You know you’re having a bad day when you reach for the apple you left in your car the night before and – ew – it feels like someone took a bite out of it.
When that happened to me this afternoon, I immediately leapt to a silent, if annoyed, and slightly disgusted conclusion that Karl had taken a bite out of the apple as we drove home last night. Maybe he didn’t like its taste, or maybe he just decided he didn’t want it after all. Whatever.
Like a flash of lightning, my inner “Ugh!” fired off, which was weird. For one thing, Karl’s not one to waste food. But even if he took a bite and didn’t like it, he wouldn’t just leave it in the console, where I keep my mask, sunglasses, and hand sanitizer. If nothing else, he would’ve ‘offered it to the deer,’ as we like to say, flinging it far into a passing field.
Ugh Oh
I reached again for the apple, not able to see it from my vantage point behind the wheel. My knee-jerk reaction to blame Karl felt hasty. There had to be another reason the apple felt wet and partially eaten. Maybe it had fallen on the floor during our road trip yesterday and a piece had gouged out.
Pulling the apple up to where I could see it, my heart sank. Ugh oh.
While the nibbling of the fruit was practically a work of art in itself, especially its unsettling symmetry, it was unequivocally and most certainly not nibbled by Karl. Of that I was certain.
The design was actually quite pretty in its own way. Perhaps what freaked me out the most, though, was the obvious recency of the ingestion. The flesh of the apple was only just beginning to brown at the edges! Yuck!
Was I actually riding around with a four legged hitchhiker? Or had this scofflaw invaded my car while it sat in the driveway, trying to escape the snow and cold and thinking it hit the jackpot when it discovered fresh fruit along with respite from the elements?
Not Waiting To Find Out
We’ve had the interior (and wiring) on too many cars wrecked by rodents. This was definitely a trespass. Time to reload the mothball pouches! And if they don’t work…well…
Ha – I only just this moment remembered my ‘pick’ for today. Mountain Lion – with Mouse underneath. I’d even laughed when I picked and said, “Looks like a cat-and-mouse kind of day!” Who’d have thought MOUSE would show up quite so literally? (Maybe I should lock Cletus in the car overnight?)
I adore the four-leggeds with whom we share our life. In fact, I cannot imagine my life without having at least one of them in the family. Luckily for both of us, Karl shares my need to be surrounded by my familiars.
Nothing proves that point more clearly than that we honeymooned on Cape Cod – and adopted a gorgeous solid gray kitten at the ASPCA in Brewster, Massachusetts. Yes, our very first official act as a married couple, on the very first business day of the week following our marriage that weekend, was to drive through Cape traffic instead of going to the beach to see if we could find a kitten to adopt.
Brewster was his name and he was a trooper. While he ruled the roost for a year on his own, he oversaw Karl’s birth and eventually schooled him on the proper way to sneak hard cat food when I wasn’t looking. He gamely and not begrudgingly shared our laps with his ‘little brother’ Karl.
Fast Forward to Today
At the moment we, as you’ve occasionally been made aware, we share our home with two dogs, Sheila and Spartacus, and three cats, Precious, Cletus, and Tigger.
I could write about our beasts every night. Especially lately, they’ve been providing me with an abundance of fodder, some amusing and some sort of hard, but I’ve been trying to hold off. Last night, however, brought a message that was hard to ignore.
Messengers
After completing my post for the evening, I made my way upstairs. Usually Spartacus is already upstairs with Karl, making a warm spot for me. Sheila, no longer able to navigate the stairs, sleeps downstairs in her soft furry bed. That makes me sad, but she doesn’t seem to mind, so I’ve become resigned to it.
Cletus religiously makes a pest of himself while I’m writing my post (every post, every night) by stomping around if he’s inside, howling to be let out, and then after he’s been outside for about 20 minutes, hurling himself against the screen door out front and sticking to it (with his claws) like Velcro – until his claws slowly rip the screen. That’s how he demands to come back in. He does this a couple times while I’m writing.
Precious is our paranoid one. If anyone came to visit (pre-Covid), she’d disappear and not be seen or heard from again. Not until the interlopers left. She’s mostly a loner, but every once in a while she’ll become frantically affectionate. It’s weird. But we love her. Even if she is a cellar-dweller.
