A Touch of Divinity delivered by Birds ...

I have a most unusual story to share. Actually, it shouldn’t be unusual, but I suppose it is for our everyday human mind; the one that often plays small, doubts and runs at a hundred miles an hour, leaving no space for grace.

Two weeks ago, I sat down on my yoga mat, about to start my practice, when I suddenly heard a crash. A bird had flown into our lounge glass-sliding door. I ran out to see if it was okay, as sometimes birds flying into a glass window are just stunned, need a few moments to catch their breath and then fly off again. Sadly, this beautiful Emerald spotted wood-dove had broken its neck and died a few moments later. I felt really devastated as I have a special love for birds. I’m by no means a birder; my connection with birds is somewhat different.

About ten years back, I bought a set a of bird cards by Jane Toerien and Joyce van Dobben http://www.birdcards.net/about-us/. Over the years, I have had the most amazing communication and insights through these bird cards. Sometimes, when I am feeling stuck, I search for guidance from them, by picking a card and reading the message. Other times, I get the messages delivered by a bird that arrives in my space, sometimes more than once over a couple of days, to ensure that I notice it. I then look up the particular bird in the cards to see what the message is that it carries and what it could mean for me at that time. It has been quite profound and I have, slowly over the years, learnt to trust and listen to those messages. However, when this bird smashed into our window and died, I felt really awful and didn’t want a bird to have to end its life in order to deliver its particular message to me. I was really thrown by it. I looked up the Dove card and the message was all about creating harmony when something is out of balance or alignment in one’s life; peace and hope for the future; that the sound of doves cooing has a natural harmonising effect on people and that people will naturally gravitate towards a place where Dove sound predominates, in order to unwind. It didn’t totally resonate with me, however, it all unfolded the next day.

Lots of change has been happening in our lives these past few months and most days we manage to work through the uncertainty and stress with the tools we have (meditation, yoga, forest walks, ocean swims, sunshine, essential oils, debriefing, kinesiology, coaching) but there have been a few days in the last three months where I have felt completely overwhelmed and it feels like a domino effect where it just starts up and hurtles away and I don’t know how to stop it. It is very foreign to me and I do believe that peri-menopausal hormones are at play for sure.

So this particular Wednesday was one of those days and by the afternoon, I did not know quite what to do with myself. Mark made me a cup of tea and I had such a strong urge to go and drink it in the forest on the estate where we live. The Emerald spotted wood dove has a particular call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0z_NVhBHjs) and as I stepped onto the boardwalk, it was the first bird sound that I heard. I was overcome with emotion thinking about the dove from the day before. I slowly moved to a spot on the board walk, stood and quietly sipped my tea. A few moments later, a bird flew onto a branch about twenty metres from me and from where I was standing, it looked like an Emerald spotted wood dove and I wondered if it would make its call so that I could confirm this. That is exactly what it did! As I listened to it, I remembered the message from the bird card, in particular, how the sound of doves can have a natural harmonising effect on people. I was blown away, as in that moment the penny dropped and I got the message. All I need to do when I feel this off balance and spun out, is to take a three minute walk into our beautiful forest, be quiet, listen to the doves and unwind from the spinning, chaotic feelings that sometimes take hold. I came out of that forest in absolute awe.

When I relayed what had happened to my dear friend Angela Deutschmann, who introduced me to the cards, I also realised that as much as I see and hear doves all the time, I would never have looked to my bird cards for the message that the dove carries. So by smashing into our window, that beautiful dove delivered what I needed to hear. I was deeply moved and deeply grateful. I still however, felt awful about it dying and felt that that had been unnecessary; it could have just hit the window, been dazed and moved on.

A few days later, I looked to a bird card for some guidance around my mom who had been in hospital. I picked the turkey card, which I haven’t picked in years, and it is all about gratitude and

thanks-giving. Low and behold, the sentence, “Death is not an issue in the bird kingdom” stood out clear as a bell. Again, another direct message, which was also in line with some personal growth work I have been sitting with, around what it means to fully embrace both the human and divine aspects of ourselves.

