Monthly Archives: May 2020
Quick Reiki & Magick Rabbit Update for the Month Ahead
We’re so excited about the beautiful group of souls coming together this year to join Astrid and me in our first time ever group online Reiki Certification Training. We’ve taught individually by distance and of course do distant Reiki Healing Attunements, but now we are honored to create group synergy via the Reiki bridge.
We opened the training to 6 spaces per class and in the case of Reiki 1 we ended up actually registering 8 people with a 9th past student attendee who really wanted to review. I feel that is feasible for this class, but need to be more strict on the rest of the levels unless someone is absolutely committed that this is the timing.
I am open to discussing interests, if you want to join an already full class, but for the most part I am now taking names for a waiting list, as there can tend to be adjustments at the last minute where people have shifts in terms of actually attending.
The classes begin in August, followed by October and December for the last two. Specific dates will be determined with the group about a month or two prior.
Here’s how things look currently:
Reiki Level 1: FULL
Reiki Level 2: 1 space available (UPDATE NOW FULL)
Reiki Level 3 Master Teacher: FULL
People have asked if I’ll be offering this next year and my answer is this. I really can’t promise or predict what will unfold next year with anything. This year was a surprise, as I had taken a hiatus from teaching and wasn’t sure that I’d be returning to it, as I have other focuses calling for more of my time and energy these days. However, with all that is going on in the world, I was guided to at least provide one opportunity this year to help people who feel strongly called and to help raise the collective vibration, which seems much needed right now. I always listen to universal nudges and my place within things. I did the same with Intuitive Energy guidance sessions (my form of life coaching), as I had also stopped that, but followed the nudge that it would be supportive right now.
Everything is constantly evolving and so all I can be sure about is what is right here and now. So, if you feel on the fence, that would be my guiding advice, that with anything you’re feeling on the fence about or that the timing isn’t ideal, that you seize the opportunity while it’s here and decide to make something important. Now is really all we can be sure of.
My life has transformed exponentially since starting to teach Reiki in 2007. It’s not something I thought I would do, but I said “yes” even with all my fear around it, and discovered that it definitely was where I was meant to go and it supported all areas of my life and opened up so many more latent gifts, evolutionary change, and courage of heart than I can even begin to express. Going down the path of becoming a Reiki Master Teacher, or being a teacher in any genre, is truly a life-changing experience for yourself and all whom you will touch in your life.
When ever I’m teaching or doing a session, it reminds me how life-changing each moment is in providing opportunity for making a profound, evolutionary difference.
Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this transformative journey and who keeps saying “yes” to helping to raise the collective’s vibration while taking your own life to a whole new level too.
If you want to be added to the waiting list, have a question, or want to discuss an already full class, please get in touch with me here: Contact Tania
And last, a quick update about our Magick Rabbit Etsy Shop. We continue our special sale, but beginning tomorrow – the first of June through Summer Solstice on the 20th, everything including the original paintings will now all be 40-50% off. This is our largest discounted sale to date, especially on original creations.
This includes our last 3 whimsical magick rabbit mini portal paintings of The Empress (created in image of Astrid), Bedtime Stories (a vision from the faerytales in my heart), and Cosmic Voyage (inspired by my soul star family in the Cosmos) and our last 3 animal spirit guide larger canvas paintings of The Mystic Tortoise, Gem of the Emerald Forest Panda, and The Child In Us Porcupine. 50% of proceeds still go to rescue rabbits at a non-profit organization.
The rest of the sale is rounded out by our last prints, notebook journals, and greeting cards. Everything else is sold out.
There’s a potential we may close the shop after the 20th, so if there’s anything you’ve been interested in, now is the time to bring it home at incredible offerings. I’m not sure if closure will be permanent or just temporary until my other projects are completed and I can focus on some new items in the shop.
You can shop our SUMMER SOLSTICE SALE here: Magick Rabbit Etsy Shop
Ask Astrid Fridays ~ The Rabbit’s Corner: Eclipse Season of Change is Upon Us
Astrid never ceases to amaze me with her messages of reflection and energetic embodiment. Take a look at her latest symbol she manifested on her fur and how perfectly it reflects the upcoming Eclipses. In particular, it’s an exact duplicate of the Cancer New Moon Solar Eclipse of June. I wasn’t able to get a photo of Astrid’s back yet, but she actually has two smaller circles on her spine that just started to develop too, with this much more defined and dramatic circle on her side. The two smaller ones feel to be reflective of the Lunar Eclipses.
June and July are home to a series of three Eclipses – two Lunar and one Solar. The first appearing on June 5th with a Sagittarius Full Moon Lunar Eclipse, which will open up a flow of energy through Galactic Center. The second Lunar Eclipse is in Capricorn on July 5th that will continue to add transformational Earth energies for the collective.
Then we have the Cancer New Moon Solar Eclipse aligning with Summer Solstice. For many time zones it will be the day after, on June 21st, but for Pacific Time zone people, like myself, it will actually fall on the Solstice of June 20th at 11:41 pm for our wedding evening.
With each of these Eclipses we can bank on some dramatic shifts and shift-potentials within and without that may speed up what has felt in slow-motion, but may also seem surprising when in fact they’ve been changes messaging us for a very long time that have hit the tipping point.
So, indeed, things in our lives can receive a heightened illuminating quality within and without where we may have illusions revealed and our perspectives altered. It’s definitely a point of loving release and mourning for the old stories and experiences, as we embark on the possibilities of new beginnings.
Astrid sheds light on this time and calls to attention the importance and value of bringing spirit and heart back into your work and life.
You’ll always have things in the way and always have many reasons why certain things aren’t possible, including why peace can’t be your everyday experience within all of it.
She reminds us that the stories we tell ourselves and keep replaying, are what we wear like energetic imprints on our skin that radiate out to the Universe, and draw in like beacons, what we really want more of.
She and I have both been feeling the collective ebbs and flows of stress, confusion, impatience, frustration, worry, and inability to see or feel clearly circulating around. It’s not easy to find peace in waters like those, but it’s a state of being we can choose to create more of, from the inside out.
That’s the way it works. Not having things on the outside change or be a certain way to experience peace, but to know that peace is something no one can take away from us because it’s within. Surrender, unconditional detachment, openness, and compassion are part of the path to peace.
It’s the same with anything we want to create….it begins within, here and now, and not at any romanticized moment.
I think that if we are honest with ourselves we can discover the value and importance we place on things by how much time and energy we spend in each of them.
Astrid asks if you’ve been feeling stressed, how much time are you actually putting aside to create more peace? How much of the stressful things do you find your self worth somehow tied into?
Spiral traps are hard to step out of, but with commitment you can. Astrid is holding a gentle, but grounded embodiment of peace to anchor and support each of us to navigate and cross those waters within. She reflects our potential doorways through these astrological alignments upcoming.
Most of the messages that Astrid and I both keep receiving, seem to keep recycling back around.
Why? Because we seem to keep needing to hear things over and over and over in different ways and on different days, until the alignment within takes hold. It’s something I do with myself, too, and recognize that it isn’t always enough to hear something once. It isn’t enough to read it, listen to it, or be around it in blaring ways….it becomes enough when we’ve actually embodied it.
Astrid calls us to decide on what we want to stand firm in and to commit to creating new stories that will be more effective beacons to draw in what we do really want.
She has “become’ the Eclipse energies to more effectively drop into what it means for herself and to beam it out for the collective as a constant, mirrored reminder.
She asks us to look at everything with different perspectives.
For instance, what if your obstacles are designed gifts to guide and support you to be who you really are? They’re not designed to sabotage you.
Everything is a supportive tool to support you into your highest version of you. And this continues to evolve and will need tweaking and reinventing, with every different level of experience you want to continue to have. It’s a consistent flow of energy in motion that never ceases to move and become stagnant.
I love that Astrid always uses opportunities to message me personally and the collective. As mentioned, with our upcoming wedding on the 20th within hours of the New Moon Solar Eclipse, I’m definitely understanding and anchoring into more of what this life change is about to create and trickle forth. And in the days leading up, I’ve been focused on reviewing and refining, upgrading and reinventing the next version of life I would like to experience.
Astrid is integrating what all of the changes mean for her, too, and is preparing for her next version she’ll be actively embodying and partnering in.
Who wants to join us in breaking the wheel and reinventing a new way?
Monday Musings ~ The Writer’s Corner: Magickal Rituals & Tales from the Forest Portal
While I’m immersed in painting portal flow working on an author’s book cover, creative writing has been coming through me in small channeled snippets during a mini novel break. I love how everything interweaves together and supports the other. So, in my own short book hiatus, I’m still very much writing and book focused, with simple musings and artistic inspirations. These are two recent channelings that came through, inspired by the forest and my enchanted garden, which I shared on Instagram and compiled together for my sweet blog friends. I hope you enjoy and/or find your own inspirations from them. One friend called the tree channeling a magickal spell in ritual. In both musings, the words glided through me, but were both me and not me. Enjoy.
INVITATION TO THE GRAND SUMMER BALL
The flower faeries are beginning to appear and invitations to the Grand Summer Ball have gone out.
Some can hardly wait and have thrown on their gowns while they make preparations.
They are the way-showers for all the new faeries of this realm and ensure pollinator guests for when they make their appearance.
The mainstay perennial hosts have returned with vigor and in some cases multiplied with glee. They are cycling in intervals with many yet to bloom and others taking the plunge into early brilliance. They encircle the enchanted garden bed – the ballroom stage for this yearly celebration – awaiting the tiny green shoots newly seeded this year that carpet the realm.
You can’t make them out, but I assure you they sprout with glee to reach the sunshine and join the dance. Sparkling butterfly and dragonfly guardians decided to watch over the garden this year too, and send out beacons to all their family, inviting them to what could likely be the biggest celebration this realm has yet to see.
There’s even been an addition to the serving stations to ensure all forest creatures can easily hydrate during the jubilee. Alongside the larger standing water bowl and bath anchored with a quartz crystal center, there’s now a small sunflower dish with bird hosts watched over by a pair of rabbits with solar succulents that light the way for forest creatures of the in between hours. In this way the ground dwellers like rabbits and mice can sip of its contents, while the birds, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, and opposums can continue enjoying the higher water station.
There is much excitement and many whispers throughout the land, calling in the seen and unseen creatures of the forest portal.
Summer Solstice is near and everyone is doing their part to make it a beautiful celebration.
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GREAT TREE
Oh Great Tree your roots carry the whispers of times forgotten, your branches see times yet to come, and yet your strength is in the presence you bear witness to unconditionally.
You are a portal to your Mother, The Cosmic Tree, through which multidimensional experience is woven.
Pressing my heart to yours I remember.
Sweet New Moon Wishes of Softening Potential
Wishing everyone a beautiful New Moon of sweet possibilities. I’m feeling like a cool breeze has blown in carrying with it a refreshed and inspired energy around this Gemini Moon, and as if a softer layer has been revealed under any resistance that might have been present. It’s perfect support for the current book cover painting commission I’m working on that is a portal of possibility itself.
I was never hugely drawn to pink, except for when I was a little girl and now that the little girl me is so much freer within my inner world, wearing pink feels nurturing. There’s an innocent little faery giggle I hear in pink that feels like a burst of sweet strawberry icing on the tongue or puffy cotton candy clouds dancing in a baby blue sky. Perhaps the shedding of more and more layers has uncovered a magnetism for it. Pink feels soft, vulnerable, innocent, sensitive, hopeful, romantic, calm and joyfully loving.
