Animals that cross our paths usually have something to tell us and synchronicity is often involved.
Tonight during dinner Rob related an experience that had happened earlier today when he went biking with a retired fireman and his son, Eric, who had just started using the clips on the bike pedals that hooked on to his biking shoes. He was worried about what he would do if he had to stop suddenly. These hooks keep your shoes on the pedals even if you fall. It’s not exactly my idea of fun – I dislike being trapped under any circumstances – but hey, whatever moves your blood. So as they were biking, Rob thought that if a tortoise crossed their path, he would be the first one to see it.
I wasn’t sure if that meant he would see it because he was staring at the ground as he biked or if it was because he was first in line. I asked him about it and Rob said it was just one of those random thoughts that flitted through his head as they biked. But not too long afterward, a tortoise crossed the bike path and Eric, who was in the lead, was able to stop without falling off his bike. Rob subsequently told Eric that the tortoise was his teacher, showing him to how to stop quickly without falling oss his bike.
“So it was telepathic,” I said.
“Or precognitive,” Rob said.
I immediately went looking for the esoteric meaning of tortoise and the gestation period for its eggs (timing).
The gestation period is 60-90 days – i.e., two to three months. Tortoises carry their homes with them. In some cultures, they are considered to be harbingers of good luck. So, okay, I’m thinking that in two to three months, Rob will experience good luck in some area of his life.
This evening, I was closing the door to our garage – which has developed a few problems lately – and saw a large rat scampering away from the noisy garage door to a deeper part of the garage. Some people are disturbed by cockroaches, but I’m freaked out by snakes and rats. I quickly shut the utility room to the garage, and told Rob we had a rat in the garage.
He insisted I must have seen a possum, but my brain translated it as rat. The possums in our neighborhood usually don’t enter enclosed spaces; they stick to fences, trees, the yard. I left the garage door open slightly so it could leave, thank you very much. After a bit of research on the Internet, I found out that the gestation period for rats is between 21-23 days, about three weeks.
I usually seek out the gestation period first because it provides timing. So here we had the tortoise – two to three months gestation – and the rat, which provided a time frame of about three weeks. But what else could these critters tell us?
I pulled out the book my friend Millie Gemondo and I had written, Animal Totems. Tortoises or turtles, we wrote, are indicative of long life, and to numerous fortunate opportunities that are headed your way. A rat may be symbolic of blocking of holes in your life where corruption can enter. I really didn’t like that interp, and went looking for something else. This is the same thing I do when I draw cards for myself. Or throw an I Ching and don’t like what I get. I figure the future is in flux and still malleable, so I reach for another possibility. And find something I like:
“If Rat has scurried across your path you are being asked to assert yourself in new areas that you have not yet explored. Perhaps it’s time to take up those new hobbies, challenge yourself by learning something new or simply taking the uncertain first steps towards your dreams. Rat is letting you know it’s time for “new beginnings” and change.
Alternatively you are being asked to evaluate the clutter around you. Is it time to purge old baggage and feelings that no longer serve you? Time for a spring cleaning. Sell or giveaway all the physical things that are just filling up the space around you. In doing this you will often symbolically begin to clear old emotional issues and cluttered thinking. Allow yourself to feel as you purge. This cleansing act will make space for the new things to come.
This interp makes sense to me. My purge, I think, will begin in my office!
