totems

How Big is Your Brave?

April 22, 2014

Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live/ Maybe one of these days you can let the light in/ Show me how big your brave is – Sara Bareilles

Seven years. That is how long it has been since I finished the first draft of Unfurl. Seven years. Some people would say that my entire skeleton has regenerated in that time.

Why has it taken so long?

Because I listened to what ‘they’ told me about needing an agent and a traditional publisher. Because I lost a little more momentum with every rejection letter I received. Because I spent a month researching what other people felt was the best self-publishing platform. Because because because.

It’s been seven years because I was afraid.

The Who-Do-You-Think-You-Are gremlins set up a tea party in my head and invited their good friends: Not-Good-Enough and Not-Really-A-Writer. There was also a healthy side order of me not wanting to ‘out’ myself as a spiritual writer (Who-Do-You-Think-You-Are’ also hosted this party). This will be hilarious to anyone who has read one word of my blog during this time.

And then one day the fear of never publishing this book was bigger than the fear tea party. So I got brave and just took the leap.

If you could have seen my brave that day, it was the size of an elephant – a big one – and it had a wolf and a dragon and a black jaguar and a red fox and a couple of angels, a tribe, and a few ancestors beside it. I was a whole team of brave.

I still don’t know exactly how it is going to go, but I do know that no matter what else happens, I have published my book. It’s out in the world. That is something I can always be proud of. That, and how brave I was to do it.

So tell me: what is your dream? What has been waiting to come through you?

How big is your brave?

sacred, totems

Deer Medicine

August 8, 2011

“…be confident enough to say, ‘This is what I believe in. This is what I like. This is my soul, exposed.” – Geraldine James Creative Walls

I am lucky enough to have a commute that consists of a 10 minute walk in the country. Up until this week I always took the same route because I thought it was quicker. Well, the crazy train threatened to stop at my station this week and I was desperate not to fall into old patterns of woe and angst so I decided to shake things up. Four mornings ago I turned right instead of left and walked a different way through the woods.

On day one I noticed a lone deer standing underneath a tree. I noticed, I whispered hello, but I kept on going: earphones in, walk determined, and focus clearly pointed ahead. Heavy things were weighing on my mind and I was afraid to be late for work.

On day two as I turned down the last path through a bit of woods, I startled a deer. It ran across the path in front of me and away through the trees. I looked up from the path and watched it go, and then hurried on to work.

Yesterday – the day before the crazy train was due to arrive – feeling a bit disconnected and nervous, I sat still in the morning and asked for some help to get through the next couple of days. Then I put a podcast on my ipod and walked to work. I have no idea why, but for some reason about half way there, I stopped in my tracks. It was like I had been halted. Looking up I realized that not 5 feet away from me stood two deer – a male and a female – standing and staring right back at me. The next thing I heard was the voice on the ipod say, “NOW do I have your attention?” I laughed out loud, but the deer didn’t move. They just stood there and watched me right back until I finally went on my way.

I was filled up with the knowledge that I was not alone and that everything was going to be okay – whatever happened. Ted Andrews says that the original meaning of deer is ‘wild animal.’ He also says that: “When deer show up there is an opportunity to express gentle love that will open new doors to adventure for you.” Crazy train averted.

Lessons, it seems, are repeated until you get them.

The photograph is ‘Three Deer Glade” by Mark Simms. Winner of the UK Wildlife Photography Competition 2010. http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/photo/uk-wildlife-photography010.html

archetypes, Sacred Feminine, totems, Wild Woman

Bear Medicine

July 24, 2011

“When you imagine your future, do not think that you will be the same then as you are now.” – Sanaya Roman

Loon on Kearney Lake, Algonquin Park photo by me.

When I was in Canada, we had a close encounter with a black bear. Coming out of hibernation and finding very little to eat, some of the bears in Algonquin Park decide that the food that the humans are cooking and leaving around would be a lot more filling than waiting for the blueberries to ripen. We now know that a) they can smell beer through cans (in our neighbor’s campsite) and b) that even rice cakes smell nice when you are starving (in my brother and sister-in-law’s dining tent.)

Yes, I know that the photo above is not a bear. I didn’t stop to take any pictures of it ripping through our dining tent as I carried my 2.5 year old niece to the safety of the van! A park warden arrived shortly thereafter and began shooting rubber bullets at the bear to scare it away. It was not a nice connecting-with-animals experience for any of us – including the bear.

Before I left for Canada I was going through a prolonged and very boring angst-y period about what sort of writing I should be doing and who I was. Lots of signs happened around me showing me the way and I half-heartedly paid attention to them. But that’s the problem with signs and nudges: if you don’t listen to them, they get louder and stronger. Looking up ‘Bear’ in Animal Speak, I found that it is a powerful messenger, linked with myths and stories. Bear, it would seem had a message for me and it really wanted me to pay attention.

While I was in the park I saw loons, beavers, moose, chipmunks, bluejays and a bear. Did I run home and look up all of those creatures to see what messages they had? Nope. Did I listen to the gentle messengers in case they wanted to tell me something? Nope. That poor bear had to get shot in the backside to get my attention. And as much message as Bear had for me, I got a message in the method as well. Starving, it was so desperate for any nourishment that it risked its safety to get it. It was not interested in us at all; it only wanted to eat. It was our fear and our reaction that made the situation turn violent and frightening.

Nourish the wild soul, listen for the messages, pay attention and don’t be afraid of connection with the sacred and the wild. These are lessons I humbly accept from the bear. But I got another one I like a lot too. It’s the one my friend Jo give me when I told her about the bear:”it’s time to come out of your cave!”

RrrroooOOoooooAAAaaaaaRRRrrrrr!

How Big is Your Brave?

Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live/ Maybe one of these days you can let the light in/ Show me how big your brave is – Sara Bareilles

Deer Medicine

“…be confident enough to say, ‘This is what I believe in. This is what I like. This is my soul, exposed.” – Geraldine James Creative Walls

The photograph is ‘Three Deer Glade” by Mark Simms. Winner of the UK Wildlife Photography Competition 2010. http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/photo/uk-wildlife-photography010.html

Bear Medicine

“When you imagine your future, do not think that you will be the same then as you are now.” – Sanaya Roman

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