No. 4 - Reading the Omens around me
Vaness Henry: 0:07
There is a parkade being built right outside my home. There's a construction site all in the foreground and I watch this massive crane lift these ginormous cement concrete slabs into place like a jigsaw puzzle, like a big Jenga Tetris game, and my husband used to own a business in that parallel field and knows exactly what they're doing and how it's working and why they're arranging it the way they are, and so he's able to tell me things going on. So this is this structure being built has like a lot of my focus, you could say in the foreground of my life right now. There's a metaphor in there, in there for me. And while they were building this parkade, they placed this owl throughout it, and I don't have as strong a vision as my husband does and I would lose track of this owl and it's my understanding. They place it there so that large birds don't come and make nests and things in there.
Vaness Henry: 1:14
And I was sitting in my bedroom today being contemplative and sharing things with my husband just about where things are at right now for the. Each of us. We had family recently stay with us and so we're just shaking their spirits from our hair. You know. We're just kind of coming back to ourselves uh, cleansing the home, rearranging things, vacuuming, dusting I even have to smoke cleanse and spray, uh, agua de Florida everywhere, just to make sure I feel like everything's really reset. I don't know, I just have to do it. I have to do it. Energy's in the walls. You know, I have to do it. And we were just kind of we came together just to kind of kind of commend each other. Like as soon as they left, we just moved into cleaning the home and rearranging my son's room for the winter season. He needed some rearrangements in there and we just got the whole place set and it feels really good and it was kind of a therapeutic release being with family, because we don't connect with our community spheres very often. At this point in our roof journey is two hermits on the roof and I've just been doing a lot of kind of contemplating about what community means to me and how to engage with the other in a way that feels good for me as a hermit and my husband's going through this as well. So we really share that together.
Vaness Henry: 2:30
Anyway, lo and behold, he says to me, do you see the owl in the parkade? And I'm like, oh my gosh, no, where is it. And there it is, right on the edge, staring directly at me, right on the edge, staring directly at me, piercing at me through the window. So I ran to my office. I must translate the owl. What does the owl mean when it shows up? Which is so interesting, because this morning I was doing an inner expedition and the way the expedition began when I plugged in was I saw through a pair of owl eyes.
Vaness Henry: 3:04
And this is something that used to happen to me when I was getting my Reiki attunement and learning about body work, and it was in my young twenties and it was all just very new. You know, I had just been really sick and was in recovery and kind of rediscovering myself and I had some kind of great mentoring energy around me at that time. I now I'm realizing I didn't realize it at the time, but I am realizing it now and something that used to happen when I was kind of getting in touch with myself and what my abilities were, where I would see through a pair of violet, black jaguar eyes eyes or a pair of white owl eyes, and I had to go on a few journeys to just understand what that meant for me and why that was happening for me that way, and throughout my life as a young person, I inherited all these owls. I don't know. Like I didn't like like owls or anything. People would always gift me owls, and I was like, what the hell Like? I feel like I'm this weird lady with these owls everywhere at this point, and I I hate a little bit sheepishly, admit this, but I ended up donating a lot of them because I had a complex about it.
Vaness Henry: 4:14
It was like, why are all these owls around me watching me? You know, that's how it felt, and why do see owls in my home and think, oh, she likes owls, I'll get her an owl. It's like, no, I don't, I don't particularly like these things, but they keep coming to me. This is something that can we can experience sometimes, though, like when some type of significant energy comes at us like that. So I had to kind of go figure out what that meant for me again, and, um, you know, I kept thinking of like these fantastical shows with their magical owls.
Vaness Henry: 4:44
Um, you know, I kept thinking of like these fantastical shows with their magical owls. I was like I don't want anything to do with that, like that is so weird and out there, leave me alone, no, ah, anyway, the owl fucking shows up today on the parkade and I'm like you, little stink. Here you are again, and I was just looking through your eyes this morning. You're all around me and now there it is gazing at me, so rushed to my office to translate it. And you know, I know what the owl represents. But it's funny. When the owl shows up, I know what it means, at least for me, and yet I do like to go and read it. There's just something about the way the words feel in my body and the places that it hits, and it can be really calibrating for me.
Vaness Henry: 5:23
And when the owl shows up, pull back somewhere in your life. It is safe for you to retreat, meditate, seek silence, solitude and darkness. And in these spaces, something you need will be revealed to you what are you seeing right now? What are you seeing right now? What are you able to pick up on where others may miss? Watching and listening will help you find the answers you seek. So are you experiencing hunches before they happen? Are these senses of attunement? What is that? Do your best to notice this in the coming time. Explore your creativity at night or shift to using your energy, some kind of energy in the evenings. This quietness and darkness of that time supports your creativity and clarity. So in expeditions you can always transform into the owl to reach new places.
