When we do the earth walk, we are connecting into the everyday signs and signals that cross our path. We accept that we are in a constant dialog, and as such, we respond to, and with those messages.
Now, my husband says "BA. Not everything means something!" Course, this is the man that also has a hard time with Angels and God, but no trouble with Demons. Somehow, that sort of reverse metaphysical superstition confounds me. That is how we got into this religious mess on the planet in the first place! Too much superstition and not enough of each individual paying attention themselves. Ok-that is enough before my second cup of coffee.
Back to my story: I was on the way to making a nice pot of morning coffee. You know, anticipating that early morning coffee smell already. I've had lasik so I'm not blind in the AM as I used to be. Good thing. But still. Morning eyes are blurry.
Something was on the floor.
Now at first I thought it was a ... you know. I little cat urp of a hairball. It was slimey and the right color - dark like her fur. But it wasn't. There I am peering down at this little mound on my floor, bare feet, nightgown,and it's a dead mouse.
I thought 'ah, that's what the cat was up to last night' because she had been carrying on, wanting to come into the bedroom. I will have to admit I stood and entertained the image of our cat bounding onto the bed with the dead mouse in her lips, dangling it over my husband's face...see, he hates mice. Alive, dead, dying, he can't stand to see them, and for sure can't touch one. My hero.
I'm not sure why, but he does. And over the years our cats have gifted us many! I can still see him standing naked at the sliding doors, stamping one foot yelling for me to get it while looking like he was about to throw up. I've even had a few cruel moments of role reversal where I have chased him around the house with one... but that was a long time ago when I was young and not as sensitive and mature as I am now.
When I bent to pick it up though, it was warm and soft, and I thought that Coco must have just finished. It's fur was wet. She was asleep on the chair. I saw the whiskers twitch and realized it was alive, barely.
Have you ever seen a cat play with a mouse? I watched her once. It was the most horrifying game I've ever seen, and I broke it up then, which wasn't easy. She was into it. Catch and release and recatch, sometimes throwing it up in the air. The mouse would start to get away and she would catch it again. From her position it was a game. From the mouse's position it was torture.
I held this tiny mouse in my hands, like the bird the other day, and thought about life and how short it is and how we all need to take care of each other. I thought that he had just had an awful night for sure. And I thought about how it was the first time in 17 years with this cat that I'd ever found a live one.
I felt the reiki start, and I walked outside with him. I walked away from the house, down the street to the field, in my nightgown, and when he started to perk up I put him under a tree. He looked at me for a moment before moving further under the tree and out of the way of the early birds. (wouldn't that be just like life! Out of one mess and into another!)
So back to does it mean anything or is it just something that happened this morning?
Mouse medicine: pay attention to the details, and get things done. That's a bit of it for sure for me...mouse is either too fixated on the little bits or it's a warning TO pay attention to the little bits.
But I also thought about the game and how the cat, my cat, doesn't usually let the mouse go. Is she getting old? Or was this another sort of message? Where in our life have we been caught in a game that doesn't feel like we are going to get out of? YES! It fits there! Could it be that they are finishing with us?
Details. Mouse is about the little things. Work on the little things to attain the big things. Focus. Are you trying to do too many things at one time? LOL well there is the lesson of my life, and IS exactly what I felt this weekend. Scattered in too many directions and not doing them in balance. Well!
What else? Where have I been fearful of life perhaps? Have I been worried about 'the cat' getting me, and have held myself back from roaming 'the house'? Is this a message that I have 'gotten away'? Or will?
Well, one of the things about working with signs is you don't HAVE the answer yet...you just keep noticing. We notice our response, our engagement. We notice what shows up. We notice our reaction. We notice what comes next.