The gull had swallowed a baited fish hook and was dragging ‘invisible’ fishing line behind her. Looking back over her shoulder she kept puzzling over the line that followed her wherever she went. When she walked or even when she flew away to another place, it followed her…haunted her and eventually, it would kill her.

The morning began with a dream that awakened me long before sunrise. In the dream I was traveling to the mountains and a young woman was present. I invited her to ride. She needed to come along for some reason so we rode in silence and arrived at a music fest somewhere in the mountains. Some people I knew were singing on stage and I was invited to sing with them and asked her to join. I said, just be yourself and let light shine through you.We sang together and later, I saw a video of myself–in the dream–and couldn’t believe how my face was pure light, as if I was channeling pure light through my singing and by simply being myself. Later we sat at a table with musicians I know and she was there with me. The fellowship was amazing.

After awakening from such a powerful dream, I remembered that my house didn’t sell, my possessions were boxed up and I was still living a nightmare. I wrote in my journal, October snow drifts around my heart. Frozen tears slide from hollow eyes. I only know the pain of loss. Where is the sun to melt this grief?

I needed sunrise.

Rather than ride my bicycle, I decided to do a long pre-dawn walk on the beach and try to leave behind the insanity of the past week where mere days before closing the deal fell apart and left me and three other families with our homes boxed and ready or worse, one family had already vacated their home. To say it had been a shitty week is like saying the ocean can be tumultuous during a storm.

When I arrived at the beach I said aloud: I am leaving all that behind. Please tell me what I need to know, I am listening.

I stopped and did a live video on social media of the intense line of orange reflecting off of the smooth sand, saturated with moisture. I saw how the turbulence washed away shells and left a smooth surface where light reflected was even more beautiful than the light itself. I said, My hope is that I can be swept clean and light can reflect off of me and through me this day and every day. Setting that intention was powerful medicine as the experience unfolded.

As I walked alone yet surrounded by beauty, I stopped and turned and spoke these words to the Gulf of Mexico: Show me what you want me to know about myself.

Immediately a dolphin popped up offshore and I began to smile. Remember who you are…you are Dolphin Woman.Throughout my life dolphins have been such powerful companions and teachers. I wrote an entire chapter of a book on amazing encounters with dolphins.

So on I walked appreciating the beauty and finally stopped to simply sit on the sand and listen to the waves and await the sunrise. Sometimes it seems to take forever for the sun to peek over the horizon.

A dolphin leaped out of the water just as the tip of the sun slid above the horizon. I couldn’t make that up in my wildest imagination. As the words WOW!!were coming out of my mouth the sun rose. That WOWturned into OH MY GOD! You wanted that first glimpse of sun!

After such a stunning display of dolphin magic I decided to continue on after a pause to watch a blue crab await breakfast in a tidal pool.  My mind tried to interject thoughts about the past week and I simply said, Nope. Not now.Then I would repeat the question, What do you want me to see and hear?

In my mind’s eye I saw a red thread that seemed attached to me and heard, I cannot run away from myself…and this is my pattern….over and over again….learned very early in my life. Abandon myself to please others or to decrease fear or for whatever reason a child learns to abdicate her power in order to survive….or an adult does the same thing. Bargain with life, I’ll trade ‘me’ for safety and security. I will deny myself to be loved. I will leave myself rather than risk being who I am and be rejected. I need to take myself with me where ever I go, where ever I live. Don’t leave without taking myself with me.

I kept walking after making a few notes on my phone. There was some unmistakable soul guidance coming through and I wanted to piece it together later.

A great blue heron was standing in the rising light of the sun. The beauty was stunning and I felt a thawing of the frozen tears and October snow that has been heavy on me over the past week.

I reached a turning point, literally, and headed back letting the sun push me along with the increasing heat of the day. As I neared the exit point the gull with the fishing line was in my path…on the wide, wide beach it was right in front of me. After such a great walk, what is this insanity?

