At first I didn’t resonate with my spirit animal… I even was a bit disappointed and creeped out when that strange creature was appointed to me; however, when I heard about its qualities, I realized the most amazing superpower it had and why it was so perfectly fitting for what I was going through at the time.
When it appeared one day in our living room, as we were going through a lot of difficulty, we were very surprised, to say the least.
And did you know that your spirit animal guide can change? When spirit animals visit your home it’s quite something, especially when your new guide also makes an appearance in your house...
But let me fill you in with how I first became aware of my spirit animal(s). It was a couple of years ago, in my intuitive healing course.
We learned that spirit animals can guide us. It can be truly supportive to relate to their strength and properties during a certain period or even over the course of one’s life. Of course it’s all about what you know in it.
Our amazing instructor tuned into each of us and suggested a personal spirit animal. Pretty much everyone resonated with what she saw. We discussed how fitting and supportive the properties were for each person.
When it was my turn, she asked me what I thought. I laughed and said jokingly: “A Unicorn?” Something sparkly :)
She laughed as well and said that what came up for her, when she tuned into me, was actually a bat.
I couldn’t quite believe it. It seemed very strange. A bat?? To be honest, I was a bit bummed out at first and a bit ashamed for having said “unicorn” when instead I got this tiny, black bat. Aren’t bats a bit creepy?
But when she elaborated on the qualities of a bat, it made sooo much sense to me:
“‘Seeing in the dark. Always finding my way because of a deeper sense. Never being alone.”
I was floored! What a good fit for me. I was moving through a lot of difficulty and darkness in my life. It helped me whenever I remembered my spirit guide and I related to its “superpower” of finding its way in the dark.
I did the course again last year, wanted to get better, go deeper… yes, what a nerd I am. When it came to the lesson about spirit animals, it was interesting that according to the teacher, my animal guide had actually changed… and I intuitively I knew it too.
This time, I was able to sense what it was: I said “butterfly” and the instructor agreed. “Lightness, no worries, transformation, coming out of the dark cocoon, being able to fly.”
Yes, it felt like I had transformed something in the dark cocoon, become something else, and that it was time for me to let go of the worries and the heaviness that had weighed me down for so long.
That year, a new level of difficulty landed on our plate… we found black mold throughout our house!! By that point it already had an adverse affect on the health of my whole family. But really, thank goodness my sensitive body was freaking out, it was like a radar sending an alarm telling us that something was seriously wrong. The situation was quite dangerous and if it had continued it would have definitely left lasting damage to our health. During the months of extensive renos, we had to move into our dry cabin, which on one hand was magical, but on the other was challenging with two little kids…
One night, as my husband was doing work on our house, he found a most unusual guest in our living room.
Guess what it was?
A bat!
How did it even get into our house?
My husband carried her in a box to the cabin to show to us. After we admired this other-worldly creature, we were gonna set her free. The sounds she made were of such a frequency that my hair was standing on end. It was really alien. She walked from one side of the box to the other, propelling herself forward by digging the pointy part of her wings into the ground, like a tiny dragon. She looked so delicate and fierce at the same time. You could tell by her dark body that she was a creature of the night.
She tried to fly, but fell on the ground. So we scooped her up and covered the box with a cloth to protect her from predators and the elements. The kids brought her some berries and dead flies. When we came back she hung upside down in the corner of the box. We were fascinated - how did she even do that? We thought we’d wait till it gets dark to try to help her get out of the box, but when we went to check on her again, she was already gone…
Later that night, I was driving up the steep road from the cabin to our house, it was dusk, my dogs were running beside the car when suddenly they stopped to examine something on the road. I hit the brakes and right in front of the car, crawling on the ground was our bat. I chased the dogs away (they were more curious than anything). I grabbed a stick from the ditch and carried her into the bushes. It was like she was saying good-bye to me.
The next other-worldly animal encounter happened just a couple of weeks ago: we found another unusual visitor in our living room. That night, I intended to go to bed at a decent time, was looking forward to just disappear into sleep. Then I noticed a text in our intuitive healing forum popping up written by a friend who slipped on ice and asked for help with some energy work. I was sleepy and ready to pass out, but I felt it was for me to help him.
After I tuned into him and moved some energy, I lied down. Finally…
Just a few moments after, my 3 year old woke up crying with a strange tummy ache. I went to her bed, gave her some comfort, and worked on her energetically till she fell asleep peacefully.
Again, tried to go to bed… suddenly my husband called me down, something about an emergency. I came downstairs. The washing machine drain had dislodged from its receptacle in the wall and water was gushing out and running down into our basement!
Not again… For a moment the sensation of trauma came up. We definitely had our share of water damage, mold, and ripping apart walls! Somehow I managed to stay calm as my stressed husband quickly took apart the wall.
