And then in she hops....but can I?

“You are being asked to take a leap of faith. Just go ahead and do it without knowing the outcome. Usually this is something that you have avoided doing and is often linked to a large scale change in direction. This can be a change in relationship, career or a change in yourself. Know that you have the wisdom that you need to get past any obstacles in an efficient manner.”

https://www.spirit-animals.com/grasshopper/

It seems, not surprisingly, that it is interactions with other living beings that ignite creative expression and bring me to this long idle blog. Writing to no one in particular, though feeling an overflowing of gratitude that simply must spill over somewhere.

From my weeks with ladybugs in Michigan, today, it was a grasshopper. Quite amazing really, I’m happy I didn’t crash my car. I was driving on the 101 in southern California and happened to catch a glimpse of two very long legs starting to move out from under the flip side of my sun visor. Moving so…yes alive…and they were very long and very close to my face.

Fortunately, I was able to quickly pull over as one of the largest grasshoppers I’ve ever seen worked it’s way around my visor to greet me. We paused taking each other in. I wasn’t worried about me, I just wanted to capture it so that I could return her to Nature. My assumption was that she must’ve gotten into my car the day before when I was transporting huge clumps of yarrow from my community garden space.

I had a few plastic berry baskets ready to return to the famers market so I easily captured her. The baskets were fine enough mesh, or so I thought, that she would stay contained. I wanted to return her to the garden and not leave her in a new town in someone's yard. So off we went. The minor detail was that I needed to stop and protest for an hour at the Wells Fargo Bank.

I returned to my car and found that she’d escaped from the baskets that were on the passenger floor. Once again she was loose in my car. I pulled into the community garden parking lot with a plan to leave all of my windows down and hope for the best. She promptly stepped from around my visor, once again inches from my face watching me! I was so happy. I like my car but it is not a proper home for a grasshopper. Moments later she was happily taking flight to the garden.

Her second appearance truly captured my attention. I sat in the garden parking lot and looked up totem medicine of grasshoppers. Even though I already knew this message. I wanted to see it in black and white and read it again. Grasshopper had visited me almost two years earlier before I moved from my last home…. helping then to nudge me out the door. Seems I need that once again.

“Don’t be afraid to make that leap, remembering all the while that Grasshopper’s only ever jump forward and never backward!”

http://www.shamanicjourney.com/grasshopper-locust-power-animal-symbol-of-leaping-forward

I’m deeply grateful she came back today. We have many teachers all around us. Nature and her spectrum of living beings and phenomena have taught me, and healed me, more than all of my human “teachers” combined. As we awaken - we learn. There are signs and messages every day of our lives…. are you listening closely and truly watching?