In the synchronicity of it all, that same week, Joe Dispenza posted this: “When we master our emotions, we master our creations.” We have been working with this in our meditations, and I felt like I had been gifted with a personal tool by that beautiful dove on how to do just that. I am eternally grateful and no longer look at or hear a dove calling, in the same way.

Then, to take it to all to another level, that Sunday, I went on a walking meditation in another forest, with my special friend Donna, who is just as in love with birds and trees as I am. We went to our usual starting point; a bench by a little stream in a small clearing in the forest. We started the meditation with our eyes closed and hands on our hearts. When the initial introduction of the meditation was over, I opened my eyes and looked at Donna who quietly pointed at a branch about 2 metres away. There, sitting, looking at us, was a beautiful Emerald spotted wood dove. It lingered for a bit, flew down to the stream, drank some water and then casually flew off. I was speechless. For the next little while of our walking meditation, I was literally awestruck and in complete reverence of what had just happened. It felt deeply sacred.

One of my most beloved quotes, by Roald Dahl is, “Those who don’t believe in magic, will never find it,” and these synchronicities, these moments of sacredness in the sometimes crazy, messy and beautiful world we live in, provide me with such wonder, magic and joy. It’s about believing in them, making the time and space for them in our hearts and trusting deeply.

Here is a poem by Mary Oliver that expresses this all so beautifully...

The World I Live In

I have refused to live

locked in the orderly house of

reasons and proofs.

the world I live in and believe in is wider than that. And anyway,

whats wrong with Maybe?

You wouldn’t believe what once or twice I have seen. I’ll just

tell you this:

only if there are angels in your head will you

ever, possibly, see one.

Those angels to me are the beautiful birds that grace us with their magnificence everyday. How blessed are we?

The Voice Of The Rain - Poem by Walt Whitman

I came across this poem today and thought it was beautiful. I particularly like the last line of the poem.  I have included a short translation.  Enjoy

And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated: I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain, Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea, Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed, and yet the same, I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe, And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn; And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin, and make pure and beautify it; (For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering, Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.) 

Hearing this, the poet compares it to a song, which rises from its birthplace (the heart) roams around for a bit, and, whether heard and enjoyed or not, returns back to the heart and settles there when he stops singing, remaining a happy memory.

In this poem, the poet asks the rain shower who it is, and the shower replies that it's the poem of the earth.....it rises from the land and seas in the form of untouchable mist, in a form that's physically very different from its true self but otherwise just the same, to the sky. from there, it goes back down, and quenches the thirst of everything, right down to small dust particles. It also gives life to seeds and helps them grow into thriving plants. Thus, it gives back what it takes, life, to the earth, and also makes it pure and beautiful.

The Doorway Into Thanks

Roger Housden shared this beautiful poem in his weekly newsletter this week.  Paying attention and deep gratitude for the small wonders around us can transport us to another world.  

Praying
by Mary Oliver
 

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

On our recent trip to Namibia, on the banks of the Kunene river, my husband, a true explorer by nature, started observing the stones and pebbles in the river bed during his walk, and this is what he discovered and shared with us  .... 

All the stones and pebbles are covered in a thin layer of grey dust, but as soon as you wash them in the water, their magical patterns and colours emerge.  We had such fun and definitely slipped into a world of magic and gratitude.

Build what you dream

I love the message of this poem ...

Mandela has died - a poem

December 6, 2013 at 12:56pm

Madiba has died.
Today I held my little boy on my lap as he cried, inconsolably.
Not for a man he’d ever met,
But for a story that made him safe and proud.

I also want to fold my arms around our young country and say
‘There, there.
Remember how much he loved you?
Don’t forget that he gave up his anger, his righteousness, his time, his life
because he believed in you that much.

Maybe you can love him back by believing too?

I know you’ll miss him, my angel.
He will leave a grand space.
An open space!
You can grow into it, you know.
Everything you have loved in your Tata
You have in yourself.

Don’t fight, children, there’s enough inheritance for everyone.
Here, you take some of his compassion – it’s valuable, and rare.
And you, did you like his humour?
Take! Take!
Take his listening, his forgiving, his inclusiveness.
The more you spend them, the more there will be.