Vaness Henry: 6:23
I love to translate the omens in my expeditions, but I do that in my waking life as well and I get great joy out of it and I'm always kind of watching for those omens and then I do rush and translate them and I just think it makes everything so much more enjoyable. And it's so funny because it just makes me all of a sudden go a little, be a little bit more aware in this moment, because I am feeling at this time like I'm wanting to be more present with my son in the evenings. I'm really wanting to disconnect from my office energy and go color with him, watch modern family with him, um, play little games. We played apples to apples all weekend. I'm definitely feeling called more. It's getting it's dark at like three, 30, the sun dips below the mountain, so it's just way more retreating energy and I'm really feeling myself already called into the energy of the new year and what I need to be aligning to and I feel like it's already happening for me and so I'm feeling really like I need to pull away and start to hermit and actually go into my winter process around um mid autumn season, and I usually calibrate about that much before. I am a quarter ahead, I guess, of 25% ahead of the change of season. I experienced it early and I'm feeling like I need to go through a pretty big reset.
Vaness Henry: 7:54
At this time. We had this changes astrologically and things were being eclipsed from us and new illumination was happening in these deeply transformative areas. New illumination was happening in these deeply transformative areas and I suddenly just became acutely aware of how I had positioned myself as a variable teacher in human design and I tend to get very focused in things and harness my energy in that way but it suddenly started to feel like way too head down, narrow scope and not to lose sight of being someone who plays in the healing arts, somebody who had a traumatic beginning and was called onto a healing path, a shamanic path. And human design, specifically variable, is one of my many studies and tools that I use in order to understand what might be afflicting and ailing the other. Because, as the cross of healing, a huge part of my experience is to move toward healing, and so the expedition series that I just completed for myself was really looking at what it means to be a demon hunter and how to recognize inner demons that may really deeply hurt us inside facets of ourselves, of our spirit that was broken or crumbled during traumatic experiences and then left behind through a version of soul loss. And so performing soul retrieval through shamanic work, through things like inner expeditions at least that's what I call it, that's what I've designed for myself to kind of play in.
Vaness Henry: 9:40
Recognizing those broken aspects of self, of soul, of character lost inside and reintegrating them is a healing practice and the language of human design and astrology and Feng Shui and others. Right, because we speak all kinds of languages and some may be more prominent at certain times. Those help me to understand reality and the other so I might understand the sickness or illness in the other or challenge that the other is experiencing. But the mode and movement toward self-understanding expanded, expanded awareness and ultimately healing, is always through practicing things, getting a feel for things, trying again and this unique mix of internal illumination where you have the space to contemplate your experience, your sufferings. You aren't running from those demons within, you are turning around and facing them and reintegrating them and ultimately becoming more whole and more aware, less running around like these broken people. So, with this owl staring at me and calling me into more of a hermit era, moving me more into nighttime, um, creativity which I'm feeling as time with my son moving into more times of darkness and solitude, needing to pull back somewhere in the life to see something, something is being missed. That's feeling very resonant with me at this time, and so now every time I go, look out my window to recalibrate and go to my shore, there's going to be this eboo, this owl staring at me reminding me of this message, which I love. I love that, I love that and, um, even though that feels like that is the message, something that came on the wind with that was holding space for my husband as he goes through his transformations as well, like I'm experiencing mine and he's also experiencing his, and so if I watch him, what am I learning?
Vaness Henry: 11:51
As a six line will is learning through the other, and we recently started um, a production company. We're six, two studio and I've limited involvement in that. I set things up, I initiate things, I do some of the creative, but it's really his space for the creative labor, the creative artistry, assembling things and creating the vision that we help, creating the vision that we see for others when they come to us. And we did that because so much of our life we're being called into all these side projects and I can only send so many invoices before I'm annoyed and I need like a system set up because I don't want to do all that responding. So if people are coming to me for this or coming to us for this or coming to you for this, whatever the case may be, I will initiate and create a system to make it easier and set it up so in a way that it works for me. And so we ended up doing that with six, two and we now create podcasts and the people that we attract are very much a part of my world at this time.
Vaness Henry: 12:53
You know they speak awareness languages, their shows are about that and how to get that out. They just maybe have no idea of how to put together the creative or they are not tech savvy in that way. Like it is quite an art form working with the software and stuff. There's a million reasons why people might want a podcast but not, um, go a DIY route or something you know it's actually, and there's like licenses and there's like kind of a bit to know. So it makes sense to me that not everybody would know that I'm learning. I know that and I'm learning. Not everybody knows that human or hermit kind of thing, little human moment for me and my husband is the same.
Vaness Henry: 13:28
So after getting called into like doing an album and this side project and that meditation and that podcast and that podcast, we just kind of made things available for people and we made a little system and I had a lot of clarity of like I can initiate this. But this will really be him managing a lot of it. It's really his machine that I plug into sometimes because I have my own machine over here and as a generator who went on the roof, he really unplugged for a long time and he has a different pace than me and he's wanting to plug back in. He's realizing how unplugged he is, but with a totally open throat. He's like I have no idea how to get myself out there as the production company owner. Meanwhile, me over here I have an expertise in how to do that. I'm educated in that. I taught that in universities but I have no and a teaching I just received from my son who.
