riverquest and back

We have been on a bit of a hiatus.  Not really.  Last week we went on a little vision quest-- made it all the way to the mountains of Virginia.  The experience was thick with animal encounters: turtles, fish, hawks, rabbits, deer; the usual.  But some unusual stuff as well: a butterfly wing fell on me from the sky -- and I was nearly peed on by a tiger. 

We met some human animals, too.  One fine fellow wound up being our camping butler, swimming hole bloodhound, river guide.  He was so clearly a red bear.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a bear with me.  But I'm pretty confident that I can get that guy his red river bear through this vast and growing spirit animal network..  One of these days.

Bottom line: we are river dipped-- renewed, refreshed, and ready. 

Big stuff coming up here at the beast factory.  A whole new batch is about to be fired.  Animals are about to go scattering across the state.  And we were recently mentioned in an article in SALT magazine.     

Making waves!  Check your pockets!  Check your socks!



         

House grouse and the dog days of summer

It's July!  Hurricane Arthur and Independence day are racing each other to the weekend.  Seems like chaos and entropy are about to be afoot. 

Last Sunday we put a chipmunk somewhere downtown. (I know, we've got to branch out a little from our typical dive bar haunts.  It'll happen.) Chipmunks are talkers.  Happy little talkers.

We gave away a grouse/partridge to a very capable gifter.  Surely it found it's place in the world.  We know two things about the grouse: 1. When coyotes pounce on field mice they create little paths for grouse chicks to get around.  Naturally when coyote populations are decimated these little paths cease to exist and those fluffy little grouse chicks get caught in the tall grass and die. 2.  Grouse have wings and can fly but they usually don't.  They prefer to stay close to the ground. 

Whoever got this little bird: you have wings!  Don't die in the grass!  Fly up!  Also, you'd be wise to remember we are all in some giant unfathomable symbiotic relationship.  I bet the grouse never looks at the coyote and thinks: we need each other.  But they do.

Speaking of coyotes, a whole batch of fired canines are about to hit the town for the dog days of summer: foxes, wolves, coyotes.  Keep your eyes peeled, Spirit People!

Post SUNday sunday

Post SUNday Sunday. 

It was a weird weekend.  Something in the air.  Summertime, I guess.

I gave a little bear to a nice couple from Murrells Inlet-- a couple doing shots of Rumplemintz at 3 in the afternoon.  I think I gave them a bear.  A bush bear, maybe.  Or a raccoon?

Bears can mean so many things-- but sending it out on the day after the summer solstice is a reminder that it's time to stop hibernating.  Solitude and rest are important, but they're not everything.  Stop thinking, start doing.  Come on out of the caves, bear people!

I think my father was probably part bear.  I've always had love for bears.  And I love the spring-- but I have to be honest, I'm glad it's over.  It's just so MUCH.  All that light all of a sudden: I think it tends to wash out some important details, illuminate things which maybe would be better off staying in the darkness.  It's hard to remember the lessons when you're hit with all that good light.

We've been bumbling around in the sunshine, half blind, going on smell and instinct-- but now our eyes are adjusting: I for one am seeing it.  Patterns, cycles, pitfalls.  Time to realign. 

It's a new world, bears.  And thank the Universe, it's finally summer!

Get your Goat

Met a friend for a quick get-away-from-the-husbands-and -kids-drink.  I love a good (or bad) open mic night.  And one guy sounded just like Joe Cocker.  Always interesting. And really, this was a perfect place for a goat.  Firstly, people with goat totems are bar types: heathens.  My favorites.  But they're also connected to the astrological Capricorn-- which is driven, goal oriented.  A great combination-- good folks to get into trouble with.  Goat people know how to prepare for the big climb-- and if playing an open mic night at a local dive bar isn't preparing for a big climb, heck, I don't know what is.

Plus, you know, the name of the bar has the word Goat in it. 

Be safe, dark goat.  Climb your mountain.    

Full Moon Friday the 13th! Wolf business.

Gosh who knows where these things wound up?  Snakes, turtles, bears, owls.  We must have set at least a dozen little animals free.  Here's what I remember:

The DJ at the Barbary got a rat.  My old friend Dave got a bear-cat.  A couple who loaned us a lighter got something.  I think we left a turtle out back on the porch there.  Left a snake in the bathroom of Caprice.  Left one at Cape Fear Beards and Weirdos hoping it will get to our turtle friend.  I know there were more...

So much fun.  And this is how it works: if you spend your whole night giving out spirit animals, take a cab home, and wake up having lost some of your keys and your wallet; the universe will put the keys in the gutter in front of your friend's house (and a memory in her head, and a little ray of sunlight on metal) and the wallet miraculously in the glove box of your car.

Thank you, Universe!  Thank you, wolf friends who helped me and took pictures and are so funny (where are those pictures, by the way?)!  And thank you, Barbary Coast! 

spacebook and the wooly world

We here at wildbeings are trying to jump into this Jetson-like future.  Due to popular demand (by which I mean, one person suggested it), we've started a facebook page!  We hope to make this project a little easier to connect with and follow.  But don't worry, we're not going anywhere (we're going everywhere!).  I don't plan to actually write anything on facebook... Maybe it'll be more like a scavenger hunt?  Still figuring it out.

Find us out there on facebook.  If you're brave.  And expect to see a whole pack-murder-nest-blessing of animals out there this week.  The full june moon is on it's way and it's going to be a good one!

