Mourning Dove

I can’t begin to tell you the number of times I have had a moment of revelation on my morning walks. I’m not talking about lightning strike, angels singing, heavens opening revelations - though there have been a couple of those! : ) I’m talking about reminders of simple truths or the coming together of pieces of a puzzle.

This morning was a puzzle piece kind of morning. I have been noticing lately how much I like it when the mourning dove takes flight. The sound she makes as she leaps into the air is like laughter. I have just been taking note of it on my walks and enjoying the moment of it. I noticed the contradiction of the laughter compared to her call when she is at rest which sounds sorrowful and so lends her her name, but I hadn’t given it much thought.

That’s usually how the revelations come about, through things I observe and take note of but don’t try to hard to figure out or see. I’ve learned the pieces will come together in their own time, at just the right time for me to absorb the learning they offer.

As I walked along this morning I once again came upon one of these lovely creatures. She took flight as I neared and I heard her joyous laughter. I thought again of the contrast of her joyful cry and her mournful one. That’s when the moment came. I wish I could describe it to you adequately, but it’s as if the pieces come together to form a key that opens a place within my heart where that learning fits. Everything pauses for a moment and I say, “Oh,” as I see the connections and the opening happens, I breathe it in and the lesson settles into my heart like the dove settling on her perch.

The lesson of the dove was a reminder of something I’ve written about many times, the bond between joy and grief. This morning it was timely for things I’m moving through in my life right now; moments of great joy intertwined with moments of sadness. What the mourning dove reminded me of was that the sadness is grounded and earthly and a natural part of the process, but that the joy filled laughter comes with taking flight.

I am about to take flight into a new chapter in my life and I will leap with glee into that flight, but I will also occasionally settle on my perch and let my mournful cry come. It won’t keep me from my flight though, any more than it keeps the dove from hers.

Intuition

I guess I had never really taken the time to look at the word intuition. But knowing me, it was bound to happen eventually! So if you break it down into two words you get in tuition. Surprisingly, that surprised me. I had never noticed the wisdom of that before.

Yet, there it is as plain as day, the truth about intuition. The most literal meaning being, in instruction or more accurately for my human journey, in the process of learning. And what better way to learn than by using my intuition, my inner knowing?  There is where I find the less literal meaning, inner tuition – instruction gained within, at that place where all wisdom, all knowing can be found, a place I would call Divine wisdom. Why would I want to live any other way?

Well, it’s not so much that I would want to live another way, but that I sometimes allow myself to get distracted by the daily human stresses, problems, issues, etc. I mentioned that it is a human journey right?

So it then becomes a process of stillness. In any moment I can choose to be still and listen for that instruction, that wisdom within me. In any moment I can choose to focus my attention on my inner knowing rather than my outer distractions and then live from that place, interact with the distractions from that place. It definitely shifts my perspective on what is before me.

When I allow my intuition to guide me more clearly and more regularly, then those distractions become something else all together, they become moments in the classroom. They also begin to lose the power that I have given them to even be what I would call a distraction; they lose their power to create stress or disruption in my life and instead can become objects of gratitude for lessons learned.

Most importantly, when I am allowing for the stillness to listen to the inner wisdom, that inner wisdom and knowing eventually become the expression of my being. That is my goal; to be a pure expression of that inner, Divine wisdom and energy. Will I achieve that goal in this lifetime? For me that is irrelevant. The practice of it is enough to shift my life and even the world around me in a positive way and so I will continue on my journey of inner tuition.

As intuition would have it, I listened to the nudge to wait and post this after my morning walk today. Why? Apparently so that as a confirmation of this line of thought I would see a car drive by me with the license plate Hear Now. : ) I smiled inside and out.

PS - Would my intuition ever lead me astray? How could it when the origin of the word intuition comes from the Latin word tuitionem (nom. tuitio) meaning "a looking after, defense, guardianship?” How comforting to know that there is something within me that is always looking after me.