Coffee, Bedhead and the Beetle

I'm sitting here this morning with coffee and bed~head and my inner critic...a little writer's remorse still lingering from the blog's birthing this week...over-thinking everything.

What goes up must come down, as they say. Birthing my blog on Tuesday took me up, up, up to the heights of joy, celebration, and freedom. I was so lifted and elated I couldn't fall asleep until 4 am that night. Although a serious night owl by nature, since getting sick with lyme disease 4 yrs ago, sleep deprivation is a dangerous slippery slope for me now. No luxury to sleep in late Wednesday morning so by the time I published my second blog post about the cricket's song on Wednesday afternoon, I was very overtired feeling quite vulnerable and physically unwell. Already acutely aware I was on the cusp of a lyme flare, I started going down physically, mentally and emotionally, slowly but steadily, struggling to sustain a sense of joy while attempting to successfully silence the inner critic's "writer's remorse". It's very hard to keep a good attitude in the midst of a very tired, aching, inflamed, congested physical body and brain fog. I can't help but wonder which comes first - the physical crash and then the mental, emotional and spiritual crash or the mental, emotional, spiritual crash and then the physical. And then I hear the cricket's Sunday song of heaven and earth in my innermost self and I'm reminded again that there is really no separation between spirit and matter, so I can just give up trying to figure out which comes first. Pick one or the other as my starting point, open my heart, and change will come. All I can do is work with where I Am right now and that means putting myself first and taking care of me. Sometimes that feels really selfish but I'm learning the hard way that I don't have anything left to give to anyone or anywhere else in my life if I don't give to myself first.

So, I made a commitment to thursday as my self-care, healing and "me" day and scheduled a massage and a NAET treatment (an energetic allergy elimination/desensitization treatment process). I had an amazing massage that supported me physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, with the healing physical touch as well as powerful energetic and shamanic clearings and messages and totems coming through both my masseuse and my own inner connections with spirit. I noticed how much I'd been unconsciously holding my breath. There was no space to take in any breath. So much constriction and pain in my body. So much purging and detoxing is moving through at the physical levels as I move through all these layers of fear and a lifetime of disowning my authentic power.
A few hours after massage I went for a NAET treatment. Just as Dr. Dorothy was about to begin my treatment she noticed a dead but incredibly beautiful neon green beetle sitting on top of her notepad. She brought it immediately over to show it to me and said she had no idea what this was or where this had come from; that it wasn't there before my session. I gasped and said "it's a beetle!" and I felt my heart leap for joy! The scarab/beetle is a deeply sacred personal totem for me. I told her this was a powerful sign for me and of course I brought it home with me to place on my mesa/medicine altar. Having never seen a green beetle before, I googled it and found out it's a June bug beetle! Of course I took a picture of it so I can share it with you here.

I can't believe I had another insect show up yesterday in the strangest way as a messenger for my journey through clearing the clutter and putting myself "out there", free of fear, judgment and shame. Well, I guess I can, because it's me! I'm strange and shamanic in that way! A beautiful green June bug beetle...dead but perfectly preserved and so beautiful...showed up just for me...
What does the scarab/beetle mean to me and what is it's message for me right now, in this very moment?
Scarab/Beetle came to me as a personal guide and totem many years ago through the Egyptian Kemetic tradition as Khepra. Scarab represents transformation and change. Divine timing. Death and rebirth. Beetles roll the dung of the earth up and transform it into something useful and very sacred. Scarab is very protective and very grounding. Its belly lies on the earth and yet it also has wings with which to fly. The egyptian scarab has wings that are symbolic of Isis - the Great Mother of the Egyptian Kemetic tradition. So this makes it especially sacred to me because of my intense desire, commitment and soul destiny/life lesson to do my very best to embrace the Great Mother and be a "good Mother" in this lifetime. There is so much symbolism with the beetle - too much for even this loquacious MamaBird to share!

Plain and simple for me, this beautiful June bug beetle reminds me of who I am at my core. It's here to help me see the sacred in all things and in all experiences. It's here to help move me through transformation and change, to ground and protect me as I take the shit of life and all its clutter and turn it into something useful and sacred. It also symbolizes "MamaBird" - the mother that I am striving to be in this lifetime to myself and to my own children and even for the world collectively in my own small individual way. Like the cricket, it's here to help me sing my heart's song and share it with the world.

So far I seem to mostly be clearing the mental and emotional clutter and I'm still struggling to make much progress on the physical/material plane. But one thing is for certain, the sacred messengers are here when needed or called upon, reminding me that everything is interconnected and every change I make matters. I am clearing the clutter in my life. One thought. One breath. One day at a time.

Halfway through my NAET treatment, wearing the purple color therapy glasses that reconnects me with Source and Spirit, I felt the pain leaving my body. I could inhale and breathe deeply again. I felt renewed again. I felt a new lightness of being entering into my mind and lifting me once more into a space of hope and possibilities for a brighter, clearer, cleaner, and yes, even pain-free, clutter-free life. What is dead can be resurrected into a new beginning. There is no beginning. There is no ending. There's only now.
What a world. What a journey. What a blessing.