The Keys to a Magical World View
This post is NOT about dream interpretation — it’s about interpreting the signs and symbols of your waking reality. It’s about cultivating a magical world view.
The Language of Symbols
I’m quite sure most people are familiar with the concept of decoding the language of dreams — the Monster in a dream represents a literal anxiety or fear; the Doorway in a dream symbolizes the way you perceive an opportunity; the Fork in the road you dreamed about to you speaks to you of paths, choices, and decisions…
You get it — your unconscious, subconscious dreaming self employs a rich vocabulary of archetypes, icons, symbols, and metaphor. Your dream language is often literary more than literal.
You also understand the requirements of translating this language — that while much of this vocabulary employs mystical, universal, human truths that we share — some of the patterns of meaning overlap from one of us to the next — there is a deeply unique and personal level which must also be explored.
Your Mystical Slang
You are both author and audience of divine communication. You are constantly customizing the language of your spirit, through experience. A Dream Symbol Dictionary will only take you so far — you must still engage your inner Artist, your inner Author, your inner Mystic Detective to discover the richest possible detail.
Life is but a dream
You process conscious, waking reality in terms of logic and intellect — an application of your Thinking Mind. Within your subconscious, astral reality — the Other Side, the Deeper Layer Inside — where you dream, meditate, manifest, and create, your expectations for discovering Meaning are expansive, relaxed, open, imaginative…
You don’t insist on knowing from spirit, you allow yourself to wonder, travel, discover, and play. You feel it’s appropriate for your Inner Child to reign in your dreaming, creative, divine, spiritual aspect; so why do you put him to bed and call in some “more Adult” perspective when interpreting the signs and symbols of your waking, conscious experience?
Keys to Talking with Trees
Last summer, while spending time with a friend in Kansas City, Missouri, I tried to explain this concept to a man named James who is both a clinical psychotherapist and a pagan priest. On a day trip to a pagan community in nearby eastern Kansas, as we walked along a trail through a dense grove of sacred trees, James told me about a client with a child who claims to see faeries, elemental spirits, and quite bluntly claims to talk to trees.
The child’s mother is Christian, yet not entirely closed to the possibility that her daughter is telling the truth, as she knows that children may have special abilities or imaginative ways of perceiving the world. She didn’t feel comfortable telling her daughter “The trees don’t talk to you! That’s just your imagination.”
James, who is experienced in working with dreams and uses dream analysis in his practice, nevertheless approaches dream interpretation in the context of therapy with a purely secular, Jungian mindset. I told him about a girl I know named Claire who also self-identifies quite matter-of-factly as a Tree Talker. I met Claire when she was eleven years old; she is now nineteen. Claire is intelligent, grounded, confident… and trees communicate with her.
James asked me “How does this communication occur? I mean, does she speak the language of trees, or do the trees speak her language? Is this communication something she perceives as literal, physical, external? Or is it archetypal, subconscious, psychic — within her own mind?”
I told him I felt he was thinking about it a bit too logically, like a scientist. I wasn’t sure that I had the vocabulary or the training to address the explanation in purely clinical, psychological terms, but perhaps I could lead him toward that and he could carry the concept through… Because I feel that what I’m describing could be well explained in Jungian concepts, without tearing apart the Truth of the experience or denying the essence of spiritual perspective. In other words, if the child claimed that trees were talking to her in her dreams, a therapist could explore that symbolic language and help her decipher the meaning, with a kind of established, clinical confidence.
Why not simply apply that symbolic language and the process of interpretation to her waking experience?
“How? Can you give me an example?” he asked.
The trees are providing impulses — cues and clues — like a kind of associative flash card exercise. The language — the symbols and signs and their potential meanings — are found in the mind and more. The mind, the heart, the spirit, consciousness, the subconscious, the superconscious reside in multiple dimensions of experience beyond simply Thinking.
The logical, intellectual, thinking mind is only one dimension of experience. The Thinking Mind stores and retrieves information — but so do all the other parts of us. Experience is not only rational thought; experience stores data received from the heart, the soul, the higher self, the collective consciousness, etc.
“An example…” I mused, holding my arms out to the woods around us. “Hmm, right here, right now, in this moment… Trees, talk to us!”
There came at that moment an enormously unmistakable, physical, external sound effect — like the sound of a huge, wooden door slowly and dramatically creaking open.
“They’re talking to us!” James exclaimed, delighted and surprised. “The branches rubbing against each other, rationally. Logically. But beyond that explanation, what did they say?”
