Taking The World On With A Smile!

I was elated when I signed the binder in August to unit #9 in the development I now live in.  Aside from the surreal-ness of the event itself, I’d never negotiated the price of a home with a Realtor before and frankly, all things considered, I was quite happy with what we were able to agree upon.

There was just one, okay maybe two snags….

I was trying not to think about it but my 10-year-old conscience couldn’t let it rest.

I love it mom. I really do but I don’t really like the number nine. It’s awkward, nine.  You know?

I know.

And there was the matter of the huge, electrical box that was smack-in-the-middle of the hallway downstairs. I guess I overlooked it in my excitement but it looked terrible.

The model didn’t have that.

“You can put a picture over it,” the Realtor said with a tooth-sparkling smile and a twinkle in his eye.

Yes, I was elated that night and I couldn’t sleep.

No matter how much I tried to ignore it, that damned electrical box kept popping into my head and let’s face it, 9 is an awkward number. Well, it’s not my favorite anyway. It just didn’t feel right for us.

It was the model that grabbed us when we first saw it on one of our many apartment hunting, house-dwelling-seeking adventures last summer. No one was around but the door was open when we stopped by, so we let ourselves in to explore and it truly was, love at first sight. It also seemed like a pipe-dream, an impossibility. But somehow, it came about. It was the model that we loved. It was the model that we wanted. So the next morning I called the Realtor and told him I changed my mind. I would not be taking number 9 but I would take the model with a few changes. Done. Number 9 was not meant to be. Number 7 was and number 7 happens to be my favorite number.

Native Americans believe that upon birth an animal’s spirit enters into that person and becomes their spirit or totem animal. This is the animal that is with you and guides you for life, both in the physical and spiritual world. Both of my children and myself in fact, were taught the process of finding our totems from a Naturalist who taught many kids at their school. He also taught them how to track people and animals in the woods, build a shelter from twigs, branches and leaves and camouflage themselves for protection. Not bad things to know, considering we live in the woodsier part of our state.

The duty of your spirit animal is to keep you strong and wise as well as to help you excel in matters of attributes given to that animal.

My daughter’s spirit animal is the Doe.

A Deer is an animal of love, tenderness and swiftness. The deer is a messenger of serenity, can see between shadows and hear what isn’t being said. They are a power animal, a symbol of gentleness, unconditional love, kindness and innocence. The deer teaches us to use the power of gentleness to touch the hearts and minds of wounded beings who are in our lives.

                  This doesn’t surprise me.

Two years ago I took my daughter into one of those “dark” shops in a small town, Upstate USA, where they sell black velor capes and you can buy mixtures of healing powders and herbs. A place where you can purchase all kinds of crystals and where they burn incense. We went for our first hennas and when the woman took Hannah’s hand to make the drawing, she seemed a bit startled and paused. She looked at Hannah and asked her if her hand always tingled like that. Hannah seemed surprised the woman noticed and answered “yes”.

The woman looked at me, smiled and said, “She has healing hands.”

Also, not surprising.

So what do I make of this? Well, maybe it’s a coincidence that my favorite number is seven and that’s the number that sits on our front door now. Or maybe it’s a coincidence that my daughter’s spirit animal is a Doe and the street we now live on has Doe in its name. And maybe it’s even a coincidence that the first evening we were here together we saw an actual doe in our back yard from our living room window.

Maybe.

Or maybe what’s meant to be will be, there really is a master plan and even if we can’t find it, it finds us.

What do you think?

Photo Credit #1: Google Images Number 9

Photo Credit #2: Google Images Lucky Number 7

Photo Credit #3: Google Images Spirit Animal

Photo Credit #4: Google Images Healing Hands

*The Doe as a totem: Source ~ Ina Wolcott’s Shamanism