Spirit Spider

Early morning woods walks bring the magical side of life alive. Our feet move quickly, our minds spin constantly and our eyes dart here and there. Morning woods walks force a level of silence that is like little else in life. It brings simplicity. It brings attention. It brings truth. 

We walk with quick feet through life. It is easy in the mid-day sun to miss the finer things in life. It is easy when life moves by to miss the honesty. It is easy to overlook the details. I have walked past you without seeing you. I have chatted without looking. I have focused on my life and missed your presence. I walked past your webs without seeing you or even acknowledging that you exist. 

Early morning walks bring light to things I couldn’t see during the mid-day sun. I see spiderwebs that have been weaved with love. I know that the spiders exist when I can clearly see their webs in the early morning light, covered with dew and all of the freshness that it brings. 

Have you ever walked in the woods and not realized that you are surrounded by spiders? It is like walking through life and not acknowledging spirits. Sometimes, it takes a shift in your vision to see them. I love morning woods walks, they reveal all sorts of truth that I couldn’t see when the sun is up.

Growing Pains

I was out for a run and he showed up, running one step in front of me. He knows that I hate it, I honestly can’t stand it. He runs just out of reach and it doesn’t seem to matter if I pick up my pace or not, he will just pick up his. It has been our relationship since the moment I met him. Just when I felt like I wanted to slow my pace and that it wasn’t worth it, he would make a sneering comment.  It was his form of encouragement, and tonight was no different. 

“You said that you wanted to grow” he said.

“I do” I bolted back at him almost immediately and with fairly fierce intention in my voice. 

“Then stop complaining, no one said it would be comfortable” he said with a smirk in his tone. 

“I didn’t say a word” I said as I looked down at my feet rather than focusing on the hill that I was running up, he was still just a stride ahead of me and had me running outside of a comfortable pace. 

“Don’t play with me, I can hear your thoughts and you were complaining” he poked back at me. 

I was silent and wasn’t sure if I wanted to say “oh, fuck you” or “thank you”. He was a perfect guide for me. I didn’t always like the way that he taught me, it was often harsh and blunt, but he knew me well and had been instrumental with my spiritual growth. 

“Fuck you too. You are welcome. And, I will beat you to the top of the hill” he said as he picked up his pace. 

Growth is often uncomfortable. All of my growth has required me to be raw and real and vulnerable. It has required me to look at myself with a different lens, sideways, upside down, from the top and bottom. It has forced me to dig at wounds that felt too raw to address. It has forced me to hold myself accountable. Growth is uncomfortable and it is also the essence of life and love.

The Path to my Raspberry Patch

I have carried water daily to my newly planted raspberries for the past 2 and a half months. If it didn’t rain, I would fill my buckets and lovingly carry them across my yard, up the slope and past the rows of blueberries. Each day, it made me happy. I mean profoundly happy, somewhere deep in my soul I knew that I was walking a path that I was born to walk. It wasn’t just about the immediate joy that I got from assisting a plant to transition to its new home, it was also about an investment in my future. It was an investment in my children's future. The future of what would go into their mouths and feed their bodies. I loved watching them grow and would cheer for them as I watered them. I have always talked to my gardens and my houseplants and these raspberries were no exception. 

On this particular afternoon I decided to sidedress the raspberry plants with compost. It was 98 degrees, the sun was shining, the air was thick and the sweat was running down my elbows as I loaded the compost and pushed the wheelbarrow up the slope towards the rows of raspberries. 

As I shoveled the compost out of the wheelbarrow and around the raspberries I got thinking. I truly loved caring for these raspberries. What if……. what if I cared for myself just as well as I cared for these raspberries. What if I treated myself with this kind of gentleness. What if giving myself what I needed wasn’t an option, it was required to fit into my day. What if I put that kind of love and energy into myself.  What if I encouraged my own growth the way I encouraged theirs?  

Now…….. what if I encouraged every other human I know with this same level of love and intensity. And, what if they just happened to encourage me back. 