Softness, to me, being a message on a wider scale asking of us, where can we soften our inner dialogue, rigid perspectives, angry behaviors, harsh judgments of others or self, and our hardened shells we learned to erect for perceived, self preservation?
Protection can help nurture freedom, but can also restrict evolution. It’s not about having no boundaries, but the comfort in knowing you can energetically create these when needed as balance, and not simply out of constant separation, judgment, insecurity, and isolation projections.
Themes I keep sensing and are increasingly revving up for people include anxiety and stress at an all-time high, amplification of fears while illusion and escapism don a cloak of intuition that hides the reality of them, confusion as to how to navigate the deeper, darker depths in order to open the wisdom behind the fear doors that keep you away from yourself, and barriers to self knowing, love, and care because the conditioned cycles have been circling around for so long. It’s easy to get caught up in what’s going on outside and with trying to make everyone else change, but this is a futile mission without softening your own inner world around the ways you might resist change yourself.
There aren’t only contradictions in our outer world circulating, but also within us, which can torment us endlessly and war with each other to the detriment of own exhaustion. This New Moon window aids us in illuminating the possibility to see yourself more clearly. Gemini brings new perspectives so that misunderstandings can be brought to light.
Communication and perspective are highlighted now, which includes how you see things and communicate with yourself. An invitation to truth is a way to practice opening up to real conversations and discovering what you’re holding back or holding yourself back from. This is a great time to clear out the mental chatter, inner clutter and stories that are taking up time, energy, and space in your world.
Fear can hinder your expression, creativity, growth, and overall well-being and potential. A new approach to life constantly beckons us and doorways like this New Moon can support that if you’re willing.
Connection is also valuable right now and finding ways that suit you to feel more connected with others, All That Is, Nature, and yourself. Finding avenues that resonate for you and help cultivate this more are wonderful…writing, communicating, networking, reaching out, being in Nature, sharing your gifts…are forms of connecting.
Perhaps if you do too much technological connecting, then simpler ways might be a fresh start via communicating through your talents, immersing with Nature, using energy work or meditation. Or, if you’ve felt more isolated, maybe a technology upgrade to help you tune in with others or share your gifts on a larger scale might be activating.
It’s also a wonderful opportunity to recreate yourself…imagining a whole new you you’d like to express in the world. Here you can ask yourself how your life, actions, speech, and feelings align with your values. What message are you embodying and transmitting to the world? Are you consistent in what you believe, say, feel, and how you behave?
A lot of people tell me that they’ve done everything – positive thinking, self-healing, growth processes, and sometimes even exhausted medical help if they have a physical challenge….and are exhausted. Understandably they want so much to learn the lessons, feel better, and be done with things. They share that they want to feel whole and sense there must be more than meets the eye, as they simply can’t shift out and break free. I understand that frustration, having been there many times myself.
They ask me if there’s anything missing?
I don’t claim to know all of the why’s of their challenges, as there can be many levels to it to explore and uncover, but what I do find that can many times fundamentally be at the core is that sometimes people aren’t fully ready to embrace being freed or “healed” as they call it, as this would call for a whole new way of life, being, and responsibility.
The challenge seems to serve them in some way and there’s a part of them that is not really ready for what it means to not have the challenge anymore. It can be something very deep we hide from ourselves. So it becomes important to root out any thoughts and impressions, deep beliefs and feelings for why you may not feel “deserving” of this integration to take place. And perhaps even why you may be afraid of the “responsibility” that comes along with it.
Perhaps the very challenge is also what fuels the beauty of who you are and what you have to impart in service to others – in essence, it provides the “gusto” behind your message and dreams.
Sometimes we can’t see our wholeness that already IS within the experience we are having. That there is a perfection in the experience when we release it from definitions of life’s should’s and should not’s. We get in our own way when we think we know it all or have tried everything.
First off, this is not possible, as the universe is unlimited and it is self-deceptive to think you have explored all possibilities. You may have gone as far as your current perspectives are open to, but I assure you that they always have more room to expand…limitlessly in fact. And simply, too.
Sometimes it can be the smallest of tweaks that makes the difference, which comes at the right time and place for that click to put things into motion. There’s no time frame or right or wrong about this. It’s a journey and an experience of spirit in motion of being human.
If you find yourself hitting a wall, learn to love this wall, as it is there for a reason, take a break and allow your feelings and mind to refresh and let your subconscious percolate with the feelings and frustration for a while. When you separate from the need to have to get a solution then you work with and align with your energy instead of against it. It’s this embracing and love that will enable you to see more than one solution and from your heart you can find your creative power to create something new.
Life really calls for a softening in our hearts on all levels and toward life itself. It’s understandable that life circumstances can create a hardening, but at some point we may need to unlearn that, as hardening tends to crack and break at some point.
Clarity and true compassion comes with softness.
Softening isn’t about weakness. It’s a strength that knows it needs no false shield to be empowered. Standing fiercely in transparency and truth comes with a softer approach. One that is willing to reveal the authenticity and trusts the power of that to speak for itself.
Quick Update:
Online Reiki Training Certification Classes are almost full. I’m only taking 6 participants per class and here is the current availability.
