I am loved – Photo: L. Weikel

Themes and Messages

I should’ve started writing this post on themes and messages earlier. It’s getting late and I’ve been a total hog this weekend, indulging in sushi (yes, Karl does know my weakness – witness his Valentine’s Day ‘score’ this year, too) and two – two! – birthday cakes.

Last night I baked myself one of ‘Carol’s chocolate cakes,’ so Karl and I could celebrate all weekend. You know. Be totally decadent and use my birthday to justify the massive stress eating we’ve been engaging in lately. <<Ahem>> As you can see from the photo below, someone very neatly ‘edged’ along the entire width of the cake tonight with her fork. I think it looks decorative.

I couldn’t help it.

But to make matters exponentially worse (not a good word to use, come to think of it) – lo and behold! – my d-i-l Tiffany baked and delivered to me this gorgeous and delectable berry torte with whipped cream and cream cheese icing!

Oh my goodness…take a look at that baby. Tell me you don’t gain five pounds just by looking at it.

All of which is to say that I’m sitting here on the couch in a semi-stupor.

Last Year/This Year

There are two sets of pretty interesting themes and messages that I noted last year on my birthday – both of which I want to reflect upon. But if I’m honest, I fear the sugar and fat coursing through my system at this point is not conducive to me writing anything even remotely coherent.

So I will ‘set up’ the stories, if you will, and promise to flesh them out for you in future posts.

Living Breathing Messengers

Both last year and this year, oddly, I was pulled from my slumber by two different types of birds. Last year, a pileated woodpecker literally hammered its way into my dreams until I awakened and saw it clinging to the bark of the maple tree just outside my bedroom window. What a sight that was! They dwarf most of the other birds that hang out around (or swoop through) our yard.

This year it was a completely different bird – but one that seems to have been ‘stalking’ me for a couple weeks now. The fact that I’d noticed this bird had left me a good handful of feathers from all different points along our walks over the past few weeks, flown across my path a number of times, and simply made itself quite obvious, I had to smile as I lay in bed this morning, my consciousness rising up from the depths, when I realized the insistent voice I kept hearing was this very same bird.

Mind you: for weeks, I’ve noticed it and thought solely of the one snippet of knowledge I have about the ‘message’ of this bird. I kept telling myself I needed to look it up, but never seemed to get around to it. I was also dismissing that it was really showing up for me, talking myself out of the mystical sense I was feeling when I kept finding its feathers, and telling myself that these birds have always been in our vicinity (which is true). I used that fact to actively attempt to deny that there was anything ‘special’ about their appearance this year.

Medicine Card Messengers

The other comparison I wanted to make, which if I type fast I may be able to spit out and thus not belabor were my Medicine Card* ‘picks’ on my birthday last year and now this.

I had to look up what I chose on my birthday last year. Luckily I write them down every morning when Karl and I sit, have our coffee, choose our cards for the day.

Last year I chose Dog/Lizard. Dog’s primary message is all about loyalty. Loyalty to ourselves, loyalty to others – and loyalty that’s shown (or not) to us by others.

When I looked that up just moments ago, I had to tip my hat to Spirit. Without question, the lessons I learned about loyalty and how it played out in my life were the biggest, most difficult, challenging, hurtful, and enlightening ones of my entire year. I certainly didn’t see them coming – at least not from the direction they came – and as they unfolded, their very nature was so surreal that the whole situation felt like a very bad dream.

This year’s pick, today’s cards, were Armadillo/Snake.

Given everything that’s going on all around us, from the pandemic to the personal, these cards feel like an amazingly perfect selection as a theme for my personal year. The need to cultivate my skills in setting and defining boundaries – both to give myself space and to protect myself – and shedding a number of things (beliefs, roles, relationships), including perhaps the outer identity I’ve had for some time, in order to reveal a new aspect of myself and my path.

Intriguing.

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(T-607)