They told me that a door just opened. Possibility. Opportunity.
“Ah, so the meaning is like Rorschach Test — only the ink blob is a sound, in this case, and not an image. The translation is your personal association with what the sound resembles, and what that sound stands for symbolically. Like a cinematic metaphor, like the artistic language of film or literature.”
Indeed. James told me a few months later that he embraced this perspective and introduced a version of it to some of his clients in therapy. He also began referring certain like-minded intuitives to me. So, in that context, it was a professional joint-venture opportunity, for both of us.
Ask Mr. Crow
More recently I was contemplating a financial decision, a move that might require a leap of investment and faith on my part, upfront, but which could pay off in greater, long-term benefits, and ultimately lead me to a different level, financially.
I was walking in the woods behind my house and discussing the possibility with my spirit guides, asking spirit to weigh in on my hunches. A crow landed on a low branch just above my head. I know from lore and experience that these black birds often carry messages, so I never hesitate to ask a crow for advice.
“What do you think, Mr. Crow, will the action be in line with my intentions?”
The crow bobbed and squawked once, turned around toward the North, leapt off with a great heavy effort that left the branch swaying, dropped closer to the ground, but then soared up to land on another branch three times higher than his previous perch. He turned around again, looked back at me, and repeated his single caw.
“Thanks, Mr. Crow, that’s just what I needed to know.”
While I could run to a metaphysical bookshelf and look up someone else’s existing information about what a crow means, what the significance of the day of the week is, what kind of tree he landed on, etc. to a certain degree, that kind of detective work might result in a collection of everybody else’s meaning, but it wouldn’t automatically be a synergy of meaningfulness to me.
How do I break down the significance?
- The timing of the bird’s appearance — if he had an answer for me, then what question was I asking at the time he showed up?
- How did his actions symbolically represent — illustrate/act out –the actions I was contemplating? It took a jump and moment of dipping low before ultimately flying and landing in a position higher than where he came from. Sounds like a positive financial move to me.
- Not only did he fly up, he flew North — stored in my mind are significant associations with the North corner of the cardinal directions: earth, materialism.
More than anything, the crow simply affirmed what my logical thinking mind had already projected would happen.
Trees send me intuitive impulses. Birds deliver messages to me too, all the time! I live in a dream world, an enchanted movie of my own authorship, where magic does happen. Remember the Disney-esque fantasy segments in Nine to Five, where Lilly Tomlin’s character Violet spoofs Snow White and Cinderella, where little animals come to her aid in creation? Yeah, that’s the reality I choose to operate within.
James said “You choose to cultivate what we’d call a Magical World View.”
“Would you define that as crazy?” I asked.
“No! It works well for you, doesn’t it? You’re healthier, happier, and wiser, because of it, aren’t you?”
“Oh, absolutely!” I said. “Consider the alternative…”
I’ve already lived part of my life with a view of the world only filtered by intellect, logic… No hocus-pocus, no wonder, no miracles… No spirit. Since I’ve begun to embrace my life as my creative masterpiece, the signs, serendipities, and divine guidance are abundant. Everywhere. Magic is found in the most mundane places.
You don’t see fairies, talk to spirits and angels, and so believe in them, in that order. As Claire explained to me years ago, “Fairies and angels don’t show themselves to people who don’t believe in them.”
Can you not see the forest for the trees? Can you see the keys in the forest?
Seek Wisdom, Practice Love, Embrace Wonder, Act Magical
Contacting Your Spirit Guide 101
Free resources for Shift Your Spirits readers:
- Read the eBook by Slade Roberson especially for beginners who want to know who/what spirit guides are and how to communicate with them
- Listen to the mp3 preview of the Spirit Guide Attunement portion of the Talking to Your Spirit Guides class by Slade Roberson
- Try the meditation to Meet a Guide contributed by Jeff Lilly of Druid Journal
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41 Responses to “The Keys to a Magical World View”
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I’m delighted to have a name for something I’ve always had - a Magical World View! Like you, I buried this perspective for many years in favor of one more logical, sensible, and grounded in reality. I’m so happy to be reconnecting with it.
I was traveling with my parents one afternoon last fall. As we drove along and I gazed out at the passing landscape, I periodically spotted a hawk high in a treetop. They were numerous that day, hawks high in treetops. After several such remarks, my mother said, “How do you always see so many things that no one else is seeing?” I responded, “Because I’m looking where no one else is looking.”
One morning a couple of months ago while I stood staring out my kitchen window waiting for the coffee to brew, I saw a white squirrel in my yard. I was entranced and astonished, having never seen an albino squirrel before. It was visable only a few minutes and has not reappeared.
