-1013)

Following My Sonar – Day Four

Posted on by Lisa Weikel 4 Comments

Dolphin reversed/Jaguar

I suspect this is going to be anti-climactic, since I’ve delayed writing about it for two days; nevertheless, here is the short tale of how my “pick” for the day on Sunday started the ball rolling toward this mammoth freaking blogging extravaganza. Commitment.

As I mentioned in my Devotion post, when I asked Karl (my husband), how we could best honor our son, Karl’s, life, the “answer” immediately flashed in my head: “Karl must do art and I must write.” I knew it in an instant, and I knew it to be true.

But of course this seemed obvious to me. Our son was relentlessly creative – and probably more talented than both of his parents combined. So yeah, I understood why each of us engaging in our favored creative outlets would be the best way to “honor” his life. So, even though I knew this “answer” had flashed distinctly into my mind, I wasn’t convinced the answer was pure.

Following this initial conversation, Karl and I fell silent, lost in our private thoughts, savoring our early morning coffee, and ultimately choosing our Medicine Cards© for the day. As I described in my “Devotion” post, the intention I held as I chose my cards for the day was specifically, “How can I be of greatest service to the memory of my Bug Pie?” And thus, I chose Dolphin reversed with Jaguar underneath.

As I’ve described before, Karl and I have chosen Medicine Cards© virtually every day for the past 28 years or so. We take the top card we choose as the main card for our day, and we look to the bottom card for “context” or to help us understand better the application or interpretation of the top card. I’ve also described how I make a point of reading the entire description of the top card chosen, in spite of the fact that we’ve been engaging in this practice every day for so many years. (For expediency’s sake, though, we never read the bottom card – we just take into account our general knowledge of the essential characteristics of that card and see if it helps us understand what the top card is telling us.)

As I read Dolphin, I was acutely aware this day of the irony that Dolphin begins with these words:

“Dolphin speaks to us of the breath of life, the only thing that humans cannot go without for more than a few minutes. We can live without water and food for days, but oxygen is the source of our sustenance. …”

Hmmm, yes. It was oxygen, specifically, that Karl was forced to go without – at his peril.

The next part of the essay on Dolphin that spoke to me was:

“Dolphin was given a new job. He became the carrier of messages of our progress. (…) This can be a time when you are to link with Great Spirit and bring answers to your own questions or to those of others.”

The reversal of Dolphin didn’t make a lot of sense to me vis-à-vis my question, except when I read:

“Pay close attention to your health and your feelings. (…) Another message of contrary Dolphin is that many signals are carried through universal tides or waves, and you may be failing to use your sonar.”

It was at this point that the specific word Devotion first came to mind. It popped into my head and I knew without question that I’d not been paying attention to my feelings. I’ve felt something big approaching, some profound change in the nature or scope of my healing work, or my teaching, or perhaps even my writing (which if I’m honest has languished since publishing Owl Medicine in 2001), but I wasn’t “getting it.” I’ve honestly been wondering what “change” was on the horizon, yearning for it to be revealed.

I wasn’t getting it. Or maybe, I wasn’t doing it.

Yet it wasn’t simply the sense that I’ve been ‘failing to use my sonar’ (or failing to listen to what I should be focusing upon and acting upon it). It was also the fact that Jaguar was “underneath,” coloring and adding nuance to this scenario. Jaguar – an archetype profoundly dear to me, both personally and in my work in the shamanic realm. Jaguar – which represents, for me at least, the qualities of integrity and impeccability; qualities that I aspire to live by and hold as the guiding standards for my behavior; qualities that perhaps I wasn’t applying to the message being sent by Dolphin.

It was then that I realized that, yes, the best way I could be of greatest service to Karl’s memory is to write – to not only engage in my creative outlet but in so doing be a “message carrier” – but that I must do so with the integrity and impeccability I hold so dear: I must engage this writing with DEVOTION.

This was (and is) big for me, as I give my writing the least priority of anything else I do.

Thus, as I read Dolphin and its reversal, and coupled it with the exacting standards of Jaguar underneath, I had the feeling that I am being called to a Devotion; to engage in an Act of Power in Karl’s honor: writing a blog post every single day, no matter how long or short, for at least one year.

So where did the leap to 1111 days come from?

Tomorrow. I’ll save that part for tomorrow.

(T-1107)

A Quickie on Dolphin – Day Three (T-1108)

Posted on by Lisa Weikel 4 Comments

A Quickie on Dolphin

Tomorrow I expect to have some extended time to myself which will permit me to focus exclusively on writing about those mysterious “signs” I said I received on Sunday, which urged me to embark upon this 1111 Devotion journey.

One of them was choosing “Dolphin” reversed with Jaguar underneath from my Medicine Cards.

I’m not going to get into how I interpreted those two cards, both with respect to their configuration to each other and how I felt they pertained to the concept of “DEVOTION” in this post. I really want to spend more time on that post than I have tonight.

So I will share with you the additional “insight” I had on what Dolphin was conveying to me when I chose it on Sunday – an insight which actually came to me in the very earliest of moments this morning (Wednesday), when I found myself feeling some regret over the fact that it seems to be taking me a long time to write about stuff that I should’ve just blurted out in my initial post.

As soon as I started realizing that I was feeling a bit bad and like I’m “behind” already, some words I know that are associated with Dolphin popped into my head: Pattern and rhythm.

And that quickly, I realized Dolphin is still guiding me. Indeed, it’s reassuring me.

I am at the very beginning of this quest. It’s OK if it’s not unfolding exactly how I might hope or expect. One of the things this 1111 Devotion commitment may be teaching me is how to bring a consistent pattern and rhythm to both this blog and my writing in a greater sense.

The realization that Dolphin was bringing me more messages than I even realized initially, lessons deeply important to me on a personal level, made me smile and breathe a sigh of both relief and gratitude for the magic that infuses my life.

www2.padi.com