Animal Sign

When Animals Cross Your Path

Everyone has had an experience where an animal has crossed our path in the physical world and we wondered if it means something. How many times have you asked, or been asked, wonder what that wolf, deer, squirrel is trying to tell me?

Nearly all Shamanistic societies believe animals in the physical and spiritual worlds come to us for our own good to deliver messages.

When animals cross our path in the physical world they maybe bringing a warning or a message as guidance. They’re a “here in the now” kind of message that impacts our physical world.

But depending on the animal, they can cross their influence of meaning between the physical and spiritual worlds. Perhaps we’re not being as perceptive as we should be or we maybe we need to pay attention to a message from spirit that affects our physical choices. Listening to our gut feelings is an important part of living in balance and nature is all about balance. Continue reading →

The Nature Above Our Heads

Sep18

The Super Invisible Bug Highway

Look up at the sky and what do you see? Well, blue, yes. And maybe a plane or a bird, but otherwise … nothing. Or so you think. It turns out that right above you, totally invisible, is an enormous herd of animal life — tiny bugs riding the wind currents.
~ NPR On YouTube

I saw this on NPR and absolutely had to share. It’s all science and nature and entertaining and I learned something and I love ALL that stuff.

You’ve seen birds use updrafts to soar high in the clouds. These pockets of heated warm air can help large birds, like Turkey Vultures gain lift on wind currents so they don’t have use all their energy flapping their big wings. Not to mention big birds like this can weigh up to 5lbs or more.

Now imagine that same updraft if you a tiny little ladybug. You might not ride on the wind current totally on purpose as much as simply getting caught in the updraft and being carried away. How high could a little ladybug go? Pretty high actually, but they’re not the highest fliers! Take a look at this:

Full Moon Friday the 13th 2014

Jun13

The Math Genius Is Working On That

Yesterday I asked the question “How rare is today’s event?” How often does the 13th fall on a Friday? How often does a Full Moon fall on a Friday? How often does a Full Moon fall on a Friday the 13th?

According to my Moon Phase Pro (yes there’s an app for that):
In the next 260 weeks: (approx. 5 years from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2019)
There are 11 Friday the 13ths.
There are 11 Full Moons that fall on a Friday.
There is 1 Full Moon that falls on Friday the 13th.

On Friday the 13th of January 2017 the full moon will be just past full, 98% full to be exact. Close, but not officially a full moon day which will be January 12th. So we can’t count that one.

The Next Full Moon Friday the 13th will be in August 2049. According to Space.com

Ok, great but I want to know how rare this really is. That requires a lot more math than I know. So I asked my local math genius. Continue reading →

The Wicked Storm of 2014

May1

~ April Flooding by Springwolf 2014 ~

April’s Slow Moving Rain Storm

PBS NewsHour declared it as “Slow-moving storm drowns parts of Southeast with record rainfall”. Torrents of rain caused severe flooding in parts of the Florida panhandle and coastal Alabama. Some parts of Alabama saw up to 26 inches of rain in 24 hours, and powerful thunder and lightning storms overnight knocked out power to thousands. Also, a train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire in downtown Lynchburg, Virginia.

Here in Virginia the rain was torrential for several days. It moved into the commonwealth April 28th on an early Tuesday morning as a nice spring rain. Washing away the pollen and bring some much-needed rain.

At times the gentle sprinkles gave way to a calm relaxing rain. Nothing unusual for this time of year. But it never stopped. It never gave way to brief moments of damp humidity that so often comes with rain in the Old Dominion.

As the afternoon wore on, the rain fell harder and lasted longer in its downpour. We began seeing streams of water build up on the sides of our yard and flow down the small hill to the lake at the end of our property.

