Spirit Guides
The awe of living on a farm
sometimes catches me so that I can barely breathe for a minute.
This morning was like that.
While walking Lucy, we ran across three wild animals in quick succession. First, a fox squirrel sprinted out from under the van in the parking area, knocking both Lucy and me out of our meditative walk-trance.
By the time we reached the bridge on the road (the one which has such low traffic that I usually walk down the middle and seldom see a car), we were back in the Zone, but we paused for a minute to peer over the side into the creek. Down in the muddy water, a medium-sized snapping turtle slowly swam upstream, its metabolism lowered by the chilly morning temperature.
Finally, we walked back up the road and up our driveway to our wobbly footbridge. About fifteen feet away from us, in a whirr of wings and slate-gray, a great blue heron pushed itself straight up out of the creek and into the air.
Although I stick to a purely rational belief in the world, sometimes I like to pretend a belief in spirit guides and similar occurrences. If such were the case, what would a squirrel, a turtle, and a heron mean?
While walking Lucy, we ran across three wild animals in quick succession. First, a fox squirrel sprinted out from under the van in the parking area, knocking both Lucy and me out of our meditative walk-trance.
By the time we reached the bridge on the road (the one which has such low traffic that I usually walk down the middle and seldom see a car), we were back in the Zone, but we paused for a minute to peer over the side into the creek. Down in the muddy water, a medium-sized snapping turtle slowly swam upstream, its metabolism lowered by the chilly morning temperature.
Finally, we walked back up the road and up our driveway to our wobbly footbridge. About fifteen feet away from us, in a whirr of wings and slate-gray, a great blue heron pushed itself straight up out of the creek and into the air.
Although I stick to a purely rational belief in the world, sometimes I like to pretend a belief in spirit guides and similar occurrences. If such were the case, what would a squirrel, a turtle, and a heron mean?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Like a squirrel, you have learned to provide your own sustenance, and have the foresight to store a little for winter. Like a turtle, little by little both of you have created at first a shelter, and now an oasis of peace. Like the heron, all that you work for and have made has given you the wings of freedom from the mainstream, you can fly wherever your fancy takes you.