A Letter from the Red Thread Cafe #753

Dear One,

Blessings on your day! I wanted to share how life shows us so much if we are looking…and listening.

Only after I wrote the Whole Bird poem above, and had the desire for connecting with the big picture, did the following ‘notices from life’ happen. The connection of my life experience with my creative experience feels mysterious and beautiful.

I was asking to see the whole bird. Meanwhile, I was being shown many many birds but not really getting it. I was talking about the whole bird of conscious creation, but life wanted me to see all the birds of creation. If I did not have the eyes to see and ears to hear, I would miss what life was giving me. Like a cosmic present, awaiting my presence.

Let the one who has ears to hear, hear and understand ~ Jesus

On the same day I wrote the poem, I suddenly remembered my morning meditation.

I was sitting on the water. This is my listening spot. The bird song was so so so loud. I started to hear them all around the lagoon. Different ones. Then for fifteen minutes or more, I listened to bird after bird, different bird calls and songs with silence between them of a few seconds. As if they were waiting for one to finish and another to begin. I have never heard it like this, or maybe I didn’t listen. I was astonished at their coordinated song rippling all around me. Jonathan came and I asked him to listen, almost as if I was not believing it was happening. The best meditation I have ever had. So starting to write about the muse and getting the feather metaphor is interesting…because today I was actually given many birds through song…and now I know what the Muse actually gave. Sigh. So much to learn. (I listened a few other days and it was not at all the same)

Then only after writing the above did I remember being awoken by the two owls outside my balcony. So loud, just so very loud and we sleep with the doors flung open. The owls are in different trees, or even one is across the water and they are talking as lavender light rises above the mist. I keep thinking about my request to see the whole bird revelation and the awareness I may only be ready for a feather…

Then the next day Jonathan and I went for a walk on Bel Marin near Pacheco pond, and we heard an incredible sound and looked up to see a giant white bird flying overheard. Then I saw the entire tree above FILLED with white birds. It was like a Japanese painting….utterly astonishing.

Then I took a few steps and found one white feather.

Of course, I want the whole bird revelation. Most of us do. Show me show me show me, but then we aren’t really ready for it… The gifts creation gives us prepare us to see the whole bird when we are really ready to see it. Of course, you can map this to any area of your life. Now here’s the thing….this relates directly to other ways of seeing as soon as you learn the way life shows you things, you can begin to look for it. Hear more about my thread on how to see below.

It took several days to piece this letter together and no less than about 6 hours, then I send it to the team and they check everything. I am estimating about 8 hours in total for one of these letters if I am really threading the way I like to. I tell you this because it is an offering of love and life I am sharing with you. Yes, we share things to buy in it and events you can come to but that is just a part of these letters. These are my love letters to the world, to you.

Today I am in New Jersey as I will be co-leading Intentional Creativity at the International Forum for Visual Practitioners happening this week along with my friend and colleague in Motherboard, Katherine Torrini. This is part of my preparation for the Motherboard Certification training in September. I have always been visual and graphic with language, but they take it to a whole new and exciting level I can’t wait to share in. Will tell you more soon.

I hope my words and images provide some encouragement along the path. I am being encouraged through resting today and reading a book by Meggan Jane Watterson called Mary Magdalene Revealed: The First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel & the Christianity We Haven’t Tried Yet. I had a pretty big personal revelation about the red thread I am only beginning to unravel through my morning Red Thread Cafe, and I hope to share it with you soon.

You know how when hard things happen, we say: ‘Our heart goes out to you’? Well, we say that, but may not be really realizing that the heart energy really does go out, science is affirming what the spirit has always known. And so when I say, my heart goes out to you and to all that suffer with whatever it is they are challenged by, I really mean it.

My heart, goes out, to you with every Red Thread Letter. Each one, though virtual is charged up with my desire to give, to serve, to love, to live in integrity and beauty with my human family.

Threads on How to See

To learn to see what is often invisible, you first make a request:

“I would love to see what I am not seeing.”

I might personally add, “show me only that which is appropriate for me to see, or that I am ready to see”

The reason for the addition is that we want to narrow the focus, not just be wide open. Adjusting the aperture (as discussed in the last Red Thread Letter here)

Now, that you have activated your seeing, let’s continue with a focused inquiry:
What are you looking and listening for or ‘through’? Is there a metaphor that you are looking through? In my case this was the single feather/whole bird lens – is there a symbol, shape, story or thread that for you is arising?

Just a nudge, to notice. And, to slow down enough to notice. If you close your eyes and ask what lens you are looking through, what information arises? You might use a pen and paper to do some metacognitive drawing to really expand the seeing.

Then, if nothing comes to you…in the moment of asking and looking…just begin to notice what life shows you. Look for thematic occurrences, synchronicities, in color, shape, texture and sound. What you are ‘noticing’, pay attention to. Make a list or mental note and then soon ask for what is common amongst them. Three days is a good amount of time to ‘watch’ and ‘see’ and then stitch meaning from what you notice.

When I am resting, I say, I am resting. When I am looking I say, I am looking. This vocal affirmation awakens my senses and provides a framework for noticing.

Then we can fall in love with what life brings us….and this is healing.

Recent Red Thread Letters from Shiloh Sophia:

Magdalene + Biopower and the Deeper Meaning Behind My Work

Another pair of hands + Accidental Self Portrait

Move stuck energy, let’s do this (sharing a prayer and a process)