Vaness Henry: 14:31
There's holiday concerts kind of coming up and my son applied or not applied, that's the wrong language auditioned for a lead role and I was so excited. I was like where is this coming from out of the blue? And he did have a sparkly moment performing earlier and we saw it. We're like oh, wow, there's something there. And now, you know, the cycles come back around, the opportunities come back around again. There's like a play going on and he wants to perform.
Vaness Henry: 15:01
Well, I was like stage parent activated, you know, stage mom activated. What do we do? Let's do lines Like I'm all in, I'm so excited. And he just was so repelled by me. It was kind of devastating because I was just so excited and like that's the kind of kid I was. I was a performer and a singer and a dancer. I didn't do any acting or anything, but if there was like a school concert, I was a lead role in it, either narrating or something. You know what I mean and I loved it. And so to see that come alive in him was exciting to me because I saw part of myself in him. And then we crashed and burned when I tried to like read lines with him and it just so I was like, wow, I really need to figure out how to support him.
Vaness Henry: 15:49
And we were watching Modern Family that's what my family's little concentrated, nostalgic treat is right now that we're having together and there was this episode where the child was like running for valedictorian or something and the parent wanted to come in and really encourage the kid. The kid was like rehearsing their own lines in the mirror, like a little hermit, and I was like, oh, and I saw myself. I saw my son like he knew all his lines already when I came to him and I was trying to be like let's start this together and he was already a little little MG, way ahead of me, little like little Leo moon, his pride, like he was just like, oh, my God, anyway. So I missed the boat, like he had already. He was way ahead of me and I stepped in and so then it caused conflict and I just crashed and burned and I wasn't able to be there for him. He wanted nothing to do with me, was totally repelled by me.
Vaness Henry: 16:40
And then, watching our little show Modern Family, I realized, oh, my son is a hermit. He likely has his own special little way of performing this or figuring this out. I was the same. I had my little rituals and my little ways of performing things and how I need to do it. And can I recognize that in him? So I'm, I'm. I don't know if he has the part yet or what part he did get, because I'm sure he will get a part, but who knows which one? And how do I support him through that without totally being repelling or overbearing or overdominating or domineering? How do I you know, now that I have the awareness of that, how do I conduct myself? So I have to really take a step back and let him lead, of course.
Vaness Henry: 17:24
And so, from that teaching that my son gave me, I'm now seeing that through the other person in my life, my husband. And how do I actually show up and not dominate, not overgive? I don't actually have the energy to go take all that marketing on over there. I don't want to do that. I'm doing that for myself. If you want to be doing this, then you need to take this on. You're the one who has the space for that. You're the one who needs to figure that out. You use your open throat, try things. You be on the roof like share through other people, whoever you're working with whatever approach you need to take, go trial and error and figure it out for yourself.
Vaness Henry: 17:58
I guess I'm here to guide, but like I can't step in and just take over, don't want to do that and also know that I can be repelling and off putting and I hate that. It's there and it is what it is. But, um, how do I, with the awareness I have, show up and support these people in a way that actually feels like it is really nourishing to them and they appreciate it and value it and want it and also feels really good for me? Can I go into exchanges like that and so then I take that into? You know how I run my life and how I make a living and the type of exchanges that I have with people.
Vaness Henry: 18:42
I'm really thinking about that and evaluating that and I feel like this owl staring at me is like you have to figure this out, or you have to focus on this, or this is the focus right now, not that you have to figure this out, or you have to focus on this, or this is the focus right now, not that you have to figure this out. Like I feel like I need to actually sit back and let things unfold on their own timeline and let clarity kind of come. And so I'm really feeling like I need to go into winter, reevaluate all my systems. Um, there are things that I'm wanting to try and open up that I now need to take a step back, reevaluate. How might I do that? And so I need to kind of go into that quietude and I'm wanting to really be intentional with, like, cleansing my system.
Vaness Henry: 19:19
What are my, what's the tone I want for 2024? Um, how are all my spheres of wellness and am I in balance? Um, do I feel good in my body? Am I moving my body? Do I have ritual and ceremony around me? What is my connection to my community, my land? How am I sleeping? How am I feeding and fueling myself? Where has my awareness taken me now? And how do I step now into a new character, a new identity that has mutated some of the teachings I've accumulated and now be able to use them in a new way? And how do I want to kind of show up and do that?
Vaness Henry: 19:57
So, pulling back with the teachings of the owl, ruminating on the teachings of the people in my life, my son and my husband, how do I want to show up, um and show face at this next era and this next season of life. So I'm in the process of moving through that. I don't have clarity on that, but it is getting clearer. But I am feeling like how do I pull my spirits back and allow myself to fully transform? So where do I need to let go? Where do I need to shut down? Where do I need to realign? And although those times are uncomfortable and somewhat vulnerable, if I'm being honest, can I trust in my ability kind of constantly mutating as my awareness continues to build and as I recognize the teachings of the omens and the guides around me? My guides happen to be a little boy, a romantic partner and an owl.
