Tag: Goddess

2020, a decade, and a new bird

It’s that time of year again, time for the first bird of the year. It’s a tradition among birders, bird watchers that the first bird you see on New Year’s day will be a theme for the year to come. It can be the first animal you see if you’ve been up for hours and seen no birds, which happened to me two years in a row with squirrels. The moment I owned squirrel as my power animal for the year, birds appeared. It was like magic. Those two years were about trying to balance work and play. The last two years it’s been dove, and I was really hoping, praying that it wouldn’t be a third year in a row. Why, you might ask, because dove is about matters of the heart and coming to terms with Goddess energy, feminine energy for me. Learning lessons of the heart is never easy, always worthwhile, but never easy. I was ready to get a message from the universe that I’d done my heart and love work to a point where I could move on. My husband, Jonathon, and I are closer than ever and have hit that deep abiding, contentment where the fire burns low and high, but never goes out, and we know how to throw more wood on our fire and get sparks. Eighteen years of marriage and we’ve never been happier as a couple and as individuals; yay, working your shit!

I’ll mention it here before someone else asks, our other halves, Genevieve and Spike, requested to not be part of my public persona a couple of years ago. They found the “fame” part of things uncomfortable. They are private people and deserve to have their personal life be as private as they wish, yes it was a bone of contention for awhile, but if you love someone you honor their wishes, so I have. It has been difficult, because I blog from my heart, and write from heart in many ways, though I write fiction. It’s made blogging about my life very difficult and is one reason I almost stopped doing it. I don’t know how to edit my real life the way I edit my fiction. This has been some of the heart and love work of the last two years.

I’m happy to say that this year’s bird is, Dark-eyed Junco. It’s a type of sparrow, though you’d never know it to see the charcoal gray and white body, or the black upper body with a white stomach, or a mostly charcoal body, or – they are incredibly varied in their plumage. There are even different colors for different regions of the country that look nothing like the birds we see here. They are winter birds here, arriving between October to November, or even as early as late September. You know the term, snowbirds for people who travel to warmer climates for winter and then return in the spring that’s exactly what Juncos do here. We’re their winter vacation spot.

Jonathon and I saw a small flock of Juncos at the same time this morning as we made coffee and wrangled breakfast. He called out, “Junco!” I actually turned away as if he’d called it and so it couldn’t be my bird of the year. I even walked to another window and everything was hiding from me, just movements in the trees, until I realized that there was no rule, no calling dibs on a bird. Once I owned that we had the same bird of the year for 2020 then suddenly I saw the downy woodpecker and the white-breasted nuthatch on the trees and bird feeders. It’s been like that every year, until I own the first bird/animal the rest of the world is quiet, then boom – birds and other animals everywhere.

If you think that sounds too mystical, all I can tell you is that it works that way for me. Also, we’re Wiccan, as in yes modern day Witches, which is a nature based religion, so paying attention to birds and other wildlife is a part of our faith. God and Goddess speak through nature all the time if you know how to listen.

If squirrel’s lesson for me was balancing work and play, and dove was about love and the divine feminine, what does Junco mean? My husband and I aren’t entirely certain yet. We’ll be meditating and paying attention as time goes by, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with travel, maybe even moving. The Juncos were in a flock, so it could also be about group communications. Interpreting the lessons of nature isn’t always an exact science, but then most faith isn’t that simple, add magic and it can get a lot more complicated. So here’s to 2020, a new decade, and the year of the Junco!

Listening to the Silence

   It’s 11:00 in the morning and I have no writing done. I’m on deadline and I have no writing done. This is usually my cue to beat myself up emotionally which feeds all sorts of issues which if fed enough will trigger the chorus line of personal demons that I think most of us have in our heads. Once that chorus begins to chant their negative messages and dance their little dance not only is writing unlikely to happen today, but my day will be wrecked. I will be wrecked emotionally and it just goes downhill from there.
   Often when I’m behind in my morning routine for work I try to hit the writing hard and make up for lost time, sometimes that works, but not when my head has already started going dark. On days like that I’ve learned that I need to do one of two things, maybe both, get on the treadmill and walk off the black mood, and/or mediate. I light a candle and try to focus not on the stressful morning, or all the things that are feeding the bad day, but on listening to that still, small voice that we all have inside us. The voice of our good angels, our totems, our spirit guides, that little slice of God/Goddess that is there to help us if we take the time to listen. It’s hard when most days are so rushed, but I’ve learned that if I can take even a few moments to stand outside in the sun, or hug a tree, or do anything that helps me be still and truly listen, that there will be comfort, or wisdom, or I’ll think of something I didn’t think of before that helps. Think about how powerful that is, that inside each of us is a spark of the Divine that will guide us, teach us, steady us, and it is always there, if we enter the silence and listen for it. (For all you atheists out there, you have it too, maybe you call it consciences, or inner knowing, but it’s there.)
   I came away from meditation with this thought, “That there has to be chaos before there can be order. Sometimes you need that bad relationship in order to learn the lessons needed to have that wonderful relationship next time. Sometimes you lose an opportunity, because a better one is waiting for you. You make a mistake that turns out to be exactly what you needed to solve a major problem in your life/job/family/romance. A frustrating morning can lead to a life lesson that helps you find your way to a better afternoon, and to happier days in general.”
If I can hold onto this lesson, I’ve already put it in my journal, and I’m typing it here, then perhaps I won’t let the negative things drowned out the positive things, which I have a tendency to do.
   I meditated and then I allowed myself to sit in the big, comfy leather chair in my office, cuddle with one of my dogs, sip tea and read from the book I’d almost finished. It reminded me that life isn’t all about the rushing around and accomplishing goals, it’s also about working hard so you can have the time to enjoy the things that make you happy. Now, I feel ready to start on that second bottle of water of the day, and get back to working on the story that is due. I have hope that I’ll get through the majority of it today, which is a lot better attitude than I had before I took a few minutes to be still and listen.