My Spring Wobble

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Hooray.

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Ghia here.

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Welcome to our humble podcast, where

Judy and I talk about the creative

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spiritual journey we call life.

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I am so grateful to be in this space.

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This podcast space, where I get

to share my thoughts and ideas.

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And also my literal space where I

live in a small but wonderful dugout.

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I called the whole.

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Which means that right now,

as I record I'm underground.

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But it's all good because I'm

right next to the window, And

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light is shining on my desk.

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So here we are.

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We have officially arrived in spring.

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That determination is made by the Equinox,

not by the weather as you may or may not

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have noticed depending on your location.

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The Equinox is the date on which the light

and the dark or day and night are equal.

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The practice of watching the light

from the solstices and the equinoxes

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in conjunction with the moon cycles.

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Is the ancient way of telling time.

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Our ancestors paid much more

attention to what was going

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on in the heavens than we do.

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If there was going to be a clan

council or trade gathering.

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Someone might suggest that it be held

in the time of the strawberry moon.

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And everyone would know when to gather.

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There was no calendar to check

off the days they had to tell

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time by the seasons and the moons.

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Is that it kind of crazy when

you stop to think about it?

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No clock.

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No calendar, just what you could

witness in the natural world

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to note the passage of time.

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This is a circular kind of time.

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This watching the sun and the moon cycles.

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The trouble comes when we try to

record or keep track of those cycles.

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Moon time and solar time.

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Don't quite sync, which creates havoc for

the calendar, which is much more linear.

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If you want to name the moons and the

number of them, they will drift away from

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the seasons you originally named them for.

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Trying to rectify a linear

calendar with circular time is a

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way too complicated for my brain.

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I'm glad someone else has done it.

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And I can simply hang a calendar

on my wall and follow it.

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And then I can tune into

the solar and lunar cycles.

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However I want.

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Which leads me back to the Equinox,

this balance of light and dark.

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I have asked myself what, if any

significance it plays in my life

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and what I can glean from it.

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Now, let me say that the Equinox has

already taken place on March 19th.

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Which means that at the time of

this podcast being published, Day

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and night aren't equal anymore.

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But we are still in a time of relative

balance and we are still within the space

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between the March and April full moons.

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Which became significant to

me as I planned this podcast.

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So, let me talk about

the moons for a moment.

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Traditional names for the March.

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Moon are the CRO comes back moon.

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Eagle moon goose moon, snow crest, moon.

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Sore eyes, moon Sugarmoon

and strong wind moon.

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As I considered what symbolizes the March

moon for me, I noticed that several of

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the ancestral moons were named for birds.

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I love birds.

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And truth be told, I believe

Christ loves birds as well.

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There are lots of references

to birds in scripture.

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Listen to a few.

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He shall come as an Eagle.

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Consider the Ravens.

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All the fowls of heaven

made their nest in his bows.

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And about the Sparrow.

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Not one of them is forgotten before God.

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This made it easy for me to

name the March moon for a bird.

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The question was which bird

represented March to me.

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I decided to check with what I call

my wildest woman journal to see if I

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had noted any March birds in the past.

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In this journal, I write in

third person about the woman,

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what does my humble attempt at

an artistic voice work with me.

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Okay.

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Here I write my thoughts about the desert.

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And life.

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And the natural world.

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This is my entry for March 8th, 2022.

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The woman watched the Raven

scavenging from the dumpster.

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So intent on her business

check here, fly there.

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Did the Raven notice that the town

was filling up, that the tourist

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season was beginning in earnest.

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Was this a good thing?

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Would it mean easier scavenging?

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The woman didn't know.

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What she did know.

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Was that she liked watching the Ravens.

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That cinched it for me, the March

moon would be my Raven moon.

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I'm sure.

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I will find other reasons to talk

about Ravens more in future podcasts.

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But just briefly, I want

to say that I love Ravens.

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I first became aware of them while

working as a river guide in the

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Southwest desert during my twenties.

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Then I saw them in Alaska and

in the mountains of the Sierra,

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I think it's so cool that they

can live just about anywhere.

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Ravens have kind of a bad rap being black.

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It's like being a black cat and Edgar

Allen Poe didn't do them any favors

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with his quote, the Raven Nevermore, but

mythology sees the Raven differently.

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They represent intelligence

and overcoming obstacles.

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They traverse the dark, always finding the

light and reminding us of the connection

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between earthly existence and the divine.

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I love the little magic and mystery.

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they give me.

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Thus I have embraced the Raven moon.

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So now let's talk about the April moon.

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Stay with me here.

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It's all going to tie

back into the Equinox.