Then the winds came. Tornadoes had touched down through the regions where the storm had already crossed the south and south-east. Now it was in our backyard. We watched as the rain-soaked trees bent over to the east against the strong wind. Worried if we would be facing a disaster of our own when one of the giant oaks or pines falling upon the house. Thankfully we were spared that night. Continue reading →

Living With Wolves

Apr22

The Sawtooth Pack

In 1990, Jim Dutcher was given captive pups and a permit to set up a 25 Acre Wolf observation camp in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho, where Living with Wolves” was filmed. He was later joined by his wife, naturalist Jamie Dutcher and together they lived with the wolves for six years. The Dutchers spent their time, filming, documenting and living amongst these wolves in their natural habit, studied their habits, personalities and family characteristics. Their experience was turned into a beautiful documentary about the Sawtooth Pack.

The “Sawtooth Pack” were later sold to the Wolf Education and Research Center,(a non-profit organization he founded) in conjunction with the Native American “Nez Perce” and moved to northern Idaho.

Baby Wolf’s First Lesson

Apr5

Learning To Howl

Wolf researcher Shaun Ellis, best known for his “A Man Among Wolves” documentary film helps to teach a baby wolf how to howl!

When we brought Merlin home from the Wolf Rescue, he was already talking with the pack. But all babies have to learn how to communicate with their families. Wolves have a complex language with varying yips, yelps, barks, whines and of course howls. But even the howls aren’t all the same.

Like any baby a, wolf pup begins learning how to communicate with the pack as soon as it begins to recognize sound. Even though howling comes naturally to wolves, they still need to learn the subtle language of their pack. No different from a baby born in the U.S. or one born in France. We all have differences in the language we use to speak with others in our region or pack. All babies mimic their parents and I believe wolves are no different in that respect. Continue reading →

Fenrir The Norse Wolf

Mar29

The Monster Wolf

In the 13th century Snorri Sturluson composed a compilation of Norse stories and tales known as the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda. He was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician born sometime in 1179, he died in 23 September 1241. His greatest legacy are the Eddas which captured Norse Mythology and are still used today as resources for study and capturing the deep oral history of Icelanders.

From Wikipedia:
In both the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, Fenrir is the father of the wolves Sköll and Hati Hróðvitnisson, [he] is a son of Loki, and is foretold to kill the god Odin during the events of Ragnarök, but will in turn be killed by Odin’s son Víðarr. ~ Fenrir

In Norse Mythology, the Gods have the ability to see the future which gives them a chance to alter its outcome. They see the warnings of Fenrir and grow concerned over his rapid growth. They attempt to bind him, but during the struggle Fenrir bites off the right hand of the god Týr. Continue reading →

Fables

Mar29

The Moral Of The Story

According to Wikipedia:
A Fable is a literary genre. A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities such as verbal communication), and that illustrates or leads to an interpretation of a moral lesson (a “moral”), which may at the end be added explicitly in a pithy maxim. A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech and other powers of humankind. ~ Fable

The most well-known worldwide fable is the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf: Continue reading →

The Full Wolf Moon

Mar28

January’s Full Moon

Every month and occasionally twice in a single month, you’ll find the moon in its full moon phase. Ages ago, cultures around the world kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full moon.

The names they gave to their full moons were based on their culture, their region of the world, the timing of seasonal changes.

For instance here in North America, winter arrives much earlier in the far north than it does in the far south. That will affect the weather and therefore how the people of those areas see the moon and it’s phases. Continue reading →

Jack London – Sea Wolf

Mar28

Sea Wolf by Jack London on Gutenberg

American Novelist

Jack London (1876-1916).
The novelist and short-story writer Jack London was, in his lifetime, one of the most popular authors in the world. After World War I his fame was eclipsed in the United States by a new generation of writers, but he remained popular in many other countries, especially in the Soviet Union, for his romantic tales of adventure mixed with elemental struggles for survival.

John Griffith London was born in San Francisco on Jan. 12, 1876. His family was poor, and he was forced to go to work early in life to support himself. At 17 he sailed to Japan and Siberia on a seal-hunting voyage.

He was largely self-taught, reading voluminously in libraries and spending a year at the University of California. In the late 1890s he joined the gold rush to the Klondike. This experience gave him material for his first book, ‘The Son of Wolf’, published in 1900, and for ‘Call of the Wild’ (1903), one of his most popular stories. Continue reading →

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