Messages from the Wild
By Barbara Janelle M.A.
First Published Species Link, Issue 15, Spring, 1994
I enjoy my days at our cottage in Liberty, Maine each year, using this time to watch the birds, walk in the deep woods, and paddle along the lake edge in my wonderful Folbot (a very stable canoe-like boat that I have named “Jean Luc”). These quiet days help me process the lessons of life, free from the hectic schedule of usual existence. Last summer, some magical connections with wild and not so wild creatures touched me deeply.
Loons
The pair of loons fish off our dock and join us while my son, Daniel, and I swim. They fill the nights with their echoing calls. I touched a loon with my mind one evening to ask about the call. In an instant, I understood the call was necessary to exercise the lungs so they could dive deep and long. I felt the unusual shape of the loon’s skull that provides a chamber to send the call long and far. Their music is necessary to their survival. Also, it is a conscious and joyous celebration of life.
Great Blue Heron
As I paddled softly by a boggy island one afternoon, I saw a heron watching the water. The following is from my notes written later back at the cottage:
Still, in waking sleep
At the edge of the shallow way
The heron woke as I moved toward him
In my boat–The Jean Luc (Picard).
The heron flew a short way ahead
And landed feet first;
Snaking his head and neck forward,
He watched the water.
I asked how he fished
And he showed me in my mind.
Seeing the vibrations moving in our mind
Feeling-seeing the one that is different–
Fish gliding–dinner.
As I passed within a few feet of the heron, the picture came into my mind of light moving in ripples–rhythmic, patterned. Fish cut across the pattern.
The Kitten of the Woods and the Red Squirrel
The grey cat appeared on my porch one day, shy and thin. I offered her food and asked about her life. She replied:
Wild Spirit
Living a life that many dream of
But missing the connection
With another species:
A web of love that lights beings
In amazing mutual acceptance.
This set me looking for a good home for her. A few days later, the grey cat lay on the porch watching a red squirrel that had come for sunflower seeds. The cat turned and looked me full in the eye and said, “Watch and learn.” My notes describe the incident:
The cat and squirrel enter
The porch arena and the dance begins.
The cat extends her field on a beam
Of focused attention toward the squirrel.
The squirrel refuses the invitation
By doing nothing.
Then the pressure of the cat’s intent
Entices the squirrel to play the game
Of Life, Of Love.
And the red creature extends his field
To meet the cat’s bright ball.
Game over, all but the action
Delayed in the knowledge of the moment
Then suddenly finished on this plane.
I saw the cat extend her energy field as a yellow-white light toward the squirrel. The squirrel watched but did nothing. The cat pushed her field farther toward the squirrel, and the squirrel responded by extending its bright field toward the cat. The visible energy fields touched and became a shaft of light linking the two. The light hung in the air as the cat looked at me again. She did not move; and the telephone rang. I went inside to answer it and the cat got the squirrel.
I understood this dance as one of mutual love and agreement. I know, too, that the cat waited until I left the porch to catch the squirrel, because it would have been difficult for me to accept the physical end. As it was, I ran after the cat but knew immediately that this was a fulfilled agreement.
And I understood the underlying lesson offered by these beings:
Focused attention creates a beam of
Light toward a goal.
To resist such a beam, do nothing;
For this silence of response is protection.
To achieve a goal, invite with direct intent
And allow the dance to happen.
I knew the cat would like a relationship with humans, so I asked if she would be willing to go to my nephew’s family.
Her answer: “Yes!”
“To be their cat of wisdom?” I asked, as I saw the cat’s picture of herself sitting Buddha-like on top of a cabinet in their home.
“That is me as time extends,” she replied.
“Tomorrow?”
“Waiting,” she replied. “Possible. Need more focus on all parts.”
I made appointments with the vet for two days running, but the cat did not come when I needed to catch her. The time was not right until after the weekend; I did not know that my nephew and his family had gone camping.
Monday, everything worked. The cat came to me. We went to the vet for a check-up and inoculations and then to my nephew’s home. The entire family turned out to greet us. The children named the cat, “Sunshine.” She made friends with the dog immediately and settled down on that same cabinet I saw in my mind. She is their delight and they are hers now.