I’m certain it was significant - at first I thought there was a message in it’s appearance. But I think now that it was a brief, magical, physical manifestation of one of my guides. Popping in to delightfully remind me of presence, protection, and possibility. A reminder to keep looking where no one else is looking; to see what no one else is seeing. And to trust what I’m seeing.
Slade,
I came upon your blog through a comment you left on Andrea’s Empowered Soul Blog, and I am glad I did. Your posts are thorough and interesting.
My comment on this post is that however one comes upon inspiration, whether through dreams, visions, communications, friends, or plain cogitation, it is important to skillfully put that inspiration into practice. By that I mean that we ultimately bear the responsibility for our actions.
How did our action play out? What were the factors for its success or failure? What can we learn for our next actions? We can in this way increase our understanding about what works and what doesn’t.
Yes, we must always be open to divine guidance. But it is we who act and reap the results of our actions, so we must act with ever increasing wisdom and skill.
I hope this doesn’t seem too pedantic. I just have to sound a bit wise when I am posting to such a blog!
Lola,
Excellent!
Hawks & Albino Squirrels… Wow!
Thanks for lending your perspective on this — even though I wrote at length, you still managed to find something wonderful to say that could not exist without your comment.
Obviously magical how that would be so.
ReddyK,
You do indeed sound wise. Thanks for reminding us about the importance of the follow through.
I am assuming we all at least start out wanting divine guidance, and would always intend to use it well. My expectation is positive and my will is strong, and I strive to match the efforts of my guides, from this side.
Great comment!
Your questions are valuable additions - thank you for sharing them.
Slade,
A portentous camping trip I once took with my sister is the clearest example I have of the Magical World View you describe at work. Here are the highlights of this long (and hilarious) story:
The morning we set out for the campground, three hours distant, it was thunderstorming. We went anyway, and I said “I hope this weather doesn’t keep up all weekend!” By the time we hit the open highway, the rain had stopped and the clouds parted. The weather stayed beautiful.
That night there was karaoke and dancing at the campground pavillion. We sat out of sight in the back, admiring a certain guy who really knew how to two-step. I said to her: “Ooh, I wanna dance with that guy!” By the next song, he was whirling me around the dance floor.
On the drive in, we passed an all night waffle-place, and my sister said: “Yum. I wish we could eat there tonight!” Mr. Two-Step and his buddy invited us to that very restaurant for dinner, with no hints from us.
In short, every little thing, I mean EVERYTHING, we voiced out loud as a wish or a want, happened. It was magical. This is not to say that nature or Spirit Guides were some type of genie at our beck and call, but we went out of our comfort zone and into a remote natural setting, with little idea of what to expect.. And I think we were jostled and winked at and rewarded for our trust in the Powers-that-Be. Because of that trust, it was a great time!
Sarah,
Yes!
I personally feel this is either more likely to happen (or easier to notice when it happens) when you go outside your everyday routine.
Obey impulses that require spontaneity. When you go the same route, to the same destination, over and over again without giving the Universe an opportunity to step in playfully and wink at you… well, you end up each time exactly where you expect to.
By removing yourself from the predictable, you invite the unpredictable to come and dance with you. How you respond, behave, and act in those moments says a lot about you.
Is this the basis for why we love a Road Trip?
Slade,
I know I have said this to you before but I will share it with everyone….
My daughter (4) talks to her faeries all the time, one even has a name, Matilda, and I know that she and her sister are very in tune with nature. Paige her younger sister (2) loves to be outside, and literally “hugs” the trees and says hi to “birds” inside our house. There is something to be said for listening and being in tune with the world around us. So many people forget to commune with nature in the rat race that we live in. I am lucky that my daughters have reminded me that we are constantly receiving messages from everywhere, so why not the trees!! What a special conversation and experience you had, thank you for sharing it with us. Someday soon I hope to be able to see more clearly all the keys, to speak with the trees, and see the faeries that are with us!
Erin
This is an excellent strike up for a conversation! I find too many people get into a constant routine everyday, which of course is good to an extent. However, they miss so much going on in the world around them when they stick to one path. After opening up with my guide, I found other ways to drive to work and to get home. Why drive the highway when I have a beautiful back road that sweeps my imagination into high gear? Almost in a hypnotic state driving to work and when I get there, it’s like, “how did I get here?” I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about!
