Animal Signs: Moth

It's a snow day today!  http://pixiedusthealing.blogspot.com/2012/02/snow-day.html We had some freezing rain followed by snow and now everything is covered in a soft layer of white.  It should be a calm quiet feeling day, in my opinion, to match with the snow day feeling, and yet it's not really.  Nature seems a bit flighty today.  Birds were running into the window, horses were kind of spooky, and nature seems "on edge".

I started a fire in the wood stove this morning- a perfect activity to start off a snow day, and a good back up plan if the heavy snow takes the power out!  I had it started already, put in a good sized log, and a moth came flying out of the stove right into my face.  I have no more idea where she came from, than I do where she went.

That kind of "in your face" experience deserves investigation I figure so, out comes Steven Farmer's "Animal Spirit Guides" book.  Sure enough! Moth is listed in there as a spirit guide. Farmer writes that "when a moth shows up it means a letter, email or package will be coming shortly bringing important news." Well, that sounds good- no need to read any further!

As it turns out a lot of emails have been showing up. And showing up. And showing up. And a few phone calls as well.  All of the communications were about different and unrelated things. So, I spent the morning  answering emails, talking on the phone and putting out emails that had nothing to do with the projects I really needed to get at today. The more I answered and sent, the more they came in. Seemed I was flitting about from project to project, almost like...a moth?

That kind of flipping about from project to project, emails and phone calls really speaks to Wild Oat tendencies. http://pixiedusthealing.blogspot.com/2011/01/wild-oat-for-finding-direction.html When in an unbalanced Wild Oat state you have difficulty focusing on a true path.  You can start to become a bit frustrated and unsettled as you drift from project to project without seeing anything quite to completion.

An open email "Inbox" is the perfect distraction for Wild Oat, and Moth energy type moods. I personally think a lot of work environments foster this type of distracted energy.  Sometimes it's called "multi-tasking" and considered by some as an admirable trait. It does mean that you can get a lot of things done simultaneously- sort of.  It does look like you are a highly busy person.  It can be exciting to maintain yourself at that high energy frenetic pace.  It can also be contagious and before you know it, all the people around you are spinning in multiple directions and there's a sense of being overwhelmed with "something" you can't quite even identify. It becomes a general sense of crazy business and you start to feel buried under it all .You can keep those emails flipping back and forth for hours without really getting anything tangible done or completed. Trust me- I know of which I speak on that one!

So I took a minute in between emails and read a bit further in Steven Farmer's book.  It seems that Moth energy might mean "you're in a cloud of confusion and need somehow to clear things up". Hmm...

Often I think animal signs suggest we need to look within to sort things out. Sometimes we can use some help to find the balance, and in "the case of the distracting emails", perhaps some Wild Oat would help provide a sense of focused direction.  Sometimes I think animal signs also suggest we need to look at our environment for some solutions.

So... I looked out the window. I saw all that beautiful white snow and those softly falling flakes and how quiet, soft and serene it looked. I considered how that snow is not likely to stick around for long as we head towards spring. I put on my rubber boots  http://pixiedusthealing.blogspot.com/2011/03/rubber-boots-soakers-and-balance.html and my mittens  http://pixiedusthealing.blogspot.com/2011/11/snow-suits-mittens.html, shut down (most) of the technology, and headed to the woods. Ahhh....

I focused on making fresh tracks in the snow.  I stood under a tree and admired the quiet of nature. I took a couple of really deep breaths and smelled pine and dirt and the great outdoors. I heard a few birds calling and chirping. They seemed less frantic. Everything seemed a bit slowed and more alive at the same time.

I returned a new person.  I shut down the Inbox- yes, shut it down!!  That doesn't mean the emails won't land there. It doesn't mean I'll ignore them. It means I'll do some projects and then I'll go focus on the emails and see what needs to be answered and what can be deleted.  I'll avoid the temptation of hoping that an incoming "ping" will take me away on a different flight path until I've landed from this one.

It turns out when a moth shows up, according to Steven Farmer, "whatever has been hidden or veiled is about to be revealed".  I think, for me that might just have happened. I think I discovered I was just a bit too immersed in the distraction factor of technology and  little too scattered and disconnected.  Perhaps I was waiting for that external message via an email, a text, or a phone call to "take me away" to some exciting place instead of focusing on where I was right now. What I really needed was to take myself away from the distractions and find my own balanced self and connection with source.

Perhaps sometimes it's a matter of making some adjustments to your environment to find balance within. Perhaps from that balanced inner place the smoke can clear and rather than get singed in the fire you can find the opportunity to soar.