Have Your Back

Greetings all,

It has been a challenging week.  It began with death.  She came for my dog.  It was quite unexpected and it threw me and my family for quite a loop.  We also had neighbors break into unconsolable sobs. People in our neighborhood might not know my name but they all knew our dog, and she them.  She loved just about everybody, well almost she was locked in eternal conflict with the squirrel nation as well as occasional feuds aimed at the chipmunk confederacy.  I miss her greetings and her insistence at joining me while I practiced tai chi on my deck.

Loss it is there always, sometimes waiting patiently other times charging right into us and snatching our beloved ones from our grasp.  It sucks.  It is also part of what binds us to one another. I can't tell you how many comments of support and condolences I received on social media.  Sadly the death of my dear sweet puppy girl was probably the most popular post I ever had.  Old social programming passed down from time immemorial makes us circle round when one of us loses someone close.  From a purely selfish standpoint perhaps it is because we all know that one day we will be the one standing in the center of the circle mourning a loss.  From a different view point maybe it is the one love that runs through all of us that calls us together when loss strikes.  I will say this I had no idea that so many people cared.

My dog had my back.  She was not alone it seems.  I dreamed of her not two days after her passing and the bulk of my sadness lifted.  Since that dream I don't feel like she is gone, it is just that I can't touch her or hear her.  This has been typical for me.  People come and visit me while I sleep (be they two legged or four legged).  I've had people calling and checking on me.  They too have my back.

Lately I have heard from many people that they are experiencing serious challenges and traumas.   It is time to circle the wagons.  Light the beacon fires.  Sing soothing melodies to one another.  We are our brothers keepers.  Some see it as a burden, but if you have someone's back odds are they have yours too.  People may not be the only ones to have your back Spirit may as well.

Every week I do ceremony to honor Spirit and send prayers to all those in my personal community as well as some of my clients.  It is a very simple ceremony of rattling and giving thanks.  This week my focus was to call to us people, spirits, and energies that would have our backs in this time of stress.  This week I was late in getting started.  I didn't get to my office until 10 o'clock in the evening.  I had just come from a shaman's weather gathering.  After setting up and beginning with calling in Spirit and thanking all of my helpers and guides I began to hear something out in the hall.  It sounded as if there was someone wandering the building.  This made me a bit nervous as I hadn't locked my office door, but I continued with the prayers.  Another few moments passed and I heard more noise in the hall and suddenly I heard the latch on the door wiggle and the door begin to move inward.  I leapt up from my seat in front of the altar and rushed to the door.  As I got there I felt a great weight pushing and I also felt a strong gust of wind through the door frame.  I then heard the sound of a storm raging.  Somehow the wind had opened the lobby doors and moved through the hall to my door.  It had only been the wind, but why had it only been the wind, and why had it managed to open the lobby doors and lift the latch on mine?

It occurred to me later that I had earlier in the evening participated in honoring weather and that I had prayed for spirits and energies to come that would have my back.  Wind came, rain came, storm came.  Really I should feel blessed, and I did once I established there wasn't a prowler in the hall.  What also occurred to me was how I rushed to keep out the energy that may have been answering the call.  Support can come from many sources and not all of them fit into our ideas of what they should be.  What would have happened if I had let the wind open the door to my sacred space?

How about you?  Have you called for help and barred the door?  Have you searched for support and found it came from the only place you didn't look?  What if you let Spirit watch your back?  Take some time this week to think of all those who have had your back when you needed it, and think of all the chance happenings that led you to safety in your hour of need.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle