September 7, 2006

Hi everyone!

It is the full moon at this exact moment.  There is also a lunar eclipse at 15 degrees of Virgo, with Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars all in Virgo, and the Moon and Uranus close together in Pisces.  To add to the fun, Jupiter is square to the eclipse in Scorpio.  For several reasons, this will tend to polarize people and issues, as well as cause some tension.  Remember to breathe!  An eclipse of the sun will occur on the 22nd of the month, with Sun, Moon and Venus in Virgo.  It is a time to focus . . . perhaps on healing.

Some time ago, after a healing session with my mentor Mary Blankenship, I had homework to go and meditate, preferably at the ocean.  Since I didn't have the time to go to the ocean, I went to the beach near my home.  I walked and sat and became peaceful.  The message I received was that I needed to be at peace, and that would come when I stopped grasping at or pushing away relationship.  I walked back toward my home.  As I was about to step off the beach onto the grassy shore, I looked down.

I saw a very large feather.  “It’s an eagle feather,” I thought to myself.  Immediately my mind retorted, “It can’t be.”  This went on for two weeks.  I would see the feather and feel joy and know it for what it was.  Then my mind would deny the obvious.  I finally decided to take the feather to Mary and ask her if she knew what it was.

There was a ceremony scheduled that I wanted to attend.  When I arrived, a more advanced group of students had just finished their weekend class.  Most of the students were friends of mine, and I spent 15 minutes or so greeting them.  Then I went back to my car and got out the feather.  As I walked across the room, feather in hand, many of my friends gasped and commented.  As I approached Mary, I held up the feather and asked “Do you know what kind of feather this is?”

She responded by saying, “Yes, I would like to have it,” taking it from my hand.  I was puzzled, but felt strongly that I should let her have it.  She and another of my friends then started telling me about their experience during the class, in which one of the students brought a very large eagle feather to Mary on the etheric level.  It seemed all too significant when I appeared with an actual eagle feather, only slightly smaller than the one they had “seen” on other levels.

As we prepared to go out to do the ceremony, Mary was teaching those who were new to the ceremony, and I sat about 20 feet away at the back of the room with a friend.  I whispered very softly in my friend’s ear that I would not have given the feather away if it had been anyone other than Mary.

Mary immediately stopped what she was saying and said to me “I heard that!  You didn’t intend to give me the feather, did you?”

I said “No, actually I didn’t.”

She asked if I was mad, and I said no, I had decided to give it to her because it had seemed important to do so.  I told her very briefly why I had brought the feather and what the experience meant to me.  Someone said it was a juvenile bald eagle feather, definitively answering my doubts.

After a bit more conversation, drawing in some of the other students, we went on to the ceremony.  As it happened, Mary and I were the first ones at the outdoor ceremony site, and were alone there.  We spoke briefly about the incident, and then she handed me a Golden Eagle feather.  She said that it had been beautifully beaded by a mutual friend, and that the beading had just dropped off one day.  When she had meditated on what this was about, she was told the feather would need to go on to someone else soon.  And now, she said, was the time.  “It’s balance,” she said.

The entire incident highlighted as nothing less would have done how I was dealing with the issues of intimacy and relationship: approach and avoidance.  This pattern had set up so much tension within me that I could hardly cope any longer.<p>I did not, however, know how to resolve the struggle.

Finally, more than a year later, there was a readiness within me to face my own fear and resistance.  I began with a two week flower essence process.  Essentially I would test myself for flower essences daily for two weeks.  The first days I was readying myself for the clarity needed to actually address the issue.  Usually the seventh day brings up essences which specifically address the underlying causes of the problem.  In this case, it was on the 5th day that I got the specific solution to my dilemma:  Chives and Evening Primrose essences.  Chives flower essence “reestablishes the power one has when the internal male/female dynamics are balanced and the individual is functioning in a state of awareness within this balance.” (Perelandra Essences Guide) Interesting, I thought.

Then I read the definition I had written for Evening Primrose flower essence:

EVENING PRIMROSE Oenothera hookeri (yellow): Healing qualities: nurturing; able to give and receive tenderness. Evening Primrose flower essence reflects the quality of the herb: every part of the plant is edible and nourishing.  It helps reconnect us with the wise, receptive, feminine aspect within each of us, and to maintain a balance between the active (masculine) and the receptive (feminine) principles that are indelibly a part of every one of us.

One morning soon after, I awoke to a realization: my whole life I have lived with the basic emotion of fear.  Strangely, I never thought I was afraid of anything.  Spiders and mice, thunder and lightning, all things natural have been my allies and sources of wonder and joy.  Even the wasps are my friends.  What astonishes me is how deeply I have denied this very basis of my being – fear.  For as long as I can remember and still farther back, I had covered fear with anger and even rage.  For a very long time I had eaten my fear and my anger into submission.

