Celebrate Me Home

by Spirit Bird Intuitive Arts LLC, posted in Inner Development, Intuition & Wellness, Uncategorized

What does it mean to come home? I mean really come Home. A journey to that liminal place can take a lifetime or two. From where I sit however, it really is only a breath away. Seated within the heart.

Tonight, is the end of a wild, dark 7 ½ year stretch of time that I have been without a special someone to greet me when I wake up and welcome me when I come home. Someone to curl up on the couch with. Someone to mutually take care of each other. Heart, my newly adopted cat, is arriving home tomorrow. I can hardly stand the wait of the next 17 hours!

Having a cat wasn’t on my agenda this soon, however. There are a few aspects to my current situation I am still working on improving before expanding my family, that incidentally already has two unplanned horses. (They are another story.) But very often, love and life come when you are least prepared for it. Can you remember a time when that happened to you?

Two weeks ago, I started playing Bus Driver to one mouse at a time, ferrying him/her back out to the forest every day. Clearly, a new entry way was recently made, and I still have no clue where it is. Sometimes the Mouse Bus would have two trips to the forest over the course of a day. On the third morning, I opened the front door to discover a gift of a dead mouse, complete and un-munched upon, laid out carefully for me as a gift. There are no pets in the vicinity among my neighbors. Who could have brought it to me? It was the first gift of its kind in the 2 ½ years I’ve been here. The timing was too perfect. So, when I saw that gift, I had the distinct message that yes, an indoor-only cat was a good idea. It is clearly time. “This decision has to be made for the next chapter to open”, the same message that rang through my ears when I adopted Maggie, my first horse. I promise you, I will write that story.

Only one place to go. When I arrived at the Humane Society they said there were just three cats up for adoption but in a couple weeks there would be many more. The poster child of the three was already adopted so I was prepared with the notion I would have to return another day to have a look. Of the two cats remaining, “Cal” gave me a look that was very distant and doubtful. She didn’t move a muscle, save for her eyes that followed me as I tried to engage with her through the plexiglass. At that point, I felt I’d have to come back. This might take a while to find My Cat.

The next morning in my half waking state, I remembered a vision of a cat that had half a black face and was a bit pudgy. It wouldn’t leave my thoughts. It stared at me in the vision and I felt a deep connection. Was this one of the two that I actually saw yesterday? Or did I make it up? Returning to the cats the second day, I got on the foot stool to peer in and there was the face of my vision! She wasn’t pudgy, but she was certainly the one! This time, she got up from her nest and stood on her toes, tail high and came to the glass. My heart fluttered. I walked a little to the right to see if she would jump down and follow me. Yes! So I took a little video of her and a photo, to remember her by. I said, “Did you visit me in my dreams last night?” And she brushed her body along the plexiglass at that moment. Oh my! I said “Okay! You had better get back to your nest and not get noticed by anyone else until I can fill in the adoption application!” I led her with my pointy finger back up to her nest and I told her I’d be back for sure. This was surreal. I must confess that Surreal visits me nearly every day of my life, but I never expect it or get used to it. Always, it surprises me. So, I found My Cat. (Or more accurately, I was called by My Cat to come get her.) Snap! – one of the last mice made its way into the Mouse Bus as I typed this. How perfect.

What to name her? “Cal” is short for calico. That’s not her name. Reading over her info, she was surrendered exactly one month before by her person who unfortunately was terminally ill. “Cal” was born 14 February 2014. Just 5 years old now. Because she was born that particular day, I am bound by my own path to name her Heart. It was also the day that I flew to Ireland to live 15 years ago. (Another series of stories.) As a matter of daily life, I find hearts literally everywhere, seemingly all day, every day. It has been that way for at least 5 years. Heart rocks. Heart clouds. Heart food. Hearts. Hearts. Hearts.

And tomorrow, I will bring my Heart home.