Reiki Level 1: FULL (However due to there being 1 available space in each of the other 2 classes & a new student may want to do all 3, I’m opening Reiki Level 1 an extra space for someone interested in registering for all of the levels. I’ll also take names for a waiting list for this as a stand-alone class)
Reiki Level 2: 1 space available
Reiki Level 3 Master Teacher: 1 space available
You can register in full or hold your space with a deposit here:
And our Magick Rabbit Etsy Shop continues to host our biggest sale through June 20th, Summer Solstice. We have a few notebook journals, greeting cards, prints, and original mini and large paintings remaining. We continue to support rescue rabbits with sales, and with the current, mirroring, deadly virus strain (RHDV2) pandemic for rabbits (killing both wild and domestic rabbits), this is especially dear to my heart to do.
Change is in the Air ~ Online Reiki Classes & Spiraling New Directions
I write this from the Forest Portal’s surprise Spring snow day, again reflecting how things shift moment-to-moment. Yesterday was special because it marked what would have been Cosmo’s (my sweet rabbit boy) fourteenth Earth birthday and on his day, as I do always with all of my dear ones’ special days, we communed through nature. Our adventure hike in Washoe Indian area was a revisit of one we only introduced ourselves to part of a couple of weeks ago for the first time with intention to complete it.
We decided on a picnic hike (above photo in a field of blooming bitterbrush was our chosen rest spot) for the nearly eight miles of exploration, which not only graced us with a solo journey without seeing a human the whole time, but proved my words before we left to be foretelling of the gifts Cosmo would bring forth for us.
I said out loud to Dave, “I wonder what Cosmo will gift us this time? What messages does he have? What animals might we see, what feather might he leave?” Well, the wildly windy day (feeling like 50 mile an hour winds at times) with a mist of faery rain drops keeping us cool, but never wet, spoke of their own purposeful, timely messages and nurturing alongside the unusual sightings.
The only companions were coyote crossing our path with a black tipped tail, raven flying overhead with a snake in its mouth, and a huge pile of the most gorgeous feathers from a Sooty Grouse with peacock tipped iridescence in gold, bronze, green, blue, purple, and pink but no body, bones or blood around – just stunning plumes. Minutes later I found a longer feather you can see pictured below with the others from a different bird – maybe hawk or osprey?
I knew each sighting was a gift and omen that I was to receive from Cosmo so I honored the bird and wrapped the ones I was called to, gently in my shirt. Being an area the Washoe Indians frequented, created extra reverence for this bird, and the gift Cosmo had brought through the Universe to me. Many Plains Indian tribes used to honor these birds with a Grouse Dance. My dance will be a sacred ritual of intention and creation this week onward, lighting each step with newly infused perspective and energy.
The photos don’t do the colors justice when the sunlight hits them, but I was told I’ll be creating something sacred with these at some point and they are a gift for imagining and manifesting that beauty.
They carry a message of personal power, protection, purpose, centering, grounding, harnessing energy for clearly defined goals, the sacred spiral for vision and enlightenment with the Great Mystery, sacred and rhythmic movement and harmonized dance within Earth’s cycles for higher awareness, creation of selfless beauty, ceasing external movement for inner life realization, and new rhythms, teachings, creations, and rituals to lead you into new dimensions.
Once abundant, grouse are now less prolific, but its feathers sure speak to abundance, beauty, and rituals that bridge Cosmos and Earth. This beautiful being somehow feels like an extended hand of clarity and connection to help me integrate the new and bring through what I’ve struggled with expressing.
And lastly, right before the hike ended three very cosmic-like deer crossed our path and just kept watching us without fear. I thought at first they were all female, but one walked out before they leaped gracefully away and it had tiny antlers growing about three inches or so – a boy! I knew right away this was Cosmo, Joy and Nestor – my rabbit soul family has often showed up in deer form when no one else is around.
In Glacier National Park, two cosmic deer had shown up after Joy’s transition – they were Nestor and Joy, as Cosmo was still with us. Yesterday Cosmo joined the girls and their showing up through the portal of unusual energies and signs felt like they were opening a new doorway for me. There may be some twists and turns as things transform, but a promise invites me – both a new one and a reminder of the old one I made. There’s that sacred spiral that grouse speaks of.
Much of the day reminded me of the adventures we had with Cosmo and Joy while in the Magick Bus for 1 1/2 years – similar vistas, memories popping up of favorite places this reminded me of, that in between-worlds energy, nobody else around, similar sightings including grouse and cosmic deer, and strange but interesting weather.
I’m still reflecting on the messages of these signs he sent, as there feels to be a story he’s sharing through them of things upcoming. A spiral dance in motion of bringing me back to center.
I also received clarification yesterday around another change. Cosmo has a very clear way of coming through since he departed on Halloween/Samhain when the veils are thinnest.
Although I won’t regularly be teaching Reiki anymore, it came through that I can and will offer just one class per each level of Reiki this year.
It might be an ongoing, once yearly offering, but for now it’s something I’ve opened to because of the state of things in the world where energetic upgrades would be beneficial, and due to inquiries both spoken and unspoken. I get a lot of messages from people on the energetic levels, so I’m putting this out there in case it speaks to you.
I’ve created a separate page with some information and how you can register.
I’ll be opening the Reiki training to online availability only, likely via Zoom, but maybe Skype to only 6 participants for each class.
These will not be starting until August, as I need time to focus on current and new projects, as well as the new changes in my life upcoming that Cosmo is also hinting at and conveying importance in timing of.
I have a very busy few months of client sessions, book cover painting for an author, writing, wedding details, record keeping for our side business, and channeling new information coming through in an anchored way. I feel some large changes on the horizon that my current projects are stepping stones toward, which makes them integral to complete.
So, the page will not have specific dates in the months proposed. That is something I will finalize once I see who actually commits to and confirms their participation, as I will then be able to communicate with the group and customize and optimize days and times for the whole.
You’ll have the ability to register with deposit, or in full on the page below.
