A few days ago, my husband brought out from the barn, the skull of a female moose. It had offered herself for the feeding of a family, and he had honored her by saving the skull. As I have been sitting with the skull over the last few days I find myself fascinated by it. And usually when I am drawn to something so strongly there is a message for me. So today, I gave myself time to just sit with her. To listen to her story. To see through her eyes. To follow all the very delicate lines that fused the gigantic bones. Which led me to think about death and bones. And bones and connective tissue. And death and connective tissue. And the wondering is since bones are connective tissue why do they not "disappear" when the rest of the body does. The answer that resonates in my bones (yup I said it) was this... Bones are left as a mark that we were here. They tell a story. Each line, each break and healing, every little hole that housed a necessary organ for life, even the teeth reveal something ~ like the food that was eaten by the living being while it roamed the earth. As the day passed I began to think about the moose. I closed my eyes and pretended that I was her walking though the woods, with graceful awkwardness. this reminded me of being a child in Maine and walking with my brother in the woods and hearing and feeling a moose before we could see her. She took our breath away. We jumped into the bushes and she did not see us, but we saw her and she was enormous and glorious and magical. We felt her walk on the earth for what seemed like an hour, even after we could not see her we felt her... Then I of course looked up Moose in Animal Speak. I was not surprised at what the book revealed. According to Animal Speak Moose holds the magic of walking between the worlds. She shares how to use mediumship and work with the spirits of the dead, going into the void and coming back out. They protect their young with great primal maternal energy that very few others ever challenge. The head and the feet are the two parts of the body on the moose most sensitive, revealing that those with Moose medicine have a link to foot reflexology and also craniosacral work to facilitate healing for self and others. The Moose has always been a powerful omen, reflecting a good long life. When Moose comes into your life the primal contact with the great feminine force and void of life is being awakened. It is an invitation to learn to explore new depths of awareness and sensitivity within yourself and your environment. When I sit with the Moose skull and I ask her if this is true for me, she says quite clearly, right on Janet!!

Memories for Mother's Day

Having conversations with friends about our Mothers, since it is Mother's day weekend, I took the opportunity to walk through the past and here is what came to me... I wonder how I was fortunate enough to have ended up the me I am today. I wonder how you, mother, managed to instill love, respect, responsibility, and hope after being taught as a child so many other realities. How does one rise above the pain and self imposed shame of childhood abuse, the internal guilt of "why didn't I protect my daughters" and the societal belief that maybe we deserved it? How? Once in an intimate conversation you asked me If I could ever forgive you? It made me sad to realize that I had forgiven you years ago, and that you really only needed to forgive yourself. I could only imagine how you must have felt experiencing the same thing I did but living in a time when it was a big no no to share any family secrets and a time when people believed the story of "don't hang out your dirty laundry in public". I even shocked you when I told you I had forgiven the man, who I was raised to believe was my grandfather, who started the cycle of abuse... How could I not... As a boy being raised in Austria as one of Hitlers Youth. How could he have done better? He was programmed for pain, to give and receive. But you, you chose the high road. You rose above childhood programming. You taught love and instilled a deep sense of self respect and shared the truth with all your children that "we could be or do anything we believed we could be or do". When I take the time to sit with both of our pasts I am so grateful to the you of then and the me of now, and if I had to be born again I would still choose you. Mother.