There are times and places
where there shadows forth
hints of what is beyond -
or below -
or before -
We sometimes catch a glimpse,
a shadowed form,
a scuttling shape -
more often it is a sense of menace, watchfulness -
the cruel will,
of anger or pain,
or just sadness, loss, or loneliness,
sharp enough to pierce the layers of time
that separates then from now.
Moments are meant to be stacked,
one upon the other,
sensible and safe.
Each instant should be solid,
like a window through which you can look
but never touch.
But when the curtain is rent,
the glass shattered,
and something comes through
to touch us with its cold fingers -
we struggle to shut the window again,
to deny that such a breach can happen.
For we know that past and present
are forever separate,
that what is gone
can never come back.
We know this.
Don't we?
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
A second visit with Spider and Swallow
I went on a short spirit journey again tonight. It has been a tumultuous week, and I am very tired; but I am going to set down what happened now while it is fresh in my mind.
I used the same technique as before. The sky this time was cloudy, with ast moving patches of dark clouds. The light is grayer and dimmer, almost like twilight. Sometimes I can see the sun, lower in the sky. Sometimes I see the bright full moon – the silvery light/shadow seems to touch everything.
In the clearing is the tree. It seems larger this time, with a fuller crown. I embrace it, and thank it for helping me. I put both hands on the trunk and let the Reiki energy flow in and out. I feel its goodwill, and know that it is always there with support and strength for me.
I look around. The Green Master is not in evidence. After a moment I become aware that the spider is here though. I see her on a low branch of the tree that extends over the stream. She appears very clearly, a small black spider walking on the branch. I ask if she was the spider that walked over my horse’s bandages this morning; she says yes. She makes no promises of the future, but tells me that she is doing well now, that she is strong, and that what we are doing now is the right course for her at this time.
A moment later I see her walking out over the stream on the branch. She is carrying a large shining white egg sack. I am a little concerned, I find egg sacks kind of creepy and worry that a million baby spiders are going to core crawling out (ick!). The spider tells me not to be silly and calm down. After a few moments I get control of myself and stop trying to guess/force what is going to happen, and just try to sit back, watch, and learn. She flicks it into the air over the water, and it releases thousands of tiny white balloonist spiders, floating on tiny gossamer threads into the air. The breeze takes them out over the grass to the forest, and over the forest. Many land in the grass or in the trees, several land in my tree. Once they land, I cannot see them but I know they are there.
These are not her bodily children, this is a lesson she it teaching me. My first understanding of it is this: the world around me is filled with life. No matter where I am, there are tiny living things near which share this life with me, and can help me if I ask with an open heart. I am never alone, never separated from the web of life around me. I feel there is more for me to learn, but for now I put the image in my heart for later.
Now I look up and the bird is flying down from the tree. He is circling around the trunk and coming down towards me, crying “News! News! I have news!” As he comes close, I ask what news. He says that he carries news and stories all over the world, from place to place. Anything he hears he carries to his friends and it spreads outward. This is what he wants me to know: Any kind word, or generous act, spreads out through the world like ripples on a pond, touching everyone. This is what ties the world together: kind thoughts and deeds given freely without thought of return.
At this I see the second meaning of the spider’s act. The tiny children of our spirits, our wishes, hopes, and dreams, must be set free into the world to land where they will. They must not be held too close, or protected too much, but must be free to travel the wind and make their homes where they will. If they go freely into the world with our love, then they will freely return that love to us in ever new and surprising ways.
I thank them all very much, what wonderful gifts they have given me today. I walk back down the path, and awake.
Help from the spider
As I wrote a while ago, the spiders in the barn gave me a symbol/spell to use to help my wife's horse's hooves. I have used it now a number of times. I am getting a better understanding of it now, it is definitely a symbol to catch and cast out "bad stuff": diseased tissue, foreign material, infection, etc. She really needs it, she has subsolar abcesses on both front feet and is sloughing off the soles. There is probably rotation, but the coffin bone has not emerged through the sole yet (fingers crossed, that would be very bad). We are working hard now to keep her feet clean and free from infection. She has to drain off any remaining dead tissue from the abcess and get the exposed sole laminae to harden so she can walk on them before the bone can break through. She is game for it, and we are all working hard with her!
Today after cleaning and packing her feet with antibiotics, a small spider appeared on her bandage and ran across it a few times as if checking it out, then into the grass beside her. I hope this is a sign from Spider that She is helping her, and that she is on the mend.
Today after cleaning and packing her feet with antibiotics, a small spider appeared on her bandage and ran across it a few times as if checking it out, then into the grass beside her. I hope this is a sign from Spider that She is helping her, and that she is on the mend.
Monday, October 22, 2007
My first spirit journey
I decide to try a spirit journey, to hopefully meet my spirit guide(s) and/or guardian animal(s). I am going to use a directed meditation based on one of my Reiki teacher's exercises and some online articles. I am going to float in my bath -- this is my favorite relaxation spot, very private and peaceful. I can float safely there without risk of going under, the tub is not big enough for me to go under without an effort :)
I turn on some music, light a candle, turn out the lights, and get comfortable. I concentrate on breathing. The warm water and floating feeling is very helpful. I can feel my heartbeat very strongly, resonating through the water and bouncing back to me. The rhythm is steady and gentle; I accept this as my drum. I listen to the beat and let other thoughts drift away, sinking into it.
I am on a beach, a northern ocean beach with sawgrass and tough-looking weeds growing above the tide line. I follow a path up the bank into a forest. The trees are thin and clean limbed, black barked, tall, with leaves only high above. In spite of their somewhat forbidding aspect, I feel that they are friendly. The light filters down in shafts and flickering patches to the ground below. The undergrowth is open and the path is scattered with sand and many small stones of many sizes and colors. I know that these are the gifts of the earth, and show that he supports me in my journey.
I approach a clearing. It feels large, but I am unsure about how big it is. It is open, with thick green grass and a stream running though it. There is a tree in the the middle, next to the stream. The tree is tall, somewhat scraggledy, with a high crown and only a few leafy branches down low. I am pretty sure it is an oak, but sometimes I feel like it is an apple: I think because it reminds me of an apple tree I loved when I was growing up, where I had a tree house. Most people would not look twice at the tree, it is lopsided and not "pretty". But it is vigorous, exuberant, and obviously loves living. As I come up and stand beside it, a small branch comes down and strokes my hair a few times. I feel very welcome, and I sit down against the tree and look at the stream.
I relax, and send out an invitation to my guides to let me see them. I immediately see a figure to my left, standing. He seems to be wrapped in a concealing cloak of white with green & blue highlights. I cannot see his face, it is as if he is veiled with a thick mist that wraps around him. I feel that the veil is in fact my sceptical nature, that does not want to believe in all this; so I do some breathing exercises and try to relax into acceptance and push away my disbelief. After some effort, it works: I see his face. It it pale, and he seems to be crowned in leaves and to have leaves growing from is cheekbones and temples. The leaves are holly-shaped, white, with edges and highlights of green and blue. He laughes, and I feel that this is just an appearance he has chosen, because he know it will be evocative to me, and he enjoys it. ('He' is neither male nor female, or both; it makes as little sense or difference that it would for a tree) We 'speak' a little; he is pleased that I can see him. He says that nearly all people he and his collegues help never become aware of them, but that it is a great pleasure when they do. The being does not give a name, but when I suggest that I call him Green Master he finds it amusing and accepts the title.
I then ask the Green Master if I could meet some of my guardian animals. He indicates that I should look to my right. Just behind me to my right is an animal that I have a lot of trouble perceiving. It seems to be some kind of insect or spider, I think it is a spider. Now, I have for many years had a strong fear of spiders! I have been trying to work through this in the past year or two. Learing to communicate with them has helped a lot, it is hard to be afraid of someone you know. The spider spirit beside me seems quiet, helpful and friendly, but I am nervous and I think this is interfering with my ability to see her clearly: sometimes she seems tiny, sometimes as big as a horse, never the same for a moment. I feel that it is not her, but my fear that is causing this. We both agree that I need to work on this :D
I then become aware of something fluttering around above my head. It is a bird, small, about the size of a barn swallow, in constant motion above my head. I catch flashes of blue, gray, and some orange; kind of like bluebird colors but it is not a bluebird. He moves like a barn swallow, always swooping and fluttering. He will not sit still, he seems very excited and happy. A very bubbly, happy spirit.
I thank them for being there with me, for showing themselves to me, and for helping me. I ask if there is anything that they would like from me, they both say that they just want me to try and be aware and listen when they have a message for me. I promise to try and do this.
Now it seems time to return. I say goodbye to the spider and the bird, and the Green Master, and thank the tree for its support. I walk back down the path to the sea, gradually waking up. When I reach the beach, I put down a hand and scoop up some sea water; I feel this as a splash and rush of energy that moves through me and is gone. Then I open my eyes and wake up.
I am amazed at all this. Some questions have been answered, and many new possibilities have opened. The Green Master is my spirit guide for this time, and watching over and protecting me in my life are the spider, the swallow, and the tree. I could not ask for better.
I turn on some music, light a candle, turn out the lights, and get comfortable. I concentrate on breathing. The warm water and floating feeling is very helpful. I can feel my heartbeat very strongly, resonating through the water and bouncing back to me. The rhythm is steady and gentle; I accept this as my drum. I listen to the beat and let other thoughts drift away, sinking into it.
I am on a beach, a northern ocean beach with sawgrass and tough-looking weeds growing above the tide line. I follow a path up the bank into a forest. The trees are thin and clean limbed, black barked, tall, with leaves only high above. In spite of their somewhat forbidding aspect, I feel that they are friendly. The light filters down in shafts and flickering patches to the ground below. The undergrowth is open and the path is scattered with sand and many small stones of many sizes and colors. I know that these are the gifts of the earth, and show that he supports me in my journey.
I approach a clearing. It feels large, but I am unsure about how big it is. It is open, with thick green grass and a stream running though it. There is a tree in the the middle, next to the stream. The tree is tall, somewhat scraggledy, with a high crown and only a few leafy branches down low. I am pretty sure it is an oak, but sometimes I feel like it is an apple: I think because it reminds me of an apple tree I loved when I was growing up, where I had a tree house. Most people would not look twice at the tree, it is lopsided and not "pretty". But it is vigorous, exuberant, and obviously loves living. As I come up and stand beside it, a small branch comes down and strokes my hair a few times. I feel very welcome, and I sit down against the tree and look at the stream.
I relax, and send out an invitation to my guides to let me see them. I immediately see a figure to my left, standing. He seems to be wrapped in a concealing cloak of white with green & blue highlights. I cannot see his face, it is as if he is veiled with a thick mist that wraps around him. I feel that the veil is in fact my sceptical nature, that does not want to believe in all this; so I do some breathing exercises and try to relax into acceptance and push away my disbelief. After some effort, it works: I see his face. It it pale, and he seems to be crowned in leaves and to have leaves growing from is cheekbones and temples. The leaves are holly-shaped, white, with edges and highlights of green and blue. He laughes, and I feel that this is just an appearance he has chosen, because he know it will be evocative to me, and he enjoys it. ('He' is neither male nor female, or both; it makes as little sense or difference that it would for a tree) We 'speak' a little; he is pleased that I can see him. He says that nearly all people he and his collegues help never become aware of them, but that it is a great pleasure when they do. The being does not give a name, but when I suggest that I call him Green Master he finds it amusing and accepts the title.
I then ask the Green Master if I could meet some of my guardian animals. He indicates that I should look to my right. Just behind me to my right is an animal that I have a lot of trouble perceiving. It seems to be some kind of insect or spider, I think it is a spider. Now, I have for many years had a strong fear of spiders! I have been trying to work through this in the past year or two. Learing to communicate with them has helped a lot, it is hard to be afraid of someone you know. The spider spirit beside me seems quiet, helpful and friendly, but I am nervous and I think this is interfering with my ability to see her clearly: sometimes she seems tiny, sometimes as big as a horse, never the same for a moment. I feel that it is not her, but my fear that is causing this. We both agree that I need to work on this :D
I then become aware of something fluttering around above my head. It is a bird, small, about the size of a barn swallow, in constant motion above my head. I catch flashes of blue, gray, and some orange; kind of like bluebird colors but it is not a bluebird. He moves like a barn swallow, always swooping and fluttering. He will not sit still, he seems very excited and happy. A very bubbly, happy spirit.
I thank them for being there with me, for showing themselves to me, and for helping me. I ask if there is anything that they would like from me, they both say that they just want me to try and be aware and listen when they have a message for me. I promise to try and do this.
Now it seems time to return. I say goodbye to the spider and the bird, and the Green Master, and thank the tree for its support. I walk back down the path to the sea, gradually waking up. When I reach the beach, I put down a hand and scoop up some sea water; I feel this as a splash and rush of energy that moves through me and is gone. Then I open my eyes and wake up.
I am amazed at all this. Some questions have been answered, and many new possibilities have opened. The Green Master is my spirit guide for this time, and watching over and protecting me in my life are the spider, the swallow, and the tree. I could not ask for better.
Help from the Green Man
My wife's horse is doing better, her abscess broke out and drained on Sunday. On Wednesday she had told me that it would break out over the weekend, and she was right :D. The circle of protection helped, I think. I charged it up again several times. It was interesting; from inside I could pour in more energy, but from outside I could not touch the energy, I could only touch the barrier and strengthen it. I left it open at the top and bottom to draw earth-energy and heaven-energy for her. She said that it helped her feel better, especially on Saturday when there was a horse show on the premises and lots of strange people going by.
Also on Friday the spiders I had asked for help suggested a web symbol for her hoof, which I used. I don't know what it did, I don't think there was a lot of power in it, but it was offered with kindness and much appreciated. I think it was intended to help catch and cast out the infected tissue. I used to be very frightened of spiders, but since I started communicating with them my fear is almost gone and I have a lot of respect for them and try to treat them well.
On Monday I had a strange experience.
Monday morning my wife's horse was walking much better, but then she coliced. (Colic is an intense intestinal pain, often caused by a blockage. In horses, it can be deadly). We called the vet and while we were waiting we were madly walking her back and forth (she can't be allowed to roll, she could twist her gut). She was in a lot of pain. I was walking beside her doing all the Reiki I could do. The Cho Ku Rei worked well, I was getting a lot of power, but it wasn't enough. I tried the distance-healing symbol, directing the energy back in time to early in the morning just before the blockage formed; trying to reduce its effects or disrupt the formation so that it would break up more easily in the present. I couldn't quite remember the symbol, but I remembered what it felt like to use it, so I did my best to recreate that and I could feel it working. Within a 30 seconds she had calmed down, and was in much less distress. She was still having discomfort, but not nearly so bad.
She was worn out, and laid down. This is a danger time, because if she starts to roll she can really hurt herself. I sent out a call for anything that could help her, and on impulse asked for help from the Green Man (which I had been reading about online the day before). The image of the Green Man is one that has always felt significant to me. I immediately felt a very large flux of power coming in from all around, that felt like a green wave. I channeled it into her and she relaxed. It kept flowing for a few minutes and I let it flow into her, and as it tapered off she began to look better. She sat quietly without trying to roll. The vet arrived a few minutes later and gave her a muscle relaxant, and she was soon eating grass and feeling much better.
She is back to normal now (although tired) and the vet says there is no sign of a blockage. She thinks it may have been gas, which can happen when a horse is stressed. That could be (and we are treating her accordingly). But a part of me wonders if sending the energy back in time didn't un-make the blockage? I don't really know what happed, but I am very glad that I could help her. I am especially glad that help came to me when I needed it.
Also on Friday the spiders I had asked for help suggested a web symbol for her hoof, which I used. I don't know what it did, I don't think there was a lot of power in it, but it was offered with kindness and much appreciated. I think it was intended to help catch and cast out the infected tissue. I used to be very frightened of spiders, but since I started communicating with them my fear is almost gone and I have a lot of respect for them and try to treat them well.
On Monday I had a strange experience.
Monday morning my wife's horse was walking much better, but then she coliced. (Colic is an intense intestinal pain, often caused by a blockage. In horses, it can be deadly). We called the vet and while we were waiting we were madly walking her back and forth (she can't be allowed to roll, she could twist her gut). She was in a lot of pain. I was walking beside her doing all the Reiki I could do. The Cho Ku Rei worked well, I was getting a lot of power, but it wasn't enough. I tried the distance-healing symbol, directing the energy back in time to early in the morning just before the blockage formed; trying to reduce its effects or disrupt the formation so that it would break up more easily in the present. I couldn't quite remember the symbol, but I remembered what it felt like to use it, so I did my best to recreate that and I could feel it working. Within a 30 seconds she had calmed down, and was in much less distress. She was still having discomfort, but not nearly so bad.
She was worn out, and laid down. This is a danger time, because if she starts to roll she can really hurt herself. I sent out a call for anything that could help her, and on impulse asked for help from the Green Man (which I had been reading about online the day before). The image of the Green Man is one that has always felt significant to me. I immediately felt a very large flux of power coming in from all around, that felt like a green wave. I channeled it into her and she relaxed. It kept flowing for a few minutes and I let it flow into her, and as it tapered off she began to look better. She sat quietly without trying to roll. The vet arrived a few minutes later and gave her a muscle relaxant, and she was soon eating grass and feeling much better.
She is back to normal now (although tired) and the vet says there is no sign of a blockage. She thinks it may have been gas, which can happen when a horse is stressed. That could be (and we are treating her accordingly). But a part of me wonders if sending the energy back in time didn't un-make the blockage? I don't really know what happed, but I am very glad that I could help her. I am especially glad that help came to me when I needed it.
After my Level 2 class
The Reiki level 2 class with was wonderful. I have been using the symbols with my wife's horse a lot this week; she is in a lot of pain with (I think) a hoof abscess that is trying to break out. The Cho Ku Rei is very effective, and really ramps up the energy level. Yesterday, after settling her in her stall for the night, I tried to lay a ring of protection and healing around the stall and fill it with energy for her – it was a sudden impulse and the symbols to use just came to me and seemed right. Assistance from my guides? That is what it felt like. What an exciting journey! I also asked the moon and several spiders, who were watching, to watch over her and help her.
Starting out
I am starting this new blog to record my thoughts and experiences as I start out in earnest on a new road. In the past couple of years, I have started learning energy healing and animal communication, primarily for working with my wife's horses. I received Reiki level 1 training, and my wife got me a wonderful book "Learning Their Language". Last month I got my Reiki level 2 certification. Experimenting with these techniques, and exploring my own intuitions, led me to the decision to try and open up communication with the "others" that I have at times felt around me, helping me.
These other presences I feel could be spritual guides, guardian spirits, angels, ghosts, dream images from my subconcious, Jungian archetypes, self delusions, I don't know. To a certain extent it doesn't matter: I feel that paying attention to them and trying to learn from them will help me grow personally and spiritually. This journal will record my experiences as I try to do this.
I will set out now. I don't know where the path will lead, but I have miles to go.
These other presences I feel could be spritual guides, guardian spirits, angels, ghosts, dream images from my subconcious, Jungian archetypes, self delusions, I don't know. To a certain extent it doesn't matter: I feel that paying attention to them and trying to learn from them will help me grow personally and spiritually. This journal will record my experiences as I try to do this.
I will set out now. I don't know where the path will lead, but I have miles to go.
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