With a focus on calming my energy in hope that the gull would allow me to approach it and take it to receive help, I stopped. The gull refused to allow me to get close, even when I knelt on the sand telling it on the inner to please allow me to help it. It would walk and the ‘invisible’ fishing line followed scaring it. The hook most likely was baited on the fishing pier and the gull caught it and the fisherman cut the line rather than deal with helping the bird. That story was crystal clear. The fact that the bird flew away rather than allow me to help it was clarity that it would die with that hook imbedded in its gut…unless it took the risk to stop and allow someone to help.

So I left the beach upset that the bird would have a very painful death. I sat in my car writing about the walk and the bird and returned home with a huge question mark over my head…why did the walk end like that?

Buddy and I went for a walk around the neighborhood and as I was walking I thought, right about now we’d be in Montgomery with the moving truck following behind. A tinge of sadness arose but then I heard, But wouldn’t it have been sad to leave myself behind?

I stopped walking and smiled. Oh, yes indeed. I needed to see that pattern of leaving myself so that where ever I am I can include my self…be myself…embrace myself. Never allow any part of me to be left. Every bit of pain and suffering was worth it to remember my Self.

Once inside I was just about to begin writing about the walks when my phone rang. My friend Rose was calling to check on me. She is an expert listener and has helped me piece together my life over the past year…and especially the past two weeks as I was pushed to find a home in North Carolina and then pack my house…and then…well….have the deal come smashing down a few days before moving. So she’s been an anchor to me and a most amazing listener.

I began telling Rose about the walk and how it ended with the weird experience of the gull. She immediately pointed out that the thread I saw that was following me through my life was reflected by the gull who literally had a thread of line attached to a hook swallowed.

My energy field lit up like a light-bulb. That gull was my teacher reminding me that if I continued to swallow hooks, ways I have left myself behind, I would also die a slow and painful inner death. And isn’t that what we do when we abandon ourselves? We suffer soul loss that affects us increasingly through our lives.

The gull was the weaver of the entire story….of my life. I reflected on how I have compromised myself, changed to fit in, worked places that do not reflect my ethics, accommodated others so their feelings are not hurt, made myself feel less than others to build them up, to belong no matter what….and the way out of these patterns of self-abandonment was to stop and recognize the pattern and when I move and where ever I go take all of me with myself. Stop running from who I am. Shine like the singer I was channeling light through an open heart.

What would it be like to open myself so completely, to allow the turbulence to wash over me so I could be a clearer, brighter reflection of Light?

This ‘move’ is about moving into a New Paradigm of self-acceptance and staying present with myself…my true Self…no matter what. It’s about connecting with Dolphin Medicine, that place of Oneness I have experienced so many times with my cetacean brothers and sisters. It’s about being part of the pod who accept me for who I am, not for who they want me to be. It’s about freeing myself to shine and connect with Light and be a channel for that brilliance to come through an open heart. It’s about being in a place that calls me with such power I cannot help but go…no matter what.

How sad it was to see the Gull that swallowed the bait and hook; however, it was the Gull that tied the story of my life together. And Rose reflected that truth to me. It is with the utmost respect and gratitude that I say thank you Gull…thank you Rose.

My walk this morning was a Soul Walk. This is how the Soul speaks….dolphins leaping into the rising sun, glistening reflections of Light…animals that appear illustrating the very ‘thing’ I just heard in my head…friends that call and help piece it all together in a brilliant story of birth, life, death and rebirth.

All the suffering and pain of the past week, the past three years…oh, honestly the 59 years in this life…led me to that walk on the beach. What a powerful gift that resulted.

Today, October 5th, 2019, I was given my Soul Story. I was given a rebirth into my true identity. I am Dolphin Woman, Medicine Woman, Shapeshifter, Pod Member…embracing myself, bringing along that young part of me that’s afraid, inviting her on stage to sing with me and be herself.

The Soul is always giving us glimpses of our truth if we will simply stop and listen and look. Today I was given the gift of my Self after a very long and dark journey.

Let the turbulence wash over me so I can reflect the Light. May I sing my song with such joy that I become a flame of Light.

The dolphin literally leaped and brought up the sun for me and thawed my frozen and aching heart. She reminded me of my true identity.

This Threshold I’ve been standing at for three years…or 59 years…or lifetimes….this Threshold was successfully crossed today. Let the celebration begin!