Upcoming Talk Details & A Story
Dear Fellow Dreamer,
This past week, I heard a teacher refer to 2025 as “The Year of Becoming.” Since my chosen word for the New Year is Harmony, now when I bring to mind the thought of becoming, I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and enter into the sensation of a naturally harmonious unfolding.
For me, the words Harmony and Becoming belong together. They’re wonder words.
Today, I’m sharing an excerpt from my book Birdlight: Freeing Your Authentic Creativity. The story (below) is taken from a chapter on the eagle and cultivating our ability to shift to a higher feeling-tone and perspective. I hope you enjoy it.
But first, I’m also writing to let you know about the talk I’m planning to share on Sunday morning (EST), January 26th. This one is dedicated not only to helping you invite and clarify your vision for 2025, but also to helping you generate an inner state harmonious with your unique sense of calling and becoming. As you’d expect if you’ve worked with me before, this will be an opportunity to reconnect with your passion. And regardless of whether or not you’ve ever engaged in one of my sessions, this will be an opportunity to nurture the part of you that loves and dreams.
I’ll share a few stories and selected readings, as well as prompts for inspired writing—opportunities to go into the silence and connect with your own desires and intuitions. Inner listening is key.
I believe in dreams and intuitions as creative catalysts and guides. And that each one of us is born with intuition, though in our culture, it’s often left to atrophy. Yet we can reawaken and develop our intuition. Learning to trust and follow our inner guidance system, including our unique sense of calling, becomes transformative.
Those thoughts guide me each time I prepare a workshop. This will be the fourth in a series of four Wonders Within videos on Vision, and like the others, the recording will remain available for you to work with and revisit.
I’m calling it, Deep Peace of Your Own Becoming: Embracing Silence, Vision & Writing as a Way of Knowing.
Paid subscribers will receive instant access to the session, as well as to my three previous talks and all upcoming extra offerings in 2025. If you’re interested, you can join here:
If you’d love to receive these talks but are currently experiencing financial challenges, please note that I offer discounts to those on a limited budget. Simply reach out to me.
Now to Birdlight…
The following story appears in Chapter 7, “The Eagle,” which also contains a guided visualization. Find an Audio Gift (a recording of that visualization) here.
The Eagle: Freeing Your Ability to Soar
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
—Joy Harjo
Heaven is a state of mind.
—Raymond Holliwell
The Gift of Expectation
High expectation must match strong desire. It’s not enough to wish to see something created and to visualize it, to use well-crafted affirmations, and even to do the work of taking action for your dream—excellent though it may be. I encourage you to identify your expectation level and begin to cultivate a sense of calm in knowing and fully expecting that the seeds you’ve sown will bear fruit. Practise seeing your intended results manifest in your mind before they manifest in reality. Focus your attention, work with passion, build your skills and your community and, above all, build your confidence. Build your faith in yourself, in whatever you conceive to be your creative source, and in the complete and perfect unfolding of your life.
On this point, I share with you a story from my long-ago acting days. At twenty-two, I found myself cast in an historical play penned by an earnest and very senior playwright whose commitment to her craft made a deep impression. I wanted to like her. Probably more than that, I wanted her to like me. Yet as a fledgling artist with a thin skin, whenever the woman’s glittery-eyed, squinty gaze fixed on me, I read it as an expression of her disappointment. To overcome the slightly seasick feeling that always followed, I consoled myself (as I was wont to do in those days) that the director liked my singing and had said I had “great hair.” Unlike the union actors in the show, I was receiving no pay. My only reward was the hope of winning an audition and then being cast in the same director’s summer comedy (an opportunity I eventually earned and blew). I didn’t recognize what a low level of expectation I had for my career, let alone see the contradiction in working so hard yet expecting so little.
By day, with my shoulders back, trays wobbling, I waitressed. By night, I performed in the play’s first act. My character was a nervous, judgmental, and eight-months-pregnant wife in a Madonna-blue dress, who died in childbirth several minutes before the intermission. The only other female in the play faced a similarly brutal end, succumbing to torture in the second act. While waiting for the curtain call, each evening I sat at a table in the kitchen backstage, playing cards, reading, and chatting with my new friend Raphael, a custodian who was Métis. Speaking with him relaxed the knot in my stomach. Raphael had the name of a healing angel, and I found myself listening to stories of his initiation as an Indigenous healer. He gave me a gift I still cherish. While my generations-ago ancestors were not native to this land, and in no way do I (or could I) consider myself a teacher of North American Indigenous traditions, because of Raphael’s gift, I’m sharing his story as part of my story.