Animal Sexism Wednesday

Out on a Wednesday afternoon.  Weird hour for spirit animal distributing.  Weird hour for people all around. 

I always thought of this meditating mountain lion as a female spirit-- I'm not sure why. Maybe the colors-- kind of fancy redish-pinkish- greenish-whitish?  Maybe it seems maternal with it's paws out like that?  Peaceful?  Open?  Happy?  Sitting there on the barstool it occurs to me that not a single one of the female patrons near me possess any of these qualities.   

But then a guys comes in.  A guy with a new job.  And a shirt he made himself-- as opposed to using the stand-issue job shirt.  Because he looks cooler in his shirt.  And he's happy.  And looks at people when he talks to them.  And he smiles.  With dimples.     
    
And it occurs to me that this is a MALE mountain lion!  And I am totally being a sexist!  Geez!

This is what I know about pumas/mountain lions/cougars/catamounts: they are one of the two known predators of the porcupine.  They are able to flip it and kill it without any harm to themselves.  So if one of these cats shows up in your life, it's probably about power: coming into your own and using it with finesse.  It suggests the trials have been worked through-- and now it's time to assert that power, take charge.

Goodbye mountain lion!  Good luck with the new job, smiley guy!

Goose Song

My six year old daughter takes placing the animals pretty seriously.  She's learning to spot the right people and she's getting good at the barter or the drop-- depending which is appropriate.  So yesterday afternoon we were at the Satellite Bar with this bird.  It's a swan.  Or maybe a goose.  Both.  And my daughter came running to me: she KNOWS who should have the swan/goose!  She's POSITIVE!  So she runs out to get the bird out of our van and when she gets back, sadly, her human bird was gone.

Normally we might just choose another person.  But geez she was so INSISTANT about this being the right person for this bird!  So we gave it to the bartender hoping she would get it where it was intended to go. 

Swans and geese are both ridiculously loyal.  Protective.  This one had her wings wrapped around herself: protecting herself and anyone in her wingspan.  It's probably a pretty safe place to be. And considering how this particular bird was so kind in making sure our small iffy children made it up the brick steps without breaking their faces, I'd say this part suits her well.

But also: A swan can break a human arm with the beat of it's wings.  And if you've ever been chased by a mean goose-- well, it's scary.  And they pinch.  So I'd guess this is not a person to be messed with.

Geese are loud, they honk, they are storytellers.  Geese are sky and ground.  Reasonable.  Reliable.  Inspiring in their ability to work as a team.  When they fly in formation, nobody flies directly behind anybody else; nobody has an obstructed view.  Geese help each other along.

Swans are sky and water.  They are often silent.  Loaners.  They are more about inner-beauty manifesting into outer beauty.  They represent poetic prowess and a child-like imagination.  Swan is like the fancy, romantic, counterpart to goose.       

So if you got this bird, friendly-brown-dog-bird-lady or whoever, you might struggle with which of your super powers to use and when.  Are you a beautiful silent bone breaker?  Or a helpful honking friend?  You'd be wise to remember that you are both!

So long goose/swan!  I hope you got where you were going!    

badger bugger

The Badger.  I gave it to some guy at the old Duck and Dive-- if I remember correctly he was complaining about doing dangerous work for some secret government agency.  So he's either crazy or very important.  Or both.  A badger, all the way. 

Here's the badger pre-firing-- with a copper ball in his arms and a crow on his head. 

 

Badger people are obviously tough and tenacious. That's the badger's most public quality:  they can be difficult.  They have a tendency to be evasive and secretive.  And grouchy.  To get to know a badger, one has to be like the badger and dig dig dig.

 

If you can deal with a badger long enough you might find that they have a knack for storytelling.  I've read native American myths where badgers are referred to as Story Keepers.  

 

If your the one who got the badger, you should probably keep talking, keep working, keep snarling.  Keep scraping away.  Do it with courage and purpose.  And look up out of that dark tunnel once in a while.

 

So there you go grouchy secret government guy, keep growling! 

Somethings happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.

A good seven months ago and few hundred miles west, I left this weird guy on this sign post. 

I had been distributing these things for a while-- but never with any intentions to track them.  It just really amused me to imagine people finding them in their pockets or helmets or lunchboxes.  Still does.  So this was before the tracking.  No tags.  Naked.

Since the very beginning  I have had people out there helping me-- other people that have been equally amused by this project.  People who have been brave or drunk enough to approach an open pocket or purse.  People who have been discerning enough to be able to tell a hawk from a goat and a pelican from a frog.  People who think it's funny or fun or meaningful or whatever. 

This weird blobby melty guy belongs to one of them.  I didn't even make him.

I took the picture because I wanted to share his placement with the gal that made him.  And then I left him there, on that sign, to find a home.  In October.  Near Asheboro.

SO...  Last night, in perhaps the weirdest most unlikely spirit animal occurrence EVER, I found THIS SAME WEIRD GUY in a planter on Water Street in downtown Wilmington. 

So he's back in my house now.  Back to the land of his conception.  And I have to be honest: it kind of freaks me out. 

 

What, what, what is the universe trying to tell me?  Should I expect them all to come back?  Is this some crazy trippy synchronicity?  Is the blob MY spirit animal?  Or maybe I should be worried that some nut job is following me around trying to make me lose my mind?  (Well played, Nut Job.  Well played.)

 

No, no, no... certainly it's good luck, right? 

 

One thing is for sure: It's a very weird world out there, folks.  VERY WEIRD!