giving and receiving Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Sent or Delivered? – Photo: L. Weikel

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)

Christmas Lights

I walked outside this evening and was entranced by the exquisite clarity of the night sky. A cool breeze wrapped around me, but I noticed that it wasn’t harboring a cold edge. Rather, it was refreshing and soothing; it almost seemed happy to see me outside, looking up, drinking in the brilliance of the half moon above me. The stars seemed unusually bright and twinkly.

The wind sighed in the massive boughs of the pines across the road.

I don’t know what it was about this evening that felt so different. But it did. And it does.

I went outside for the express purpose of taking a photo of our smattering of Christmas lights which we never took down and recently decided to reignite for a bit. Obviously, my purpose in venturing outside to take a photo of the lights was to share them with you.

Giving and Receiving

There’s probably something to that – a connection between my desire to share the simple pleasure of colorful lights decorating the darkness and the unexpected blessing of feeling seen and greeted, dazzled even, by the totality of the Earth, wind, sky, moon, and stars.

The entire experience has left me near tears. Perhaps just more of those weird feelings. Or perhaps its something else. Something bigger.

It feels bigger. The stillness feels bigger. The precious interconnection between everything – all of us – feels more acute to me.

My Intention

The point of tonight’s post was simply to share the joy it gave Karl and me to turn our Christmas lights back on and bring some color and whimsy to the darkness.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the night; I love darkness, especially when our eyes adjust and we realize it’s not dark at all.

But right now it feels like we could all use a little reminder. It’s funny. The lights we strung outside this past Christmas season were not traditional Christmas colors at all. And lighting up the night right now, they seem particularly appropriate: orange, green, blue and red. What an odd conglomeration. Brilliant colors nevertheless – illuminating the night.

And if I hadn’t chosen to write this post tonight and wanted to include a photo of our Christmas lights, I never would have experienced the embrace of Nature I received.

So…thank you.

(T-604)