Spiritual Manifestation: A free reading from the Journey Oracle for Autumn Equinox

Autumn equinox is a time of harvest.  Of gathering into the storeroom of our awareness what we planted and tended with our physical, emotional and spiritual intentions.  This is the time of receiving nourishment from our inner garden.

Here is a Journey Oracle reading for you to use to access insights about what you are manifesting during this season of harvest.  My own reading notes are written in blue to serve as an example of how you might conduct your own reading, but they are not a "right" or "correct" way to explore the analogies and metaphors of the Oracle pronouncements.

The Situation

How is this an image of my garden?

My intention for the year has been to 

accept what I have already been given; 

to not be in doubt but in trust 

of my connection with the Spirit world. 

I see with a woman with a flame of personal power 

holding aloft a heart.

Beyond her is a snake.  Do I see this as a threat or an ally?

How is this an image of your garden? 

Here are the pronouncements from the Oracle about your situation.

THE  SITUATION

This situation began by forgetting to ask for signs.

The prevailing energy of this situation is a downward movement.

The core energy pattern of this situation is old stars.

The Mother of this situation is striped with sun.

The Father of this situation is still alive.

 ALIGNMENT  TO  THE  SITUATION

Your perception of the situation is wondrous.
The impact of this perception is alive in fire.

Your relationship to the prevailing energy is flowing on water.

The connection between the core energy pattern and the situation

 is felt as a rough touch.

The momentum of this situation is fed by resting.

This last pronouncement has a special ring of truth for me. 

 I often push too much, try too hard. 

 Perhaps the most important word in my intention is "accept."

The experience 

What am I experiencing 

in this situation?

I see a creature that looks threatening if I look

at the right eye, benign if I look to the left.

Naming it makes it so.  

What are you experiencing in your situation?

Here are insights about your experience

from the Journey Oracle.

THE  EXPERIENCE  NAMED

ENTER  AT  YOUR  OWN  RISK

 THE SITUATION  EXPERIENCED

blood rush

arched body

difficulties

something to learn

EXTERIOR  SUPPORT

An exterior or support system for the situation is embryo.

 I like that the support for my experience

is an embryo.  Something just forming; full

of possibility.  I can be in fear or

in delight about what I am growing.

My choice.

Change

What change is calling me; the 

change that will help me be nourished 

 from this situation?

I see an intensity in this gaze. 

I have a feeling of being watched.

Do I actually realize what I have been given?

What change is calling you in your situation?

Here are the Oracle pronouncements about change.

CHANGE

 The power needed to shift this situation will be a sound of clanging.

Change will come by unexpected acclaim.

Your relationship to the change in this situation is shut tight.

The moment of letting go into the change will smell soft.

The concern to be avoided within this change will taste oversweet.

 DIVINE  WILL

                       

The wisdom of speaking out will empower the transformation.

Completed transformation will be felt as a quality of having claws.

 DREAM  ON  THIS  QUESTION

 Are you letting others tell their story in their own way?

HOW  IS  THIS  AN  ANSWER    

Rain

There are so many insights here that I think

I won't try and reveal them all.  

Speaking out, having claws, rain

are all the best answers 

for how to be nourished by what 

I am harvesting. 

The resolution 

What are the insights from

my unconscious wisdom

about this spiritual manifestation?

I see a tiny figure going through an opening

while a being made of wood, water and stone

watches from nearby. 

I feel I am being shown to turn around,

 to see what is everywhere surrounding me. 

What is the resolution  of your situation, 

this manifestation you are harvesting?

Here is a Journey Oracle fairy tale

in which you intuitively know the meaning of 

all the characters, the connections to your 

situation, and what is the happy ending. 

THE   RESOLUTION

A Journey Oracle fairy tale

CALLING  ALL  KINDS

A long shape passed by. One end formed a slight diamond which tapered to a thin needle. The shape was brilliant turquoise; as if nature’s usually somber palette felt it was time that something went amuck. Four fragile lines of neon orange waved behind the shape, occasionally flaring open in unison and then pumping closed, as if continually pairing and seeking each other. From the center of this motion drifted two electric red lines that were pulled along by the jerking rhythm of the creature. A squadron of turquoise shapes passed by, their pulsing movement like blows at the water through which they swam.

“These must be shrimp larvae” the woman thought as she gazed over the side of the boat. “Even though sometimes I crawl inside some of the logs I find in the woods, I have never seen creatures as strange as these.”

The shrimp squadron moved through a cloud of tiny white lozenges. At one end of each flake was a whirling wheel of hairs, causing the creatures to tilt in different directions as they drifted, like they had a memory of snow.

“There is another whole world in there, and my usual short attention only allows time enough for easy tasks—never enough time to see the truth of things hidden then revealed. Who would imagine that a shrimp on a dinner plate had a life as a jeweled soldier? This might be a place of misunderstanding for us humans. I need to do homework about the whole life of what lives in this place with me, instead of settling for the incomplete view that creatures are only valuable if they are useful to me.”

