The key to seeing is believing

My hair was curly when I woke up this morning. Maybe not ringlet curly, but certainly wavy and wild, holding some semblance of electricity lending a feeling that something was different. I've been sleeping on my back. It's not my favorite position to sleep in but it's the most comfortable I can get for now and regardless every morning since I've moved I have woken up to find my bangs bent in some way as though I've been sleeping directly on them. Today though all my bangs were in place, I woke to a wild mane.

A few years ago I was on my way back home to Brooklyn from a friends house. I had been in between jobs and scrambling to try and make ends meet, pleading with the universe to in some way, somehow help me. While at her house, in the midst of my frustrated "What am I going to do?" meltdown, a bar regular who we both knew texted my friend asking for my information because he wanted to hire me for makeup on a girl group he was recording with. Problem (temporarily) solved. So I'm on my way home and the man sitting next to me got up at one of the stops. Out of the corner of my eye I see a tangled something dressed in that yellow/green glow in the dark kind of color that had revealed itself when the man got up. Ever curious, I picked it up, untangled it and it quickly took its proper form, a star. It was one of those shape bracelets that were popular a few years back. In that moment I felt like Mario and began to laugh. I had found an invincibility star while on the Path! (I was riding the Path train from NJ-NY)


Fast forward 7 months to October 2011

Prospect Park. One of the reasons I loved my first Brooklyn apartment was purely because of its proximity to this emerald. I can't explain my draw to it but this park has pulled me into it since I first visited Brooklyn, before ever moving. One fall afternoon a friend and I were wandering through per usual and the day was already demonstrating itself to be of the wonder filled variety. A rainbow orb, which I had never seen before nor since embraced the sky above us. The sun was not at its center. It was solely a perfect ring of color. A few minutes after noticing the prism in the sky, I saw tiny mushroom "steps" that had grown near the base of a tree. I remember feeling like I was floating, my heart full of wonder and gratitude for the beauty that kept presenting itself to me. As I can easily get carried away floating, I sat at the roots of the tree feeding it water in exchange for providing me with a seat and some grounding. I took the scene in front of me in and conversed a bit with the wind. At some point while looking around, my eyes wandered to my feet and the awe took over. Directly beneath where I sat were a set of keys. Partially buried in the dirt and covered with leaves and grass, they had been there for some time. Only 3 of the 5 were above ground. While the average person might adopt a thought pattern of "Big deal. Someone sat there before and lost their keys.", my own thought pattern and sight had evolved at this point to "What are the odds that in this giant park filled with hundreds, maybe thousands (I don't know), of trees, directly after seeing a rainbow ring in the sky, I sat at this exact spot and found these keys. While some of them were kind of average looking keys, there were two that looked so old and beautiful and I wondered what they all opened. Though I had found other objects since the star, these keys, much like finding the star made me feel as though I were in a real live video game. From that day onward, life began to feel like a scavenger hunt. Each time I found a key,(I found 14 in NY, 1 in Hawaii) I adopted the idea that life was opening some kind of door for me. I was unlocking some part of myself that had been hidden away. I found one before working a very important NYFW show. I found another literally in the middle of a jungle in Hawaii. The last I found in a dark alley while a just eclipsed full moon rose in LA. Until today.


With wide eyes and wild hair for whatever reason I woke up fully energized early this morning. I fed the cats and Scrappy seemed anxious to pee. He's not generally a morning dog and has to be coaxed to go outside but this morning he paced at my side ready to go. As I put his collar and leash on, my Dad tried to insist he'd take him but I shut him down. "He likes to go to the corner where..." and I cut him off saying I always let dogs walk me, that he would take me wherever he wanted to go, it was fine. We walked to the same place he generally goes to and rather than head for the large patch of grass to handle his business he stopped and sat. Looking down, there they were nestled in the dirt. 4 old keys. One coated in rust, all different sizes and types bound together by a rusty old wire. I don't know what they open, I don't care how they got there. I found them, they're mine now and I can't wait to see what they unlock.

The bird, bird, bird. The bird is the word.

