1/27/14—Waking to the Cardinals

About 45 minutes to an hour before sunrise.

The weather people said the sun was set to rise at 7:19 am. I've come to learn that what they mean by that is the sun breaks the horizon at 7:19. But by the time the sun breaks the horizon, the show is most of the way over. 

Before the "sunrise", the dark blueness of the sky spills slowly out. One by one stars "shut the light off" for the night. A redness starts to build at the edges of the earth. The streetlights turn off. The sky goes to light blue. And while the moon is still visible, it's also pretty darned light out. All before the appointed 7:19 "sunrise". 

The pre-sunrise is cool because there's a palpable stillness to the world just before things start to go light. Then you might hear a chirp or two off in the distance. Then the streetlight that annoys me with its bright light in my line of sight of turns off. Then all hell breaks loose. One by one, species of birds awaken. The first squirrel sets out on his daily rounds. You might start to hear cars on the roads. Like us, the earth is a little groggy when it first wakes up, then it hits its stride. 

This morning I heard a really loud caterwauling somewhere in the neighborhood. As I listened, I tried to remember what it reminded me of. Then I remembered it reminded me of the early morning before I put my dog Passion to sleep. We'd heard the same noise. I wondered what kind of bird it was and, just as I wondered, I heard the sound again. This time it was very close. And as I turned to look, there was my cardinal friend, sitting on one of the branches it usually sits on. 

He sat there for a good couple of minutes, making a sound I didn't know cardinals made. Then he started making the usual cardinal sound and I listened for his mate to reply. This couple frequents my back yard, so I know that wherever the male is, the female isn't far behind. 

My best picture of the moon and some pink
clouds, still a few minutes before sunrise.

"They" say that when you see a cardinal, it's a visitation from a loved one who has passed. In this case, I think it was my dog Passion, because that's what it made me think of (other times I've felt a cardinal was my brother.) It feels like she's been around a lot lately. Because of the way things played out—I heard the sound, thought of Passion, then the bird squawked closer—I felt it was a clear sign. So I asked in my head what she wanted me to know. And what I heard back (in my head) was that I was being watched over and everything was going to be OK. That was a nice thought to have prior to sunrise. :)

I poked around online to get statistics about how many people believe in life after death. I found a huge range of results. 34%, according to a Fox News story, 51% on a Reuters poll and 76% on this Huffington Post poll. When you consider that, in order for anyone to go to heaven there has to be life after death, I'm guessing at least half believe. 

But that doesn't speak at all as to how many people think we can get messages from beyond. Certainly that number is lower. My experience reading tarot is that, even if people don't believe in it, they still want to get a reading. And they still hang on every word. This makes me think they may be less of a non-believer than they claim to be. I think the same thing is true when it comes to ghosts and messages from those who have passed over.

You don't need a sixth sense to communicate with loved ones who have passed. You just need the five senses you already have. They'll let you know they're there through scent, like a wafting of perfume from nowhere. Through sight, maybe manifesting in form or making lights flicker, for example. Through sound, perhaps in the form if a song that reminds you of them or your name whispered in your ear. Through touch, you might feel a room get colder, get a tickle in your ear or feel a burning on your face. Taste...well, taste isn't as common, but it's possible. 

Mediums frequently "see" them in their mind's eye, "hear" them telepathically and they might "taste" blood, feel the pain of someone's death or smell a flower. In short, our deceased loved ones try to communicate in many ways we can readily understand without any special skills. And when these things happen, stop to remember that you can ask them why they're there or what they have to tell you. You should hear an answer in your head. You might think you're making it up. And maybe you are. Or maybe they put the thought in your head. 

In the end communicating with deceased loved ones takes the same skills it did when you related to them as living beings. Included in that is trust. As you trusted them then, you need to trust that what you're hearing/thinking/seeing now is true. The more you notice these "odd coincidences", the more you start to see more than just coincidence is involved. Can you imagine being dead and expending so much energy to turn off lights and make birds fly to your loved one and whatnot, only to have them ignore and deny you're there, time after time? For that reason alone it's worth at least entertaining the possibility.

Even if you're a believer, the relationship and lines of communication won't be the same as when they were here. But for me, it's better than the nothing that those who don't believe get. What kinds of signs have you gotten?