Minute transparent circles came into view, each with a cross of iridescent rainbow threads marking its four quarters, which fused into a tangle of lines that dangled below the slowly meandering balls.

         “Jellyfish babies,” the woman said. “I guess the spring sun is calling all kinds of food back into the water.”

"...time to see the truth of things hidden then revealed."

This reading is showing me how to be in trust

rather than doubt, how to see the whole life 

of what lives with me in the

seen and unseen worlds.

Turn around.  

Happy Autumn from the Journey Oracle. 

The earth is a seed planting itself over and over.  

This quote from Craig Childs in his book: Apocalyptic Planet, had a profound impact on me as I finished this 8th dream painting in my series of  47 paintings based on the cards of the Journey Oracle. Each paintings is based on a question I received in a dream for each card, as I was creating the Oracle deck.  The question became part of the Oracle pronouncements, and these many years later, the question is the title of the painting.

Doesn't anyone else get to enjoy how they look?  

What about Annie Feather and Michael Root?

I do not know who Annie Feather and Michael Root are,

 but they might be these creatures.

What I do know is that, somehow, the dream question is about humans not being so arrogant in their sense of preciousness, or smallness, or bigness. It is about everyone, everything, wanting to enjoy who they are and how they are: tree, rock. flower, fruit, owl, fox.

  

Perhaps our sense of person-hood, of personality,

 is like the doll forms scattered about.  

We think we are significant in our responsibility for repairing what we have done to this good earth without considering how this self-assigned responsibility isolates us from all that is.  When we think we are outside, it is easy to not look inside the other-than-human experience for parallel consciousness and emotion.

But we are always being watched.  

We are always being invited to the feast.  

The earth is a seed planting itself over and over.  We are not the gardeners.  We are no benevolent being leaving the house every morning with a watering can and a trowel to dig up weeds, wiping our brows midday to marvel at our handiwork.  Instead, we are within the seed itself.  We are part of its cells and the hardness of its coat, our place not to marvel at the futility and smallness of ourselves but to keep life moving.  What we do now, from the inside, determines the vigor of that seed, how long it might live and plant itself again.

visits from a raven

This story about visits from a raven begins with a stray cat.  She came to our back door young, pregnant, and very outspoken about choosing us to be her new humans.  A year later we were living with three cats, what Ajahn Sona, the Abbot of Birken Monastery calls, "those lovable little serial killers."

More years later, I am wondering what to do with the frequent mouse bodies that are deposited on the back porch or along the path to the cat door.  I am happy not to live intimately with mice, but still, some good could come from the nightly carnage.  So I decide to put the dead mice outside the fence atop a large stump, in hopes other creatures might benefit.  A raven comes.  Regularly.

 I am careful not to create a "human schedule" of food; a mouse appears on the stump if one appears on the porch.  Still, over the months the raven and I develop a relationship.  At one point, after the unfortunate death of a squirrel, the raven leaves one surgically severed hind leg and the tail, in perfect alignment, at the base of the cedar tree just outside my window where he/she often lands.

A month ago I was looking for images to paint on a new frame drum.  The reverse was tied with the star of the 9-fold Goddess,  and the drum's face was a fascinating pattern of light and shade.

I think I see a raven beak and one eye.  Of course.  The raven is inspiring me.  I will ask it to guide me.  (Raven lesson #1: be careful of this request from a trickster.)

I begin painting with raw earth pigments, but the image will not clearly present itself.  At one point I must decide between painting the figure I see crouched under the bird's right wing, or the left foot, which would conflict with the figure.  I say aloud, "Let the raven decide" and at that moment my paint brush catches on the lip of the water jar which when spilling knocks over the film case of cobalt blue  pigment, which cascades over the white bedspread.  Trying to catch the water jar I drop the paintbrush loaded with black iron oxide pigment, which lands on the faint image of the foot.  Decision made. (Raven lesson #2: do not paint with raw earth pigments while sitting on a white bedspread.)

I struggle with finding the left wing and finally settle on a line, only to discover it is too high and only indicates the upper layer of feathers.  Raw earth pigments are especially tricky because although they apply like coloured dust, they create an indelible  tattoo when the pigment interacts with the keratin in the outer layer of the skin. Once the mark is made it is there.  I see the proper edge of the wing further down.  Only solution is to add more of the cobalt pigment which was already used to indicate the first edge.  (Raven lesson #3: there are no mistakes so just celebrate the moment.)

The addition of cobalt becomes the theme that unifies the entire image.

But what about the eye?  I lived with two and then one Cockatiel for 28 years, and I know that birds' eyes are positioned to see from the side of the head, not the front.  But this eye insisted on looking out.  Not at me, and not away, but out toward something ahead.  The gaze very wise, a little bit sad. 
And this became the best lesson of all.  A relationship with raven is not only or even mostly a mirror for receiving insight about my life, it is about looking out together at what we share: a love of place on this good earth.

This new raven drum is offered for sale in my Etsy webstore, and can be heard being played with a felted drumstick on this youtube link.  Good voice.  Thanks for the teaching.