Please contact me with any questions, to discuss your unique path, and/or individual specific needs at the contact link on this page too, so I can know how to support you best:
FYI: If you contact me and don’t hear back from me in a day or two, please check your spam folder because I’ve had a lot of people find my emails there for some reason. You can also check back with me again in a couple of days if you don’t hear from me and I’ll message you a different way if needed.
Whimsical Wednesdays ~ The Artist’s Corner: Be Like Nature
Creating life as a work of art is my personal motto and nature is such a guiding light example for this kind of artistry. I used to make life hard for so many years – part of that due to not having boundaries, which drowned out my voice of origins. The rest was a much needed excavation journey, but all along the nature of my heart kept singing. I just couldn’t hear it loud enough nor trusted it above the conditioned and accepted patterns and cycles I was caught up in.
The more I spent time in nature, the more I relaxed into my own.
I find all the answers to questions reflected around me always on nature’s canvas. Every tree, plant, flower, animal, insect, rock, terrain, season, and weather pattern displays a lesson for life and demonstrates how simply we can recreate, blend, merge, and resiliently design what is needed in each moment.
Perhaps that’s part of why rabbits speak to me so much too, as there’s still so much wild in them even if domesticated, and their Earth connection is richly woven into their bodies and souls.
I shared some of this on an Instagram post recently, but it goes along with this share:
I find it beneficial to embrace, and allow myself to experience, all of who I am without judgment. As I embrace all of my parts and their purpose for having been, a new perspective is born that rewrites my experience. As a result it creates a new template for a more loving, flowing relationship with myself of experiences filled with greater grace every step of the way. It’s not always easy, especially in the beginning, but with practice it becomes more natural and seamless.
I no longer need a catastrophe, physical crises, break down, or shove up against a wall in my life to know what my heart and soul needs and what changes are necessary in the bigger picture of things. My process is more about alignment, trust, and flexibility.
Support and expansion is there when I am in that flow.
While it might seem more logical to make changes when there’s a challenge, I say it’s quite empowering to make them when there aren’t.
For this reason I have understood why some people have thought I might be going through a challenge of some sort to make decisions like taking sabbaticals or changing courses altogether in areas like work, home, life and love, but the decisions are based on choice following inner knowing. I’m grateful to experience things in this new way – a way that reminds me of how nature simply unfolds in every moment, whole and complete.
Nature is my constant guide for life.
My time in nature gifts me endlessly. I find it to be the most profound for channeling, receiving inspiration, the most supportive for deep conversations, and abundant with messages and answers I’ve been pondering.
Nature helps me weave life as a work of art, as not only is she full of creative potency, but she offers me so many options and perspectives for how I want to paint each experience.
This was a feather treasure from Sunday’s long trek on the Flume Trail above Lake Tahoe. It’s very peachy gold and at first reminded me of many of my hawk guide feathers although wondered about owl since the feathers have many similarities. Upon further exploration of my feather collection and hearing from bird experts we confirmed it as great horned owl. I have several feathers from owl and hawk in my treasured collection. The timing of this one and finding it on a steep ledge upside down – nearly undetectable to the naked eye unless meant to be seen – felt very aligned.
Just some of great horned owl’s symbolism includes timing, hearing the unspoken, seeing and protecting the unseen, harbinger of new cycles and life transitions, piercing beyond the veil, shape-shifting, Great Mystery, wise action, recognizing light and dark coexisting, higher intuition, knowing, able to pierce through shadows and fears and see the darkness of others’ souls – therefore not easily being deceived.
The “knowing” aspect was synchronously peculiar, as I’d just been explaining to Dave about the form of psychic awareness I have and is continuing to grow, which comes through as a “knowing” that is part of me rather than separate to me or in some flash of channeling from outside myself. There is no separation between the things I experience and receive, making them feel very normal, natural, and seamless, possibly easily dismissed in this fashion, but I’ve learned over time to trust. Owl has shown up in readings in my past as my life path.
More interesting is what I discovered upon further exploration of great horned owl showing up that speaks to what I’m feeling. Owl can speak to stillness, slowing down, and silent observation, with perhaps even removing oneself from things to see truths all around. Owl also indicates releasing part of our lives to stay aligned and continuing to steer true to the course of inner truth guidance.
The avian clan is around me always in many forms, but the bird family of hawks, owls, osprey and falcons have been especially meaningful to my life as spirit guides, visionary teachers, and protective sentinels. Hawks are the most frequent creative life partners, with owls, osprey and falcons showing up less frequently, but at crucial points.
I’ve definitely been in a recalibration mode recently, as I have had to readjust to returning from sabbatical at a challenging worldwide crisis time while also opening to more work. Things have gotten busier than I imagined (all good things with integral purpose), but it’s very different from the quiet three months. I’m back to having client sessions and doing Reiki Healing Attunements – more than I thought but understandable, am beginning work on a book cover for an author that feels to be an important portal creation, and trying to still get my novel moving forward. I’ve also been spending extra time in the garden, cleaning up, planting, seeding, and watering and getting longer miles in than usual of exercise with hiking and biking in new areas to keep my equilibrium for well being. That alongside day-to-day things we all do like taking care of a household, three fur babies, cooking, cleaning, handling a shared side business with Dave, interacting with my community online with posts and blogs, and making sure there’s pure relaxing, do-nothing-time that’s a must in every day for me – all takes initiative, intention, focus and commitment.
After early years of strict security-based regimes, I unfolded into the freedom loving, wispy, part of me not wanting to be bound by anything and wanting to avoid hard work (escapism), and now I am creating a marriage of both as my artist’s way of life. Synchronously aligned with my actual marriage upcoming, which we just got our license for yesterday.
Now is a time for constructive use of freedom through healthy self-discipline in my life – in essence, creating a delicate balance between freedom and structure. This involves using levels of freedom wisely and well, which just so happens to also point to the numerology trajectory I’ve activated with this year’s birthday.
