Companion

Greetings all,

I hope you had a lovely week.  It is May and the weather has finally turned to warmth.  Cool breezes at night and warm sunshine in the day make this my favorite time of the year.  I forget how renewing the seasons can be, and I am grateful.

So on one of the last cooler days we had, I came out to my car and a lone honeybee was on the window.  It looked at me, and I looked at it.  For some unknown reason I felt instantly drawn to this small creature as it looked in on me.  I fully expected it to fly off after I started the car and began to drive away, but it didn't.  I went in to teach my evening class fully expecting it to be gone when I came back out.  It was still there.  I drove home with my small companion, and the next morning it was still there.  It had rained and was quite cold for the season, I was worried for the bee.  Again I'm not sure why but I felt a heart connection to this little insect.

This is not the first time I have had this kind of experience with an insect.  A few years back a beautiful white moth was on the patio door looking in and I could swear it was beaming unconditional love at me.  I've also had strange encounters with unusually helpful birds.  I've had instances where it felt like even the trees were waving hello as I walked past.  Now some people would call this delusional, but in shamanic societies this would be the norm.  I think we take for granted just how much we relate to our fellow organic beings.  The fact that we have animals that live with us as companions, and some even do vital service for us is amazing.  We're communicating across species, that's phenomenal.  I can't even get decent technical help for my cellular service, and that's just because of a slight language barrier.  These animals don't have thumbs and we communicate.

Human beings never got very far on their own.  We are social creatures, and where it was possible we threw in our lot of with other species to advance.  Think how cats and dogs have contributed to society, and what about the horse.  Even in this day and age we still refer to the amount of power in our vehicles as horsepower.  Indigenous cultures around the world always incorporated animals into their stories as helpful (or sometimes less than helpful) characters.  This is not an accident, whether we know it or not we are in relationship with all other lifeforms around us.  The nature of that relationship will determine how rich our lives become.

So why am I telling you all this?  Well I think we take for granted all of our distant relations in this world.  We miss out on the healing power in the song of birds.  We become indifferent to the plight of the deer that seek to cross our roads.  If not for a slight variance in DNA we would be them, and they us.  Go back far enough and everyone and everything is related.  We are individuals, but we are also part of a whole system of life.  So as you go about your business notice your cohabitants.  Appreciate their contribution to the vast tapestry of life around you.  Are you in balance with this network?  Do you honor its sacredness or do you walk asleep through artificial worlds of the human mind.  Ponder, feel, look at the dizzying array of life, and be good to your distant cousins.  Maybe somewhere along the way a creature or plant will reach across the biological divide to offer you exactly what you need in that moment.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle