Snake Visitation: Animals as Messengers from Spirit

            There are no accidents.
            Everything is in perfect alignment with Divine timing.
            Everything happens exactly as it should.

            Sometimes I have to repeat this over and over and over again and I still have a hard time believing it. But, most of the time, I believe it and accept it. Even when it hurts.

            I often pray a prayer my mom taught me: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.

            It makes sense, right? That the human brain could not possibly fathom the web of experiences and happenings of Life, or figure out the interconnectedness of all events and beings… It’s really just all a matter of perception, anyway, isn’t it?

            With that being said, I also believe that there are no coincidences. What was it that I saw recently (probably on Facebook)? “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” (Presumably, it was Albert Einstein who said that, but I haven’t checked-in with Senorita Snopes about that one yet.) When I run into Coincidence, it’s a sign to me that my life is on track…or maybe way off-track; either way, it’s a sure sign that I need to take note of it, because it is a Sign, indeed.

            A sign came slithering my way just last night, as a matter of fact. You see, my husband and I have been searching for a house…for, like, 3 years or something crazy like that. Last night, we finally moved forward on a bid. It was right after we'd sent the email to the realtor outlining specifics, in fact, that I'd gone out to get JoJo (our cat), as he'd been outside for a good portion of the evening, doing Feline-knows-what. It was dark, so I had a flashlight in tow, and luckily, I had turned it on before I reached the main floor; otherwise, I may not have seen the skinny, black-and-brown, 18-inch-long snake at the foot of the steps.

            I halted. It lie still. I didn’t freak-out or anything, since I’ve done a bit of educating myself about snakes (and how most of them in Texas are not venomous yet get killed due to fear and ignorance all of the time by kill-happy-hickoids – no judgment there, just observation).

                       Red touch yellow, kill a fellow; red touch black, won’t kill Jack. "But what about black touch brown?” I wondered.
     
           I looked up to see JoJo quickly approaching. Whether venomous or not, I did not want my kitty using this creature as a plaything, and anticipation made my heart skitter briefly until I was able to snatch-up JoJo...at which time, the snake glided its way behind a bush.

            I couldn’t help but wonder the odds of my walking downstairs to get JoJo at that perfect moment in Time to come face-to-face with a snake. So, I decided to look it up on my iTotem app just in case the Universe was attempting to relay a message (which it always is; we just have to open our hearts and listen). Snake: Wisdom, Healing, Initiation. “It…signals a transition in your life. New opportunities and/or changes. …accept the power of the fire.”

            I like to use several sources when something unique happens to me, so I also got out my Animal Speak book (Ted Andrews): “…It sheds its skin and outgrows the old. This death and rebirth cycle is part of what snake represents… is often symbolized by the ouroborus, the ancient image of a snake swallowing its own tail…the symbol of eternity… enabling the individual to see the world from an entirely new perspective… Anytime a snake shows up as a totem, you can expect death and rebirth to occur in some area of your life…What new opportunities are surfacing that you need to strike out for and take advantage of?...When snake comes into your life, you can look for a rebirth into new powers of creativity and wisdom.”

as well as my Animal Spirit Guides book (Steven D. Farmer, PH.D.): “You’re about to go through some significant personal changes, so intense and dramatic that an old self will metaphorically die as a new self emerges… You’re about to resolve a long-standing issue, one that has required a great deal of your attention…Call on snake when…you are anxious about what lies ahead.”

            I took a lot of this interpretation to fit the situation of our moving forward in our first home-buying process, which has been causing a lot of angst in us, but there really is so much more to the snake that applies to my life. I’ll save that for another post, another day, I suppose.

            I do try to use the signs in Nature to guide me in my endeavors in life, and I hope I am appropriately interpreting them so that I can be the best that I can be in all that I Am and in all that I Am to Become.

            Namaste.

            P.S. No lie: I just finished typing and I glanced down at the bedside clock and it read 11:11. If that doesn’t ring a bell, then you must not be my Facebook “friend”, and I say, hold tight; I’m sure a post will emerge regarding that phenomenon at some point. <3

 

           

Trains of Thought

It's quite possible that approximately 35-39% of my current lifetime has passed. When I see it in digits and symbols in front of me like that, it has the potential of being frightening. I mean, should I have accomplished more at this juncture? (Guess not, since everything unfolds exactly as it should, when it should, aye? Cheers to that theory!)

The other morning, I was driving to work, stopped at a stop sign, when I caught sight of a much-older woman driving in front of me, on the perpendicular street, sipping on what I guessed to be some variation of a coffee libation. Was she going to work? I'll be darned if I'm that age and still working for The Man! I mean, seriously… if I’m even close to that age and even out in the world at that time of day, it had better be the day of the week I don my purple hat and meet up with a group of sassy cohorts for some early-morning debauchery. I can only hope that’s what she was up to.

These thoughts, plus countless others, sprinted through my mind even before I pressed the accelerator. As I drove on, I actually got a bit giddy at the thought that so much more living is still ahead of me. I mean, if life begins at 40, like “they” say, then I’m good as gold!

Then my thoughts hopped onto a different train: to me as an old woman, looking back on this life. Will I feel accomplished? Will I feel secure in my endeavors and efforts, and will I be content with where I end up? Who will be integral components of my life at that point?

Then, of course, Mind had to catch a connecting train, to one that led to Mom. I often think of what her life was like at the stage where I currently find myself. I’m pretty sure she had already brought her first 5 kids into the world when she was my age. Parallel lives, definitely not! (However, it somewhat gives me hope that I may be able to conceive up ‘til I’m about 44; buys me more time in that department, I suppose.)

I have to wonder what goes through her mind on a daily basis. Having been diagnosed with a terminal illness… in pain and/or discomfort most days… possibly hanging-on to a past that can’t be changed or resurrected. She’s not exactly a talker, to say the least; not about personal past or family history, anyway. She’ll make a comment here and there that sparks curiosity in me, but I never get the full story. “I don’t remember details like that,” she claims.

Here I am, a third of the way along my path, while Mom can look back on the path of (this)Life a lot further than she can look forward.

“If you realize that all things change,
There is nothing you will try to hold onto.
If you aren’t afraid of dying,
There is nothing you can’t achieve.”

- Tao te Ching, chapter 74

The morbid part of me just can’t help but wonder what it will be like to look back on more time than I can anticipate lying before me…

One day, I’ll know…if I’m lucky.

Right Here, Right Now

*Note: This was written in 2010. It is now April 29, 2013.

       

Do you ever just stop, take a look around, and think to yourself how you never thought you’d be “right here, right now”?

 

Do you ever let your life rewind in your mind’s eye and assess the events that led up to Now? How every tiny event got braided with the next, until your life has become one apparatus with long strings hanging down to the burbur carpet?

 

It’s as though you can funnel those strings through your fingertips, yet it’s impossible to grasp the full picture of what they will look like once they’ve become a part of the whole. And you can trace your fingertips backwards, to the tight ball of yarn… You never imagined it would end up looking the way it does now; this half-finished product…with some gaps here and there, from days when you weren’t spot-on with your craft, days you were distracted from the image you held in your mind from when you first picked up those needles…days when you just simply stuck it through the wrong spot. But that’s ok, because when you look at the piece, imperfections and all, you can genuinely say that it still looks beautiful; it’s still exactly what it’s supposed to be, what it was meant to be, all along…

 

Tomorrow marks the 11-year anniversary of Dad’s death. April 29, 2010. I have a student who was born on the same exact day that Dad died. April 29, 1999.

 

I wonder what the time was when she greeted her loved ones. Was is possibly during the same moments that her mother was in sheer agony, so was I?

 

Possibly so. Except the end results were polar opposites…Her emotions took a turn for the better, mine for the worse. Her life gained purpose, mine lost meaning.

 

He was 65 and his crocheted piece came to fruition. No more string left to loop through … I’ve still got some strings hanging from my own ball of yarn, but they fall into the darkness of the Unknown

 

I hope that when I start to reach the end of my strings that I will be able to gaze into the reflection of the piece admirably, knowingly. And I pray that I will be surrounded by loved ones who can trace their fingers on it, right beside me, while we talk about how all those different paths led us to Now.

 

Exactly where we’re supposed to be.