This is sort of related to the trees, in that one of the stories in my upcoming book, Secret Voices from the Forest, is about an encounter between one of my cats and a rattlesnake.


I woke up early yesterday morning (one of the irritating "side-effects" of aging) and while lying there hoping to go back to sleep, I had one of those wandering thoughts—that there was a rattlesnake in the house.  


Not your average thought during that half-awake morning time, you say?  Well, it can be if you live in the rural Southwest, where the rattlesnake is a common resident.  But I should say in their defense, if it weren't for the snakes, the rodent population would be worse than it is, so they are not entirely unwelcome.


At any rate, the thought/dream had a certain "quality" to it, and sure enough, I discovered a juvenile rattler in my bedroom around noon.  I find it interesting how this kind of occurrence brings out one's primitive instincts, because my first response was to kill it.


In my above-mentioned story, I had killed a snake, felt bad about it, and vowed to never do so again; so here I was, and I don't like to break promises, so what to do?


Luckily, I remembered that I have a 3-foot "reacher" that grabs things (something I acquired when my arthritis was particularly disabling), and it was the perfect thing to pick up the snake and carry it outdoors where I could release it.  Then I found the hole in the screen on my porch, fixed it, and the crisis was over.


My friend Cynthia thought it was a test, and that I'd "passed it with flying colors."  Feels like that to me too–a reminder from Spirit that in the pursuit of spiritual growth, its how you relate to the real world that counts.