Fencepost Advice

I worked in the garden and he sat on the fencepost, I could feel him sitting there without looking up. I knew he came with something to say, mostly because he was saying nothing. I knew that he was waiting for me to look up at him, I didn’t. I focused on the sun and how it warmed my skin. I focused on the smell of the lilacs that bloomed all over the property. I focused on the way that I felt with my hands and feet in the ground. Eventually, I looked up at him. He smiles with a crooked smile, a lopsided grin that let me know that he was playing with me. I smiled back, used the back of my hand to push the hair from my eyes. I looked back down at the tomatoes that I was planting knowing that the eye contact was enough of an acknowledgement that he would eventually spit it out. 

“You know………. you can’t lose weight when you hate your body”

I didn’t look up. He knows it is a sensitive topic for me. I crawled along planting the tomatoes. I had recently gained a little weight and no matter what I did the weight wouldn’t come off. 

“I know that” I said without looking at him.

“Do you” he asked from the fencepost.

“I mean, I should” I said back feeling unimpressed with myself.  Unimpressed that I needed to be having this conversation with him. Unimpressed that I couldn’t see it for what it was before he called me out on it. Unimpressed that I found myself in a situation again where I didn’t love my body.

“You lost weight when you loved yourself and your body”

I knew that he was gone without looking however I looked up anyway. The fencepost was empty, much like the way that I felt when I realized that I was hating my body again.

Shadows on my Computer

I was avoiding everything to do with my website like it was a plague. I was in a business meeting with the woman who made my website and she was showing me how to take over the reins and post my own blogs. I consider myself a fairly high functioning adult, I mean I can brush my own teeth, I pay my mortgage, I manage my children, I balance my life, yet I felt completely and utterly incompetent as she was teaching me about this simple website. It was as if I could hear her words but they were another language. I felt like I was on autopilot and I must have presented that way also, because she stopped.

“What is your resistance here? You manage your facebook and IG accounts without any issues” she asked. 

In that moment I realized that there truly was resistance. I was avoiding the website and had never stopped to ask myself why. When she directly asked me, the answer came quickly and easily. 

“It wasn’t my job” I stated with a hint of anger that even I could sense despite trying to mask the anger as it came out of my mouth. 

She looked at me blankly through the zoom video.

“When I started the business he was going to do the marketing and manage the website. This wasn’t my job. I literally did not sign up for this” and as I said the words the anger dissipated and I could finally feel the real emotions behind the resistance. 

She nodded her head and smiled gently at me. “I get it”

I looked at her through the zoom call as the emotions sank in and I got to embrace them.

“You haven’t looked at why you were resisting it, have you?” she asked.

“Nope, but now that I have, I get the opportunity to deal with it and move forward” I said with a smile.

We went on to finish the meeting and I went on to manage my own blog never asking her to post a single one. 

Resistance is almost always a sign of a wound or unprocessed emotion. In this case, I am not sure how long I would have avoided all of the technology things related to my business if I had not stopped and looked at it. I could have avoided the question about resistance and shrugged it off as odd human behavior, but I made the choice to stop and actually respond. Shadow work can happen on many levels and it can look like many things. I will say that for me shadow work always looks like healing in the end, if I can really sink into the work and look at my wounds.

Dowsing for a calf

You may or may not know this about me. I was raised on a farm. I loved it. I learned about the life cycle. I learned about hard work. I learned about family. I learned about nature. I learned about the universe. 

I own a little farm now myself. The neighbor keeps his cows here.  It doesn’t feel like home unless there are cows in my pastures. I wait for the spring morning when they arrive and I am sad in early winter when they leave. 

Each morning I water the cows while I water the gardens and the chickens and dance my faery soul around the property. It is my morning routine. It involves a nightgown, a cup of coffee, a watering can or two and every ounce of my happiness. It makes me whole and it starts my day in a way that brings peace and happiness.

Yesterday, something felt off. I felt it inside my body as clearly as I can feel a truth or lie. The cows were holding their bodies in a different manner and made noises when they normally do not. I spoke with my mother about it and she agreed. I walked all through the pastures and counted the cows to ensure that they were all there. They were all there yet I felt no better. Unsettled was the word that I would use to describe the cows, and they are normally faithfully settled. I felt deep in my soul that there was a cow out in the woods outside the pasture yet all of them were accounted for. 