And then there’s Tigger. We inherited Tigger from Sage after he (and his fiancé Sarah, truth be told) adopted him from a pet rescue place in central Pennsylvania. It ended up not being a great look for an RA to be harboring a fugitive kitty, so Tigger relocated to Bucks County. I think I’ve relayed the story of his name elsewhere.
Message to Mommy
Which leads me to the scenario that greeted me when I went to bed last night:
Mouse with Dog underneath – Photo: L. Weikel
I know; right? It’s as if they were lines up perfectly, in some surreal real-life enactment of a Medicine Card* pick! Mouse reversed with Dog underneath.
So freaking weird.
The only one who could’ve set this up would be Tigger. Had Precious participated in this macabre message delivery scheme, she definitely would’ve eaten the head off the mouse. Especially if she wanted to convey is as a ‘reversal.’
So. Tigger? Was that you? Were you behind this message to Mommy?
Karl left for appointments at the crack of dawn this morning, so we didn’t get a chance to have our coffee together and pick cards the way we usually do. Nevertheless, he did text me later in the morning to let me know what he’d chosen on his day.
Meanwhile, I knew it was supposed to rain later in the day, so I made a point of getting out earlier than I usually do to take a walk. Before I left, I chose a Medicine Card® for my day: I chose Raven with Mouse underneath.
Raven/Mouse
As I’ve had occasion to discuss a few times already, (here, here, and here) Raven is associated with the concept of Magic. I capitalize the ‘M’ in Magic in this context because it is different than your normal, hokus pokus, pull a rabbit out of a hat type of magic. It’s way bigger than that. Or sometimes much smaller.
I’ve had some pretty cool experiences this week, which, again, I’m digesting and contemplating how and when to share with all of you. It’s not that I’m hoarding my experiences. At least that’s not my intention. Rather, I’m holding them close to the vest, so to speak, until I’ve integrated them, making an effort not to dilute them by sharing them too quickly and thus not appreciating their ‘Magic.’
So when I got this combo of Raven/Mouse today, I thought it might be an indication that it’s time for me to start sharing some of the experiences I’ve had over the past several weeks.
Alas, that’s not how it’s playing out.
Not What I Expected
For when I was walking today, I came upon a setting that screamed, “MAGIC!” to me. So much so, in fact, that I had to stop and take a photo with my iPhone to share with you.
Take a look at the photo that’s accompanying this post and tell me I did not stumble upon some Magic right in the middle of regular life. This faerie house is completely and totally natural. It’s growing out of the bark on a tree that’s just growing tall beside the road.
And part of the Magic, in my mind at least, is that I actually saw it. Out of all the myriad sights and sounds and odors, from screeching hawks to trucks with confederate flags in their back window to cigarette butts, the occasional fast food container and a beer bottle or two, and a Boston Terrier named Spartacus excitedly marking his territory on all sorts of new logs and piles of leaves – I noticed this exquisite piece of faerie real estate.
It felt like a gift. Just look at the detail, the colors, the exquisite natural beauty.
Stuff I Didn’t Get Done vs. Magic
There were tasks I had set for myself to accomplish today that I did not manage to complete. And a couple of times, I started in on lamenting that I’d walked instead of doing those things first. But then I was reminded of two other amazing discoveries I’d made this week – both on Wednesday – and both of which I would have completely missed had I not walked precisely when I did that day. Not only were they amazing discoveries in and of themselves, but the township literally scraped the dirt road upon which I’d found both of them the very next day. So my timing had been perfect.
And that’s how I felt about my discovery of the faerie house earlier today. It was all about timing and paying attention (Mouse) and being open to the myriad little things in life that bring us joy and arouse our awareness of the Magic that surrounds all of us if we open our hearts and eyes and ears.
And if we simply give ourselves the chance to just be.
In my post yesterday, I described how I interpreted receiving “Moose2” the morning after publishing my “Devotion” post, the first of 1111 posts I’ve committed to writing as an Act of Power and devotion to my son Karl.
And I pretty much focused upon the words I shared yesterday as the essential point drawing Moose was telling me.