I like Lola’s comment! People aren’t looking in the right places. Many have tunnel vision and see nothing in nature but trees, birds, rivers. I’ve taught myself to look beyond that and “hear” nature. A group of cardinals live outside my house in a tree next to my bedroom window. Cardinals are my spouse’s favorite birds. I think it’s great that we get a nice song every morning when we open our eyes, however, since when do cardinals chirp at night? In the middle of the night? Started happening to me when I looked passed a couple birds in a tree….
The other day I was coming home from the grocery store with my two-year-old son and I asked him to listen to the birds chirp. We listened for a few minutes and watched them flutter in and out of the bare branches, when, out of no where, a blue jay flew in and sat next to a cardinal. MY favorite bird is a blue jay. My thoughts to my guide earlier where about my spouse and I taking the next step in our relationship.
A while back, we were sitting out on our deck. Our son was playing in the yard and we were sitting on the steps watching him and talking about random stuff. A seed fell down into my spouce’s lap, kinda looked like a sunflower seed, but black and a little bigger. We don’t have any trees hanging above our deck or where we were sitting….I can think of so many meanings of a seed right now, as I’m sure everyone can. We knew what it meant, and we thanked our guides.
Nature’s voice is so beautiful…you just have to listen.
Erin,
I loved hearing about your girls’ connection to the trees and fairies in our correspondence — I’m so glad you decided to share that with everyone.
How fortunate you are to have kids there to remind you to listen in that special way in which children truly excel… No doubt, they teach you, even as you teach them, if you’re open to it.
Your own cute little spiritual gurus, right there, creating a fantastic chaos of legos and crayons — what fun!
Bronya,
I too am a big believer in “driving alternate routes” — I think we all know that hypnotic, lost time state you describe.
While I can’t always realistically break up my paths each day, I do pay particular attention to that impulse to “get off at a different exit”… Today. Here and there.
All those Birds and Seeds — insights flying and falling right out of the sky… Cool.
Someone asked me in an email “What’s the difference between just seeing a bird, and Receiving A Message from A Bird?” A huge part of the equation is your choice and perspective in the moment.
Slade,
I have lived several of these kind of situations, and I must say that they do tend to happen far more often when we’re outside our routine. To truly be aware of one’s surroundings is the first step of inviting the magic into one’s life. The challenge is to find these moments precisely in all the everyday situations.
Belief also has a huge part to play. Everything can be a miracle, or nothing - it’s basically our choice.
Wonderful message Slade!
I had the keys, you showed me one of the locks!
I’ve known that nature has been talking to me, I’ve understood some of the messages but your article helped to clear some of the fog!
Your timing is impecable! I have taken a few more steps to explore the wiccan world, opening further to the magic of our everyday lives! I am looking forward to visiting with our invisible companions - fairies, unicorns, …
Who would have thought I’d embark on this journey at 50!!
Slade,
You always find the most unique and wonderful images to
accompany your posts. I would come just for the view.
As was writing this I noticed you have a link about
your image use….. In case anyone else missed it..
http://sladeroberson.com/image-credits/
You ask…how do you ‘interpret the signs and symbols’.
I don’t actually interpret to the symbol level, but I use the signs that come
my way as a point of mindfulness. To bring me
back to the moment of the day.
I’ve noticed you are footnoting your signature
with a snippet of your post, I am going to write those
snippets on index cards for affirmations for myself.
Dated…… of course.
Slade…… every single post I read of yours,
I get to the end and I am thankful that you
listened about blogging.
Love
Deb
Slade,
One of the important points you make is that you have to be open and willing to receive outside the intellect (box?). You will NOT see or hear it if you don’t believe it can be seen or heard. You have to essentially “facilitate” these deeper, outside-the-box, messages (you appear to be just such a facilitator).
The sensory perception is servant to the intellect and observes what it is taught to observe. Spiritual Sight allows more esoteric, alternative interpretations, but breaking from the intellectual paradigm can be difficult, since it demands exclusivity.
As a clinical social worker for 25 yrs my primary population is children and teens. Many I have worked with for several years and I was witness to the inevitable stifling of Spiritual Sight that these children are compelled (parents) to allow. The wonder, joy and awe of “experience” is slowly sapped and replaced with intellectual logic and dry, rational interpretation. Is it any wonder that many often turn to drugs and alcohol for some semblance of relief! (however, I do believe the two can be merged, but that requires the skill of differentiating when to apply intellect and when to leave it out).
Hell, it’s only been the last few years that I was able to even slightly break free of that paradigmatic incarceration. However, I do believe that once you get a feel for it, then there’s no turning back simply because it feels pretty damn good!
