One of most wonderful aspects of working with the medicine of symbol, imagery, and nature is the ways in which the message can speak to the heart of multiple issues across time and space, offering information and healing to everyone who shares the encounter.
Case in point: in my initial blog entry of about a year ago, I described a medicine walk and the healing message I received from an upended piece of moss. What I didn’t share at the time was how timely that message also was for my husband.
About a year before that hike my husband had experienced a professional sea-change that had upended him — just like our Moss Friend. With no advance warning, at the end of an annual review, he was informed that his position was being down-sized and repackaged as a seasonal role. Then he was handed a new job description (which included a list of his “new” old duties) and with a warm smile his supervisor expressed her sincerest expectation that he would continue on in the department.
Unable to afford the pay cut, he had no choice but to resign. After nearly 10 years with an organization he called home, he suddenly found himself — like that little piece of moss — dislodged and parted from a beloved community and work for which he had a great passion and commitment.
This was a blow to his heart, to have to walk away from a place he loved and to which he felt so connected and had contributed so much value. Grieving the loss, he pulled together several part-time jobs while he searched for a full-time position in his field. We prayed for guidance on this path of change, and he opened himself to a larger mission, guided by the divine. And that’s where he was still living on that chilly February day when we encountered the Moss Man.
In the moment, my focus was on my experience, for the story of its upending and re-rooting felt so resonant to me. But the wisdom of that narrative also had a message for my husband, who himself had connected with its synchronicity and lesson — albeit less consciously: he, too, would soon have a new home.
And about three months after rescuing that little moss person on that winter hike, my husband was unexpectedly offered a full-time position with one of the organizations where he had been working part-time. This was a newly created role; the company had literally made space for him — much as we were able to make space for the little Moss Man under the tree’s toes. And like our Moss Man, my husband joined a new community were he was not only welcome but could also put down roots — in a neighborhood close to the old one.
I received a teaching that day about the power of narrative. The aspects of a story line or account to which we attach help reveal the themes that can guide our individual experiences. The Moss Man narrative could be read for the threads that applied to each of us. Further, its narrative would have held medicine for anyone who had been on that walk that day: some part of the Moss Man’s story would have spoken to that person, helping to cast light on an issue in, or aspect of, hir life.
Every narrative contains a healing message for the person who encounters it. One just needs the eyes to see it — and a heart to open to it.
Lys Swan 