Animal Messages

I’ve been reading a lot about synchronicity lately, as I’m working on an article about how people use it to come up with signs and signals to propel their lives forward. Maybe it’s because as a child I wanted to be a veterinarian, but I’m particularly interested in animals and the belief that animals that cross your path deliver a message that can guide you in one direction or another.

A butterfly can signal that you’re about to undergo a period of transformation, while a skunk that protects itself with it’s magnificent odor can be a sign that you need to defend yourself. Rabbits are signs of fertility and new life. Today a deer crossed my path and deer can represent gentleness and unconditional love. Seeing the deer made me stop and ask myself, who am I reacting to in a harsh or judgmental manner? (I’m not sure if I’m ready to act on that information, but it was interesting to stop and think about it.)

There are a lot of sites online that give animal symbolism. Some of my favorites are http://www.whats-your-sign.com/animal-totems.html, http://onespiritx.tripod.com/magick18.htm and http://www.theearthangelconnection.com/Power%20%20Animals.htm.

While I love seeing what these sites have to say, I think of these meanings the same way I view dream dictionaries. They can be helpful, but if an animal conjures up a different meaning for you, always go with your personal interpretation.

No Chance Meetings Part Two

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a synchronicity that I followed up on. I'd run into someone multiple times and decided to introduce myself to see if there was a message she had for me (see blog post No Chance Meetings from April 21st). Though I believe in synchronicity, I was still a little surprised at the coincidence that she was trying to make a career change into freelance writing and researching. (No matter how intuitive you think you are, your ego is still going to tell you you're making it all up.)We were at a conference for corporate women so there were very few writers there. The fact that she ran into me of all people was a stroke of luck -- or synchronicity -- on her part.

Or so I thought. I agreed to speak with her and give her some tips, but it turns out, I benefited more from the meeting than I thought I would. One of my goals is to finish my first novel -- a goal that has gone uncompleted for years. That's actually one of her main goals too. So we've formed a writer's group in which we'll meet once a week to hold each other accountable. The funny thing is, earlier that week, I had been thinking hard about that dream I have to write fiction and wondering how to finally make it happen. That chance meeting was an answer. We'll see if it's the right one.

Healing Intuition

One of the most interesting areas of intuition to me is that of medical intuition. Perhaps it’s because it’s so easy to see the impact such intuitive guidance can make. I in no way advocate seeing a medical intuitive instead of a doctor, but I think there is a lot that can be gained from seeing both if you’re experiencing health problems. While doctors focus on curing the physical body, medical intuitives often can pinpoint emotional/spiritual imbalances that can contribute to illness. Such individuals claim to be able to detect illness in one’s body through intuitive methods.

Caroline Myss, author of such books as Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential" and Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing", is one of the better known medical intuitives. Edgar Cayce and Phineas Parkhurst Quimby are some others.

Regardless of what you believe about medical intuition, many people – myself included – believe that the mind plays a major role in healing. Those who believe they can overcome a disease or get well often have an edge over those who feel defeated. And the Placebo Effect – cases in which patients were cured even when the treatment was nothing more than a sham -- shows that belief is often just as powerful as medication itself. With that in mind, I think medical intuition can’t hurt. If someone can give me a reason to believe that I can improve my chances of healing by addressing emotional/spiritual causes while a medical doctor does what he can on the physical level, I’ll take all the help I can get.

No Chance Meetings

So one of my favorite books of all time is The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure. Last weekend, I picked it up and was re-reading it when one of the concepts that always jumps out at me jumped out at me again: The whole concept of synchronicity, and how when you run into someone multiple times either you have a message for them or they have one for you. In other words, it was no mere coincidence that you ran into this person again.

So I was at a dinner and panel discussion earlier this week and 'coincidentally,' I found myself in the elevator with the same woman when I was arriving to the panel discussion and two hours later when I was leaving the panel discussion. With the book still fresh in my mind, I stopped her and asked if she had a business card because I thought it was interesting that we met up again. I gave her mine.

She contacted me not an hour later. It turns out, she's trying to make a career change and isn't sure how to do it. The career she's trying to break into is freelance writing and researching. With me being a freelance writer and editor, I guess there's a lot that we have to talk about.

Time

The last time I wrote, I was grappling with a friend's death. I guess it affected me more than I thought it did since I didn't write again for four months.

But I'm glad that I honored my resistance. That's part of living intuitively; being ok with starting and stopping and letting time pass by until you instinctively know that it's time to start again.

There was a time when I would have been mad at myself for stopping, or I would have forced myself to write so that I could achieve a goal that existed only in my head. I'm glad that time has passed.

The Intuitive Nature of Death

Death is probably the toughest thing to process. Witnessing the dying process of someone you care about takes up so much energy, there’s not much left for anything more than what’s absolutely necessary.

A good friend lost her fight with cancer last month, and I found myself thinking a lot about life and death; I also thought a lot about my father’s battle with cancer, which ended with his death five years ago. In both of those situations, there was a day when they knew they were going to die. You could hear the acceptance in their voices; you could see the resignation in their actions. I think dying is a very intuitive process. Those who are in tune with their bodies and their spirits just know that the time is near.

Both my dad and my friend talked about dreams they had of others who had passed before them; both talked of a different state of awareness at times during their final days. A great book that helped me understand that process when I was going through it with my dad was Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying.

It was written by two hospice workers and it talks about that different state of awareness when a person is literally living between two worlds. It reassured me that he would be ok going through the dying process and afterward.

I did honor my feelings of sadness last month and this month. I didn’t feel much like blogging, so I didn’t. Now I do, so I am. I guess that’s what living intuitively is about.

Listening for the Little Things

Often we think of intuition as this sense that helps us to predict the big things: warn us of danger, tell us which job to pick, clue us in on the true motives of that person.

Last week, I couldn’t get the idea of a jigsaw puzzle out of my mind. When I was growing up, my family always had a jigsaw puzzle on the dining room table where any of us would sit down and work on it when we had a spare moment, sometimes together, sometimes separately. I’d forgotten those memories and how much I enjoyed the hours spent trying to figure out how the individual pieces came together to form an amazing picture.

After the idea of a jigsaw puzzle nagged at me for four days, I broke down, drove to Target and bought one. That very night I received bad news about a friend who’s been ill, who likely is living out her final days. Naturally, the news was devastating. But interestingly I’ve found a lot of solace through working on my puzzle. Doing so quiets my mind and creates a sense of peace in me.

It may seem trivial that my intuition was calling for me to get that puzzle last week, but I’m glad I listened.