This morning as I watered I didn’t dance. In fact, I felt a little sick inside. I picked the vegetables quickly and carried them back to the house. It was early and the sun was just rising. I ran up the stairs to my mothers place with a pail of cukes and squash. Before I could tell her that something felt wrong she said “something isn’t right with the cows”. I responded back that I knew, I felt it too and I was waiting for an appropriate time to call the farmer who owned them.

I walked along the treeline and as I walked I immediately got a sense that there was an ill animal close to me. I stepped over a stonewall and instantly knew that I was by the sick animal. I was chatting on the phone with my father about my son who was going to visit for the day. I remember saying “there is something here” and him asking what I was talking about. I felt the animal and started looking. I laid eyes on fur only feet from me and slowly stepped back. No animal that was healthy would let me walk that close to it during daylight. I walked back assuming that it was a rabid animal. 

As morning drew on I decided it was acceptable to call the farmer, he was out of town for a funeral. I explained that I had walked the pastures and that the cows were all there but that something was not right. I felt it deep in my soul. He is sweet and said that he would come and walk in the woods around the pasture when he got home in the afternoon to see if there was something upsetting the animals. He told me that likely one of his cows was in heat, I didn't agree. I had seen cows in heat a good many times and this wasn’t a heat. We talked about the fact that it could be a neighbors cow who was out of her pasture and agreed that I would call him. 

I spoke with the other neighbor who agreed that he would check it out. He went down the treeline and checked it.  He called me back to tell me that there were no signs of cows out there and that everything was fine. I wanted to yell “bullshit” but instead I said “ok”. 

I put on my boots and walked out in the woods again.  I felt it in my body and I decided that I wasn’t going to be told no. I knew it as a truth. I let my body lead me. I walked straight up to the animal again and this time it moved. I jumped back. I went back to the house and got my ex, who was visiting my children, to come back with me. I explained that I felt that there was an animal that was ill and I needed another person to know that I was out there with the animal. He asked if he should bring something to kill it with, in the event that it was suffering. I immediately wrinkled my face and said “NO”. We walked out and back to the animal. At this point it had wiggled out from under the bush and rather than just traces of fur you could see an actual animal. “Oh shit, it’s a calf” I said as we stepped up to the stone wall. I turned around and ran back to the house to call the farmer.  The farmer didn’t realize that he had a pregnant cow. It meant that this animal wasn’t well. The cow had tucked the calf somewhere on the treeline and the calf had moved out into the woods where the cow could not go because of the fence. The calf was likely hungry, likely dehydrated, likely didn’t have too long, given that it was 90 degrees and the animal had clearly not been cared for by the mom. 

I knew that the owner was still at a funeral so I called the other neighbor who is a farmer. He came down. He was surprised because earlier he went down the treeline and saw nothing. We walked out into the woods. I walked him right up to the calf but he couldn’t see her. When I pointed her out he laughed and asked how I even found her. I explained that I could feel her in my body. We peeked at the calf from about 2 feet away and then agreed to wait until the owner came home.

About an hour later, the owner showed up at my house. We walked out into the woods and the calf was gone. He started looking around and told me that he would find her. I felt in my body that he was going the wrong way, I just walked next to him and chatted. He asked me to tell him again how I found the calf so I talked him through the story. Eventually, I told him I was going the other way to look for her. He smiled and told me that the calf wouldn’t go that way. I said “ok” knowing that he was right, the calf should not have gone that way,but also trying to stay true to the feelings inside my body. He walked off and I closed my eyes. I center myself and then opened my eyes and let my body lead. Eventually, my body stopped and there, deep in the bush, berries and trees was the calf. I yelled to the farmer.  He smiled and said “how on earth did you do that”. I laughed and said “I felt her, in my body”. He looked at me for a long pause and then got ready to carry the calf out of the woods. As he carried the calf he said “I will remember you and this the next time I am missing something”

The calf was reunited with the mother and while she was dehydrated and hungry and struggling to stand, she started nursing and quickly came back to life. As he shut the door to the trailer with the mama and calf inside he looked over at me and said “I don’t really understand it all, but thank you because she wouldn’t have lived much longer”.

