Good morning and I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Did you stay cool? We tried to beat the heat with a few walks in our wonderful mountains, and it was really funny because I hadn't started out on a feather mission, but I sure completed one. Let me explain myself a little bit here.
I have been wanting to start an altar here at the ranch, a healing altar for myself. A place for me to do my Yoga and some meditating on healing my back; I also plan on meditating on my businesses in front of this altar. And as funny as this sounds to you, it sounds funny to me too, because this is the first time I have ever done such a thing. Really, I have never done any "official meditating" either, so this is one giant step for me.
I have been gathering pieces for this altar for months, well frankly for my entire life (like my Bible from my parents), so I knew a few of the things that I wanted to include on my altar. I even knew the piece of furniture I would use so that it would be multi-tiered, movable, and have a surface I could safely put a candle on. So, anyway, something was just holding me back... until this weekend.
On Friday I met up with my sister and nieces at Mount Falcon park for a great little hike with the kids. It's probably only about a mile, but has really spectacular views (can't believe I didn't take my camera, sorry!) with a cool historical castle at the end of the loop. As we were ending the hike we spotted a Red-tailed Hawk diving for a morsel of food, it was so cool! What I didn't mention to my sister is that to me this is a very common experience, actually daily. Not the diving, I knew that might be a sign, but I am always followed by the Red-tailed Hawks, and feel a very strong connection with them. So it was no surprise to me that I finally found a hawk feather in the parking lot that day as I was on the phone, a feather that I have been searching for for a long time.
I mentioned our Heron quest yesterday when I introduced you all to our adventurous cat, Hector. See, Blue Herons are somewhat new in our area, you know the last decade or so. So they still totally amaze me. In my research of the birds I have found out that if you find the nest of one, you will find the nest of many; so I of course I am challenged to find a nesting area of this giant fascinating bird. The evening before we had spotted her going from the neighbors ponds to a tree and sitting for almost a half hour before jumping to this tree and going in and we thought staying. We hiked over with the whole family, and I do mean the whole family, on Saturday and didn't find the nests, but we did find some feathers, which is to me, an honor.
On the very same day, I found a Magpie feather up at the barn when I was doing my chores. Magpies and Ravens (and Crows of course) are said to be the most commonly worked with birds in metaphysical lore. I had been waiting for a Red-tailed hawk feather, and in the span of two days, I had been given the gift of many feathers, it was definitely time to get moving.
A lot of people don't know it, but when a person is doing metaphysical, or energy, work and would like help from animal or nature's spirits, which of course I take help from quite often (usually without knowing it), things like feathers and crystals are very helpful. These are very precious gifts to me and have been placed on my new altar that I finally made yesterday. It literally took me about five minutes to pull this together because as I said, the pieces have been coming together in my head for a long time now.
As you can see my feathers are there, along with my Bible, a copy of The Secret, a yummy smelling candle and of course my healing crystal and amethyst. I chose to cover the seat of this old phone table with a deer hide that my boys got to honor the deer, and covered the yucky table part with an antique pillow case that I found at the ranch when we moved in to represent it's spirit. The doll is one that I gave my Grandma so many years ago I can't remember now, but she always said it looked just like me, and it was the only thing in her entire house the great-grandkids weren't allowed to play with, so I know it meant a lot to her. If you look closely it still has the tag on it, so you know it wasn't fooled with all these years. The cat, well, I guess that is probably self explanatory for me, the animal lady; plus the weight of the brass animal weighs everything down so I know my real cats won't knock it all over!
Right now my altar is placed on a wall facing west, the direction the sun sets and it just sort of felt right. I like it there because it sits under a few of our favorite wedding gifts; the first being a framed, cut-up and re-made version of our wedding invitation and the second these very neat soaring wooden birds. It seemed like the wall was just a continuation of my altar.
The direction didn't have me overly concerned, but when I did a little research, it did not surprise me to find out that if you are wanting to work metaphysically, a person might want to face their altar in the direction of the west. Gee, what a coincidence, oh wait a minute, there really are not many coincidences in my world are there? It is all about making sure that we are open to receiving each and every little gift we are given, even the little gifts like always having the guide of a Red-tailed hawk nearby, or a simple feather being dropped in your path.
1 comment:
How cool. I love looking at Hawks flying, especially the colors of their undersides and wings when they are flying. They have more color in them, then most people probably realize. Actually there is a hawk that sits in our back tree often, which scares our small dog. He won't go outside when that Hawk comes around. I don't know if the Hawk swooped down by him one time or not. Hard to say.
The only bird I have ever tried to paint, since I'm trying to learn to paint, is the Hawk. My husband said it turned out very well. He was just disappointed in was just on practice art paper and not on a canvas. I couldn't have feathers in my home though. Unfortunately I'm allergic to them. I'll start sneezing and if around them too long have a hard time breathing.
We have a few nests in our trees.
The little snow birds that never leave for the summer, they stay year round. Some black birds are here too. Often have quail running around our back yard. They somehow get through the holes in the chain link fence, as I've seen them squeeze through on several occassions.
Someone around here must raise homing pigeons and we see them rest in our trees from time to time. I used to have meadow larks sit on my roof each spring and sing, but none came this spring at all. I miss them. They were pretty and I loved hearing their tweety little tunes.
I'm hoping your back does heal with your time and meditation at your altar.
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