​This is the stillness of winter that my soul longs for. The type of day where I give myself the utmost permission to listen. The sun is brilliant on my face as I sit in the coziest of leather chairs wrapped in the softest of blankets.
 
My love just left the warm house to face the Minnesota cold after we talked about all the amazing dreams that have flooded me over the past couple nights.
 
There has been an incessant beckoning for me to receive the messages that the great universe has been sending me. I have been in creative overdrive…what do I write, do, say, act on next? But, I know the answers are not hard to discover if I open the windows of reception to the messages all around me…
…not literally today with the thermometer reading 5 below…but you know what I mean.
I ask & allow the messages to enter my dreams.  The wisdom also floats my way from books, movies, nature, animals, and even conversations overheard standing in line at Target.
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As I receive all of this guidance, there is still at times a cognitive volleyball game of “I can do this myself” to “I welcome and need your help”.   To “I got this one” to “I allow myself to receive guidance”. You see I am a redhead power pitta chick who has been in successful life training for many years. But on days like this my soul reminds me that it is not about success or outcome, it is about creating what my soul wants to express.  
For when I create from that place, I feel comfort even at 5 below.

As I walked along the wooded trails of The Christine Center in Wisconsin, I knew I had stepped into a magical wonder.   Acorns were audibly falling all around, little creatures were dashing amongst the fallen leaves, birds were calling and I felt compelled to sit and absorb the palpable energy surrounding me.  Of course, a wooded bench appeared before my eyes just as I had cast the desire into the air.  I sat and found inner stillness.  I was in a state of connectedness with my nature family.  I began to drum.  The beats came from a deep indigenous knowing and the drum’s vibrations fell in tune with All.

I became one with the whispers through the trees.

Feeling compelled to continue my trodden journey I ‘thought’ that the trail to the right looked inviting yet I was ‘intuitively’ drawn to the more rustic trail to the left.  The trail started with crackling leaves beneath my feet and the terrain quickly shifted to a muddy earth.  I was sinking into the now and felt the inner stillness return to me.  At that moment, I looked up and saw a deer staring at me with a curious wonderment.  We locked eyes and I then noticed two young deer near her.  The stillness permeated them as well and we shared a hidden language understood by all because:

Fear was not invited to the conversation.

I left my new friends and took the experience into my dreams that night.

Waking before sunrise the next day, I again headed to the woods.  The darkness was calming and soon the rising sun would help light my way.  I easily & quickly sunk into the peace of inner stillness and I felt pulled to look up.   There stood the deer family waiting for me.  They had something to share and in that moment so did I.  I felt a mantra fill my heartfelt thoughts “We are One. We are One.”  The deer heard my collective calling and with an understanding moved closer to me.  I kept the mantra repeating silently “We are One. We are One.”  Soon they were within 5 feet of me.
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Momma deer stomped her hoof into the ground ~ “We live here.  You live here.  We live in peace. We are One.”

After several more minutes together, I said good-bye and ventured into the chapel for early morning meditation.  We were soon closing the ritualistic time together and the Sister leading the group asked everyone to form a circle.  As we all hugged each other, the words that rang from the Sister’s mouth “We are One.”

Until our paths cross again my friends,
Wendy