random Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Sent or Delivered

It’s always amazing to me how Spirit will sometimes turn the most mundane objects or tasks into opportunities to send (or is it deliver?) messages. I guess the answer to that question (sent or delivered) depends entirely upon the recipient. Spirit can send a million messages – or a single message a million times – but that act alone doesn’t ensure a single one will be noticed, read, heard, or received in any way.

A piece of garbage that blows out of the back of a garbage truck can remain on the side of the road for days or weeks, or even much longer than that. It might get whisked into a roadside gully where a thunderstorm washes it into a stream, ultimately delivering it into a river. It might even make it to the ocean if it doesn’t get caught on a rock or buried in silt like the skeleton of a dinosaur.

There’s a chance that piece of garbage was sent as a message for someone to find and pick up. But if the intended recipient chose not to walk before the rain or went a different direction – or just wasn’t paying attention – then that sent message might never get delivered.

Ah, which tells me that it takes the efforts of two for Spirit to actually deliver a message. Spirit’s acting alone in sending is only the first affirmative act. But we need to do our part if we’re to give Spirit the satisfaction of claiming delivery. We need to see it and recognize the effort as the message it is.

Act On It?

It’s romantic to think that all messages we receive we act upon, but let’s face it: we don’t. I think we’re probably lucky to bat .200 or so in just recognizing a message has been sent and we snagged it as it passed by.

But following it? Actually listening to the message? Yikes. That entails a lot of steps. Receiving the message, recognizing it as such (and not dismissing it as a random piece of garbage), realizing it could actually be a message intended for us on some miraculous level, and then choosing to respect the message. And by that I mean respecting it enough to take the time to contemplate just what the message might mean and how it could apply specifically to our life.

Is this meant for me?

How does it apply?

Does it answer a question I’ve been mulling over?

Does it make sense?

A Picture or a Word

All of which makes me wonder just what I was being told and shown this evening. I believe the application calls for some contemplation. But no matter what, “Message sent – and delivered.”

Bifurcated Sunset – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-206)

Karl Checking In – Photo: L. Weikel

Checking In

Every once in a while I’ll see something or hear a song on the radio (or one that randomly plays on my iPhone) that makes me feel like Karl is checking in on us. Shortly after he died, his energy was very present. I didn’t have to be psychic to notice his efforts to communicate and get our attention.

After some weeks and months, he seemed to settle into using my iPod (and then my iPhone, which had the same music library as the iPod) as his favorite, most effective means of communication. Indeed, I swear there were hundreds of songs on my device that I only heard for the first time when they began playing as I drove my car with the song set on ‘random.’ The uncannily perfect lyrics to so many songs that played – and my astonishment each time as I realized what the lyrics were actually saying and how they could easily have been coming out of his mouth at that moment – were simultaneously heart breaking and soul mending.

As the months have turned to years, Karl’s presence has diminished. I hoped it wouldn’t, obviously. While I could no longer put my arms around him or look in his eyes as we talked or see the flash of his smile, I could still hear his voice. Through the songs he chose and even the order in which he literally would have a play list lined up for me sometimes, he conveyed sarcasm, wit, occasional regret, sadness, and almost always somewhere in there an auric iteration of love.

Occasionally, he would choose songs that utterly freaked me out in their uncanny relevance to something I might be thinking about or experiencing that no one else in the world knew about.

Rainbows

There are certain animals that cross my path (and the paths of our nuclear family) that have particular significance or connection to Karl. Rainbows, too, seemed to show up as exclamation points or reinforcements to other communications, often appearing literally on objects that were connected to him. He managed to arrange for some pretty elaborate displays of light a couple of times, almost always when there was an especially important (to him) message to convey.

Even the rainbows have dwindled in occurrence over the past year or so.

I try not to wish for more frequent communications any longer. Given my experiences in other realms, I am acutely aware that life goes on. Not just for us here on Earth, but for those who shed their bodies here and move on to the next opportunity for their soul’s evolution.

I do sense, however, that he checks in on us every once in a while.

Which leads me to the photo accompanying this post. I took it the morning of the inauguration. I have not seen a rainbow in this location in our living room prior to seeing the one in this photo.

Karl and I saw it at almost exactly the same moment. We pointed, laughed, and said, “Karl’s here.”

We sensed it was a sign that hope was on the horizon. But no matter how things work out, now or in the future, the knowledge within our hearts that life survives death changes everything.

(T-309)