Hello, Mr. Crab.

Animal Medicine. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps you’ve seen a copy of Ted Andrews classic book Animal Speak. Perhaps you own one.

Animal medicine has been a tremendous influence in my life – animals have many great gifts to give – and yet I’ve continued to be bothered by how closely animal medicine is associated with Native American traditions.

The association bothers me not because I have any quarrel with Native North American traditions, but because it may prevent people who have no affinity or familiarity with those traditions from examining – and benefiting from – their own valuable experiences of animal consciousness.

Native North American Tribes did not invent the affinity of animals with human beings (such teachings are, in fact, likely present in all indigenous traditions) and yet, because their ancient cultures have held on to the belief in – and practice of – learning and healing with animals, culturally we assume that, somehow, animal medicine is a Native American Thing, an indigenous “cultural property.” We may also assume that, to do it right, we need to consult a book, a medicine man or a shaman.

This is not a difficult assumption to make. If you’ve spent your life identifying as a Jew, an Italian, or just a plain American, you normally wouldn’t say you “have a wolf totem” or are “a bear person”. People who generally say this have been introduced to certain indigenous traditions.

And yet…introduction to those traditions is not a necessity for sitting on a beach and connecting with birds. Familiarity with Lakota, Cherokee or Northwestern Tribal traditions is not necessary for being moved with awe at the vision of an eagle or the power of a salmon.

Animal consciousness is available as a teaching and healing tool for all human beings, of all ethnicities, religious backgrounds and belief systems. Wherever there are animals, there is an opportunity to rise above your own limited perceptions and approaches to life. Wherever there are animals, there is an opportunity to see from another’s pure point of view.

Books, medicine men and shamans can surely help. But, when it comes down to it, there’s nothing like the real thing – sitting face to face with another sentient being and letting it tell you its story and give you its gifts. And then giving gratitude, peace and acknowledgment in return.

In this way, we can all become a little more whole, a little more integrated and a little more conscious of what it really means to be alive on this planet.

Dedicated to expanding consciousness, yours and my own, for a new and better world

The further I’ve delved into my practice and the more committed I’ve become, it seems there have been fewer and fewer words to adequately describe what I do and, especially, my experience of doing it.

When  I discovered Rachel Pollack‘s Shining Tribe Tarot deck, I first became a tarot card reader. But the term – and its associations with gypsies, charlatans and basic chicanery – never held much charm for me. Over the years I  toyed with Spiritual Counselor, but it felt too loaded. Coach felt too goal-oriented.  Mystic – too ancient. And Oracle? Too obscure.

A few years ago, I started using the term intuitive. But I was still uncomfortable, as I never forgot hearing Caroline Myss say that pursuing intuition was barking up a wrong tree. “Successful criminals and con artists” she said, are some of the best intuitives out there. There’s nothing special, she said, about intuition. We all have it if we look closely enough and possessing it decrees neither wisdom nor trustworthiness.

Words have always been important to me. As a child, I was an avid reader. As an adolescent, I fell in love with The New York Times Crossword Puzzle and began to write. Later, through my participation at Landmark Education, I learned how powerfully the words we use to describe our experiences – and the stories we tell about ourselves – shape our lives.

So for weeks I’ve been walking around – half in jest/half in frustration – asking out loud:  ”What do I DO??”

Enter Terese Jungle, graphic designer, branding consultant, friend. Consciousness. she kept saying. Consciousness.

Ah, Consciousness. That thing we seek to expand. That thing we seek to raise. Consciousness, that thing between the perception of a problem and the revelation of its solution.

Consciousness. It encompasses the ever-expanding boundaries of scientific knowledge. It refers to the insights of Christ, Jung, Buddha, Joseph Campbell and Stanislav Grof. It addresses desires, emotions, intentions, trauma, dreams and everything in between. And it is informed by shamanism, nature, plant medicine, mushrooms and pharmaceuticals.

Consciousness is why my practice is effective, whether my clients are believers or non-believers, church-going or atheist, skeptical or gullible. Because the people who come to me, whether they are aware of it or not, have an inherent desire to evolve their consciousness. And so do I.

From now on, my new job title is Consciousness Consultant. 

If you got beyond all your own crap, associations, fears, insecurities and doubts, what would  your new job title be?

“What about my job?” He or she will say.

“What about it?” I will respond.

“Well, how’s it gonna go?” They will say.

“Well, how do you want it to go?”

I’m not being difficult. I genuinely want to find out – what does this person really want to know? Do they like their job and want to keep it? Or do they hate their job and want to get a new one?

What’s most interesting to me is not that people aren’t specific when they ask me a question. It’s that, generally, even by the time they’ve made an appointment with me, they haven’t given much thought to what they really want or need to know.

What they do know is that something is nagging at them, or that an uncomfortable situation has gotten to a point where they can’t ignore it anymore — and they need to do something about it. They need to get clear. Ironically, what people often need to get most clear about are the questions themselves. 

What questions are trying to ask themselves in your life? What vague, still unexpressed feeling, is nagging at you? And how could you put that nagging feeling into words?

Questions I frequently recommend people ask me and – importantly -ask themselves, include:

• What is my best approach to this situation?  
• What will be my likely experience if I do something?
• What will be the most likely outcome? 
• What should I do more of in my life? 
• What should I do less?
• What do I really want? and
• What do I really want to know?

When you ask  yourself the right questions, you may discover you already know the answers.

Whether you like them or not, is another matter.

]]> http://jesicadavis.com/2013/05/28/what-do-you-really-want-to-know/feed/ 0 jesicadavis IMG_4669 http://jesicadavis.com/2013/05/20/being-at-home-with-your-tribe-and-in-your-world/ http://jesicadavis.com/2013/05/20/being-at-home-with-your-tribe-and-in-your-world/#comments Mon, 20 May 2013 18:55:14 +0000 jesicadavis http://jesicadavis.com/?p=653 Continue reading →]]>

In my practice, I often encounter people who channel angels, talk to guides, communicate with plant spirits and have a variety of other magical seeming gifts to which I can lay no claim. For many years, however, I have been blessed with what I call The-Guardian-of The-Right-Thing-At-The-Right-Time. 

Whether it’s at the library, a store, or in my own home, at key moments of decision or change, I am frequently presented with EXACTLY the right piece of information at EXACTLY the right moment. Most recently, while sorting through a box in my kids’ closet, I unearthed a Caroline Myss CD called Your Primal Nature: Connecting With The Power Of The Earth.

In this blog – and in my own life – I’ve been struggling with an inquiry into courage: where it comes from, how it is cultivated and how it can be instilled into the lives of my clients, my readers and my self so that we can all lead lives of greater intuition, truth and purpose.

On Your Primal Nature, Myss suggests that – because the instructions of intuition can seem so daunting and ridiculously risky – we MUST connect with our tribe and we MUST connect with the earth in order to enact those instructions.  

It is only through GROUNDING ourselves in those relationships – with our tribe and with the planet – that we can experience the fearlessness that comes with feeling SAFE and which  is a necessary component of living in alignment with one’s truth.

Without that sense of safety and security that comes from knowing your place – in the tribe and in the physical world – very little is possible in the way of change or transformation, no matter how badly we want it.

In one way or another, I’d been saying the same thing to my clients for quite some time, but until I heard Myss put it so plainly, it hadn’t really clicked.

Without love – truly loving and being loved – and without feeling at home in the world – whether it’s the garden, the woods, the ocean or the desert – we can only fantasize about living peacefully in alignment with higher instructions and inner wisdom. Otherwise, we are bound to terrify ourselves and recoil from our own gifts, in fear of what people will think and all that we have to lose.

So, call someone and feel the love. Go outside and feel the peace. And then take one of those small risks so necessary to living your truth: knowing a little more that you belong with your tribe and in your world.

]]> http://jesicadavis.com/2013/05/20/being-at-home-with-your-tribe-and-in-your-world/feed/ 0 jesicadavis Illuminated mushrooms http://jesicadavis.com/2013/05/07/when-do-you-keep-going-and-when-do-you-quit/ http://jesicadavis.com/2013/05/07/when-do-you-keep-going-and-when-do-you-quit/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 00:10:00 +0000 jesicadavis http://jesicadavis.com/?p=622 Continue reading →]]>

“Over centuries, a persistent drop of water will drill holes in the hardest of rocks. In the same way, a persistent, consistent approach to your problem will slowly yield progress over time.” – HEXAGRAM  57*

“Sometimes allowing a collapse is the only way to move ahead.” –  HEXAGRAM 23*

Where in your life is impatience sabotaging your best efforts?

Where are you so uncomfortable that you’re more focused on escaping your situation through daydreams or addictions than on making incremental but lasting improvements?

And where have you given all you can give until you can’t give any more?

One of the things I love most about my work is being able to observe eternal principles of change and transformation play themselves out in my own and my clients’ lives.

