About Grasshopper

Spirit Animal - Grasshopper

Grasshopper picture from email

 

John Keats - On The Grasshopper And Cricket

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's—he takes the lead
In summer luxury,—he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, 

The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

                                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Most of know Grasshopper by its cheery sound through the spring and summer, and into the fall.  Grasshopper sings some of the most ancient songs on Earth, and sings the same songs that our Ancestors heard.  In fact, the song of Grasshopper is about the wandering that one needs to do to find a mate, to find food, and to find a place to die.  The song would change when the weather changed, so our Ancestors knew that rain or drought was near.  The sound of the grasshopper is like a meditation in the summertime.  It fills the air with a melody that relaxes and soothes.  Grasshopper reminds us to connect with our Ancestors through song and music.  We can learn their wisdom from the memories stored deep in our cells.


Grasshopper has the ability to leap great distances, and she is able to leap quite high in the air.  Therefore, she has the gift of travel; of bi-location; of astral travel.  She is associated with the mysteries of translocation and teleportation. She tells us to trust your knowledge and to leap through time to the place where you need to get your answer.  She tells us to astral travel or remote view the place that you need to travel to next, to survey the lay of the land.  This ability also allows us to connect to the heavens in a new way.


Enjoy the gift of grasshopper!

Many blessings,

Judy

Dolphin On Gentleness

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!

Many blessings,

Judy. 

Caring For Our Own

 Picture of illness from Microsoft Clip Art

In our Ancestors’ days, when someone became ill, the family cared for that person.  Usually, there were several families, (mother, father, children) living under the same roof, with grandparents or elderly aunts and uncles.  That meant that there would usually be someone available to do some healing and caretaking.  As well, someone in the family, or someone within walking distance, had a knowledge of herbs and would probably know the herbs required to speed up the healing.

The person with the healing knowledge was usually considered a shaman, medicine man or women, healer, or witch man or woman.  Note that in Roman and Celtic languages, the old meaning of witch was “one who knew of the earth”, or someone who knew about what grew and what was helpful.

In extreme cases of illness, families might pilgrimage, with the sick one, to a well known healer, or to a sacred shrine, to ask for healing from a particular god or goddess or saint or from Christ.  Now things have changed.  The healer that we go to is a doctor and the pilgrimage is to a hospital.  Seldom do we care for our own – we are all busy, with jobs, and cannot care for someone on a 24 x 7 schedule.  We trust others to care for them, and then are outraged when abuses take place, for example, as in abuse of the elderly in care homes.  

Instead of natural herbs being cooked and made into teas or salves or poultices, our ill are given synthetic products, in large quantities. The drugs react to each other, in many cases, and possibly are toxic to each other.  Unlike the healer/herbalist, the doctors getting samples and products from the drug companies may not know what the ingredients and the side effects are.

Why did we get to this place of not being able to care for our own? There are five reasons:

1. as the practice of medicine developed, people were taught that only doctors knew enough about the body to treat the body, and that people who used natural remedies were con artists.
2. as the industrial society required more people to work in factories or in other labour positions, people were taken out of their homes on a daily basis, and there was no one at home to care for others.
3. this problem of being out of the home increased through World War I and II, and because so many young men (and women) were killed in the wars, created a gap where there were not any children left to care for elderly parents. This created small nursing homes to care for injured and elderly people, left without family.
4. in the rebuilding of countries, through the fifties, sixties, and seventies, all able bodied people were needed to be in the work force.  Corporations were replacing “mom and pop” shops. Women were increasingly taking on what were deemed "male” jobs. Soon babysitters were required for children, and day-cares became the norm.
5. entrepreneurs, always watching for a service niche, realized that there was a market opportunity to care for children, the ill, and the elderly.  Hospitals with a dollar agenda became big business, as did personal care homes, and education.  Pharmaceutical companies grew up around the “illness” industry, for there is not the same amount of money or annuity in the “wellness” industry.

No, this does not make us bad people.  It does show how we have been manipulated by circumstances and by those looking to profit from those circumstances.  Perhaps it is time to take our power back!

Blessings,

Judy 

Owl Talks About Identity

While I was doing my medicine wheel, an owl came in on a direction.  It blended so well with the landscape, it was difficult to see.  Now, the above picture is not the Owl that came to speak with me.  If you look closely, you will see how this grey owl blends into the tree trunk.

Owl, blending like this, brings a message about identity.  Who you are is who you let others see you as.  If someone sees you as courageous, then, it is because you show them courage.

Owl asks you, what is it that you want people to see right now?  Do you want them to see a being of integrity, or, a being of greed?  When one is greedy, one cannot be in their integrity, for truth is that we all have enough!  Owl asks you to hear your hear begging to be let out of the glamour of scarcity and greed, and that everyone see the other person as a potential friend instead of a potential competitor. 

Many blessings,

Judy

Let’s Talk About Compassion

Have you noticed that compassion seems to be lacking in the world today?  Yes, certain people have compassion.  In a wide sweep of the population on Earth, however, there seems to be little compassion for fellow humans.  We have more compassion and more energy for saving/rescuing/feeding animals.

