Spirit Animal – The Wisdom of the Robin

The robins have returned to Calgary!  I have seen about a dozen over the last two days.  Each of them stops as I walk by, and looks at me with their big, dark eyes and I know that they are sending me messages by their intentness, and by their body language.

Since I could not seem to get the message clearly, I sat down in meditation to listen closely to what Robin was saying.

American Robin - From Wikipedia.com

 

 

 

 

 

Robin says:

Pay attention, hatchling (what many of the birds call me because I seem young in their eyes)!  We are here one moon earlier than normal.  We have been called to do this because of the changing food supply.  You too need to pay attention to your food supply.  The weather shifts with the Earth.  Do you not hear the grinding deep down in the ground, down below the worms?  This is the sign that the big change is coming.  We say that you are safe from the falling rocks and the hot earth that comes up in some places.  You do not know how to move quickly enough to get out of the way of changes.

When we were closer to the Sun (South), we saw that mankind is changing.  The people are hungry and looking for food.  It seems that more people are living out of doors like we do.  And yet, we can find roost in a favourite tree.  The humans seem to have trouble finding a place to roost for the night.  They do not care well for their chicks.  We do not like to go to some places because they do look at us like the hawk. 

We say to you to find your safe place.

This seems like pretty good advice!

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Vote for Roger for the The Next Top Spiritual Author

This contest is set up like the TV Idol contests. That is, the audience, or the readership in this case, votes for its favourite author. We are asking for your vote to help promote The Story of Light, Through Heaven’s Gate.

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Follow the instructions in the email they send to confirm registration. Then go to Roger’s profile page at http://www.nexttopauthor.com/profile.cfm?aid=715 or when you get to the search area for authors, enter one of a0 S. Roger Joyeux, b) book title, or c) Roger’s ID 715.

Login and cast your vote using the tiny vote button on his profile page, located under the book’s write up. Click to vote, then tell all your friends. After you cast your vote for Roger, blessing will abound.

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Judy@angelsandancestors.com   See the April Magazine online at  www.angelsandancestors.com/newsletter/mag1004.pdf .  See www.thestoryoflight.com for Roger’s new book The Story of Light Volume 11: Through Heaven’s Gate.  See the new download at www.legionsofmichael.com

Spirit Speaks – Mars Ice Caps

Our myths and stories talk about the mystery of Mars. Is it populated or not?  Was it populated?  Can anyone live there?  The popular opinion was that, since the planet appeared to be red dust, there must be iron there. So, yes someone could have lived there, but it would be difficult without water.  Now, scientists, using space probes, are able to see the dark side of Mars.  What they discovered is that Mars is covered with ice like matter.

What do you think?

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From the article:

It looks like a filmmaker's apocalyptic vision of Earth following a devastating natural disaster.

But this colossal ice formation is actually a portion of the wall terraces of a huge crater on Mars.

Approximately 37 miles in diameter, a section of the Mojave Crater in the planet's Xanthe Terra region has been digitally mapped by Nasa scientists.

The result is this digital terrain model that was generated from a stereo pair of images and offers a synthesized, oblique view of a 2.5-mile portion of the crater's wall terraces.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1259813/Mars-Ice-walls-Red-Planet.html#ixzz0jmRnENqb

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Vote for Roger for the The Next Top Spiritual Author

This contest is set up like the TV Idol contests. That is, the audience, or the readership in this case, votes for its favourite author. We are asking for your vote to help promote The Story of Light, Through Heaven’s Gate.

Voting is really easy! Go to http://www.nexttopauthor.com/register.cfm and register.

Follow the instructions in the email they send to confirm registration. Then go to Roger’s profile page at http://www.nexttopauthor.com/profile.cfm?aid=715 or when you get to the search area for authors, enter one of a0 S. Roger Joyeux, b) book title, or c) Roger’s ID 715.

Login and cast your vote using the tiny vote button on his profile page, located under the book’s write up. Click to vote, then tell all your friends. After you cast your vote for Roger, blessing will abound.

Judy@angelsandancestors.com   Watch for the April Magazine online at  www.angelsandancestors.com.  See www.thestoryoflight.com for Roger’s new book The Story of Light Volume 11: Through Heaven’s Gate.  See the new download at www.legionsofmichael.com

Spirit Speaks – A Forecasting From the Native American Tarot Deck

I asked the question, “What do all of us need to know this week?”

I used the Native American Tarot Deck – created by Magda Weck Gonzalez and illustrated by J. A. Gonzalez; published by U.S. Games Systems, Inc.

The first card - #18 The Moon - represents the Moon, and, there is a full moon tomorrow evening.

The Moon card represents the aspects of the Moon and how it links the Earth with the Divine.  It is full of magic, and the promise of being something greater than the mundane.  It makes us feel hope.

 

 

The second card - #5 of Sticks – represents stickball or lacrosse.  For the tribes, stickball was a substitute for war, and therefore, very competitive.  The message is clear.  One must work together with others in order to make headway.  The only way to become the best is to practise, and to work as a team.  For our world, which has come to honour the individual achievement, this means learning how to work cooperatively for the good of all, instead of from a place of greed.

The third card is #10 of Blades – Ruin - showing a warrior down on the ground with three arrows in his back.  If people don’t understand the message in the previous card, this card makes it clear: if you do not work with others, you will need to beware of all, and eventually, if you tick off enough people, someone will “get” you.  In the real world, we are seeing more and more whistle blowers who have had enough of rule breaking by the companies that they work for. 

 

Our Ancestors believed in the ability of shaman or medicine men/women to be able to predict the future.  We might even call them mystics.  The Shaman worked to keep the tribe moving in harmony with nature and to keep harmony between the members of the tribe.  The mantra was “oneness with all things”.  Hurt something and we hurt ourselves. 

It seems to me that this truth still applies!

Judy@angelsandancestors.com   See the new download at www.legionsofmichael.com   See the updated pages at www.angelsandancestors.com

Buddha Speaks - Mind at Ease

As I study Buddhism in its several faces, I am constantly in wonder at how simple the concepts are and how difficult it is to embrace the concept and put it to full practice in one’s life.

This simple story will explain what I mean.  It is called “Mind At Ease”, and talks about how we can put our heart at ease.  Does this seem contrary to the title?  Well, Buddhism is a series of koans.  A koan is a paradoxical anecdote or a riddle that has no solution; used in Zen Buddhism to show the inadequacy of logical reasoning.  This definition comes from wordnetweb.princeton.edu. So, here is the story!

                                                  

Sometimes, trying to understand a koan is like trying to catch the Sun! Picture from Microsoft Clip Art

 

 

 

Mind At Ease

It was a dark, snowy and windy night. Hui Ko, the Second Patriarch of Zen Sect in China, went to see Master Bodhidharma.

Hui Ko asked, "Could you please teach me the supreme Buddhist Dharma?"

The Master said, "You can't learn the Dharma from others."

Hui Ko said, "I have trying to search for Dharma myself, but in vain. My heart is unsettled. My mind is ill-at-ease. Master, please pacify my heart for me."

The Master replied, "Give me your heart and I'll try to calm it down for you."

After pondering for a long time, Hui Ko said, "I have been searching for my heart, but I cannot find it."

Bodhidharma said instantly, "Now, I have comforted your heart already."

Hui Ko was enlightened all of a sudden. It is impossible to show the heart as its existence is only an illusion. The whole process of the creation and cessation of the heart, or the mind, is also an illusion.

When we are void of the illusion, the 'heart' is not there at all. Without any attachment, the pure Buddha's nature is revealed. The mind is finally at ease.

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What do you learn from this story?  Is is something that you can share with all of us?  Send your story to Judy@angelsandancestors.com and she will publish it on the blog with other comments to this article.

See the new download at www.legionsofmichael.com   See the updated pages at www.angelsandancestors.com

Spirit Animal – Badger, The Teacher

Our Ancestors in Europe, North America, and in Africa, have regarded Badger with awe, with superstition, and with malice.  This, to me, seems reasonable since Badger clans so closely represent human clans or tribes.  And, the behaviour of Badger should put us in awe of her, because she is such a brilliant teacher.

Badger has long been revered for her fighting prowess.  She will take on wolves, bears, and a pack of dogs. She fights with her long, sharp claws and with her teeth.  She hears extremely well because she is near sighted.  This means, however, that she is prepared.  She will choose to fight from a place where her back quarters are protected.

She is also very strong.  Since her mainstay diet is roots, grubs, earthworms, and creepy crawlies that reside under rocks and logs, Badger needs to be able to shift the rock or log that is often four or five times her weight.  She uses a rocking motion to set the object to move, proving that she has a basic understanding of the physics of motion.

 

Picture of American Badger from Wikipedia, with thanks!

 

Men have found Badger to be very cunning when they hunt her.  She knows how to become invisible.  She seems to be able to confuse dogs by mixing up her tracks and spraying a musk to cloud the area.  She knows how to use streams and culverts and hollow logs or deadfall to rise up off the earth and move to a different location.

Badger will fight to the death to protect her young.  And, she did need to protect them because around the world, people still eat badger meat to gain some of Badger’s strength and wisdom.  Instead of eating her, many would do much better to ask her to come and teach them her ways. 

           Picture of badger from www.cwsd.org, with thanks.

 

As a teacher, here is what Badger says:  

1. Spend less time mourning what you do not have, and spend more time looking at the ways that you may acquire what you need.
2. Eat simply! The more that you eat that which is away from where you live, the more you weaken your body.  This allows outsiders to come in and take what is yours.
3. Bond with your family.  In times of distress, they are the only ones that you can truly count on.
4. Teach the children well – how to find food; how to defend themselves; how to become invisible.  The world is full of predators.  Each parent is tasked with keeping the child safe for that child is the legacy of our line.

Ask Badger to come in to teach you in dream time.  She will oblige if she finds you worthy.

Judy@angelsandancestors.com  See the new download at www.legionsofmichael.com   See the updated pages at www.angelsandancestors.com  See the blog from February 19, 2009, Spirit Animal - Badger

Spirit Animal – Dolphin On Gentleness

Since the release of the film, “The Cove”, about the slaughter of Dolphins in Japan, and now, more recently, the Youtube film called “ Dolphin Slaughter in Denmark Killing Dolphin in Denmark” www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmQlh7JhTxc, Dolphin has been front and center around the violence done to sea life.

Dolphin has long been heralded as the keeper of ships, and the guardian of the seas.  There are many stories that talk about how Dolphin has saved shipwrecked men, or helped a small vessel navigate around treacherous waters.

People love to swim with the Dolphins because they are so playful, and so gentle. The message behind the massacre movies is that Dolphin is mirroring what Man does to Man.  Man kind thinks from Ego.  Why would a rite of passage need to be the killing of something that cannot fight back?  It provides the untested male with a situation where he is superior, powerful, and has absolute control.  This rite becomes the making of a warrior or, perhaps, a bully or abuser.

Dolphin, with its playful attitude and friendliness to humans, has tried for millennia to teach mankind, by shining example, the concept of gentleness! Man, represented by the masses, does not get it.  Gentleness to self, to others, to the Earth, to the seas and oceans, and most of all, to the animals, fish, fowl, creepy crawlies, and reptiles, because these beings sustain the Earth, and indirectly, sustain mankind.

Be gentle to yourself and to others today!

Judy@angelsandancestors.com  See the new download at www.legionsofmichael.com   See the updated pages at www.angelsandancestors.com