Elizabeth S. Eiler's Blog, page 3

SONGS OF SUMMER

Summer's golden heat can be a kiln, slowly firing the clay of our creations into solid, glaze-crackled works of art. So it is with writers and all dreamers! Here are a few of my sun-baked verses for your midsummer enjoyment.




EARTHING BRILLIANCE

The yellow sun incinerates my thoughts,
the branding iron of summer afternoons.
Within her sparkling tentacles I’m caught,
emblazoned with the ancient solar runes.

What are the shapes the August sun imprints
across a brow heat-smoothed like molten wax?
Perhaps the names of dreams and whispered hints
that rise like wind when teeming brains relax.

The drooping finery of brown-edged mums
are softly-freckled hands that fan the haze
or beat a rhythm on the thunder drums
that are the soundtrack of our summer days.



EARLY HAIKU HARVEST

Drying river grasses
Clattering their pointed seeds
Small chimes of August.

* * *

Riverbeds bare teeth
Of sun-bleached quartz and calcite
In the drying days.

* * *

Meadows sing at dawn
Dewdrops quivering with joy
Gone by afternoon.



SUMMER’S KISS

Bare feet walk on golden stepping stones
painted on the lawn of afternoon,
hedged about by burnished turquoise hills
holding summer captive in their arms.

Lips that kiss the frost on lemonade
or whistle down the dust-mote sunbeams
bless sun-printed water in the brook
with the berried ripeness of July.

Words that Bloom - Micro Poetry for April

As early spring mellows into afternoons hinting of summer, today’s blog is a collection of Haikus inspired by April. I hope you enjoy these, like individual blossoms picked especially for you.

Our physical and spiritual bones drink up the grounding nectar of these hard-driving days in the garden. I’m grateful for the endless fans of leaves blown into planting beds, the redoubtable dandelions, and the mushroom festoons on rotting branches that cry out for pruning. It makes good work for body, mind, and spirit.

Whether upon rolling acres, in a sunny flower garden, or bending over pots on the balcony – gardeners everywhere, rejoice!

Raindrops in the well
Facets of crystal oceans
Wept from sky-blue eyes.

■■■

April’s thin-lipped smile
Stretched against frost-hardened nights
Ripens in the noon.

■■■

Gleams of owl-light eyes
Scan the rain-cratered darkness
From the budding trees.

■■■

Tiny sweet-faced blooms
Of violet and crocus
Greet an orange dawn.

■■■

We greet Mother Earth
With kisses of reunion
Her April children.



Elizabeth S. Eiler, Ph.D. is the author of Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals and Other Nations, illuminating spiritual connections among human and non-human animals, tools for healing and animal communication, and stories to inspire the animal-lover's heart.

Within the Shining Sky

As our family grieved the loss of Oscar, our beloved old hound dog who went home to Spirit in September, many comforts and truths were illuminated for us in nature. I’ve been drawn to seek the wisdom of the wolves, those canid elders of the dogs who share our modern lives. Wolves, and through them domesticated dogs, provide humans a necessary and profound link to our ancient lineage – both as earthlings and as cosmic children of the stars.

As I prepared my dog-child to embrace the wheel’s turn to death, I sought to provide him with images and references he would understand. I told him that he would go to sleep in my arms and awaken in the stars, totally free in the sacredly imaged body of his soul.

When Oscar died, I felt and envisioned his soul leaving his body, an instantaneous sensation of a white-gold flame whooshing upwards from his precious body. Later that night, returning from a walk taken in honor of him, we saw a brilliant feathery streak upon the moon – the only cloud in the sky, lying against the moon like an Angel’s wing. I watched in the darkness as it became linear and rose above our house, climbing softly up the bowl of the sky. Our beloved had indeed awoken in the stars, and the Divine powers delivered the sign of reassurance I requested.

The Wolf Totem drew me to the significance of the constellations: Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (the great and lesser bears), Lupus (the wolf), Cygnus (the swan), Canis Major and Canis Minor, (the great and lesser dogs) – so many called after animals and immortalized in the stars. And then there are the human representations such as Aquarius the Water Bearer, Orion the Hunter, and Queen Cassiopeia. Were humans encapsulating a fundamental truth of our nature as spirits – extracorporeal or extraterrestrial – when they chose to see the night sky peopled with transcended likenesses of earthly beings?

