“But ask the animals,

And they will teach you;

The birds of the air,

And they will tell you;

The plants of the earth,

And they will teach you;

And the fish of the sea will declare to you.”

Job 12: 7-8

Years ago I was sitting in with a wise woman and dear friend pouring out my soul when a cicada began flinging itself into her sixth floor downtown window.  Now, I must tell you that this friend was a well-respected scholar of symbolism.  She turned to skeptical me, and declared that this was clearly a sign.  She grabbed her copy of Animal-Wise, by Ted Andrews and read, of cicada – a symbol of happiness from the past and coming positive and necessary change.  It turned out that this little cicada was absolutely right – a skeptic cured.

This began my ever expanding understanding that the Divine speaks…

In the fall off 2013, I found the courage (or it found me) to make some pretty big career and family life changes.  It was unsettling at best.  As that time came into its own, noisy Herons began appearing everywhere.  I turned to Ted Andrews’s Animal-Speak for understanding, and learned that Heron medicine is for people who appear to dabble in various occupations and ways of living life; that this can seem unsettling to most people, but for heron people there is great security in this flexible approach to life.  Here began the heron poem.

Must it be Heron?

 Though I look to the sky longingly

For eagle,

Or owl,

Or hawk at least,

They are not the totem of this time.

Except on occasion

When dear hawk provides her traveling mercies.

It is heron who continues to find Star and me,

Here on the bridge

As we learn of…