I ask Angela to speak a bit about the dangers for women to become abused, to give themselves to love in an unhealthy way. "It is very important to not confuse the vulnerability before God and the acceptance of violation through love with taking abuse from people," she tells me.
- Hilary Hart, The Unknown She
A strange thing just happened to me, and it's not the earrings I'm wearing; but they are related. After I had the pharmacy correct the name on my account and I paid for my prescription, I picked up a pencil sharpener for my lip liner and headed toward the jewelry counter. I was looking to replace the sterling silver paired feather earrings that I had misplaced and never gotten a chance to wear. I wanted to wear them Easter Sunday during my presentation and the following week when I would be presenting an Adult Round Table session on finding your spiritual name.
The hummingbird is my totem, my spirit guide, and I had experienced a vision a couple years ago that I could only wear the earrings when I had earned my feathers. I asked the shaman teaching me what that meant, and he said it meant that I had to learn to trust my spirit guide.
After looking for anything with feathers or hummingbirds, I gave up and asked the attendant, who helped start to scan again. This time, I found a pair of sterling silver hoop earrings with an orange feather dangling in each hoop. This was almost right, but the color was wrong. Then I saw another pair in which the feathers were a bright shade of green. This was the pair, and they were on clearance for 3 dollars.
I paid the attendant for my merchandise, and when I got to the car, I switched out the studs I was wearing for the feathered earrings. I drove off the lot thinking about how I had finally earned the feathers. It's just something instinctual..
As I was merging onto the highway, I couldn't make up my mind to merge before or after the vehicle to my left, so I reached out to my spirit guide and thought, guide me. Instantaneously, I knew the correct path was to merge in front, and was rewarded with observing that the driver was already in the process of opening a gap in front of her. I waved a thank you as she let me by.
There are three spirits that I am in touch with. The first is myself, the observer, the experiential self. The second is my spirit guide, which I can only receive direction from. She seems to be part of me, the intuitive part, that is somehow connected to the connection of all things. She rarely offers wisdom, only immediate direction. The third spirit is the Divine. In my current connection with her, she is all encompassing and compassionate. She offers wisdom and the path I need to take. Both these spirits communicate with me in ambiguous ways, leaving me to interpret through faith what I must do.
I noticed I had missed my exit, and instead of taking the back road home, I was going to be taking the freeway.
Being two-spirit means more than being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual. It has more to do with becoming aware of a personal spirit guide, and letting them provide direction. They are both you and the connection to all things.
I used to think my spirit guide was the embodiment and source of my feminine side. After all, she put the desire for Peace, Love and Joy in my heart when I was only 10 or 11, and seeing the poster in a scholastic book order, I ordered it and hung it on my bedroom wall. These words rang true as my mantra for living long before I heard of the term mantra.
When she presented herself through another hummingbird 30 years later with the same message during the height of my identity quest, I followed the tradition of two-spirit shamanism and accepted her name as my spirit name.
I missed my next exit. I was about to miss another, when I got in the right lane of two left-turning lanes. I started asking my guide, why did you bring me here? What is it you want me to see? Does someone need my help? As I saw a Taco Bell on the right, I thought to my guide, even though I would still like to try the new shrimp taco, I don't need to. Sometimes my guide takes me to something that I need, and wasn't aware of.
As I approached the intersection and stopped at the light, I saw a gray fedora style hat lying brim down on the line between the two turning lanes. I was in a perfect position to just open my door as I was driving by and snag it.
To my left, across the divide, a brown hatchback was stopped, facing the opposite direction. At the rear of the car, an older black gentleman wearing a brown fedora was looking frantically in the open hatch. I asked him if that was his hat out in the intersection, and a look of sudden relief passed over his features.
"I'm not risking my life to get it," he said. I explained how I could easily grab it for him as I drove by, since I was in the perfect position, and swing around to bring it back.
As the light changed green, I carefully drove up to the hat, opening the door and recovering it. While I was doing so, the gentleman closed his hatch, got in the car and drove off in a puff of purplish smoke. The hat was obviously taken care of, because it had a numbered ticket inside attached with a safety pin. There was a bit of water stain and dirt on the hat, which I'm sure came mostly from flying into the intersection.
I drove into the gas station, and scanned across the intersection, waiting for him to return. He never did. After a few minutes, someone honked behind me, and I proceeded the rest of the way home.
If my task was to recover the hat, why did the gentleman leave it behind when I could graciously return it? Did my action somehow answer a question that he had or plant a seed for the future? Or was my task to acquire the hat for someone else who might have a need?
I don't know.
What am I going to do with a gray Fedora-style hat?
Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie
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