What started with a spirit animal...morphed into a rainbow bridge.

You're going to think I'm crazy and lost the plot. Oh well. Here it goes...

I've kind of felt like in the last two weeks that my spirit animal is the unicorn. 

OK, so, you're either thinking, "She's gone feral hipster" or "She's got that whole earth goddess warrior priestess gonna save the world vibe." Or maybe neither. Probably neither. 

There is something going on and it involves unicorns. Or maybe it embodies them. (It's probably all that telling myself I'm magic; it's seriously messing with my brain and my self-perception.)  But honestly, I don't think it's possible for the words unicorns and uncool to be in the same sentence so there. Ha! More importantly, are there spirit animal rules? Can you be a unicorn one month and the next a hummingbird? 

So to answer my seriously important spirit animal questions I started looking around Google. What I've learned in five minutes.

1. If you're hipster, you're likely to have a spirit animal. (There is even a hipster spirit animal flow chart!)

2. There are about a million quizzes out there to find your spirit animal. 

3. Urban dictionary says its a representative of you or what you want to be.

And that's about the extent of Google's first page of search results. (What even exists on the second pages of Google searches? It remains a mystery to me.)

Oh well,. Nayyyy! Maybe I just wanted to use the unicorn picture.

OK stay with me here...

After my failed spirit animal Google quest, I started thinking about spirit animal origins and assumed (i.e. convinced myself with no actual evidence) they came from Native American stories...which made me think about the Chumash people who were natives to parts of coastal California and the story that someone recently reminded me of.

It's the story of the Rainbow Bridge.

The Earth Mother made a bridge out of rainbow so that the Chumash people could cross from the islands to the mainland and populate the world. It stretched from the tallest mountain on the island to the tallest mountain on the shore and the Earth Mother instructed the people to cross. But, being a rainbow, it was no modern day bridge. Some crossed safely but those who looked down became dizzy and fell into the water. To save them, the Earth Mother turned them into dolphins. Thus, dolphins are our brothers and sisters.

I think July will be my dolphin spirit animal month. I'm starting to feel like my pre-reincarnated self fell into the water.  

Full Moon, New Moon

It's the second day of winter here in the southern hemisphere and it's a full moon. Specifically, it's a full moon in Sagittarius. I'm feeling particularly feisty this full moon but at the same time peculiarly wistful. Honestly, one minute I feel like I could run a marathon and the next all I want to do is scroll through old high school photos. Maybe it's the fact that I'm so freakin' excited to see my sister that I haven't seen in 8 months this Saturday coming (!!!)  Maybe it's that I've greatly decreased the amount of sugar that's going in my gob. Whatever it is, something is making me full of energy and something is making me feel stuck because I can't go forward and reminisce at the same time. It's like running downhill looking over your shoulder and that sucks when you lose your footing because you end up falling on your face. And when I fall on my face, I really end up screwing it up. 

Anyway, I'm fired up with life right now but I've got a lot of crap I'm creating and hanging onto. This full moon is a great excuse to remind myself to let go. So, I'm going to release those things that come up that just aren't serving me anymore. Thoughts, ideas, beliefs, etc, they're all going to the wind!

What better time than to start a new month and new moon with an article titled 30 Things You Should Stop Putting Yourself Through? Or, if you're like me and 30 sounds like a few too many for one new start of letting go, here are 10 that I'm embracing.

1. Stop trying to be someone you're not. You're amazing. When you wake up tomorrow morning tell yourself that. You're freakin' awesome because there is no other you other than you. Also tell yourself you're magic, just for kicks. 

2. Stop lying to yourself. I'm going to spend less time trying to convince myself that my truths aren't true. Embrace myself.

3. Stop trying to hold onto the past. The past gets heavy if you carry it around all the time. It also gets costly if you put it in storage. With some things, give them to the wind, close your eyes and turn the other way.

4. Stop being scared to make a mistake. The paths of success are actually paved with failure. As Paulo Coelho says in The Alchemist, "The secret of life, though, its to fall seven times and to get up eight."

5. Stop trying to buy happiness. The things that truly satisfy us are always free. 

6. Stop looking to others for happiness. Happiness is a created inside. First create it, then give it. 

7. Stop thinking you're not ready. I know I'll never feel ready. I just have to keep reminding myself this. 

8. Stop being jealous of others. They're probably jealous of you anyways. What's the point of that?

9. Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. Somehow the little things always turn out to be the big things. 

10. Stop being ungrateful. When you wake up tomorrow, after you tell yourself you're amazing and magic, ask what you can do for the world today because you're so lucky to be able to give. 

Smile. Let go. 

Want to read all 30?

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/30-things-you-should-stop-putting-yourself-through.html