Thanks
Mike S
Slade,
I agree with you completely. There is a big difference seeing nature and having nature communicate with you depending on your thoughts at the moment. If I would have seen my prayer mantis at any other time, I think I would have thought, “Wow! A prayer mantis” However, being my thoughts were What should I do? seconds before walking out the door to find myself this magnificent creature, I understood what he was telling me to do.
I just want to leave work today and go lay in the middle of the forest today and speak to nature. For some reason, that’s where I’ve been getting a lot of my answers these days. I asked my guide for my intuition to heighten, and I got it!
Bronya
Hi Slade,
I love how you look for affirmation from the world around you in this post. We are communicating on so many different levels all of the time, we can’t not do it! It comes out in our voices, the way we hold our bodies, the expressions of our faces and let’s face it…we can feel it in the energy around us as well.
If we can see this so plainly among humans, it makes total sense that the same systems exist on higher levels of consciousness.
I like to think of the plant and animal life I encounter as the body of that one-mind reflecting to me its vast communication systems and take the same calibration techniques I’ve learned working with people and use them to achieve a greater rapport with everything around me
It definitely has created a magickal world view…and I’m blow away by how the stream of communication is constant. I often think that the universe longs for nothing more than to have this kind of relationship dance with us!
Much love,
PK
Slade,
So sorry I didn’t get a chance to chime in earlier, but it was “one of those weeks” last week. There is, however, an unexpected benefit from waiting to comment. I get to read what everyone else has to say first!
In any case, I just wanted to say that this post couldn’t have come at a better time for me personally. (I did actually read it last week; I just couldn’t take the time to comment until now.) As my relationship with my main guide deepens, my dream-symbolism has become crystal clear, much more vivid, and more frequent. But just recently that dream-symbolism has spilled over into my waking life in the form of signs & symbols.
I’ve always been one to find meaning in everything, but sometimes my “logic demons” kick in & scream at me that if I want to find a symbol to support the answer that I want to hear, then I surely will find that sign or symbol.
Of course, now I’ve got waking signs & symbols supporting my dream symbolism, and vice versa. How awesome is that???
In the interest of brevity, I’m not going to share with you my current signs & symbols. (That would take at least 10 pages of explanation, so I’ll spare you all!) But I will share with you some waking symbolism that happened a few years ago….
It was February of 2000, and my paternal grandmother (biological age 87; spiritual age 20-something) was dying, physically speaking of course. She was staying with us so we could take care of her. The day she came to stay, a funny-looking grey-ish bird perched itself on our backyard fence.
My grandmother loved, loved, LOVED birds! But it was February, and a cold February at that (even here in Southern California), so it was odd to see that type of bird hanging around. My mother & I started referring to this bird as “grandpa come to watch over his wife.” (He had passed away in 1980.)
Long story short, my grandmother crossed over about a week and a half later. The very morning after she passed, a second bird showed up & joined the first one on our backyard fence. They stayed there awhile, looking in at us the whole time. When my mother & I finally acknowledged, “Look, now grandma has joined grandpa!” — that’s when both birds took off flying in a northerly direction.
Whether or not this was truly a manifestation of my grandparents, or manifestations of my spirit guides with a message, it doesn’t really matter. The message was clear: my grandparents are together, and they are happy & free as birds.
…One more thing, I think when it comes to signs & symbols, acknowledgment is key. If the sign/symbol dissipates or disappears — or flies away, as in the case of birds — after you acknowledge your receipt of the message, you can be reasonably sure that message came from your Spirit Guides.
Love & Light,
Jewels
Julie,
It has been “one of those weeks” for me too.
I am SO glad that you came back to share this — your story about the birds is fantastic — and exactly the kind of experience I was hoping to hear from you.
What a great memoir. And very well told (given the limited space of a comment).
I agree with you about Acknowledging the signs, certainly.
I’m often asked “How do you know the difference between just a bird in the backyard and a Bird with a Message?” My answer is incredibly simple: Which type of experience does it feel like?”
If it feels magical, if it feels significant — it is!
Slade,
“If it feels magical, if it feels significant — it is!”
YES!
JJ
Paula,
I absolutely agree with everything you said.
I think of the Universe dancing with itself through Us — like we are God’s bedroom mirror, and all the plants and animals on “set” are a cast of attending characters, each one of them also reflecting a piece of that Divine Relationship taking place at both a Higher Level and multiple micro-levels, simultaneously…
Does that make sense? You described it well. It’s hard to wrap the mind around, but I have a strong sense of what it feels like…
The details are enormously dynamic, always changing, always unique within each moment, deeply personal in the way we experience the “micro” level of what’s happening.
