Opening to the New

As I thought about what I might be opening to, I was reminded of an experience I had early last summer.  I was outside in my garden, when something flopped onto my hand.  I looked down, and there on my hand was a monarch butterfly.  It had newly left its chrysalis because its wings were heavy and damp.  I was so amazed when it landed on me, that I immediately sat down.  It stayed on my hand for over an hour, drying its wings in the sun, with liquid seeping from its body so that it could shrink down and become light enough to fly.  After some more time, I coaxed it onto a nearby jasmine plant.  I was able to take several pictures of it before it took a brief flight out to the wall.  It basked in the sun for an hour or so more, and then it was gone.  I was in awe that I had gotten to witness the intimacy of this new life beginning.  Life is such a gift.  Which feels like the essence of this quote I wanted to share:

"Choose life--only that, and always--and at whatever risk.  To let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere passage of time, to withhold giving it and spreading it, is to choose nothing."

                                          -Author Unknown

Passing from Death into Life

Something is dying. Old ways are dying. New ways are beckoning. The grand cycle continues--birth, death, rebirth. I honor and value the contributions of my life that no longer serve me. I am being invited to let go. Things are not what they used to be. The old is breaking down to provide nourishment--fertile ground--for the new.

"Our work is to interpret this Life/Death/Life cycle, to live it as gracefully as we know how to, to howl like a mad dog when we cannot...and to go on..."

                                                             -Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

The Whitefeather Story 

Whitefeather came to me.  As I was considering a name for my website, I wanted to convey the sense of lightness I now experience after many years of life journeying.  Then I recalled a meditation time several years ago with my wise woman friends that had been preceded by a story that one of my friends shared.  She had been to a workshop where the leader had talked about names that the participants resonated with or felt “at home” with.  She said they were asked what name suited them.  As she said this, immediately the name Whitefeather came into my thoughts.  During our meditation time that followed I remembered thinking, “Well that’s nice, but when will I ever use that?”

So now several years later, the name had come back to me.  And so had several other good options for website names.  I was still undecided about my domain name when I was doing some reading one day.  The middle of this particular book included several meditations accompanied by appropriately related photos.  I landed on one about clearing physical blockages.  In this visualization, the author invited the reader to “ask for transformation of the malady—represented by the white feathers.”*  There on the same page was a beautiful photo of white feathers!  The linking of transformation with the white feathers was a direct and powerful connection for me.  Whitefeather Art was born! 

*Cell-Level Healing by Joyce Whiteley Hawkes, p. 69