As we look up, the spirit of canis lupus reinforces one of the deep and mysterious truisms of nature. The bodies we wear in incarnated life are a costume, a disguise masking our true spiritual identities. Our real power comes when we recognize this duality and its illusory qualities and come to embrace the full wheel of life, seen in the light of our spiritual reality.

Humans sometimes glimpse this inner reality when in the presence of an animal’s majesty – the depth in a horse’s eyes as the wind combs his mane and he seems to see into a distance we cannot reach, the sudden uprushing flight of a swan who rises on wings like creations from a dream. The spirit of the wolf, the inner illumination behind his gaze, calls us to recognize this same magic of ensoulment in ourselves.

In particular among the animal kingdom, wolves live in societies quite similar to our own. They comprise strong family units, jockey for political alliances, harness the strength of their numbers, and still recognize and value the unique qualities of every individual. Their voices travel through the night to resonate deeply in our hearts, as though we share a common language that rises on the wordless vocal notes.

Is it any wonder that our dogs, of all our earthly companions, teach us that each non-human animal is as singular and marvelous as each human being? There is no generic wolf, giraffe, elephant, or person. Each is an uncommonly faceted spirit. The Oscar-shaped place in my heart is his alone.

And so the stars – with their constellations of wolf, lion, lynx, and queen – are a glimmering glimpse into the vast variety of the beloved souls who have passed before us out of bodily incarnation. What are the cosmic secrets in the soft gleam of an old dog’s eyes, the howling of a timber wolf, or the song of a humpback whale? The answers will be found as each of us follows the calling of the heart along our own unique walk into stardust.


Elizabeth S. Eiler, Ph.D. is the author of two well-received books about animals and spirituality. She is a Reiki Master, spiritual teacher, and parent of dogs.

Books Aren't Perishable (No Refrigeration Necessary)

As a writer, one of the deepest satisfactions in publishing comes from leaving a legacy, lovingly crafted from word pictures, dreams of a better world, and the sorts of things one carries in the heart for a while. Then I saw some well-intentioned book marketing advice admonishing that “readers” (as though we’re one predictable, homogenous substance) tend to favor new releases. New – as in improved, bigger, shinier, cutting edge, and envelope pushing.

Personally, I think the great books are the ones with staying power. The mystery, pathos, and stark beauty of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca are as vivid for today’s reader as they were in 1938. Sara Crewe, the gifted and resourceful heroine of A Little Princess, was veritably alive to my childish self in the 1970’s, although she’d first entered the imaginings of Frances Hodgson Burnett a hundred years before.

I have a “new” book out this year, Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals, the culmination of three years of work that ranges from millennially-old mythos to the growing hope for a new age of compassionate respect for the Earth and her inhabitants. There are messages and conclusions that are new in our time, though the voices behind them are sometimes primeval. Like the ebb and flow of life itself, my process in these pages is not always linear, answers pointing the way to new questions.

We move together through time, from the days of the ancient Mirning and their shining star whales into the Age of Aquarius and modern metaphysical thought about humans and non-humans and what we mean to ourselves and each other. So, Swift and Brave is a journey – and aren’t some of our favorite journeys the ones we’ve made before? Think of pilgrims visiting their holy sites, adventurers seeking after the summit of Everest, swallows returning to Capistrano, and the simple homely processions to grandmother’s house for the holidays.

And so, as I crack the spine on a 60-year-old volume of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, I advise substantial rummaging in the bookshops and websites – far beyond the displays of “New Releases” – when working through your holiday gift lists. Beauty, joy, wonder, mystery, and the thrill of enlightenment are timeless treasures glinting between even the most dog-eared covers. (Friends, the second-hand bookstores await)!
_________________________________________

Elizabeth Eiler is the author of Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals and Other Nations: A Lightworker’s Case Book for Healing, Spiritually Empowering, and Communing with the Animal Kingdom. Find the latest holiday sales on books that give for a lifetime: Elizabeth Eiler's Books.

Growing into an Elderwoman

Elderwoman: Reap the wisdom, feel the power, Embrace the joy by Marian Van Eyk McCain

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a wonderfully insightful and spiritually thought-provoking book for women of all ages. Although intended for women about a decade older than I am, the message is an oxymoron in Western society - hopeful and positive aging for women. McCain's call to embrace aging as not simply growing old but growing beyond into Elder Womanhood is wonderfully refreshing, life-affirming, and desperately needed.

McCain's description of the corporate workplace as "a notoriously alien and unfriendly environment which takes little account of nature" resonated with my two decades in corporate America. She points out that women's energy is rhythmic and cyclic, and we must "override [our] natural female rhythms to fit into a male-ordered world." (I have only to recall the rigid hours, harshly grinding linear deadlines, and uncompromising and stifling environment). This is especially true for women who are pregnant, have young children or elderly parents to care for, or going through the hormonal rigors of menopause.

I loved her description of the third age of a woman's life as a time to harvest the wisdom she's sown and tended through her youth and middle years. The freedom she describes for the Elderwoman to dictate her own standards of beauty, fashion, and delight should belong to all women of every age. The underlying message of this book is freedom for all women to fully explore and value her own experience while cultivating a world that allows and respects her uniquely feminine contributions.

The discussion of finding and embracing "enoughness" and living simply is a radical departure from our flashy consumer culture that would result in much greater happiness and health for many. There is also an emphasis on caring for the Earth and living in harmonious respect with plants, animals, and water that is timely wisdom.

I read this book while grieving for the death of my oldest dog, my canine child, Oscar. McCain's unstinting exploration of aging and dying, death and eternity, and the honorable beauty of natural cycles aided my healing process. It's a gentle and lovely exploration of death and dying which I think could help many people who are fearful of this topic.

Overall, this well-written, entertaining, and personal narrative is a worthwhile read for women of any age. It's high time women learned to pin our self-esteem and love of life on something greater than our age, weight, or bank balance. This book points us in the right direction.










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Cube Farm Earth

“We humans remain separate and alienated as a species.”

As a Lightworker, I teach about the interconnectedness of all spiritual beings and organic life forms. Working on a video book trailer, I played with phrases like “Reforge the lost cosmic connections between species.” I become linked at the heart chakra to my Reiki clients and share very personal messages and awakenings. There is the greatest pleasure in drawing the loving curtains of my husband and children around me, savoring the bonds of family.

But for all that, in the face of the Enlightenment beginning to shine over the Earth, we humans remain separate and alienated as a species. Is it any wonder that majestic ensouled beings like elephants and rhinos are hunted for trinkets in a world where a news crew at a small-town marina is felled by a gunman on the morning show?

“We’ve become blind to the commonalities among human stories.”

My husband (a conservative) and I (a liberal) spent an hour having one of our spirited discussions about the challenges of our times. We debated terrorism and the hijacking of religions, gun violence, and social conditions that lead to despair. When our coffee cups had been drained several times and I was due to see a client, I realized that we’d spent the entire hour categorizing, labeling, and bickering about under which heading to dump people. Not one minute had gone towards problem solving.

We’ve created a vast network of cubicles into which we shove people by nationality, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, medical diagnosis, socioeconomic status, et cetera. Sadly, this attempt to understand our world has morphed into a soulless process of cataloguing for its own sake. The individual dramas, dreams, and potentials are lost, and we become blind to the commonalities among human stories. All we’re left with is our separate, isolating cubes.

I’ve been busier than is good for me, launching a new book, keeping up with a packed client schedule, doing freelance work for extra money, and providing the close care my oldest dog needs. I’ve fretted at my laptop, wondering why a Facebook post didn’t get more Likes, calculating the metrics for Tweets, watching book sales on Amazon, asking if my last three articles really mattered to anyone out there. And I lost track of what’s going on over here.

Chatting yesterday with my next-door neighbor, I learned that George and Bobbie, the nice older couple with a terrier who lived across the street from us for nine years, had both passed away! George was found deceased in his home three weeks ago when a friend couldn’t reach him on the phone. “Where was Bobbie?” I asked. Startled, she replied that Bobbie died last summer.

"One by one, they’d finished their life stories and disappeared from the neighborhood."

One by one, they’d had their travails, finished their life stories, and disappeared from the neighborhood unnoticed by people who lived within a stone’s throw. I see their house from my dining room window every day of my life. How could we not have known? But Ben and I weren’t the only people in the neighborhood who didn’t know. It seems like our houses, our personal castles, are amongst the most impenetrable cubes of all.

I work from home and have a steady stream of clients through the front door all week. Ben and I enjoy entertaining; people are quick to come and stay for hours – but we rarely get invitations back. Until my husband’s parents moved to town, years went by without a dinner invitation. When did it become okay to meet at the mall, talk over the fence, wave from the car, and conduct all our relationships in neutral, impersonal spaces?

When Ben and I bought our dream house in the city, only two neighbors welcomed us. After nine years, we haven’t gotten around to meeting many others – and several have died or moved away in that time. How much have we lost by never knowing the people whose lives, loves, victories, and losses played out a hundred yards from our own? Why did this become normal?

If we can’t step into the perspective of someone who lives next door, how can we make peace with ideological enemies across the globe? We haven’t figured out how to bring into the fold the disenfranchised and marginalized in our own communities – including many of the poor, elderly, mentally ill, addicted, or just plain shy.

“We share a cosmic lineage with every living being we meet.”

So, how do we react? Throw block parties? Turn our single-family homes into communes? Burn our drapes?

Maybe we need to begin by taking whatever size steps feel comfortable. We could try random acts of kindness in the neighborhood. It’s not a huge plunge into intimacy to hand-deliver a few cards this Thanksgiving, but gestures matter. Behind the Facebook profiles and carefully crafted Tweets are real people who need affirmation as much as the rest of us, and clicking a few Likes and Shares now and then is easy.

Let’s all just care a little more, get involved, listen. If you think someone may be struggling, ask if you can help. Everyone can do something to lighten the burden of another person. It’s those often little, sometimes unseen, but heartfelt acts that build bridges bit by bit across the chasms that divide us.

We share a cosmic lineage with every living being we meet. Whether it’s combing the streets to rescue a stray dog, or cutting the lawn for an ailing neighbor, we need to bring love home. Maybe one day more of us will be hunting out the good glasses, buying Chinet, or tossing down a picnic blanket for a wider circle of souls, cherishing each other before it’s too late.

My Baby's Eyes

During the ruckus of excitement over the release of Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals, my gentle Oscar lost the last of his eyesight to diabetes and cataracts. At eleven years old, the darkness had finally closed in on him for good.

I know about blind dogs. I've been a Reiki healer for several, and in Swift and Brave I write in detail about Thomas, the lovely blind dog of a close friend, in a section called, "What the Blind See: Lessons in Loving from a Blind Dog."

But for all that, I knew not one thing about being the mother of a blind dog. Intellectual knowledge doesn't prepare you for watching your child fall halfway down a flight of stairs, shake in terror at the sound of an alarm clock, or lay for hours transfixed by depression and fear.

The veterinarians, books, Reiki teachers, and years of helping disabled shelter dogs didn't prepare me for the heartache, sadness, and worry. It wasn't fair! I never wanted this for Oscar! How could I ever make it better?

And so, as the new book I'm half humorously calling my "manifesto on the animal soul and animal rights" makes its way into the world, an old and grey-muzzled dog with cloudy eyes and a limping gait takes my hand and leads me on yet another journey of discovery. We're learning this blindness thing together, Oscar and I.

When I was a child, my mother used to talk about "seed faith." It meant taking wobbly first steps towards big things with that tiny mustard seed of faith tucked up against your heart.

Publishing books with a small press - wanting to enlighten, educate, encourage real holistic thinking about animals, and sow love - was done by seed faith. There were months the publishing fund came out of the grocery money, and standing for animals has sometimes put me into the path of haters. It could only have been by faith, like a hand in a chain-mail glove that clung to what the heart knew and the eye couldn't see, that I went about being a writer.