But the one over-arching perspective is that it is, to use your word — constant.
I love the book “Care of the Soul” for its allusions into archetypes, mythology, and the magical view of an interconnected world.
I go into the forest at night on a regular basis. I sit next to the tree and listen. I listen with my heart and my soul, and am regularly taught lessons. Not technical lessons, but about deeper listening, the connection with the earth, and being part of a true community.
Loving Awareness : A Journey to Wholeness
Matthew,
Thanks for leaving the book recommendation, and sharing your magical forest experience.
Hi, I finally got around to reading this article and I am glad that I did. I don’t talk to trees usually but I do feel things from them. I have never voiced that to anyone before. I feel a kinship with trees. When we bought our home about 8 years ago, I made a point of going out into the yard and I actually did talk with each of the big oak trees and the pecan tree in our yard. I told them that I would be their caretaker for as long as we lived here. I asked for their blessing. When my husband graduated from college and started looking for a job, I told him that I would follow him wherever he chose to go as long as their were trees around. To me, trees offer healing. I can’t tell you how I know that, I just do. To me, trees have a magical quality that I deeply connect with.
When my first grandchild was born, I would sometimes take her outside for walks around the yard and we would both stay still and just look up at the trees overhead. She seemed to love the magic of the trees as much as I did. There was an awe about the moments we shared outside just staring at the trees that I will always remember.
Thanks for existing. Your majic connected with mine today. I booked marked your page.
I live in the enchanted land of Abundant Blessings in a purple castle (my wife is in charge of color).
James,
Thanks for the comment and the bookmark. I do hope you will come back again. Purple sounds like the perfect color to me for a castle in a land of Abundant Blessings.
Slade,
I came to your website via stumble upon. I just want to say that I’ve never seen, heard or felt a ghost or spirit or anything like what you claim to experience. I’m not sure how much I believe in all or any of this. However, the tree communication you described as “intuitive impulses”..well….. 9 years ago. University Campus. Large Older Tree. I can’t deny the strangest walk back from class I ever had.
[...] Intuition has always been very hard to describe for me. Generally it’s nothing more than a whisper, easily mistaken for the senseless chatter of the unconscious; it’s only the worldview I choose that gives the word its significance. Other times, such as this one, it’s a feeling so strong that it just forces me to drop everything and follow my gut. As usual, I found out about it the same day it was going to happen. As usual, the lazy part of me tried to convince me that it wasn’t going to be anything special; but as usual, the overwhelmingly strong urge to be there got the best of me. [...]
Wow !!! Thank you thank you thank you !! I trully thought I was going out of my mind..
I have been living between both worlds most of my life ..I NEVER spoke about my experiences to anyone..least of all my connection and friendship with my dear friends and the knowledge they have shared with me over the last decade.
I have been so grateful with my experiences and have a message to all who seek to live in this incredible world so filled with light and love and magical wonders.
FORGET growing up!! we never get old ..we just grow wiser. This is the key to the doorway or the vale of illusion that holds us back from our true spiritual physical evolution. My kids call me a devine wizard ..i think we all are.
This era is the most important era of our time..the Magical world view is very much as real as our logical perception of this current reality that so many of us have chosen to experience.
Devine,
Your mission is a great message — thanks for sharing it!
Oh thank you slade..but there is so much more. Over the years I have had the blessing to spend a lot of time learning and absorbing the wonders of the elements.
I have had the good fortune of learning so much from this incredible and magical world that at one point I was starting to experience an information overload. There is a veil or doorway or wall if you will that separates us from the magical kingdom.
Yet it is so thin that if a person so chooses he or she can cross over at anytime..
it is the journey of walking out of darkness in to light. For me ,my journey began over 15 years ago when while meditating I was greeted by a wonderful ” Fairy”
As it came to me as such a shock I brushed the experience off as a part of my imagination or a residue of that which I wanted to experience. To my surprise she returned to me on many occasions .
Finally we spoke and she told me that i should check her name out to see if she was for real..so i did. Now I will not go into this in depth.All i can and will say is that it turned out that she had been experienced by many others over the years and recognised as a fairy queen ..
I know how that sounds and yet i cannot stress enough on how un phased I am by other peoples opinions on this as it continues to be a part of my life and for that I am trully grateful .