In the wilds of western Canada, a spiritual teacher sent Raphael and a companion on a quest as part of their preparation for becoming healers. They were assigned to go into the woods along the shoreline and return with the feathers of an eagle. In Métis culture, as in many other Native traditions, the eagle is viewed as a mighty messenger to the Creator. The highest flyer of all living creatures, this great bird has the power to help us see beyond present circumstances. It also sits in the east on the medicine wheel, which in Métis society connotes leadership and courage. The eagle’s feathers symbolize truth, power, and freedom: brown and white represent the Mother Earth from which our bodies come and to which they naturally return; dark and light represent a sacred balance. As two initiates on a quest to cultivate the vision and strength of character required for performing works of healing and transformation, Raphael and his companion were forbidden from disturbing nature’s balance. A crucial condition of their quest was that they do no harm to the majestic animal—one that epitomizes strength and vision—in order to receive its feathers.
Raphael recalled for me how their expedition tested them on every level. For days they camped out in all weather, amidst the hungry blackflies and mosquitoes, surviving only on the fish they caught and the few dwindling supplies they’d brought with them. They hiked through the thick bush, keeping watch not only for eagle feathers, but for bears and cougars. Exposed to the elements, with no guarantee they’d fulfill their mission, the two remained in the wilderness, cut off from community, including those dear to them back home. When they were not searching or working to survive, the men took time to sit in silence.
Here is a detail I wish to emphasize: “In silence,” Raphael told me, “we waited.” He didn’t say they worried or discussed how they could cut their losses. He didn’t say they dreaded the shame of going back empty handed. Were they afraid? At times, yes, of course. But their determination and courage outweighed their fear. They sat silently, upheld their vision, and prayed for guidance. At this point the expression “It was only a matter of time” does not adequately summarize what Raphael and his friend went through on their journey. It doesn’t point to the physical, psychological, and spiritual challenges involved in searching the wilds for something that many would have argued wasn’t worth the risk—something that might simply never appear.
One day, that “something” did appear, in the form of a dead eagle in their path. Having lived to maturity and died of natural causes, the magnificent creature became a gift for those men: the harvest of their initiatory cycle.
“We stayed with the bird a long time,” said Raphael. “We spread its wings out in the sunlight on the shore and gave thanks. The eagle’s feathers were a sign that we had passed our test.”
The night after Raphael told me his story, I received something far more valuable than any paycheque I could have wished for from that production; it was by far my best gift from that short chapter of my life—apart from the young man’s wise and gentle presence. When Raphael came to sweep the kitchen, he presented me with a feather from that eagle. Both the feather and my memory of that moment still—almost forty years later—fill me with a quiet sense of joy and awe. Back then, I had no idea what an honour it was to receive an item so sacred. I’ve had to grow in order to begin to appreciate Raphael’s gift to me. During our last conversation, he said, “Keep it in your window for good health.” And I have done so ever since.
For me, the eagle feather signifies an initiation story: one of learning the value not only of having the desire to complete a mission, but of having the belief and the faith that on some level the mission already is complete. Such rock-solid faith and confidence enable the quester to succeed. Raphael and his friend knew they’d find the eagle feathers. They just didn’t know when, or where, or how. And they didn’t need to. What’s more, getting caught up in “how” likely would have blocked the manifestation from occurring. They acted on their inner guidance and belief, and they waited, taking time to sit in silence. Raphael’s story of the eagle feathers is one of many that remind me of the creative process. The mighty bird is an emblem of gaining perspective and soaring from a place of higher vision. The men passed their test with hard work, humility, and focused determination; and equally important, they did so with a calm willingness to sit quietly. In silence came strength and clarity.
At the time of Raphael’s brief presence in my life, I didn’t fully comprehend the significance of the feather, in part because my creative world was rife with struggle. As it turned out, my own uncomfortable turning points related to increasing my awareness and accessing a broader vision: one of creative artistry, yes, and also of service. The eagle teaches us about milestones of service and leadership—and indeed, we are all leaders. Every one of us is charged with the mission to lead our own life, and to do it well. Back then, I couldn’t see my way clearly, but I could put the feather in my window and know that, deep down, I was learning to read the signs.