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Traditional names for the April

moon are breaking ice moon.

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Broken snowshoe moon.

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Budding moon frog moon.

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That's a fun one.

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Grass up hearing moon.

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When the ducks come back, moon.

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When the geese lay eggs,

moon and the pink moon.

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Did you notice there are more bird moons

again, this got me excited because it gave

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me permission to choose another bird name.

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And in my mind there was only one

choice and that is the hummingbird.

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In April hummingbirds

returned to my valley.

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You want to talk about a magical creature?

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Let's talk about hummingbirds.

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Did you know that hummingbirds only

live in the Western hemisphere?

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I never knew that.

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That means no hummingbirds

in Europe, Asia or Africa.

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Sorry.

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Duty.

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It's strictly a bird of the Americas.

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Hummingbirds are more air than anything

else from hollow bones and feathers to

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nine lung like sacks in their bodies.

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These tiny creatures can fly like

no other bird and bring to our minds

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the idea of freedom and flexibility.

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They're also fierce little

creatures and we'll attempt to

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gouge the eye out of an intruder.

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Their bodies reflect

light, like flying jewels.

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I love it when it's warm enough to

meditate outside in the mornings.

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I don't even have to see the

birds to know they're there.

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I can tell by the sound of their wings.

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They make me so happy, like

tiny messengers of joy.

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So the name I have picked for my

April moon is the hummingbird moon.

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Now I picked these two moon names

purely for the reasons I just explained.

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But as I looked at them, I began

to feel that it was meant to be.

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I loved the juxtaposition.

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They propose the Raven dark heavy,

mysterious versus the hummingbird light.

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Happy, joyful.

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I thought that without realizing it, I

had created the effect of the Equinox.

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Dark on one hand, light on the other.

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And that somehow the energy of

the spring season would help me

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find balance between the two.

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I kept working with this idea, but

nothing was coming together for me.

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Then the other day as I was writing

in my wildest woman journal.

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I discovered what I was

really experiencing.

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Here's what I wrote.

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March 27th, 2024.

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It was spring.

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Uh, time of balance

between light and dark.

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Yet the woman felt an imbalance.

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One morning, snow on the cliffs.

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The next blue sky and sun

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was the earth wobbling looking

for a balance of its own.

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Yes, of course that explained everything.

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The woman was comforted.

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She wasn't wobbling alone.

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What do you think, have

you experienced this?

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Your mind telling you what is

going on in the world around you,

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but you have to admit that you are

actually feeling something different.

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I believe our bodies.

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Even when we aren't particularly

in tune with our natural

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surroundings response to the earth.

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We go through the same

cycles the earth does.

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Listen to this quote from elder Joseph w.

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from his talk patterns of discipleship.

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He said, This morning, our two children

and three grandchildren in north America.

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And about half of the world

saw the brightness of the sun

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rising majestically in the east.

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The other three children and seven

grandchildren in Africa and the

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other half of the world saw them

gradually creep upon them as the sun

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sank over the horizon in the west.

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This timeless consistency of the

onset of day and night is one daily

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reminder of the realities that govern

our lives that we can not change.

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When we respect and align what we

do with these eternal realities, we

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experience internal peace and harmony.

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When we don't, we are unsettled and

things don't work out as we expect.

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And quote.

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I know he was talking about daily

cycles here of day and night.

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Not seasonal cycles.

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But I think they are closely related And

that as we respect and align ourselves

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with what is happening in the natural

world, And the natural laws we live with,

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we will have more peace and harmony.

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I love this.

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I thought that by working with

the spring energy, I would find

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balance or that at least it would

be easier to come into balance.

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But by tuning into what was going on

in the natural world around me, I

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discovered that with the Raven in

one hand and the hummingbird in the

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other, that it was okay to wobble.

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The earth, which has much more

strength and power than me, and has

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had much more experience than me.

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Is in the same state of flux.

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I'm not alone.

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Hooray.

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I may not have to tell time by what

is happening in the heavens anymore.

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But I find great comfort

in sinking my calendar.

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My sense of time with the seasons and

what they have to teach me about myself

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and how to deal with life earth side.

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That's my message.

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That is what I learned from the

spring energy and where my creative

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spiritual journey has taken me.

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Where is it taking you?

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Duty we'll share her thoughts next week.

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And I will be back in two weeks

Where I plan to talk about something

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other than tuning into the seasons,

or at least not so much about the

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seasons you can hold me to that.

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See you then.

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If you enjoy this podcast,

please share it with a friend

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and leave us a five star review.

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In the meantime, feel free to wobble.

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Nama stay.