Anyway from what I am told we are part of an incredible dance of life .Our thoughts our positive dreams and images create incredible energy matrixes . These in turn are raising the overall conciousness of mankind to the next magnificent level. I was told that because of mankinds material busy world we were loosing our ability to dream and create, and for that reason there was a huge influx of magical stories movies and the like given to mankind to help rekindle the light within us all. Ever wonder why harry potter has sold so many books? I was given an key that i would like to share with anyone wants to reconnect with themselves and the elements and elementals.. before i do let me say this.. Its free and its up to you !! and its simple . Every morning you before you actually get out of your bed..at lunchtime before you eat and just before you go to sleep repeat these words . Believe what you say ..its hard at first but after a while you will be able to say it out loud and really feel it. When you do know that all the elements and plants are feeling what you express at that moment. So after a while take a moment to be around trees or plant when you say these incredible words. Ok here it is as it was told to me
” I LOVE MY LIFE “…….
Thats it..simple . no frills no special effects no rituals or tribal dances ..just I LOVE MY LIFE three times each time. Listen to the sound of your voice. Find a mind voice and hear it.
Try it for a week and if your not happy with the results stop.
Now get out there and spread love ,light and a sprinkle of magic .
Slade - Coming in real late on reading this. I loved this message and this post. I’ve had some experiences and didn’t quite know what they meant. Last May 2007, my father-in-law passed away and we were all back in Ohio for the memorial service which was on Saturday the day before Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day I got up to be with my mother-in-law while the house was quiet and everyone was asleep. All of a sudden I heard this honking over and over again. I walked outside to look to see where it was coming from and there was a Canadian goose walking back and forth on the roof honking. Just as my mother-in-law went to the back door she saw the two of them flying off together. I felt it was a message from Dad wishing her a Happy Mother’s Day and seeing them together again someday.
Another happening was several years ago when I was out in the yard doing some gardening and I got up to walk towards the house to let our dog in. As I was walking across the driveway a large shadow passed over head so fast and close I ducked just from the shadow. It had passed so quickly. I looked up and I saw what I thought was an eagle soaring in large circles above. I don’t really know what to take from that. I know I felt deep respect and honor for the eagle as if I was on holy ground and felt humbled having witnessed a miracle.
Thank you for such a wonderful post. I enjoyed reading the stories written by the others. It is a magical world and we’re creating in it.
Pat R,
Thank you for adding your personal stories here — both are wonderful examples. All these bird experiences, especially, strike me as the obvious source for all the ancient and persistent bird imagery and motifs that we find in heraldry and other human graphic depictions of power…
Today was incredible. I was watching television kind of just thinking about my life and where im going when in the background i heard this huge chatter of birds.I looked out of my window and saw nothing.curious as to where it was comming from I searched EVERY tree in all my windows in my house to know avail. Finnaly I went outside to a tree in my garden that i cannot see from my house..to my amazement there was about Fifty birds all in this one tree. I am not sure what it meant ,all I could think of was writing it down where it might mean something to someone here..please reply if it does. As i am writing this I can hear them almost applauding in the background..strange.
By the way..if anyone would like to see these wonderful Birds ,I managed to capture most of them in a photo on my blog page.
Devine,
I’m especially struck by this very literary analogy of the birds “applauding” — that’s very cool! I don’t think I’ll ever hear another tree full of birds chattering away and not think of this image.
Hi Slade,
I received two reminders today about my recent pursuit, my way to seeing reality.
The first one was pretty hard-nosed. If I was going to see reality, I’d have to accept everything put before me, right down to the nitty-gritty. I bristled. I was in the midst of no flexibility, kind of accept it or else. And the or else left me wanting.
The second reminder was this post. A touch of magic is not only ok, but it is just as necessary to what is so very real laid out before me. Even if I don’t always see it, smell it, taste it, touch it. I just know it’s there. And it can make my eyes sparkle at the mere thought.
In a sense then, both those views of reality exactly the same.
As usual, you write so beautifully!! I’m interested in interpreting my dreams and symbolisms. I am pretty sure that my guides have been showing patterns and signs to me in response to my asking. It’s just that I am not very good at recognizing them.
My two little girls believe in fairies. They have not seen any but they believe in Neverland, Peter Pan, and gardens with talking animals. At their age, a lot of other kids would have grown out of these, most likely told by their parents or someone that they are not real. My response to my kids is always that they can only see what they believe in!!