Persistence is one such principle.

Without it, we give up too soon . Without it, we may prematurely declare defeat. Without persistence, the impossible remains just that. There is nothing worth doing, that does not demand some degree of persistence.

And yet sometimes it seems wisest – feels most expedient – to let go.

So when do we know the difference? When is it time for Hexagram 57 and when is it time to throw in the towel?

It is during such moments of choice that divination can be most valuable. Sometimes you have to know whether this is the end of the line or just a bump in the road – and free yourself from the anxiety of not knowing if you’re even on the right path anymore.

*I Ching for Beginners - Mark McElroy

What Makes Mrs. Incredible So Incredible? Her Ability To Stretch Herself

On the one hand, things have rarely been better.

Recently I’ve made numerous personal and professional breakthroughs, while my kids have continued to grow and develop in their own unique ways.

On the other hand, this has also been one of the most challenging periods I can remember – distinguishing what to keep and what to give up as I move from one stage of life to the next. After all, when it comes to any transformation -spiritual, professional or otherwise – reassessment is a necessity.  

So lately, what fascinates me is not what my clients need to do, but what prevents them from doing it.

More often than not, the existent fear or belief that blocks us from realizing our dreams – and reaching for unknown heights – can be much more persuasive than the dream that is not yet realized. And the pain – and grief – that accompany letting go of what we have in favor of what we want can make any trade-off seem dangerously speculative.

The world – and especially the web – are full of people telling you how easy it is to transform your life in 3, 10 or 12 easy steps. But the truth is that authentic transformation is arduous and constant. It requires commitment, perseverance and courage. And while, at times, it may be simple, at other times, even the simplest seeming principle can turn out to be unexpectedly complex.

I am, therefore, not here to tell anyone that it’s a no-brainer to achieve the life of your dreams, triple your income or meet your soul mate. 

But I am here to tell you to keep going: that there is a process underway and that we can’t always understand it as it unfolds.

I am here to be an ally, a willing companion, and an example: to share my own experiences as a reminder that, at times, we may be stretched far beyond our comfort zones in the journey towards becoming the people we feel – in our hearts and in our souls – that we are meant to be.

I am here to say, when in doubt, keep going. 

To start with, I have often said that I don’t believe in using divination to focus on the future. Nor, of course, do I approve of oracles who use it to gain power and undue influence over vulnerable clients.

Rather, at its best, divination is a method through which we can detect what is going on in other realms of “reality” that are not visible to us. In our culture, as a rule, we rely on our senses to tell us what is and what is not so. If it can’t be seen, heard, tasted, felt or smelled then, it is often assumed, it probably doesn’t exist.

The problem with this empirical worldview is that there are an abundance of forces that cannot be  physically sensed or measured by the body but that, nevertheless, have a tremendous influence on our lives. Gravity and magnetism are two of the most obvious. We know things fall down, we know a north pole is attracted to a south pole – but can we see the influential forces? Smell them? Hear them? No, we can only see their effects on the world around us.

Similarly, there are energies around us – emotional, spiritual, metaphysical, energetic – that cannot be reliably witnessed by the body. BUT which absolutely show their impact on the world around us.

When we practice divination – and dream work – we are inviting those forces to show themselves to us through a medium. Whether that medium is cards, dreams, bones, shells, runes, coins, fire, or any of the infinite media that humans have used over millenia is not important. What IS important is that we can learn to read these forces through the effect they have on our physical surroundings.

And by being able to read them and measure them, we can use them to live more powerful and integrated lives. Just as mastery of gravity and magnetism has allowed us to live more powerfully in the physical world – so divination can allow us to live a more energetically sound, emotionally grounded and spiritually connected existence.

A Vision Can Be A Delicate Thing

I’m a spiritual practitioner yes, but I’m also an entrepreneur and I’m no longer afraid to say it.

During my entertainment career, I resisted the notion that I was in business. In fact, I hated it. I was an artist, after all, and only an artist – and I thought that meant I shouldn’t have to live by everyone else’s rules, especially the rules of the marketplace.

Since then, however, I’ve embraced the fact that, as long as we are living a life of our own design – as artist, activist, or entrepreneur – we are in business.

But, as creative individuals, the questions always remain:

• How do we find the sweet spot between self-expression and the realities of life? 
• And what if we go too far in either direction? 
• Become so stubbornly attached to a vision – of a project or a self - that we don’t make an impact?
• Or work so hard at being “successful” that we lose track of what we have to say?

