Mom (maybe Dad) Heron and Babe
You can only know yourself if you get into yourself,
and you can only do that when you
accept the lead of the animal.
—Carl Jung
I am not so in touch with my inner animal these days. Busyness and bustling about is probably keeping me from her messages. However, I am smitten, fully and wholly smitten, with those fabulous external beings, the birds. Their spring return has brought music and passionate joy to my heart. Perhaps following their lead, savoring their full-bodied proclamation of living renewal, is my healing for today. Perhaps they are the portal back into my own heart.
Those majestic flying dinosaurs, the Great Blue Heron, nest down the road in their swampy rookery of hollowed out threes. (Check out their wondrous portrait.) The giddy red-winged blackbirds fully inhabit the wetlands behind our house. Along with wacky seagulls, regal turkey vultures, dainty and colorful finches, blindingly beautiful cardinals, bossy and annoying crows, and so many others, the air is alive, a cacophony of birdsong. I am inspired and renewed by their fluid commitment to life. Hopefully my humble video will bring their sound to you.
Your assignment, dear friends, should you accept: look to the animals. Look to their lead. These guardians of the moment, what messages do they have for you? And don’t forget about those seemingly domesticated beings that sleep on our couches and snore on our beds. Don’t let their docile behavior fool you. Look for the untamed, the wild, gleaming inside their eyes and wrapped inside their behavior. Look to them for guidance, for the doorway back into the moment. And please, keep me posted with your animal sightings and in-sight-ings.
And here is Jung’s final blessing for the week as he invites us more deeply home:
“Let’s be animals.”