Slade, I would like to share my little story about a very special tree given to me by my late mother, it grew from an offshoot from a fully grown lilac tree (my favourite). Years ago, when all seemed hopeless, I couldn’t get finance from any bank to remortgage my home after divorce. I’d spent days talking to Bank Managers, even visiting Government Housing Department to find alternative home (with no help there either!). When all seemed hopeless, I held a blossom of this tree in my hand & shared my feelings of absolute despair - when a little voice said to me “It will be alright”. Shortly after my solicitor phoned me, said don’t give up on me tonight, give up tomorrow, phone this Credit Union they are lending money to anyone at present. I phoned them and my finance was approved over the phone & I signed the papers next day!
Also birds & bumblebees too - I love them & what messages they bring! I have had them sitting in my hand looking straight into my eyes! I saved a young female sparrow this last week, when I took her to a safe spot to fly away, she wouldn’t leave me, I tried again & told her to watch out for “that big mean puddytat” she still would not leave me, so I put her in my aviary with finches, doves & cockatiels. She seems happy enough, but if she says I want my freedom I will let her go. Ain’t nature just wonderful?
Trees teach us to ground ourselves, yet be flexible to sway with the wind and move with the changes, not to become rigid and snap in the first big storm that comes along. To shed our old leaves and renew ourselves to begin again.
Hi Slade,
good stuff. two points:
when trees talk to me, it comes as thoughts in my own mind - the same way I channel my spirit guides. I am convinced that everyone receives messages in this way, but it wouldn’t occur to them that “their” thoughts are actually coming from outside of them - from trees, plants, spirit guides (or demons, as the case may be). When you have a problem you need resolved, just go to a big tree and sit there and try to still your mind (listen to sounds, or whatever) and - voila! it’ll happen. Or, you can use automatic writing to listen to what trees want to tell you. I have instructions posted in the Magic 101 folder on my ezine site http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/Magic%20101/ for anyone who is interested.
second, the direction the crow flew off in has a definite bearing. My totem animal is the eagle, but since there are few eagles where I live my guides told me that any large hawk can be a messenger for me. That I am to observe the hawk or eagle until it disappears, and the direction in which it disappears will indicate what the omen means. For example, in my personal case, the southeast is my joy direction, so a hawk disappearing to the southeast indicates a joyous event about to happen. The north, on the other hand, is where things are cut off or terminated. This is just for me … everyone has to figure out this information for themselves (but that’s what spirit guides are for - to explain that kind of stuff).
xoxo,
Bob
Incredible. Yes, the trees talk to me. And I talk to them. And to the birds. I’ve had some incredible experiences with birds and once had a barn own come live with me.
I’ve had a red tail hawk come at my request and resolve a problem. Talk about air support! And the weather spirits. The wind! Yes, the wind.
I am so very blessed. One day a few years back, I decided that the “magical world view,” was the choice for my life as well. In a way, I’ve always lived in this world, but I made the conscious choice. And once I did…
And the elementals are everywhere. Just tonight I saw their faces in the fire. so many different faces.
Amazing.
What a truly wonderful world in which we live.
Hmm, trees, birds and lotsa magical people — my kinda place
Wish I had time to read more thoroughly all of these posts. I actually clicked a link on Twitter to get here, to read on the 11:11 thing…
I adore trees, feel love from them, but, other than symbolically, haven’t receive any direct messages. But I’ve gotten messages from animals, primarily birds, for several years. I too live in the magical world
It was conveyed to me “intuitively” that once we’re there, there’s really no going back — who’d want to? 
The Universe deemed me “Dove” a few years ago, and I have a plethora of winged totems, so I’m definitely in my element among those who connect with birds…and Nature. I first discovered the magic of it all through the Tarot, and then through totems (animal symbols)…and now it’s so obvious that it’s all a different kind of a “dream.” Most recently it’s become quite amazing to me how easily I can get answers from a book. That is, I ask a question and then randomly open the book — and there’s the answer. Often, it’s mind-blowingly specific. I love it
Yeah, the more we do this and are open to it, the more potent it becomes…the more we “know” it — and the more awesome and “miraculous” our experiences become.
Peace,
Dove
11dovelove11 on Twitter
dovelove on Wordpress
“Trees teach us to ground ourselves, yet be flexible to sway with the wind and move with the changes, not to become rigid and snap in the first big storm that comes along, to shed our old leaves and renew ourselves to begin again.”
I love this sentence from Wendy Bassett. Also, I love this one I found on Devine’s site.
“If a couple of great magical things happen to you in the next few days you will understand that there’s a reason why dreamers hang together and meet in wonderful places hidden from the view of the pessimistic and down criers of the impossible.”
Wonderful place you have here, Slade.