I’ve lived at both extremes and most of my life is now focused on implementing and embodying moderation through merging of organization, commitment, routine and responsible choices to the honoring of freedom that I also seek. This is a newer undertaking that merges the natural aspects of myself and focuses on their strengths with understanding of how committing to a certain sense of structure can actually offer the true freedom I desire. It also assists with attaining goals, manifesting, and experiencing greater clarity.
Nature reflects this for me in how she embodies so many seeming opposites together that work beautifully as a unit. There is a natural cycle, structure, inherent wisdom, sacred geometry, and symbiotic relationship that abides by certain unspoken universal ground rules, but there is also incredible variety, unusual evolutions, surprising mutations and resilient behaviors, and freedom to be wildly you that she speaks to so beautifully.
When I face frustrations in my process or feel restricted in some way, while I teach myself new, more freeing ways, I’m reminded of how nature doesn’t complain, but simply discovers new ways to thrive or renew. She reminds me of the resiliency inherent within and that sticking to my commitments will see me through and the balanced way to that is by remaining flexible, but disciplined, and focused, but open to change.
This has led me to start creating a guiding, daily time schedule while I have multiple things going on. I’m putting that together in a way that feels balanced, manageable and reasonable, while being flexible when necessary. That said, it feels incredibly important to create this in a way that is motivating and fun, but keeps me on track. Life isn’t about force and punishment. Those are old patterns of conditioning that have no place in the now. In the past I’ve been more of a one-off kind of person wanting to get each things done fully before I moved on and was an extremist. Now I’ve taught myself to be okay with things constantly in motion and giving time to each as I can in a way that feels aligned and fluid. This is healthier for me to maintain daily variety, momentum in all areas, creates a more natural rhythm and takes pressure away.
It’s also how nature creates.
I’ve also learned to say no over the years to projects and things in general, which I continue to, and to only say yes to what resonates. I newly implemented weekends to not being available so I get time away from it all too. In the past, any day seemed like a free-for-all. In all, there’s a slowing down and flow in order to not create anxiety and I remove pressures of “should’s”. I’m finding life much more rewarding and rich and I’ve never felt more vibrant.
We each have our roles and parts to play and mine is definitely as an “as within, so without” process in constantly holding that mirror up to Nature and the world at large to make those adjustments in reflection.
By working on greater equilibrium in all areas of my life, continuing to support my joy and needs alongside others as equally important, and letting go, and committing to living in alignment, all of that has balanced out before my eyes, including physically with natural changes I’m going through at my age.
And speaking of blossoming, the above and below photos are of our first blooming tree here. That seems reflective of little bits of new growth and opening in my life happening one step at a time. Things don’t just burst open all at once here in the mountains until a momentum kicks in.
Much like my own process, as I keep the wheels turning and do whatever I can in some way, inevitably there’s a chain reaction of further results that come from my continued forward movement. And soon the garden and forest will cycle into full bloom.
In the meantime, nature is in slow, steady growth right now here in the mountains, with constantly shifting weather. It speaks to me that my own life creations are needing to take their own time, too. So, I plan to relax and pick up a new color to paint life with, as the moment dictates. I will paint a little here and a little there so as to bring all parts of life together with joy and connection, be present to how each piece is integral to the next, and how there’s purpose in every brushstroke.
The idea of schedules always was daunting, but I now see it as crucial to creating life as art where I bring through all strengths together just as nature creates her masterpiece as a unit.
This doesn’t mean I don’t get things done when some of them do actually have deadlines, but I create more gentleness and joy around it all along with extra room for each by stretching them out and letting go in general when things unfold differently than I thought. Life continues to open in new ways the more I open to the true nature of me.
I’m going to be a little more “in between” worlds again, as I am needing to go to places more fully to receive what the open door is ready to channel through. I seem to be going through an evolution of sorts on several levels, to include greater access to more latent parts of me now rising. I’ll continue to keep balancing my “me” and “sharing” times with increased vigilance in order to maintain that natural rhythm and alignment.
Like the Sibyls, from which the ancient heritage within me is rooted, who lived hidden and out of reach in order to filter the energies that accessed them so they could remain devoted to the sacred purity of their connection with Mother Earth and the Cosmos through sound, there is a place within me calling for that path, moving in and out, at times unreachable, and yet ever more connected.
Since this is an Artist’s Corner post, Astrid and I share a little reminder that our Magick Rabbit Beltane Sale (the largest to date) continues through June 20th, Summer Solstice. We’re down to just 14 items (thanks to your loving support), which include updated versions with new bunny colors of our last three (UPDATE SOLD OUT) Serenity Silhouette Magick Rabbit Talisman Necklaces – all in the Cosmic Egg Style. There’s a royal blue with silvery white rabbit with a blue eye (SOLD), a sunflower yellow with gold rabbit with blue eye (SOLD), and an olive/green gold with black golden rabbit with green eye (SOLD).
And we also wanted to share a gratitude update that with your help our Magick Rabbit Etsy Shop has been able to raise donations of a little over $3100 for rescue rabbits, over the last 15+ months. We’ve sent portions of sales and auction items, as well as donated items to raise money, including 50% of proceeds from several original paintings to various non-profit rabbit organizations and micro sanctuaries with your help. The larger ticket items (original paintings) have been super helpful with this. We have six beloved ones remaining that include three animal spirit guide portals and three Magick Rabbit mini portals all found at the link below.
The sale includes 30-50% off, which makes owning an original painting like this a huge bargain. Smaller whimsical items still available too. Limited stock remains on greeting cards, notebooks and prints – all at incredible steals to bring joy to hearts and support to lives.