Back-Seat Driving

“There is a cop ahead” I said from the backseat. 

“What” my mom said back from the driver's seat. 

“There is a cop ahead” I said again with all confidence. 

As we rounded the corner we were able to see the cop.

“How did you know that” she asked without looking back.

“I don’t know” I said with little to no emotion.

Weeks later we were driving again. I was looking sideways out of the car.

“There is a cop ahead” I said.

“What” my mom said back to me from the driverseat.

“Yes” I said and went back to looking out the window. 

Moments later she saw the cop.

“Erin, how do you know that” she asked, again without turning to look at me. This time, I could feel her eyes on me from the rearview mirror but I did not look up. I was thankful that she wasn’t turning to look at me, somehow it made the conversation less real.

“I don’t know”

Silence. 

I continued to call out when cops were ahead of us on the road. When I was a young teen she asked me again. “How do you know when there is a cop”

“I think that they must have a radar in their car that my body can feel because it makes my heart feel funny” I said back with a question mark in my voice. 

“Ok” she said without more discussion. I appreciated the lack of conversation, because I was out of answers and she knew it.

I didn’t understand at the time that I was listening to my body. I have done it all of my life and as a child and young adult I had little understanding of what I was doing. In my 30s I got a crash course in listening to my body.

Cleaning my closest

To anyone watching, it likely looked like I was thrashing. In reality, I felt completely grounded and calm. I had come to the understanding that the volume of material things in my home, rather in my life, was a physical manifestation of unsettled energy. It was all a distraction, something to focus on so that I didn’t have to look deep within. Most of the physical objects in my home were not bringing me joy, so I began to ask why I had them, why I had purchased them, why I worked hard to pay for them and why I moved them around my home or worse, stored them in my attic. 

I was holding a large trash bag and placing item after item inside. To anyone watching, I may have looked manic, but in reality I was ecstatic. I was lighter and happier than I had been in a long time. 

After placing each item inside the donation bag, I felt the handcuffs that I had been wearing release. My ties to the material world were loosening. Rather than subscribing to societal norms, I started to set my own boundaries, my own limits, and embrace my own values. 

I didn’t feel the need to explain to friends and family and I didn’t feel the need to justify to anyone. As I stepped into my own power and my own self I stepped out of other peoples ideals and norms.

Full Moon Dance

The full moon has always called to me. As a child, I would leave my blinds open and look at it from my bed. I could feel the increased energy building up in my body in the days leading up to the full moon. Often, it felt like more energy than my body could contain, as if it needed to pour from every ounce of my body. I would frequently lie sideways and shuffle my feet back and forth in my sheets on the night of a full moon, almost as if I were running sideways on my bed. My body always felt like it needed to move to get the energy out, like coiling energy moving up through my body. 

As an adult, I still carry this same energy in my body leading into a full moon and if I am being honest I still shuffle my feet in my bed. However, I also work with the energy and use it to my benefit now that I understand it better. I work not only with the full moon but with all of the moon cycles. Naturally, our bodies try to work with the moon cycles and frequently we fight our own instincts; I have embraced a life where I try to avoid fighting what nature built into me.  Emotions frequently run high during the full moon making relationships, communication and sleep challenging. Recognizing this and working with it can allow for some beautiful growth in each of these areas. The lunar cycle is natural and it is my belief that all animals work with the lunar cycle.  We humans should stop trying to override it and start embracing it. When you stop fighting the things that are naturally happening in your body then life flows easier, for me anyways. 

In the 3 days leading up to the full moon I will set out water to charge in the moonlight. When water it left overnight in the moonlight it absorbs the higher energy of the full moon and all of the positive energy that goes along with the full moon. I often drink this water, clear energy off from crystals and rocks in my home, water my plants with it, add it to my children's water bottles and wash my body with it. 