Helping creative people re-connect to their visions and their true selves, and guiding them to maintain those truths in the face of daily life, is what I most love to do – because it’s what I do in my own life.

As a mystic, entrepreneur, mother & wife – I walk a path that integrates spiritual devotion, cooking, potty training charts, school pick-ups & business development (among other things) every single day. All while chanting Om, doing rosaries and never, ever getting upset. Not really

But it has all become one beautiful messy life, rather than a stressful and uneasy co-existence of roles, none of which are really me. Because I was never only an artist, no matter how badly I wanted to be. I was, and am, a human being with diverse desires, seemingly random yearnings and contradictory impulses that I feared could never be brought into balance.

But then I heard someone  say it’s not about balance. It’s about discovering who you really are – and remaining connected to your vision – in every circumstance, no matter what you’re doing at the moment.

Which brings me to these final questions:

1. Who are you? Really?
2. What is your vision?  
3. And how can I help?

Do you ever have one of those days when you feel like you’re surrounded by crazy people?
As if, everywhere you turn, nobody is making sense and everybody (except you) is absolutely nuts.

Yeah, me too.

But a funny thing has happened in the midst of my Emergence Process. I’ve discovered that the crazy people are actually…me.

Instead of letting them be in charge, however – which can be pretty irresistible under normal circumstances/it’s called having a tantrum  - I’ve begun inviting them into the warm and cozy embrace of my loving essential self. There, they’ve had a chance to introduce themselves and explain why it’s so important I listen to them: 

• Wanda Worrywort: If she doesn’t  inform me of all the bad things that can – or are going to happen – they’re GOING TO HAPPEN FOR SURE.  
• Paula Planner: As long as she can plan out how my life is going to go – and I stick to the plan – everything is going to be okay. (Wanda and Paula work together.)
• Responsible Rachel: Her idea of responsibility is to make sure that every bill is paid, before I have any fun or do anything “irresponsible” like invest in my business.  
• Deprived Daisy: The poor cousin of Wanda, hopeless Daisy believes everything bad has already happened and nothing good will ever happen, so I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

Now these ladies aren’t all bad, but the one thing they have in common is  a lack of trust in letting things unfold. Each local self (as Barbara Marx Hubbard calls them) thinks she’s got the answer to keeping me safe, preventing misfortune and fulfilling my desires. As long as I listen to her.

But all their chatter really does is prevent me from being present, grateful and in the flow.

It can be hard to believe that we are not the sum of the frightened voices in our heads. Yet we are all something greater – something that will not banish the crazies, but embrace them, give them their voice and let them know it IS going to be all right. 

Who are the crazy people in your head? And can you listen to them without actually listening to them?

*For a beautiful book relating one woman’s evolving relationship with her own cadre of inner crazy ladies, read Black Milk by Elif Shafak

Every blade of grass has an angel over it that whispers “grow, grow.” – From The Talmud

More often than not,  the only thing separating my clients from what they want – be it a dream, a business, a relationship or simply a more authentic life – is courage.

So often, I’ll give a reading only to learn that I’m not saying anything the client doesn’t already know. Sometimes, they just need to have it confirmed, but at other times, they’ve come to me specifically because they’d wished it wasn’t true. Those are the clients that come to me hoping that there is some other solution to their problem than the one staring them in the face: the one which absolutely terrifies them.

Either way, ordinary people are often far wiser than they give themselves credit for. But we don’t live in a wise world and, frequently, “right action” (as the Buddhists call it) looks like a terrifying one-way ticket to loneliness, insecurity, bankruptcy or worse.

And it can be a very hard sell.

I’ve long wondered how to give my clients (and myself) the courage to take “right action” when all the evidence presented by our selves and our worlds may be telling us not to rock the boat. I’ve wondered what is it that has a person take a leap of faith into the unknown when there’s no real way of knowing it will work out?

I’ve thought that, if I had a magic wand, that’s what I would use it for.

But I don’t. Instead, I have a growing relationship with a source of inner wisdom and security (my essence) that is gently suggesting to me that – once we are connected to our true selves, our true sources of power, AND learn to maintain that connection – we have nothing to fear.

This is a kind of courage that cannot be understood by the mind. It can only be felt by the heart, the soul and that inner knowing that we too often ignore. It is a courage that derives less from a kind of daring and more from the lived experience that all the love and security I’m afraid of losing can never be lost – that it lives within and is always within reach.

And if I can love myself that much and discover a new courage through that path, I can guide others to do the same. And perhaps that will be my magic wand.