Don't Be Afraid to Get Your Paws Wet

This is the lesson that was again impressed upon me today after I had moped around Lonsdale unsuccessfully looking for a job. After a lot of lack of luck, I turned into a spiritual store - you know the type. They sell tarot cards, pendulums, incense and books about all matter of spiritual and psychic insight. There had once been a store of the same type in Vernon, where me and my mother used to go called Dreamweaver. I hadn't really been looking for a job when I went in there. Me, an apprentice in the spiritual work there? I hardly even know what my spiritual beliefs are yet, other than that they are heavily focused around my spirit guide the arctic wolf! But I got to talking with these people, these masters of the occult which is no more different than how other people go to church. I have never been to a church except for Cub meetings and funerals. I am not religious. Do not call me Christian because I am not. I don't believe in God, because I'm not sure that there is one, but I am not atheist either though I do sidle towards agnostic. Yes, there might just be a god or gods and I like to think that just like every plant has a spirit and every rock does, then the earth must have one too. If there is anything to be called 'god' in this world, then it is surely the Earth. It is here that we live and it is here that we die. Nothing more.

In any case, I spoke to these woman at the shop and they asked me what I want. I replied that I wanted a job and the old Jamaican woman said something along the lines of "But what type? You have to be more specific for your spirits if you want them to give you something you like! Understand it's the Law of Attraction working here! Don't be afraid of using it; you deal too much in the negative side of it, use it for good!"

Yes, I'll admit it as I admitted it there. I'm kind of afraid of the Law of Attraction because if there's anything I really believe in in this world, it's that. It's scary shit because it's as real as I'm Canadian. Recently after I had just learned the Law of Attraction, we had decided to go to the hospital, I believe to visit one of my Mom's roommates who had kept her company during the surgery she had had. I had found out, somehow or other, that the hospital only allows two visitors at a time, so I spent nearly the entire car ride to see this old guy worrying about this. I'm not sure what I wanted. I wasn't very specific, but the root of what I wanted was to be able to visit this old man without trodding on hospital law. I was, as usual, thinking that I should be left behind in the van as we parked.

That's about when my Dad's window suddenly could not roll up.

Now, I know what you're thinking - it was probably jammed before or something. Well; it wasn't. It was only after I had had all that angst about the stupid rule that the window would not roll up and since we could not possibly leave the van with the window open, my Dad offered to stay behind. When I came back he could miraculously get it down.

The moral? The Law of Attraction - this shit works.

Now, as the anxious little thing that I am, I thus developed a mild phobia of this very important Law. (It's basically along the lines of 'ask and ye shall receive' for biblical people.) But now I'm reminded as my Mom has reminded me so many times - use the Law of Attraction. USE IT. It will work. Don't let any doubts cloud your mind and ask the spirits or whatever it is you pray to for help... that's what I was reminded of by the ladies. Feeling weirdly like I had just gotten run over or winded (possibly because I've been inside all week for the most part) I left feeling like a wreck, determined to ask the spirits for help in finding a job. There's a lot at stake with this. If I don't find a job, I can't stay in Vancouver and I'll have to go home back to the Okanagan, where my mother will annoy the living daylights out of me until I do something. She'll make my life at home a living hell. I don't fault her for it. She does it because she cares - she creates incentive for me to get my scrawny little ass in gear.

So I went back towards Capilano, but I knew that if I went home to my room I would accomplish nothing. This thing I'm typing on right now? My laptop? Lappy286 named for Strongbad's computer? Yeah. MOST DISTRACTING THING IN THE UNIVERSE. Especially when you're trying to appeal to ghosties which may or many not exist. Y'never know. I like to think they do and I've felt a lot of personal proof that they do, particularly from Wolf (who completely hated it when I tried to dye my hair dark brown instead accidentally dying it red - he said it made me look like a fox when I'm supposed to be a wolf. Ironically, a year later he calls me Grey Fox because the red's fading now, giving me back my natural very greyish ash blonde hair colour. He doesn't want me to ever dye it again. For now I'm inclined to listen.) and a few times I've felt that I might have some sort of horse totem. (The Horse is my zodiac sign as well.)

Anyway, after I veered away from home, I decided to give my head to Wolf and let him decide where we should go. Now, for those potential perverts in the audience (if I have an audience at all) I'm referring to something in Equestrianism and horse racing when you give a horse their head which means you let the horse judge how fast and where you both go. So, Wolf chose the way. I can't describe how I knew where he wanted me to go. I think it's mainly intuition. Wolves love to wander in any case, so Wolf led me on a meandering path through the forest where I had never been, starting from Inner River Park. We got to a place called Hastings Creek and walked in. Here there was a little elbow bridge and two arms of a babbling brook. After some wandering around, I went and crouched on one of the slippery green rocks in the creek there.