So that was Tuesday morning: Moose2 .
IMAGINE my surprise, then, when I made the following choices the rest of last week:
Wednesday: Moose/Mouse. (Again, the way I’ve written that means I chose Moose as my main pick – and that can be the top card, from the middle, wherever – by ‘top’ card I always mean the main card I consciously felt was the one I wanted to turn or pull out and look at. And Mouse was on the bottom. Literally. The bottom card is always the bottom card.)
Thursday: Moose/Mouse. (And again, I chose these cards in this specific configuration after Karl had shuffled and made a fresh pick of his own that morning!)
Friday: Moose/Fox.
Coincidence? Naah
Seriously. Choosing it a second time (on Wednesday) was cool. I immediately just took it to mean Spirit was giving me the aforementioned ‘pat on the back’ for having slogged out a post Tuesday night and published it before the stroke of midnight, even after getting home close to 10:00 p.m. after a really long session at work.
I’m pretty sure I glossed right through the text that morning, possibly because Karl had to leave earlier than usual and I suggested he just get on the road without me having to read it to him again, especially since we’d read it just the day before. (Yeah, we cut corners sometimes.)
With Mouse underneath, I just sort of took it to mean that I was doing well keeping my commitment – and paying attention to the details. Or maybe it was writing about the details. I wasn’t sure, but I did somehow feel that the Mouse was pointing to the fact that the Moose was related to acknowledging the discipline I was exercising in getting the act of writing and posting done.
After choosing it for a third day in a row (on Thursday) we started joking that the card ‘must be bent.’ But it wasn’t.
I had chosen it as I ran out the door for a very early (i.e., crack of dawn) appointment with a loved one. So yet again, Karl and I didn’t ‘read’ our cards until later in the day, when we were safely home in the midst of that very surprising, slippery, and deep (!) snowstorm that hit us.
Reading It Again
Once we were home together again, though, we felt it important to read our cards out loud, paying special attention to my Moose, since it had made a third appearance.
It was only then that I realized Moose was not only giving me ‘atta-girls’ for following through with my commitment, but was also confirming those leanings I’ve started sensing within myself about changes that may be coming as far as my focus in life.
First of all, reading further into Moose, I felt I was being given additional specific confirmation that the whole blog commitment overall is on target:
“The wisdom woven throughout this scenario is that creation constantly brings forth new ideas and further creation.”
That seemed to me to confirm the initial ‘hit’ I’d received about both of us needing to actively engage our creative pursuits as a means of honoring Karl’s life.
More Breadcrumbs
Then I realized as I read further, that perhaps my recent musings on ‘elderhood’ were – again – breadcrumbs leading me forward:
“Moose medicine is often found in elders who have walked the Good Red Road and have seen many things in their Earth Walk. (…)
The elders are honored in tribal law for their gifts of wisdom, for their teaching abilities, and for the calmness they impart in Council. (…)
If you have chosen the Moose card, you have reason to feel good about something you have accomplished on your journey. This may be a habit you have broken, a completion of some sort, an insight on a goal, or a new sense of self that you have fought hard to earn. (…)”
And then the final paragraph of Moose ‘upright’:
“One good exercise in Moose medicine is to write down things that you can love about yourself and your progress in life. Then apply these same things to friends, family, coworkers, and life. Don’t forget to share the findings with others. They need the encouragement as much as you do.”
Spelling It Out
Wow.
Nothing like having it written out before me! The encouragement to pursue this grand 1111 Devotion, and to realize that I might be starting to walk the path of an Elder. And best of all, that I would be doing it not for myself alone, but to share with each one of you who is choosing to share this journey with me.
Wow indeed. For then I received Moose yet one more time (on Friday). The appearance of Fox underneath emphasized, to me, that this is an act of creativity that is forcing me to allow myself to be noticed. I may seem like I’m cool with talking about all of this, but trust me, I feel naked.
Finally, I want to be clear: I do not think of myself as an “Elder.” If anything, I am on the cusp of Elderhood. I suspect those of you who keep reading may witness a transformation? I don’t know. I hope so. I guess I feel like I’m a “Cuspy-Crone.” Mmm. Sounds delicious.
