Flashes of Insight

The mystery unwinds with the Caw-l of the Owl**final
Date: 6/17/2004 11:30:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time

The mystery is beginning to unwind as the Owl beckons me to see in the dark, to go into those hidden places and explore the murky emotions the places inside that badly need a Flash light…..not a Flash -lite. I do understand about soul contracts and I believe that on some other plane we make them before we come to earth and so do the animals. Some of us have a greater choice of options and a wider road and for others, the path can be quite narrow and deliberate with very little room for deviation, It is the same for the animals.
I hesitate to sound too didactic about all this having no conscious memory of my last death or the place between the worlds where these decisions occurred but I do believe that I am right.
As I analyze the passing of several of my animal friends, I see a pattern unfold that I am not altogether comfortable with but nevertheless
pattern is emerging.
I can see the connection of different animals with different relationships, The first time that I was aware of this connection was when Spirit AKA Bear came into my life. I had dreams even before I met him that later confirmed some of these notions.
As I grew to know and love him and feel the enormity of his heart, I could feel my own growing and expanding with an even greater capacity for love.
I was being prepared for someone and I knew it and that was Tara, the second woman that I married and lived with for nearly 8 years.
Although we were no longer married, we were best friends and more like family until her most
untimely death in the AmazonJungle in 2006.
During that relationship, Bear was my constant companion. His abandonment issues never totally went away even after 12 years of my constancy and devotion.
My separation from Tara brought much tension and another person into my life. As Bears last “trick”, he brought the 3 of us together in sweetness and harmony for his funeral..these master teachers can do that sort of thing,
I am sure that these contracts with our animal teachers and friends are not limited to a single relationship and may in fact refer to a time passage that includes the beginning and ending of a relationship as well as other major events. However as I immerse myself in these difficult memories, I can no longer pretend not to notice these “coincidences”!
The week before Tara and I got married, we found a gray tabby kitten at the magical Itchetucknee River State Park and named him Itchie of course! I already felt like I had enough animals in my personal care but offered to share him with Tara or for her to basically let him be her cat. This suited Itchie just fine as they both needed that one on one kind of bonding. We even joked about each of us having possessive husbands. Bear and Me and Itchie and Tara, although Bear truly didn’t have a selfish bone in his body.
After our “breakup”, it took nearly a full year for Tara to remove all of her things from the house. She felt like Moonhaven was safer for Itchie than her home and she did travel so much then so Itchie remained in my care. He and I actually did get quite close at the end as he finally let me be his Mom. Sadly, the DAY after Tara took her last items from the house,Itchie was killed on the road. He had easily dealt with this road for 10 years but I believe that he felt like his Contract was finished and off he went.
One of the strangest and most heart-wrenching of my animal passings was that of Jade, who literally disappeared into thin air! I searched in every way for her for months. In retrospect, I do remember a moment before my Croning while I was making a collage of my animal family, seeing all the deep connections I shared with Tara and the animals.
Even though I chose the separation, I wept for that loss. That was the last night that I ever saw Jade.
As I dig deeper, I remember doing an African ritual for the protection of Tucky while in labor. She was Jade’s Mom as well as Crystal and Lionheart. We made blessings to the Ebegi or the sacred twins in the Yoruba tradition 2 perfect white cups w/ identical number’s of treats and toys to welcome in the new lives through Tucky.
Their birth was a blessed and beautiful event and we were gifted by Tucky and the Ebegi with 2 sets of, what else, twins! Crystal and Jade were the first set and were pure white with the exception of 2 dark spots on the head of one and 3 on the other that later disappeared. We were told that these cats would be a love charm for our relationship by Omi, our good friend and Priest of Yemonja. Jade was more my cat and Crystal was Taras. I never dreamt that leaving that relationship would take Jade from me as well but there it is…you decide!
Several years later when Tara took a new partner,Crystal also disappeared without a trace. Clearly both of these magical cats could walk between the worlds having come through the mist in the first place and are now free to roam and frolic unencumbered.
Many moons later,Manuelo came knocking on the door at a time when loss and disappointment had closed my heart. I simply could not risk hurt like that again with a person OR an animal……enter Mr. Manuelo Mello-Fello!! Not even two months later, I began a relationship with a wise woman from the West Coast. Perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be as we had our”Posts”on opposite Coasts In time I saw some crucial places where we differed and I couldn’t continue. I was devastated when the life of Manuelo ended a month later. I thought that this time, I would not recover. Loss upon loss, too much pain and then Serena was offered to me a week later and I felt so Blessed. She has her own story in this book as do all of the others who have blessed my life.
Almost every animal loss since Bear accompanied a major relationship shift. This knowledge although uncomfortable is fascinating.
At the time of this first writing, I had a group of animals the oldest which was Merlin, the mystical Head Cat. He passed away at the ripe old age of 20. Jasmine, AKA Jaz, the black daughter of Bast who is an Aries like Merlin and 15. Apple short for Appaloosa, is my 15 year old Catahoula Leopard Hound/Shepherd mix, a Leopard Shepherd if you will. He is the dog that thinks he’s a horse, not to be confused with Chinamoon my 13 yr. old Appaloosa mare who knows she’s a dog! There is Tucky,14 and the Bedroom cat, and 5 yr. old Red Bear who is still kitten enough to play with 2 year old Star, the forever baby of the family.
These special ones have seen me through many storms and I treasure each one of them. Who gets to stay and who must leave is a question only the Morrigan can answer. She was the Celtic Goddess, a shapeshifter, who flew as a Raven over the battlefields and could caw-l making judgement of who would live or die.
I feel like I not only have some answers, but more questions as well. Certainly some of our “familiars”,come and go as heralds of major life changes so we must love them while we can, and remember never to take a minute of their precious lives for granted……or ours or anyone’s for that matter.
Sweet mystery of life!