Sweet Potato

by Spirit Bird Intuitive Arts LLC, posted in Book Development, Foodie Fodder, Inner Development, Intuition & Wellness, Uncategorized, Visual Art

Some things do receive closure we can recognize.

19 years ago I unknowingly wrote down a prophetic dream I had about being handed a white banana snake. In the dream, I was assured it wouldn’t hurt me. But it bit me repeatedly and its fangs clung to and stung my skin. My shock was about the blatant lie I was told, and apathy I received, more than the effect the snake had on my skin. I found the recounted dream 3 years ago in a file of my old writing. I was stunned to realize that that relationship had just ended 9 months earlier…

The other night I roasted some root vegetables for a gathering to acknowledge the closure of the old life and welcome the new Light energy for healing the Earth. This evening, in reviewing a picture I took of the roots, I recognized the “white banana snake” in the sliced sweet potato… How perfect.

I ate it for breakfast this morning.

Freedom.

by Spirit Bird Intuitive Arts LLC, posted in Inner Development

I entered into Hell, partially aware, then miraculously came out the other side knowing what is in my heart and knowing my strength. It was a test, and opportunity to realize just how strong I can be. That relationship journey, through Persephone’s Lair, proves that the spark of life is tenacious and openings come to lift us up and out into the light of day.

My heart remains open and therefore I am free. I didn’t die, I came alive – more alive than I ever imagined I could. My life is my own, not to be subservient, but to make of it what I will. Nothing else is more important because it all begins here. Right here. Authenticity. Presence.

This holiday season moves through virtually unnoticed by me. I’m too preoccupied by the gift that, in retrospect, I was giving myself over the past three years: my own heart’s freedom to Be.

In my opinion, this is the core of all positive change, one person, one heart at a time, however life brings it on. And so I send out a perpetual prayer and blessing for everyone to know their own heart intimately, truly. However you get there, it’s worth every step.

From where I stand, I see it is the true source of our collective change on Earth, for the best future we could hope for.

10496012_1570454629835092_193325922028874490_o

Dad Shared the Sky. Mom Shared the Earth.

by Spirit Bird Intuitive Arts LLC, posted in Intuition & Wellness, Uncategorized

The past 7 years have taught me to expect change, and to expect it often. It wasn’t my personal agenda, but my whole life has started over at least four times in those years. Finding solace through all that change has been vital. Where to find it? Nature. Go to it at every opportunity. The ocean is the place I choose, sometimes the woods where a beautiful waterfall runs. Since my last post, I moved closer to the ocean. I feel more at peace with access to it essentially right outside my front door. What a blessing. When I’m in nature, I carry the young memories of walking outdoors with my parents.

A recent post on Facebook by Wayne Dyer, which included a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver, really struck home for me:

“Follow your children.

Together you will

learn to pay attention:

how to kneel down

in the grass;

how to be idle

and blessed;

how to stroll

through the field;

how to lead a wild

and precious life.” ~ Mary Oliver (This is written as it was on Facebook)

This poem reminds me of the times my dad would carry me outside in his arms after dinner, to walk in our big yard and look for the moon through the trees. I was about 2 years old. He would walk where I pointed and we would find the moon together. And, the memories of day walks in nature with my mom.  She and I would collect interesting rocks, and beautiful field flowers; the field grasses towering over my head. Occasionally we would stop to listen to the water flowing in the stream near our house. These were the best days of my childhood, like medicine to my young heart. I needed that peace and companionship as a very sensitive, aware-without-words (intuitive) little person.

Mom will be 90 next February. She is such an important woman in my life. She’s helped me get through some deeply tough times. The spirit of my father visits me often since 2003, guiding me, comforting me, encouraging me. Over fourty-five years later, I walk in nature to soothe my soul through all the changes. I feel blessed and I feel grateful.

In surfing through all the changes, I realized that in this life, I’m called to witness people’s inner aliveness and connection to Self; and when needed, to support that connection in Spirit Bird healing sessions, intuitive readings, and through insight drawings. We can work together and be the change!

