Fall Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Rapturous Beauty

I’ve always loved living where four distinct seasons occur. And I’ve never quite been able to name a favorite season. Each has its own unique charm and reasons to love it. But I have to say, this fall, beginning just at the equinox (September 22) and persisting into this October, has kissed us with some rapturous beauty.

On our walk this evening, it was almost as if Karl and I were struck dumb with the surreal beauty that kept unfolding around us. Funny thing is, not only was it unfolding around us, but it also felt as though it were wrapping us up, cocooning us, enfolding us in a warm embrace of hope.

Propaganda

We are being subjected to some pretty thick and intense propaganda lately. We’re being whipsawed from one dire situation to another, one outrageous slashing of norms and decency to the next.

As a result, we’re left feeling vulnerable and raw.

And what message do we keep receiving day after day? Take a walk. Look up. Immerse yourself in nature. Listen to the crickets. Notice the clouds. Watch the wind swirl the leaves off the trees and carry them miles away.

Hopefully, this pandemic has shifted all of our lives enough to make every single one of us realize just how important maintaining a direct connection with Mother Nature.

If you’re still on the fence, I offer you the two photos I’m including in this post. Look at them. They are unfiltered.

Open Your Heart

I love how rays of light piercing the sky the way they are in the photo at the top of this post make me feel that hope is alive and well and an utterly vital sense to have and maintain.

And then – I don’t know what to tell you. The photo below, which is simply a shot of some of the wonderful trees lining the dirt road that we walk along every night, makes my heart want to break wide open in an outpouring of joy.

I realize that sounds radical and a bit weird. It’s not necessarily a unique or special photograph in many senses of the word. But there’s something about it. Every time I look at it, I feel a tug in my heart. I almost feel tears starting to form. I can’t explain it.

But maybe you will feel it too.

And if so, then my work for the evening is complete.

Sunset through the Trees – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-417)

Tough Decision

I made a tough decision last night after I posted my missive for the evening and climbed into bed, threading my legs around and between the two dogs and Karl, propping my head and back up on pillows, and petting Tigger, who always hops right up into my face every evening for his “alone-time with Mommy, pet and chin scratch while she reads” ritual.

This post’s peevishness is not linked to the considerable gyrations I go through each night in order to claim even a quarter of the acreage in our queen-sized bed. Those actually make me feel surrounded by love and affection.

No, it stems from the book I’ve been reading: Fall* by Neal Stephenson.

I feel like I’ve been reading this book since Christmas. And while I am a slow reader, I’m also not a person who easily gives up on a book. I wanted to like it; I appreciated that it must’ve taken quite an effort to write. And there were parts that caught my interest. But then the other narrative would kick in and I would feel almost mind-numbingly bored. Ugh. I’d endure those parts, hoping against hope that they’d undoubtedly lead to something worthwhile. I thought I could hang in for the pay dirt.

But last night I made the tough decision. I was putting this book down. (And as I reread that last sentence, I realize it can almost be read as if I decided to take it to the vet.) It just was not serving my needs which, to be completely honest, have particularly shifted in recent weeks.

I need a distraction. I yearn to escape from reality, and revel in another story line than the one we’re living in, which is only going to become more and more like a disaster movie in the days ahead.

Delightful Discovery

I made that fateful decision last night as I put Fall* down on the floor beside my bed. “Done,” I said out loud. “I’m done with you.”

Imagine my surprise this afternoon when I walked past our bookcase (mind you, I have a stack of about five books beside my bed, so why was my glance wandering onto the bookshelf?) when my eyes immediately lit upon a title that just clicked into place: The Book of Dust*.

I pulled it out. It’s by Philip Pullman. I love the earlier series he wrote: His Dark Materials, which starts with The Golden Compass*.

I’m so excited! What a delightful discovery in this time of dystopic reality.

And before you judge me for not completing Fall, I have to tell you: I’ve read 483 pages of this sucker and I’m still not feeling compelled by it. 483 pages! And there are exactly 400 more pages in this tome. So…I feel I’ve given it more than honorable shot at winning me over.

But you know what? I – just – can’t.

We’re literally in the midst of a horrific pandemic. I’m not going to waste one more night reading a book that doesn’t have me captivated. Life’s too short.