What now seems like ages ago, a hummingbird woke me up one morning. Since that tiny flutter of duo chromatic color entered my world, I have, albeit slowly, learned to pay even closer attention to every species of animal that makes itself known to me. As I touched on in my previous post, spirit animals have seemed to make quite the splash in society in recent times. I once had an Ethnic studies teacher in college who drilled into our heads the importance of being able to identify the world around you. It was a literature course and the purpose of his statement was to aid in our writing. Rather than writing simply about "the way the wind whistled through the tree tops", the more one knows about their environment, the more descriptive their writing will be and thus the picture painted, more colorful: "the way the wind whistled through the leaves of the ancient Oak trees." More information will always equate to a more definite and better understood shape and a more fleshed out story.

In this day and age, it's likely there aren't many people who haven't heard of "The Secret" or "The Law of Attraction". Like attracts like and all that jazz. Well, if we are to agree with this universal law (I do), then it would only make sense that that which surrounds us is "like" us, at least at that time. Being alive, we all grow, and thus we all change. Rarely does one live a static existence, for we would not be alive if we did. As we change, our surroundings must change as well. I find, that one of thee most helpful ways to gauge our own energy is through animals. Regardless of whether you live in a city, suburbia or the country, nature is always effervescent. Even in and around New York, a sprawling metropolis with people seemingly stacked on top of one another in this concrete jungle, nature exists. I've come across hawks, falcons, ravens, ladybugs, squirrels, blue jays, owls, groundhogs, rabbits, bats, dragonflies, woodpeckers, caterpillars, butterflies, snakes, spiders, fireflies, chipmunks and countless other birds I haven't identified.


Groundhog, ladybug and dragonfly love

Some make themselves KNOWN. I went to Ohio for Thanksgiving and quite literally was followed by ravens the entire time. These birds (they're a type of crow) are loud and if you don't see them, they make sure you hear them. More recently, I was woken up every single day for 2 weeks by the voice of ravens in the tree outside my window. Where ravens are loud and you'd have to be deaf not to notice them, Hawks seem to be majestically silent as they ride the winds, wings spread, enjoying their flight.


Ravens

While some animals can and will present themselves to you in the flesh, if you live in the US, it's unlikely that you will come face to face with say, a tiger or an octopus (unless at a zoo or aquarium). Regardless, if you possess that energy, they will show themselves to you whether through images, conversations etc. What made me revive and dive deeper into the spirit animal realm was what I suppose can only be described as what some might call a "vision". I've tried to meditate since it was suggested to me when I was in the hospital 8 years ago. It never seemed to work and always frustrated me. I'm still not entirely fantastic at it and either forget or am too tired to "practice" on a regular basis. However, at some point last year I was wide awake in my bedroom, frustrated by some condition of my life at the time and I flopped on my bed and closed my eyes. The second my eyelids shut I saw a white barn owl who flapped her wings once and then raised them. As they raised, the owl turned into the moon. I should mention that I was 100% sober and my first thought was "OMG! How cool! WTF was that? Did I finally do this meditation thing right? Without even trying?" Since my eyes were closed, and though I wasn't sleeping, my next inclination was to google "owl meaning dream dictionary" One way or another, I ended up following some rabbit hole that led me to spirit animals. The rest is history.


A stingray and a frog came to play with me in Miami this summer

Since that point, if an animal makes themselves known in my world, whether in the flesh, in a dream/vision or through synchronicity (my personal rule is randomly seeing/hearing about a species 3 times within say a week) I study them. I look at the color, think about how they move, what they're known for, how they eat, how they protect themselves, what their skills are etc and I also google *insert species here* spirit animal. I will say that every single animal that has made itself known, perfectly reflected what I needed to see/learn/be during that time period. So you might be curious to explore why you bought that Fox spirit hood instead of the Cheetah one or why a spider scared the hell out of you and made you squeal like a little girl. There's a lot more to this world, if only we would stop texting and tweeting for a minute to pay attention to life. What animals have you been ignoring?

Linkage: As we all know, the internet is filled with a plethora of websites and tons of information. The most useful site I have found relating to spirit animal guides if you wish to explore on your own, is Shamanic Journey Not to say there aren't other good ones, but this is my personal favorite.