Ask Astrid Fridays ~ The Rabbit’s Corner: Lean into Love
Today’s blog message is simple and sweet. Astrid expresses the importance of leaning into love and how you can never have enough of it. I agree wholeheartedly and have seen this work wonders in my own life. While she is a strong force who stands in her power, she knows that her true power comes from opening more to love.
I can’t express how much she’s offered her vulnerable heart to me since first this became her home. Yet now she seeks me out to both give and receive love, knowing how softening into being nurtured means our bond creates a stronger light and life force. It is also the alchemy for transformation on so many levels.
She knows that love is strength and we are only weak when we cut off the heart’s desire to merge with mission. Together this creates wisdom and grace.
Two dreams within the last two nights spoke to this message (and more) – one of which Astrid was in.
The first was two nights ago where I dreamed of myself swimming and wading out in the water of either a very big lake or the ocean. A large, wild, cream colored horse ran up to the water from the beach. He proceeded to swim out into the water to me. I knew in the dream this behavior was not typical of the horse, but he continued until reaching me. I was in water about up to my shoulders, but then sat on a rock that put half of my body above the water, with waist and legs under the water. The horse turned on his side and laid his head across my thighs, as I proceeded to stroke his face and neck. This went on for a very long time, as the horse vulnerably floated on his side while I nurtured him gently.
The second dream involved Astrid last night. It was short and sweet, hopefully like this message. Giant butterflies were flying all around me that were about a foot long in beautiful iridescent colors of purples and greens. One of the butterflies landed on my chest and turned into Astrid, then proceeded to give me a sweet little lick on my face as a kiss. She then turned back into the giant magickal butterfly.
Whatever you might receive from this message at this time in your life, we hope at the least you will feel the invitation to explore where you might be closed to love in some way in your life. This isn’t just about love as a romantic bond, but love for self, love for life, love for nature’s miracles around you, love for humanity, and the kindness that both you could give more of, or yearn to open more to and receive in some way.
We both simply want to reach out our hearts and hands to you all during these challenging times and offer our love. May it reach the little corners of your life and heart where you need it most. And may you know the strength of leaning into love.
Turn Up the Volume
When life gives you the blues, try turning up the volume in some way – be it through color therapy, music and singing, upping your physical movement with outdoor activities, dancing, exercise, gardening, or building something with your hands, adding a little pizzazz to your day’s outfit just because, standing in your power, dreaming and visualizing as big as you possibly can, letting your creativity and imagination loose, writing without inhibitions, or speaking your true feelings that live in your heart.
Sometimes maybe it’s even about turning up the volume on your emotions because you’ve never given them an outlet or voice and finding healthy channels to stream them through so they don’t do damage to yourself or others.
Whatever the form your amplification process takes, there are times it really could benefit you to raise the vibration in your life. Giving your energy the license to move through you in a different, more creative, or bigger and freer way helps open you up to experience more fulfillment and abundance.
Life isn’t always going to be an easy breeze, but our willingness to invite a lighter approach and softer response can help us release some of the tightness holding us bound. And sometimes that includes inviting life in, in general or in bigger ways, recognizing where we hold ourselves restrictively.
There’s harmony in finding the balance between amplifying and softening where needed.
For the most part we learn to subdue our gifts and nature and heighten the patterns, stories, and pains.
The alchemy becomes a melding of shining a light on your unique creative frequency while shifting into a lighter unconscious footprint.
When you think about stepping into more in your life, does that bring up sensations in your body of tense or uncomfortable feelings?
Are you afraid to turn the dial up in fear of what others might think?
Do you feel that the comfort of accepted tensions you’ve been living with serves you better than discovering what is possible when you blossom into your potential?
Amplifying your life is different for everyone.
We aren’t all going to be celebrities or well-known on some grand world-wide scale, but we all have it in us to be more of what we really are at essence, and touch the lives us those we come in contact with on a daily basis. Whether you affect one person or a million makes no difference. It’s how you bring honor of your unique energy signature through that matters most and benefits in far-reaching ways you’ll never know.
We don’t need to know the reach of our vibration, as that removes us from just being it and instead focuses on judging or tweaking it to fit an idea.
There were times in my life that I hid many parts of myself out of fear that the real me would be judged. Ultimately, I was judging myself through the eyes of other’s to maintain the acceptance and peace I desired. I discovered there was no true acceptance and peace in playing the game.
Acceptance and peace was the home I found in my heart. The only home that would ever matter, where ever I found myself.
Increasingly I began amplifying my life. Turning up the volume in all ways that were me. Sometimes in steps and sometimes in huge leaps. And this adventure continues, as it’s ever-evolving.
It can have its awkward moments along the way, but it can also be a lot of fun to discover and love the parts of you getting to bubble to the surface for the first time.
And when they do, you’ve been forewarned the bubbles might just burst out into a giggle, skip of a heart beat, or unabashed dance.
You control the dial on your personal stereo. You can turn the volume down or turn the volume up, but the frequency was and always will be yours to do with as you please.
Ask Astrid Fridays ~ The Rabbit’s Corner: No More Playing it Small & Beltane Wishes
When you look at this photo of Astrid what does it bring up for you? What message do you think Astrid is reflecting? If you feel so called, please sit with her photo (and the other photos of her throughout this post), relax, and see what comes through. Spend some time and open to where her energy and wisdom anchors for you.
Astrid has a very powerful presence and as a rabbit she is not your typical “prey” or “victim” energy associated with what some might define as a prey animal. While she is full of heart, she is also quite fierce and can trigger people with her strong energy. It’s an energy that can be polarizing and demanding, as she won’t stand for anything less than you owning who you are.
She doesn’t do this to antagonize or start conflict, she simply mirrors the incongruent energy you have within and instead of meeting you in your insecurity, she will stand firm until you rise above the ego stories – both ones that keep you small or hide that you really do feel small, but wear a mask to protect that.
