Lake Baikal Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Angels’ Wings

Today was an exquisite winter day. Bright sunlight reflected off the choppy, muddy waves of the Lenape Sipu as it flowed toward the freedom of the Atlantic, while wisps of clouds that reminded me of angels’ wings inscribed the azure sky above with a fine-tipped nib.

The weird thing is, I’m not one to see angelic forms all that often. Most of you probably know me well enough to appreciate I’m more of a person who sees animals in the clouds than anything else. Angels, not so much.

I could kick myself now because I flirted with stopping in the middle of the road when I first spotted the wispy figures, but thought better of it. While the road I was on was deserted in that moment, there was nowhere for me to pull off safely. It didn’t feel like a wise move to try to get a good shot of those angels’ wings. I would’ve had to get out of the car to get a clear photo of them without telephone poles or wires marring the image.

Shared Perfection

My delight in walking along the bank of my beloved Delaware River was heightened by the fact that I was in the company of dear friends not seen in person in a very long time.

The funny thing was, as we walked and talked and caught up on each others’ lives, even more wispy hints of angelic forms appeared above our heads. Already regretting my choice not to stop and take a couple photos of the sky earlier, I did manage to snag one photo as we walked.

I didn’t want to take my phone out of my pocket – even to take photos. I just wanted us to be together without any electronic devices distracting or disturbing us. As a result, I only have the single photo, above, to share with you tonight.

Must Be Something to It

But I have to say, for all my resistance, there must have been something ‘angelic’ going on. Not only did I see them on my way to meet my friends, but also, as the photo above attests, they continued showing up in the sky above as we walked.

The final moment causing me to surrender and say, “OK, angels are definitely present and watching over us today,” came when we entered a rock and gem shop at the conclusion of our visit. One of my friends took me to see a type of stone that was persistently calling her name. And there they were again – angels’ wings. The crystalline structure was precisely reminiscent of angels’ wings; and yet I hesitated to state the obvious. (Because, again, angels aren’t usually my ‘thing.’)

But there it was, even written in the description of the stone itself. Seraphinite. Seraphim.

Exquisite.

It seems only right to accept that our visit was smiled upon and watched over by the angelic realm. I call upon that realm every single time I open Sacred Space. Why wouldn’t they generously bless a reunion of friends?

(T+75)

Photo by L. Weikel

Remedial Instagram

Good grief, I’m starting to wonder about myself.

I’ll come clean with all of you, since we’re all about intimacy, right? I feel intimate with you, anyway. I know there are a number of you who are keeping me company and making sure I do indeed keep my commitment to Karl’s memory. (I can’t thank you often or sincerely enough for that camaraderie, by the way. And my most heartfelt means of expressing that gratitude is to be radically honest with you. Intimate, in other words. Letting you see and hear my inner me, warts and all.)

My confession is this: I was honestly excited last night when I wrote about getting myself much further along in Instagram World than I’d ever managed before. I knew I’d successfully posted (what, a post? Do you post a post on Instagram? God, how can I do it if I don’t even know what to call it?); anyway, I knew I’d successfully put something on my IG ‘feed’ yesterday afternoon because people had reacted to it by later in the evening.

Even better, I thought, I’d figured out how to get links inside my post to actually get opened without some rigamarole that I didn’t even understand. It sounded like a good thing to do and I thought I’d figured it out. The app I was using to accomplish this task is called Link In Profile. Technically, I’m still using it, I guess, as of tonight anyway. Luckily, they give you a month’s free trial first.

It seems pretty neat. At least, yesterday afternoon, as I said, I managed to post my initial Instagram and, in it, include a link to my Devotion blog post, which explains the inception of the whole 1111 Devotion commitment I made in November. And I thought it meant that people could click on the link inside the post and go directly to the webpage it referenced, instead of people having to go to my Instagram bio to click on it.

Yeah, this is making my eyes glaze over, too.

But I think it did the job. I don’t actually know enough yet to even be able to tell.

First Opportunity to Show My Stuff: Brain Fart

Problem is? By the time I published my blog post late last night and shared it on FB in the couple or three places I usually do, I totally forgot how to actually, literally, POST on Instagram! Yeah, I’m saying I forgot how to do the single most basic function on (and the whole point of) the entire stupid platform.

So I’m sitting on my couch last night, eager to put my blog post ‘out there’ on Instagram, too – especially since I’d just written about it to all of you! – and I’m clicking on every damn icon I can see on the Instagram app on my phone. None of them take me where I want to go or let me do what I want to do. Mostly I’m just reminded that I need to complete my stupid bio.

Oh my Goddess. I wanted to scream.

And then, once I accidentally discovered the ‘entry’ screen (and I still don’t know what I tapped to get there), I couldn’t even figure out if it would somehow access the photo that I’d included in the blog and publish that as the ‘accompanying’ photo (like FB does) – or if I had to publish a photo independently, from my phone’s photo archive, and then include the link to my blog post in the comment area.

My head was swimming by this time.

Hence the random photo of our Boston Terrier, Sheila, pretending to be Princess Leia (even though she actually bears a much more uncanny resemblance to Yoda).

Moving Forward, Figuring It Out

The bottom line, therefore, is that I’m still figuring this out. I know some of you are clearly adept at IG and others of you, while you may be trying to make me feel good (and it worked, thanks) by telling me so, admitted to being in the same boat as I am. You know who you are: the ‘I have a name on Instagram too, but haven’t used it yet’ gang.

My pledge to you: I will be your guinea owl! We can figure this out – together. And I will report back on how much fun and success I’m having as an Instagrammer.

In the meantime, here’s both a photo of a rock formation on the Siberian steppe south of Lake Baikal (above). And another photo of Sheila, her son Spartacus, and Cletus. Our Black and White Triumvirate enjoying a bit of warmth and respite in front of the hearth fire .

Because Instagram.