I felt I couldn’t be really of much help, but as I was drying up pieces of drywall, I had a glimpse of a micro decision in me. It would have been so quick and easy to slip down a familiar rabbit hole and believe a negative story, like: “why me?”, “why now?”, or “why again?” Or “of course, every time I want to relax then someone needs something from me” or “then something bad happens” or “the catastrophes never end, we’re cursed” or anything along those lines… BUT I didn’t go there. Dealing with a stressful situation, as we were totally wiped, could have easily brought up a fight that would’ve ended up going to bed in tension and wallowing in some low level beliefs.
However, we stayed calm and didn’t go into negativity, just did what was needed to get done, and everything was resolved quickly. It seemed like we had becomes pros at disaster management! And I realized that when I stayed calm, held the space, and didn’t go into any victim story, how easy it was for me to help. From that space of ease, it didn’t take much to make a big impact on how deeply supported the other person felt. There was a peaceful magical buzzing in my body despite the pressure we went through.
As I was going upstairs, my husband called me again… He had found an orange butterfly fluttering around in our living room IN DECEMBER (in the thick of winter in the prairies)! We were really moved. I remembered my new spirit animal. To me, it felt like it had something to do with how differently we had moved through this difficult situation, with so much ease and grace.
The next morning, my six year old daughter found an orange butterfly which our kittens had also discovered. We put her in my office to keep her safe. My daughter gave her the name Orange. “Mom, what do butterflies actually eat?”. Good question… We never thought about that before. Let’s google it…Nectar! I read that you can feed them ripe fruit. The obvious was to get her an orange. We weren’t sure if one could really feed a butterfly. And how do they eat actually? We only saw the feelers… As we brought a small plate with a sliced orange and placed her there, she actually unrolled a little straw-like tongue and dipped it into the orange, eagerly sucking the juice. We were delighted.
After a couple of days, she seemed to have disappeared. I didn’t see her, but I thought I heard a tiny fluttering noise a couple of times; however, I couldn’t find her anywhere. Then, I heard it again and actually found her on my floor. To be honest, I’m not someone that loves to touch insects and I usually don’t. But I picked her up and when I held her she did a magical fluttering and vibrating at such a fine frequency that I felt got transferred deep into my body. I got her a new orange and she drank and drank. Then she flew onto my computer. As she was sitting there, I decided to drop what I was working on and started to write this story.
Over the time she was with us we got quite attached to her. Orange flew from one person to the next, giving love and delight. One time she sat on my hip as I hand fed her a piece of orange. It was a most intimate moment. My husband kept on saying “you know this isn’t ‘normal’, right?”
Sometimes she was so still as she was sitting on the window sill on the other side of the snowy landscape, that I wondered if she was still alive. Of course she’d die sooner or later, but I thought I just wanted to protect her from the kittens, I didn’t want her to die like that.
One day we were all having an off day. Everyone felt sensitive, irritated, arguing about little things. I separated a fight between our girls who were playing in the office, sent them in different areas of the house, and went for a bath. When I walked upstairs to get dressed, I stopped by my office and noticed the kittens excitedly playing with something. It was Orange! One of our kittens, Little Star, was chewing her and I stopped him just in time. I kicked them out and fell down on the floor crying, lying there naked and holding what was left of her, I kept on saying “I’m sorry”. That’s exactly what I didn’t want to have happen. I felt like it had happened because we were all caught up in our drama and failed to notice or take care of what was delicate…. It cracked me open. The hardness I was in — cracked.
Surprisingly, Orange seemed to be alright. She did the same fluttering and shivering she had done before so many times. She flapped what remained of her once vibrant wings super fast, she couldn’t take off, injured as she was, but it didn’t seem to hold her back. I thought that it would be her end, but she was doing just fine. It was very touching to see this torn up butterfly moving just the same. Her butterflyness, her essence, just couldn’t be taken away.
It was clear that it wasn't helping her to add any feelings of sadness or guilt. Beautiful to witness this injured butterfly in total okayness.
After that, she didn’t accept anymore food. She lived for another 2 days. My husband held her during the last night. With the tiniest little movements of her feelers she let us know that she was still there. We had a sense that she would be gone by the morning.
Just before I’m finishing this story, a couple of nights ago, I was moving through difficulty - subconsciousness upheaving kept me restless and awake. I tried to find stillness and okayness in it, to not believe the “nightmare” I was in. Then, I had a fleeting glimpse, a vision, or was it a dream? I saw many small, new, vibrant and shiny orange butterflies… I was gently reaching for one of them and cupping it in my hands. It was as though I was shown the completion of a cycle, the integration that had happened. Something had transformed in that moment and I felt calm, clear, and light.
These unusual encounters and the timing of everything felt significant for what I was moving through, for the difficulties my family had encountered, as well as for the next level my business was coming into.
The birth of Dragoness Rising emerged from this cocoon of difficulties. She is me, part bat, part butterfly, delicate and fierce, dark and colourful, alien and mysterious, some days crawling on the ground, other days fluttering and flying into the unknown.
I believe it’s all about how we’re in life. Magic is always really all around us, right there… We just need to allow ourselves to see it.
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