If you aren’t interested in exploring that relationship with yourself, which she is mirroring, then you’ll likely walk away and brush it off as she just doesn’t like you, she’s a mean rabbit, or she’s scared and defending herself with an air of reasonable protectiveness.
She is less dramatic with these behaviors these days, opting to be a bit more subtle to see who truly does want to be present with their energy, but they do still pop up and often someone might feel either rejected or special, depending on which way she acknowledges you – neither of these being her intention. She simply owns her energy and asks the same of you, even if that simply means to be honest with yourself.
Because of this I feel she is an incredible therapy rabbit who can provide powerful mirroring for the deep work.
I spend the most time with her, so I’m very acquainted with what her subtle and not so subtle behaviors are communicating. Overall, however, I feel she is often misunderstood. Especially so, before she came to be with me.
To me, she simply knows her boundaries and they are very pure and clear in terms of what she aligns with and what she knows you are capable of. She doesn’t stand for less in both the energy she desires to be in and recognizes that at the heart of it all, you’re not satisfied with what you’ve allowed yourself to operate as either.
Less than, is definitely a choice, but she brings to the foreground the conscious exploration around this so that you ARE actually making a choice and not just operating blindly on conditioned cruise control.
If you are battling with internal conflict, Astrid will have something to say about this in order to help you realize it’s within your power to realign yourself.
She mirrors the self-sabotage, the belittling stories running the show, the doubts, the games you run circles around yourself with, the false masks, and the fears. While she understands why, she doesn’t want to spend time with you in that place. She doesn’t want to feed these energies and make them more powerful than they really are. She doesn’t feel it’s okay to keep saying you’ll change tomorrow, some day, or that you have unlimited time to focus on things. She speaks to the time being now, if you are serious about wanting and seeing change, and so she reflects that in subtle or not-so-subtle ways, depending on the situation.
The more dramatic feels to be an immediate call to action is necessary and would benefit you greatly.
The more subtle feels to be an invitation to commit to the process and that she sees potential in you to be a teacher, so she will take you through steps to help guide that.
Of course, that is, if you embrace the invitation in either case.
Astrid doesn’t feel good about supporting your continuing to be small.
She stands her ground in order to draw forth your authenticity.
It’s a powerful mirror of the wisdom she embodies and holds equally as important for herself.
Rather than cross the bridge to the small story, she holds the anchor of who she really sees you to soulfully be and calls you forward to that end of the bridge. She doesn’t feel it responsibly supports you to meet you in the place of fear. She helps draw forth your strength and sits patiently in the trust that with commitment and presence you’ll be able to journey to your truth while she reflects and holds that embodied space for you.
It’s not an easy journey, as it requires willingness to investigate and spend time in some uncomfortable spaces, but when we embrace the invitation with curiosity we can uncover the real motivating forces that are running the show.
Astrid holds unconditional compassion for everyone’s individual experience. Yet, she believes that indulging the stories does not benefit one’s evolution. Like myself, she feels that dropping her vibration to match the small voice doesn’t provide anyone a way out. Instead, she anchors in your highest potential, while extending a loving hand for you to embrace. Sometimes that love can seem a bit tough, but knows responsibility isn’t always meant to be the easy street.
When we want to be seen as more, we must ourselves see our more.
Our roles are to stand in what we see you to truly be and lovingly encourage you to do the same. It’s no wonder we found each other and I’m grateful to Astrid for holding me accountable to this journey by her example.
I believe the deeper invitation that Astrid embodies is reflected also in these current times we are facing.
Which voice do you allow to dictate your experience?
The one that keeps you tight like an endless bud, or the one that pulses with authentic potential, ready to blossom its wisdom?
Astrid knows that the smaller voice leads to a life that will only ever scratch the surface of your potential. She meets you as your higher self nudging you into your wholeness.
She also knows that it’s not about reaching a finite result, but about how much you are willing to open yourself to the adventures of the journey. It’s about more being and less excuses. Astrid knows there will be stumbles along the way, but as long as you keep shedding light into the hidden corners of what keeps you small, you are living more authentically.
Astrid and I wish you a magickal Beltane. This peak period of Spring midway between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice is a celebration of life when Earth’s energies are most potent with fertile creativity, growth, renewal, and embody the designs of manifestation in motion. What a joyous time of year, perfect for expanding your hopes and visions into rich action, while having fun along the way. I may not be the May Queen in sacred marriage with the May King today, but this does mean that my own wedding is approaching at this half point to Summer Solstice.
I’ve been spending time in the garden daily, which feels especially aligned with this time of year. In fact, on Nestor’s special day I was out seeding the garden with a lot of hope in her honor – literally hoping for a magickal garden full of perennial wildflowers to attract pollinators like the monarch butterflies and symbolically growing a vision garden to aid the blossoming of my dreams. Now, I water and nurture it, while I do the same with the intents and projects I have in life.
Yesterday our big Easter, Anniversary, and Spring Shop Sale ended, but seeing how our creations have been sweet and supportive gifts shared between friends during their challenges at these times and used as anchoring portals of hope, we have decided that the rabbit magick will continue!
In honor of Beltane’s fertile celebration, we’re extending our Magick Rabbit Etsy Shop sale until June 20th – Summer Solstice! And with the extension we’re extending the discounts. The previous 25-40% off goes to 30-50% starting today, May 1st.
We’re almost sold out of many items and at our lowest inventory since opening just over a year ago. A restock date of new items is unforeseen at this time, but if you’ve had your eye on something or would like to share the love with someone in need or that you haven’t been able to see for a while with distancing in place, we hope this makes it all easier.
Tania Marie 