On the night of the full moon I always have a ceremony where I light candles, set out crystals and water to charge and clear, create a sacred space and have a ceremony. The ceremony always involves asking the universe to help me release things that are not serving me (I do this on behalf of other people also!) and bring me the things that I need to help me on my life's path. 

I carried the candle and stones out on my portable altar and lit the candle. I placed the mason jar of water on the stone wall. I placed the list including the words that I was working on manifesting under my portable altar. I set my offerings to the faery folk, the earth and the universe out under the tree. I slipped out of my robe and started my ceremony. For me, ceremony is about placing additional intention behind the words and the requests. Similar to prayer, it is about calling in additional energy and support and channeling your energy into something. 

As I step sideways in my brain I allow in the universal energy that I hold so dear. During the full moon, universal energy and spirit communication is easier and flows more smoothly.  So as I step into the ceremony, the spirits who I work with step up next to me. This ceremony was focused on what I needed to release to allow new growth into my life. Much like a trust fall, my head tilted backwards, my arms spread wide, heart wide open and I handed over human control. Just like that, I knew I did not need to carry the burden of this life. I knew that behind me stood a team of spirits and the universe ready to catch me and gently place me right where I needed to be. 

In true full moon glory, he stepped next to me with wild hair, intense energy and no clothing. He was supporting me as I thrashed through some shadow work and personal growth. He hooted at the moon, howled at the moon, yelled to the moon. At that moment, I realized that I was still uncomfortable in my skin as I shook my head and tried to refocus my energy. I realized that this was a teaching moment. “Fuck it” I said outloud as I danced naked in the moon hooting and screaming with him. The energy of my inner child was something that I used to hold dear and had lost with a relationship trauma. He was hellbent on helping me own that inner child once again. My other closest spirit guide stood by the stone wall shaking his head and smirking at us. He wasn’t about to lower his “standards” to this level, but I appreciated his energy there nonetheless. 

As the dancing and hooting calmed and the energy refocused on the task at hand, I felt his energy shift to deep work. His large thumb ran across my forehead and then under each eye. I wasn’t sure what he was painting on me but I understood that it was moon energy. As he painted he said "may I never get so rigid, and may I never get so bold, that this life is not something that I enjoy as it unfolds". We repeated it over and over again.

I worked with that energy all month. As the lunar cycle flowed into the waning moon I was able to release the things that were no longer serving me, which left room to enjoy this life as it unfolds. 

When you feel torn, let in light and growth

I was running and quickly realized that the town had come through a “trimmed” the tree limbs and brush back from the edge of the road. It always makes me cringe. I hate seeing the way that the limbs and branches are torn and shredded. I think about what it must feel like to the tree. I understand that it is required yet whenever I see it I feel sadness. As I ran and looked at the mutilated ends of the branches I started to think about humans.

Have you ever had someone enter your life who shred the very limbs that you hold sacred?  Have you ever had someone enter your life who mutilated parts of you that it didn’t occur to you to protect?  Have you ever had someone enter your life and rip parts of you off as they leave without even a second thought? Yeah, me too. 

Human relationships can be like the relationship between this machine and the trees. Everyone is present, everyone is involved but oftentime one comes out wounded while the other leaves and appears to be just fine. 

I kept running and at this point my gaze had softened and I was no longer peering at each branch and limb that was mutilated and destroyed. Instead, I softened my gaze and spent time in my head. Quickly, I realized that while the tree may be hurting right now, change was coming. The removal of those limbs and branches would allow more light into the rest of the tree. The removal of those limbs and branches would allow for new and different growth that may otherwise never have occurred. 

I have had my limbs and branches torn from my tree, mutilated and ripped away from my core. Much like the tree, it was painful in the moment, but it brought light into my life. It brought a new beginning and fresh opportunity for growth. I remember how raw my wounds felt when it first happened and I also remembered how much light I felt from the universe. 

As I ran, I spread wishes all along the road to each tree and bush that I passed and wished that they focus on the light and growth that was coming their way.