Creeks have a magic quality to them. My mind, which typically works at the speed of light unless I'm really concentrating, like now, is generally very distractable. I mean, at any given point I can suddenly change thought pattern without warning. People who know me, who have let me rant, are sometimes left completely blindsided by this little quirk of mine. I'm like a hound dog with two many scents to follow, but get me on a thread that I'm really passionate about and I just seriously do not shut up. End game. No more conversation - it's just me going "blahblahblahblahblah" and usually about Rimer. Rimer's my favourite topic of any conversation. I'd probably blow most people's minds with how intensely obsessed I am. Ah, but creeks! The creek quieted my mind and I was able to have my quiet little spiritual moment. It filled up the extra train of thought I always have running, quieting my hyperactive mind. I just sat there, getting a bit of a pain in the leg by the way I was crouching and feeling sleepy, thinking about what sort of job I wanted. Well, I learned what kind:

I want a job where there is a flow of information between me and other people - a job where I can learn and have fun. To inspire me to greater heights. That's the type of magical job I want. (Haha I like the word 'magical' but really I just want a fun job, like working at an outdoor equipment store or something!)

After I had this epiphany, which wasn't much of one because I believe I already knew it, I just needed to allow my brain to sort it out, I felt that it was time to go, to carry on. I looked across the creek and feeling that Wolf wanted me to go across and since there were plenty of rocks, the wanker made me go across it on foot.

Well, here's where he reaffirmed the lesson he keeps trying to drill into my head of don't be afraid to get your paws wet; I slipped and my shod foot went in the water. But the water was warm! I was amazed; it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, so I put both feet in the water and splashed across. Wolves don't use rocks anyway! There I realized my direction was a dead end and I turned around, splashing back across. I started hiking, thinking this lesson over as I went and the meanings of it - in life, we must not be afraid to get our paws wet. Chances are, the water's not as bad as you think it is. Don't make mountains out of molehills. Just do it - step in. It might be freezing cold, but y'never know - maybe there's a tasty fish waiting for you if you work for it.

As I started hiking again, my head sort of aching, I almost turned back, then thought of something else and that is that when you go hiking, you usually always feel kind of bad at the start if you are unprepared, but within a few minutes, once you really get into it and forget to be a human with a hella stressful life, that headache goes clean away. So I sucked it up and I kept hiking, letting Wolf tell me where to go. Letting myself just be a bystander to my own life was weird, but there's a good thing about being a long time hiker. You can fully and absolutely trust your feet. They know what to do in pretty much every situation imaginable. It's like typing once you're really good at it - you don't think about it, you just do it. I haven't the slightest idea of what my hands are doing right now as I type, even though I use what some people call the 'chicken peck' tactic to type which is where you search out every key then hit it. But I don't look at the keyboard at all because my fingers absolutely know what they are doing. They've been doing this so long, typing my manuscripts that this is just old hat to them, like a trail is old hat to my feet.

My feet and Wolf led me down a strange downhill avenue path of short little moss covered stick trees like a bridal path. It followed a sort of tube type thing for water (wow I'm so descriptive) all the way down to a river. By this time, I was kind of lost. I have no idea where I was, other than the vague notion that I was in West Lynn, which is not an area of North Vancouver which I am familiar with. At the edge of the river, surrounded by nothing but green, lush Vancouver forest, I stepped out and felt the crazy idea that Wolf wanted me to follow this sort of metal thing protecting the culvert tube that kind of dammed the river a little. Water was flowing over it just to clarify, but this thing made a tiny two foot waterfall. Wolf wanted me to cross the river just above it to where on the other side there was a cement thing. I had no idea what was over there and looking at the water, which wasn't deep but was questionable, I was not sure what to do. I wandered around on the sandbar for a good five minutes, standing on rocks and the like and I figured that if the water was lower, the river would be easily crossable. In fact, it was easily crossable as it was, but based on the logic that I had no way of knowing what it was like exactly, except that it was only about 1-2 feet deep, I elected to stay on my side of the river. There is a point where in hiking you have to stop being a wolf and become a human again.

I kind of regret not crossing that river. I wanted to, but I just didn't have the balls for it. Maybe if somebody else had been there, egging me on I would have, but it was just me and Wolf, a mortal and her spirit guide. He was asking me for bravery and he was trying to reassert his lesson of not being afraid of wet feet, of having faith, but I was nervous. Yes, I'll admit it - I'm really guilty for not crossing that river. I could have, but I didn't. I will probably keep making excuses to myself about why I did not for quite a while. I'm sure I'll have another opportunity to get my paws wet like the river and hopefully it is as safe as that, but it might not be. I'm very sorry I did not cross that damn river! In time the regret will fade. It's a small thing. I chose common sense in the end. Most sane modern humans just do not walk across rivers. But y'know, I'm pretty sure that had somebody been with me, I would of. This is another thing about humans and wolves - we're pack animals. We're always braver in a group.

So here I sit, back at home on my floor, my back to my bed and my body pillow. My lower legs are wet and itchy, for I did indeed step into the river tentatively for a bit. My thighs are warm though, warmed by my laptop as I write this and the steady tapping of the keys fills my pricked ears. Tomorrow I will continue my hunt for a job and my hunt for knowledge and hopefully, on either front, I shall come up successful. I hope so. This time I'll let Wolf guide me and you never know... it might work better. He did get me home, leading me for a loop and so he did take me for quite the run today.

I seriously had no idea where I was for a while back there!