And so Oscar clings now to what his heart knows and his shuttered eyes will never see again. When I run around the backyard singing songs and clutching a bag of his favorite snap peas, luring him out of his fear and into a space of interacting with the world again, we have faith. As he puts each foot down into the darkness on an invisible stair because his Mommy said, "step, step, step," he has faith. Our hearts enlarge with hot, tear-strewn, bear-hugging love, and we know God has rewarded that faith.

I've been writing poetry since I was 5 years old, but the poem I'm sharing with you now emerged complete and whole from a place far deeper than my heart and mind. It came from a Light that shines forever and that becomes a living Sunlight for the blind. I hope you find some comfort, uplift, and understanding in its words, a true message from a mother and child who are making it better one precious moment at a time.

"The Thousand Eyes of Love"

My old eyes can’t see you, Mommy
When you call me to your side,
But still I hear your loving smile
That the shadows cannot hide.

Leaning against your solid strength
While you softly kiss my head
Means more than ever to me now,
Always night where day has fled.

But when I sleep and when I dream,
I see you still beside me,
And when the dark is strange and loud,
Your heart hears my wordless plea.

And always you are there to guide,
Keep me safe and help me live,
To hear and taste and smell the joys
That an old dog’s world can give.

Oh Mommy, I still have your face
In that place our souls first met.
My eyes may dim and darkness fall,
But my love does not forget.

Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals

I am over the blue moon to announce that Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals is published!

This book was a three-year labor of love. Some of the insights within the pages could only have come from living a range of experiences. There were times when prayer, grieving, and healing were required to impart with wisdom what I had learned.

I met a lot of fascinating animals, escorted some beautiful souls to Rainbow Bridge, survived a traumatic attack by an abused shelter dog, and am dealing with the chronic illnesses and aging of Oscar, one of my beloved canine children.

I wanted to break ground with Swift and Brave. In this book, perspectives from science, metaphysics, philosophy, and cross-cultural spiritual traditions are interwoven to create a comprehensive illustration of who and what animals – human and non-human – really are. Exploring our interconnections and inherent sacredness helps us see how to live in right relationship with other species. We can learn to appreciate the life purposes, co-creative abilities, and soul missions of the amazing beings who share this planet with us.

Through a diverse range of species from beluga whales, red squirrels, and flamingos to companion animals, new light is shone on the Divinity within all living creatures and the resultant moral imperatives for humanity. This is a journey into the very nature of all of us, the rights of animals and their spiritual wisdom, and what it means to live in partnership with all of creation.

I invite you to take this journey with me and find answers, new questions and horizons, comfort, understanding, appreciation, and most of all love. It is love, after all, that motivates us to every higher action of the soul.

Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals can be ordered now from Amazon amzn.com/1478757671 or the publisher’s online bookstore: outskirtspress.com/bookstore/details/9781478757672. Paperback, ebook, and Kindle editions available!

Return to the Beginning

It’s one of those cool, green May mornings that open like a gift from all that is sacred in the heavens and the Earth. My lens upon the world is filled with wild violets, the recalcitrant golden heads of dandelions, and pollen that sifts onto the lawn like a snow of creamy pear-shaped flakes. The forces converge on days like this to support the creative process and revitalize the spirit.

Today, Mother’s Day, is my self-imposed deadline for choosing the cover of my new book, Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals. My publisher’s art department did a flawless job executing the cover I devised, soulful and dreamy yet anchored into the flesh. Then in a flash of creative zeal, they created another option, dynamic, spirited, and ranging free.

These choices have flung me into a quandary. Do I follow my instincts and select the cover I originally wanted? Does this book call instead for a leap into different territory? Thank heavens I was only given two options, or my internal debate might have raged for months!

This is a deeply spiritual book, exploring the depth and breadth of the souls housed in Earth’s creatures, their missions in the world, and the higher call to honor and support life. And so I’ve chosen the cover with eyes, the soul’s windows, fathomless and brilliant in the misty visage of a dappled horse. My original choice, I might add.

So on Mother’s Day, I give a face to my child, a book borne from nearly three years of work. My creative process is slower than some, elegiac and joyful by turns, more a ballet than a sprint. So having only a few days to decide on something so momentous was consuming, demanding all my attention – and becoming cluttered with thoughts and the shaping of questions.