Rise Up and feel blessed! The path is gently lit.

IMG_7142Rainbow SerpentForWeb

A full year later…. Posting from a new Life Perspective

by Spirit Bird Intuitive Arts LLC, posted in Uncategorized

I keep getting indications that writing a book is on my life path…. I accept that, however, knowing just what to write about is the next step. The only thing I can think of is to write about what life has been like for me over the past 7 years. Things I never expected to happen on every front of living, have happened. It’s a strange/interesting path of heart crash and burn on what feels to me like a massive scale. Phoenix Rising. I think I’m standing somewhere on the upper half of the mountain that I’ve been metaphorically climbing. Groping through the inner fog, the rain, the sleet, the snow, the scorching sun, major winds that nearly blew me off the mountain…. I must be somewhere above the treeline by now. Today, feeling a sense of calmness, the silence is deafening here. Even the air around me feels smooth. These are things that I haven’t felt or sensed, ever in this lifetime. Spirit has been guiding me all the way. Maybe it would be interesting to others? Maybe there are things to share that allow for connection and to say “whatever you’re feeling, experiencing, raging with, you’re not alone. You have others on that same path right next to you doing the same damn thing, growing, changing, getting closer to an open road.”

Lately I’ve been turning to the Earth and First Nation essence of living to commune with. This last weekend I heard far too late about an event to herald in The Black Hills Initiative in South Dakota. A return of the land back to the original keepers. Musicians (native and non-native), Elders, and Leaders young and old alike, came together to celebrate together this changing time of Going Home. I so very much longed to be there. So, since the means were not available, I chose to hold the same Spirit and Celebration here where I am. I went to the Salish Sea at my particular spot near Semiahmoo in Blaine Washington. I met with the Ocean. I danced, played my drum, ankle bells, flute, sang, and made offerings of Solidarity and Love to the Spirit of the Earth, Sea and Sky. At some point, these solitary treks will be made with others. For now, I go on my own.

Building up my Spirit Bird Intuitive Arts healing business, I’m finding my healing henna tattoos are well received and finding their place in my skill set. The henna came in to my mind this past winter. I realized that I was receiving images in my mind’s eye. I was drawing them in my journal and a few made it into pastel forms on paper. But then I was feeling the need to put it on my arms, feet, body. I discovered that the images created themselves. My intuition saw step-by-step what to draw. Afterward, I was able to read them and found that what was drawn, had energetic presence. I felt different. I noticed that the days and weeks that followed were in-keeping with the image stained on my skin. I was healing physically and my heart was healing emotionally, consciously. I brought this to two fairs I participated in as a healer this summer. Some very powerful images came through for people brave enough to sit with me.

Toward the end of the summer, I happened to break a bone in my foot. (I was jubilantly dancing!) A few days later, I applied a tattoo over the break. The next morning my foot was without pain. I have also been working on my foot from the moment of the break, energetically supporting the bone to heal. I’ve been without a boot, without medications or crutches the whole time. I did try wearing the boot and crutches, but they only became hazards, so I wore sturdy shoes instead to get around. Then barefoot. The break was 4 weeks ago and the foot is nearly done with healing. Maybe I was given this break to prove to myself that the power of healing flowing through me is real. Sometimes I need proof. The tattoo in this post is one of the most recent ones, having to do with my own energetic evolution, and the solid support of Spirit, evidence showing up in a variety of ways in my daily life. ….and writing. hence this post and those to follow. I guess it’s not enough to post tweets and comments on facebook… (Spirit Bird Intuitive Arts and Erika Rado on Facebook, and @ErikaRado on Twitter.)

I’m gearing up to start teaching creative projects to kids in town. We’re working on the art of Australia, and I’m including music and rhythm for us to explore with homemade instruments. A new year, on my own, doing things I never thought I would do. Feeling calm and supported by Spirit. Rising up!

Blessings to you, wherever you are on your path. Keep it real and let it be.

Feather Snake Moon for web