This picture – compassion and caring – comes from www.proteuscoven.org

  

 

 

 

Lisa Beachy (www.lisabeachy.com) sent out her weekly angel message quite a while ago.  It was:

"Dearest friend, Living in compassion with those that you share this physical experience with is so key to your spiritual growth.  Compassion for their fear, compassion for the way they view certain issues and compassion for how they formed their beliefs in the first place. Compassion is needed from you for their decisions and the ability to give that compassion without judgement. Compassion for others, as well as YOURSELF will walk you further down your spiritual path quicker than any book or class.  - With Love, The Angels "

It was Lisa’s message that set me thinking about this issue of compassion and whether we feel it or not. At www.thefreedictionary.com, compassion is defined as “Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.”  Often, with people close to us, we do not see their suffering as truly suffering because we compare it to other things like a starving child in Africa, or being a street person at –30 C, or living in the slums of India.  What we are doing then, is making a judgement about the degree of suffering that the other person is doing.  If we do not think that they are really suffering, we have little compassion for them.  Sometimes we simply see them in the role of “victim”, and sometimes we have little patience for that. 

The Angels’ message is quite timely for me.  I have been wrestling with how to work with a friend who keeps expressing how much they are suffering, and yet I do not see it. I realise from Lisa’s message that I simply have to hold space for that person, and let them have their experience, whether it seems significant to me, or not.  And, in my compassion, I need to hold a space for my self, to let me work out my judgements around what I observe in others.

I am grateful for Lisa’s message.  I had an “aha” moment.  May you feel the truth of this message as well.

Blessings,

Judy

Purification

 

Sacred Geometry Purification Mandela from www.freewebs.com/body-n-soul/

 

Today, when I started my meditation, the word that popped up for consideration was “purification”.  I thought that the word was an odd one to show up just before two sessions with clients.  I asked my guides and Great Spirit for clarification.  Nothing!  I looked up the meaning at Merriam-Webster online, and found this definition of purify.

Main Entry: pu·ri·fy  Pronunciation: \ˈpyu̇r-ə-ˌfī\  Function: verb   Inflected Form(s): pu·ri·fied; pu·ri·fy·ing  Etymology: Middle English purifien, from Anglo-French purifier, from Latin purificare, from Latin purus + -ificare –ify  Date: 14th century

transitive verb : to make pure: as a : to clear from material defilement or imperfection b : to free from guilt or moral or ceremonial blemish c : to free from undesirable elements intransitive verb : to grow or become pure or clean 

I read the definition and I still did not get it.  So, I went and did my two sessions, and then came back to the puzzle of the word.  I then had an “Aha!” moment.  In both sessions, one of the issues was around being angry at a situation, or a person, or at life, and then feeling guilty about feeling angry.  The guilt then played on the person’s mind, and caused a moral dilemma. Cognitive dissonance (meaning - psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously) resulted as the person struggled with past teachings and current behaviour.  The outcome is illness.

I realized the synchronicity of the word “purification” in this situation because of what we know about contaminated water.  

 

Picture of Brita water filter jug from www.dealseekingmom.com

 

 

When we drink water that is contaminated, whether that be by fertilizer, pesticides, manufacturing sludge run off, or even a dead animal, we will more than likely become ill. To avoid that outcome, we work very hard to ensure our water is pure.  

We also need to take those same actions in our daily life, and purify our minds.  If we continue to let harmful thoughts build up, they create a toxic environment in our body, similar to if we had been drinking toxic water, or eating toxic food.   

Let go of all of the negative things that you have heard and that you have said.  Wipe it clean, as though you were cleaning a window. Let it go!  Purify!

Blessings,

Judy

Relaxing by Stressing

Meditation picture from www.ehow.com

 

 

 

One of the things that I have learned about meditation is – there are many more ways to meditate than one could practice in this lifetime.  I quite enjoy the Buddhist meditations.  Here is one that I thought would be a good one for these times that seem to be creating a lot of stress for people.

           *****************************

RELAXING BY STRESSING 

A very effective method to relax the body by stressing all the muscles, holding that 5 to 10 seconds, and then releasing the tension.

1.  Sit or lie in a relaxed way.  
2.  Put an extremely tense expression on the face, straining as many face muscles as possible. (If you practise Yoga, then you might use the Lion’s Pose here.)

3. Take a deep breath and forcefully hold it. (Use a count of three to start with, and then, as you practice, increase the count for holding the breath to ten.)  
4. Now slowly release the breath and the tension of all the face muscles, feel as if you breathe out all stress.  
5.  Inhale deeply again and stress all neck and shoulder muscles, and then let go. (If you feel slightly dizzy, simply keep breathing until the feeling passes.)  
6. Inhale, make fists and stress the arms, and then let go.  
7.  Inhale, stress chest, belly and back and then let go. 

8.  Inhale, stress buttocks, legs and feet and then let go.  
9.  If you still feel tension at some places, just stay relaxed. Don't hold the breath now and slowly breath out, and release all the tension while breathing out. 

Now, sit in this moment of relaxation, and ask your body to enjoy the feeling, and to remember the feeling, so that your body can recall it at will. Note that this will take some practice.  

Let me know how this meditation worked for you! 

Blessings,

Judy