It takes time, years, of paying attention to begin to open awareness about the function of certain symbols in our lives. I have had a thing with feathers for years, and only today did it start to congeal into a larger story that I can see – like the threads of a dream catcher finally all coming together so you see the bigger pattern. It takes just noticing over time.

Not long ago I had a dream in which I was wearing a little bunch of feathers in my hair. They felt so good, like “my” feathers, a part of me. After awakening I gathered a little group of feathers and attached them to my the headboard of my bed to keep the dream close. Today a friend and I went to the Cherokee reservation near here. In a little shop I saw a bunch of feathers just like in that dream, so I bought them and a few other feathers. I always pick up feathers in the woods when I find them, so when I added these new dramatically beautiful ones to my collection here my whole house seemed to fill with an energy.

Years ago a shaman I worked with on a 9-month initiation told me I needed to get an eagle feather. He gave me so many tasks, but that one I never pulled off. I didn’t know where to find one. A year or so later I began having dreams of eagles and thought, “I never got that feather. Must find!” But then heard a story that made me think you don’t go find it, it finds you. So I said to myself, “Ok, I’ll wait.” Very shortly after that I was in a very large junk/antique store in Los Angeles. I got to talking to the owner who looked to be about 95, as sweet as he could be, and he seemed very charmed with me. Before I left, as I was saying good-bye, his eyes lit up and he said, “Wait, I want to give you something.” He reached behind a display and pulled out an eagle feather and gave it to me with gleaming eyes. He said it was special, it had fallen out of a very old, authentic Indian headdress and he couldn’t re-attach it. He had been waiting for the right person to give it to.

When I left the shop in Cherokee today after buying my feathers, the Native American man who worked there said to me, “I will remember you as the feather lady.” Feathers, I am starting to get it that I may need to pay closer attention to what their medicine is for me.