Now I found I must go back to the essence, to the beginning, and start again in order to move forward.  Anger was tearing my body apart.

My first thought was to make an appointment with Mary.  The appointment would be a little over two weeks away.  What should I do in the meantime?  I asked, and received the suggestion to start another two week flower essence process.  I took the essences dutifully each of the first six days, without any clear connection to what was going on inside my being.  During that week I ate far more food than usual and many things I am allergic to or don’t digest well, including lots of sugar.  One night I actually had reflux and acid indigestion.  Uggh!  Relieve me of this addiction, I prayed.

The sixth night, reading in bed, I was half asleep when the cat burst into the bedroom following hot after a bat.  The small black shape flew so fast around my bedroom that I could not even get a good look.  I herded the cat out of the room, and ran to fling open the French doors.  The bat, naturally, flew unerringly through the doors into the friendly darkness.  The cat pounced back in and settled herself smugly on the bed.  I wonder.  Does she realize that she has brought me the most appropriate of my totem animals?  Is her part of the great mystery a conscious one, or is she just acting on instinct?<p>I went back to reading my novel:

"You cannot outguess the gods.  Hold to virtue – if you can identify it – and trust that the duty set before you is the duty desired of you.  And that the talents given to you are the talents you should place in the gods’ service.  Believe that the gods ask for nothing back that they have not first lent to you.  Not even your life."

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, pp. 228 -229

Like so many of the novels I read nowadays, it spoke exactly to the issues at hand:  the fear of not being good enough; my calling in life and the need to choose to say yes to those beautiful luminous beings who ask me to be their hands, their eyes and their breath; and the gnawing desire to peer into the future when I know that I cannot know – that, in fact, it is best that I surrender.  I must walk through my life moment to moment, trusting absolutely.

The next morning, when I drew my Medicine Card for the day, it was Eagle:

“The feathers of Eagle are considered to be the most sacred of healing tools. . . .  Eagle represents a state of grace achieved through hard work, understanding, and a completion of the tests of initiation which result in the taking of one’s personal power.  It is only through the trial of experiencing the lows in life as well as the highs, and through the trial of trusting one’s connection to Great Spirit, that the right to use the essence of Eagle medicine is earned.

“. . . Eagle is reminding you to take heart and gather your courage, for the universe is presenting you with an opportunity to soar above the mundane levels of your life.  The power of recognizing this opportunity may come in the form of a spiritual test.  In being astute, you may recognize the places within your soul, personality, emotions, or psyche that need bolstering or refinement.  By looking at the overall tapestry, Eagle teaches you to broaden your sense of self beyond the horizon of what is presently visible.

“In learning to fiercely attack your personal fear of the unknown, the wings of your soul will be supported by the everpresent breezes which are the breath of the Great Spirit.

“Feed your body, but more importantly feed your soul.  Within the realm of Mother Earth and Father Sky, the dance that leads to flight involves the conquering of fear and the willingness to join in the adventure that you are co-creating with the Divine.

****

“If you have been walking in the shadows of former realities, Eagle brings illumination.  Eagle teaches you to look higher and to touch Grandfather Sun with your heart, to love the shadow as well as the light.  See the beauty in both, and you will take flight like the Eagle.

“Eagle medicine is the gift we give ourselves to remind us of the freedom of the skies.  Eagle asks you to give yourself permission to legalize freedom and to follow the joy your heart desires.”

Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams & David Carson, pp. 41 -42

This struck me as extraordinarily apropos.  In fact, too much so to be a coincidence.  What could I do but listen and say thank you?

A bit later in the day, I did the test for the seventh day of my two week flower essence process.  The essences were Sweet Bell Pepper, Maple, and Sea Palm.  Sweet Bell Pepper is about inner peace, restoring inner balance during stressful times and in stressful situations.  (Perelandra Essences Guide)

Sea Palm calls for “meetings at the edge of breakthroughs in consciousness.”   For those in need of this essence . . . “there is tension at the physical, mental, and emotional levels.   The “patterns are often related to self-worth issues and stem from feeling unloved and unwanted as a child.  The Sea Palm type craves nurturing and nourishment emotionally and physically, and will often suffer from digestive problems and eating disorders.” Energy Medicine: Pacific Flower and Sea Essences, by Sabina Petit.

Well that surely fit the problems I was working on!

The Maple essence was made by a friend of mine.  I had one I had made also, but that wasn’t the bottle selected.  My friend had never given me a definition, and now it had become important.  I called her, and she read me her definition.  As she read, I became ever more amazed at the perfection of this essence.  The short version is that Maple brings abundance and fecundity, and harmony and balance where there is dichotomy.

This kind of shamanic healing has been such a blessing in my life, and makes me want to share it with any who ask.  If you would like to know more about energetic and shamanic healing or flower and crystal essences, or are interested in a session, contact me at jackie@dragonflyessence.com, or call (360) 789-9599.

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In love and healing,

Jackie