From my heart…

I was sitting here today looking outside as I decided to take the day off.  Lately, and what I mean by that is for the majority of the last 6 years, I have very few days off…I write a lot for newsletters, the blog and other things, and I have sessions throughout the week that can get a bit scattered.  I’m often off working parties, and other functions, all in light of moving forward in what I believe in.  But today I just didn’t want to do any of it.  Nothing.  I looked out the window at the snow-covered grass and across the way to the bay.  I remembered how just the other day I saw 2 giant Bald Eagles fly by my window and I remembered the chill that went down my spine as I was mesmerized by their grace and beauty.  It was at that moment that I thought to myself, “Wow, wouldn’t likely see that if I hadn’t moved up to Traverse City…”

When I recalled seeing the majestic birds soaring, one with its prey snug in its talons, I considered how perfectly natural the food chain is…specifically the aspect of death in the food chain.  The Bald Eagle, which happens to be one of my animal totems, ranks pretty high on the food chain and from what I have read, it hunts with ease and with grace, as if killing to survive were just a natural part of life.  And this got me thinking about how hard of a time I have had letting those who pass on from this world go…

And my next chain of thoughts went into how many times I have had to face my resistance to saying goodbye, as well as how some people think that grief would be unnecessary for a someone who can communicate with Spirits.  By the way, who said that mediums don’t grieve the physical loss of people they love when they die?  Just curious.

Ya know how one thought you have leads you to another, and then another and before you know it, you are thinking about something entirely different than the original thought?  Well, that’s what happened.  When I thought of how many people in my life that have crossed over just in the last few years (about 7), I started thinking about being back home near Detroit.  And I started to feel a little sad and homesick.  I don’t have the same kind of social life here in Northern Michigan as I do back home.  Here I am a “spiritual teacher” or something, and back home I was just Jennifer.  Back home I would enjoy hanging out with my friends, maybe going dancing once a month or so and grabbing a few beers, but here I sip a glass of wine at home occasionally and work.  It’s colder here, and frankly, there is much less to do as far as activities that I enjoy.  Those thoughts skipped through my mind very quickly and then I realized that I don’t spend enough time with myself like I used to.  In fact, I have kept myself so busy striving for answers to life, that I think I have been missing out a bit on living.

When I realized this, I remembered how just a couple of weeks ago I saw 5 beautiful foxes in the backyard, running around a frolicking.  It was an amazing sight, and from what I have learned, a rare one.  That day, as I stood looking out the big window in the living room with a gorgeous and stunning wild creature staring back at me curiously, I recognized that something or someone was trying to get my attention.  After a few long moments of this mind-boggling eye contact, the fox and her friends scurried off in different directions.  It was as if they had collected in the yard for me, as a gift.  Someone was obviously yelling “Helllooo?!?” from somewhere, so after they were out of sight for a few minutes, I went and got my husband’s book called “Animals Speak” by Ted Andrews.

In this book, Ted lays out a clear (and inspired no doubt) message of the fox.  And there were pages that detailed what the fox meant as a totem or if you have “an unusual encounter” with one.  I surely concluded that this encounter was an unusual one…and there were a few pages of the meaning behind the fox showing up in my life.  In fact, those pages described things in me perfectly!

The overall message that I got from the pages in the book relating to the fox was that the fox represents the “here and there”, the place of both worlds, the earthly and heavenly.  Ted said, in his book, that if you have an unusual encounter with a fox you probably have a hard time being in the physical because you are so finely attuned to the spiritual.  Yep!  That’s me!

He went on to suggest that I (because it felt as though he were speaking directly to me) pay attention to grounding myself in the physical as I appreciate my spiritual nature.  Blend in and use my ability to charm and entertain to help me when I instinctively know the right time to act…in my case, usually with helping people.

But the fox also spoke to me, my heart, in a way that I thought about today.  And the message was that although in the grand scheme of things life may be “perfect”, our experience of it often isn’t.  That sometimes life throws curve balls and that although we want to control everything, we just can’t.  The fox also softly whispered to me, “You don’t have to know all of the answers all the time.  And in fact, knowing all the answers kind of defeats the purpose of living, for where would be the excitement if you knew it all?”

Sometimes we feel sad or even mad that life has not turned out the way that we would have liked.  Sometimes we feel disappointment and pain, and the pain that we feel can be so great and mysterious that all we can really do is be in it, for there isn’t always a way around it and that is OKAY.  And I have learned that if you encounter such pain and sit with it, it won’t take long before your mind begins to wander in all sorts of directions, as the mind does, and before you know it, you are smiling again.  You might even wonder how you got there from the place that you were…

Life isn’t perfect and neither am I.  And today I remembered that it is okay to be whatever I am today, and that whatever I am today will likely change by tomorrow.  And by the way, today I had a beer instead of wine…

Cheers!

Jennifer