Invest your inheritance and build what you dream.
It is more lonely for a name to stand apart
Than alongside millions.'

Angela Deutschmann

More Synchronicity ...

I subscribe to an email from the poet, Roger Housten, that I receive every two weeks or so and yesterday I received this one - such synchronicity  ...

Hi ,

Our culture is so fixated on the necessity of doing that if we are idle for a while we are very likely to have the thought that we are wasting our lives. But I don't think that's what Wright means in that shocking last line. I think he means the opposite - that doing nothing for a while is precisely a gateway to another life, one deeper and more alive than our usual busy-ness; and that we shall have wasted our lives if we never allow ourselves these spaces in which another kind of fulfillment emerges. He is lying in his hammock, and realizes how little time he has given to moments of blessedness like this. But what do you think he means?

Warmly, Roger

info@rogerhousden.com
RogerHousden.com

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island Minnesota

James Wright

Over my head I see the bronze butterfly

asleep on the black trunk,

blowing like a leaf in green shadow.

Down in the ravine behind the empty house

the cowbells follow one another

into the distances of the afternoon.

To my right,

in a field of sunlight between two pines,

the droppings of last year's horses

blaze up into golden stones.

I lean back as the evening darkens and comes on.

A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.

I have wasted my life.

In the silence between your heartbeats ...

What in your life is calling you?

When all the noise is silenced,

the meetings adjourned,

the lists laid aside,

and the wild iris blooms by itself

in the dark forest,

what still pulls on your soul?

In the silence between your heartbeats

hides a summons.

Do you hear it?

Name it, if you must,

or leave it forever nameless,

but why pretend it is not there?

Terma Collective, The Box    

My Found Poem

I did a fun exercise with two of my women's circle groups and it worked out really well and is quite fun to do.  My wonderful and arty friend Anne told me about Found Poems, which are compositions made by combining fragments of newspapers, signs or menus and rearranging them into the form of a poem.  I love this idea as I think it takes away the 'fear' that many people have around writing a poem.

So, I took a whole lot of poems, divided them up into fragments and phrases and dealt those out to the group and I was amazed at the poetry that sprung forth!!

Here is my one - it is rooted in my thoughts around my dad's passing ...

CRACKED OPEN

I want to write about faith.

I cannot tell you that I know the road;

Life! Burning so extravagantly 

and black sticks left when the fire has gone out

The caged bird sings with fearful trill.

Yet the time will come when

I rise

I rise

I rise

and the world will turn into the light again;

and our hearts will continue to expand

out from our individual self

What is this source from which we drink?

It doesn't interest me ...

I was recently given an audio of some of David Whyte's poems.  I love how he reads the poems (sometimes a bit too quick) but I enjoy the repetition of certain lines as it gives you an opportunity to really hear what he is saying and to take it in.  I really enjoy this poem and thought I would share it ...

Self Portrait

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know 
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know 
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

  -- David Whyte


Aimee Larson-Stoddard has a lovely analysis of the poem if you would like to delve into it more. Here is the link:  Analysis of the poem

Enjoy

A little bit of Rumi for the soul

I really enjoy this poem. It mentions that the act of attention is a form of prayer or meditation and has the same value as taking the time to be still. 

I also really love the question at the end of it.  

Enjoy.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

My cousin posted this poem on my FB page and I really like it.  It reminds me of our Embody Course with Angela Deutschmann at the magnificent Boondocks Mountain Lodge ...

Come dance with me!

We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance

The holding the precious moment in the palms
of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
But the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama shaman shaking ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into the luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance but the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath and beat dance

The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I? Yes you may take ten giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced
Where the kingdoms collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced! We have come.”

~ by Jewel Mathieson 

I enjoy the poetry by David Whyte, and when googling the other day, saw an interesting link to his poem "Sometimes".  I really enjoyed reading it and thought that some of the questions he asked were really real, really powerful, and definitely worth some pondering ...

SOMETIMES

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories

who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound,

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

~ David Whyte ~

(Everything is Waiting for You)

Here is the link to his 10 questions that have no right to go away ...

http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Poet-David-Whytes-Questions-That-Have-No-Right-to-Go-Away_1