Sometimes, we just have to return to the beginning. This is a deeply spiritual book. The exciting cover with a mare and foal running across a flower-strewn meadow backed by blue mountains “could be anything, could be a novel” my physical therapist said. (Yes, I shoved cover proofs in front of my physical therapist the second I arrived for my appointment).

“I won’t say it right,” he went on, “but that horse says ‘Swift and Brave’ to me. Any animal lover would connect with him.” And when he asked me why I chose that image in the first place, I agreed that it was because of the look in the horse’s eyes, the intelligent and soulful contact he makes.

And so I’ve forfeited movement and wild scenery for a glimpse into a horse’s eyes and the lifetimes of truth and wisdom behind them. Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals has its official equine ambassador, and in the fullness of summer this book will come fully out into the world.

Happy Mother’s Day to the women who give birth, adopt children or animals, nurture, bring artistic fruits into being, and otherwise love in every way. We’ve been given another day in this glorious journey. Fill yours with joy!

Elizabeth Eiler

Don't Look Back

"Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness." - James Thurber

If you’ve experienced emotional turmoil in recent weeks, or had sudden confrontations with old issues, you’re not alone. Shadowy, often unnoticed obstacles on our paths to spiritual growth are rearing up in our faces, demanding attention. Interpersonal issues we comfortably forgot on the back burner are suddenly smoking up the kitchen. We can’t bury our heads in the sand anymore.

Astrologically as a planetary community – and intimately within our personal microcosmic orbits – we’ve entered a time of taking stock, reassessing, clearing, and creating anew. We have been set on an energetic path of tremendous opportunity to remake our lives, begin living our dreams, and become healthier in mind, body, and spirit than ever before.

With my Reiki clients, I am seeing this commonality of purpose again and again – a globally shared call to confront everything we’ve taken for granted, determining what belongs with us today, or what is a relic from the past. This is true for relationships, finances, jobs and career, home, lifestyle, and health.

As we evolve collectively and individually, all the dark corners and forgotten rooms are being flooded with light. Rather than being afraid of what we see, we should bless our newfound clarity to look afresh at the progress we've made and understand what is still leading where we want to go.

For one client, old fear-based perceptions from a rocky beginning years earlier shackled his ability to proceed with confidence in a new job assignment he really wanted. Despite his successes, he had habituated a belief that he wasn’t capable or would be regarded with suspicion – a dangerous pattern he had to release before he could stand in his current power and energize his goals with confidence.

Other clients were suddenly coming face-to-face with painful reminders that past relationships were coloring the expectations for life with their current partners. Until old hurt and disappointment were drained from their hearts, there were no openings for new blessings to enter. It was vital to ask – were they living in the now as they discovered love with their current partners – or were they subconsciously attempting to give a happier ending to past love affairs?

Whatever doesn’t resonate with your current vibration is not true for you today. Using the emotional/intuitive brain in the heart chakra, you are being called to conduct a full-scale life review.

I’m working with several clients heading into uncharted waters – developing entrepreneurial businesses, leaving corporate America, changing careers, going back to school, relocating. People are becoming allergic to foods and medications they once tolerated. Health conditions are undergoing radical shifts. Our tastes are changing. This is not coincidental.

I recently received the insight to release a business relationship I had clung to long after it was beneficial. It was a starting point, not an ending point. It was time to lovingly separate and create space for new associations that are a good fit today. It was hard, and I wavered until the unhealthiness of the mismatched situation hit me like a baseball bat.

Other personal skirmishes involved body image. I’m not static and trapped in time. I’m supposed to be different in my forties than in my twenties. Cleaning out closets stuffed with tiny clothes I hadn’t fit into for years, and buying a beautiful wardrobe I could actually wear, was a celebration of who I am right this minute. It was more than boxing up donations and going shopping. It was a concrete way of acknowledging a new stage of beauty, loving my body at any size, moving forward with power and style.

The message from the Universe is this: Stop living in the past. That’s not who you are, where you are, or where you’re going. Love the moment. Clean your closets. Say goodbye and release situations and relationships that have run their course. Embrace with all your heart the ones coming with you into the future. Make life great.