Becoming Eagle

Greetings all,

Once again I am late posting.  I am not sorry.  I have been tending to my own needs, and putting time into my own healing path.

Lately I have found it difficult to write as I navigate my own challenges.  In the past I have written my way through my own problems.  This past summer though I've been moving through relationship struggles.  I have found it near impossible to get to a more detached perspective in order to write about it in a way that is not calling someone out.  That is not what this blog is about.  It is about recognizing the patterns in my life that may apply to others, as well as my responses and thought processes as I encounter the world.  I do sometimes rant about things, but if I rant I want it to be about a condition or pattern that many people are experiencing.  I want to draw a line between someone being wrong about an issue and just being wrong.  I have been labelled as 'wrong' before it is not something I wish to inflict on others.

All that said,  I finally can talk in general terms about my experiences of the past 4 months.  It can be summed up by saying I have not been treated with kindness.  If you know me and are reading this, and are wondering if I am talking to you specifically, I am not.  This pattern was pretty well spread around, it did not have one source.  This has forced me to withdraw quite a bit from my social world. Many have negatively interpreted this or taken it personally.  I suppose it is on a level, but mostly it was to preserve myself intact.  Although it may seem like it sometimes, my heart is not made of stone or steel.  It can break.  The good news is that shamans for thousands of years have had the knowledge to put people back together.  They have the technology to make you better, faster, stronger, and less of an asshole.  So when I got to my breaking point I reached out.  (Special thanks to my teachers).

When I was in a space where I was coherent enough to journey I went to see my power animal.  When I asked him why people continued to treat me in this way he said, "You haven't fully stepped into and embodied your power.  There is a space that is empty in you, and that space people project upon.  Those that are in balance project kindness and generosity, those that are suffering project their pain onto you."  He then took me to Eagle.  Not the power animal eagle but to Eagle, Keeper of the East on the medicine wheel.  Eagle did healing work on me which was so profound I wept copiously and shook in my chair (almost like convulsions but in a good way).  After he had finished I asked him what to do about my relationship struggles.  He answered, "Do what is there to do, just be."  That may sound simple, but it was quite profound.  My tendency is to run around trying to fix everything and make everyone okay with me.  He wasn't finished with being all majestic though because he added, "To become Eagle you must become a man without enemies."

There is a lot to unpack there.  I have for many years had the Mooneagle Shit List.  Rest assured if you were on it, you worked real hard to get there.  Now of course I am being told to retire that.  Cancel all my grudges.  Don't exile people into the outer wastes of the world.  I would like to be clear here, me not having enemies doesn't mean I am just hunky dory with everyone.  It doesn't mean I try to make everyone like me and please everyone.  It doesn't mean I don't stand up for myself, a cause, or other people. It simply means I don't hold onto the adversarial energy and make it personal.  Of course when someone hurts you it is very hard to not take that personally, but Eagle was very clear that the next stage of my development was about not doing that.  It was about forgiveness and not carrying around the weight of the 'me versus them' mindset.

So why am I telling you this.  Well I felt it was important to explain my absence these last few weeks as I did my inner work.  I also believe many of us are indoctrinated into the adversarial mindset.  Growing up we have stories with heroes and villains.  We paint ourselves as the heroes of our life and those we have difficulty with become villains.  We interpret all their actions through that lens, and odds are we misinterpret their motivations a fair bit of the time.  We then have to hold ourselves rigidly during our encounters, not just with those people but with everyone.  We're always on alert for the next arch-nemesis.  This makes it easy in the sense that we have people to blame when things don't turn out the way we want them, and that is convenient because life rarely turns out the way we expect it to.

How about you?  Have you got a shit list?  Are you looking to expand it or burn it?  Do you carry the weight of the past on your shoulders or is your heart light?  I know I have carried the weight for far too long, and I would like to be lighter of heart.  I don't expect it to be easy, but I do expect it to be worthwhile.  Join me in a place beyond us and them, where we simply are.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Emerging Wings

Greetings all,

I haven't been very prompt with posts as of late.  It seems to be a time of changes and I'm not quite sure which way the wind is blowing yet.  Whichever direction, I seem to be accompanied there by butterflies.

The butterfly is symbolic of death and rebirth.  It starts out as a caterpillar and then cocoons itself away from the world slowly dissolving its entire form before transforming into the beauty of the butterfly.  The monarch butterfly makes an incredibly long journey.  I was seeing them all the way up in Ontario, but come the fall they start to migrate back to Mexico for the winter.  Monarchs have been few and far between the last few years, but all of the sudden wherever I go,  I see them.  At my stopover in Chicago my friend had even planted milkweed to help attract them.  As someone who seems to get a lot of messages from omens I don't see these encounters as coincidence.

Right now there are things that are dying in my life.  There are loved ones that are getting close to walking their final mile.  There are relationships that are changing or ending altogether.  The shape of my dreams has been changing as well.  So something deep is stirring.  It easy to feel raw and vulnerable while I try and find my feet again in this new energy.   I feel as if I've been in stasis for many years and now the container I've been in is about to burst open just like a butterfly's cocoon.  So maybe all the butterflies crossing my path is nature's way of reassuring me.

So why am I telling you this? I'm reminded of a song called Monarch, by singer/songwriter Matt Alber.  A string of lyrics comes to mind, "In my body there is buried some strange memory of how to fly, what to follow, it will lead me to the origin of me...prehistory."  Yeah there is a lot to unpack there.  To me it means that what we need to move forward is already within us.  The soul waits till the time is right to stir and guide us to spread our wings.  In uncertain times there is something in the stillness that is ready to help us on our path.  I find that a comforting thought.

How about you?  What is stirring beneath your surface?  What do the depths conceal within your heart?  What do you hope will wake?  In times such as this, the only advice I have is to go gently.  Be kind to yourself and others.  It is the same advice I give for life in general, but when we are at the crossing points it is doubly important and so easy to forget.  Take time to thank Spirit for the little messengers and mysteries it sends your way.  They may be delicate like butterfly wings or they may roar like the wind, but in the end they are the chimes to wake us from our trances.  May you wake from your nightmares into sweeter dreams.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle