Forget Me Not
Forget Me Not, Kelsey Weirick, multimedia on canvas, 24x48”
Greetings!
After some time, I’m back with another blog post! This time, about a painting that I truly love and hold dear to my heart. As with the other paintings I’ve blogged about before, this one is another search inwards into the vast, beautiful chaos that is my human experience.
This past year for me has very much been one of spiritual exploration - finding the deeper meanings of life, the human experience, and well, myself. While I’ve entertained spiritual concepts for a while now enjoying the Socratic method and questioning beliefs and narratives, it has always been an ungrounded affair. I do still think that pondering is a great way to keep ones heads in the clouds and away from taking things too seriously. But I did find a podcast while looking into the concept of the Akashics (it’s called the Akashic Reading Podcast with Teri Uktena if you get interested!) which swept up my soul and tossed it into a flurry of passion.
One big takeaway from my learnings is the idea of animal totems - we all have them, it just requires being conscious to see them and willingness to receive the guidance they are offering. There are a couple of ways to find your own totems, I used two ways that confirmed this for me. First, I paid attention to the animals I was seeing around me and saw an overwhelming amount of crows in my day to day life. I saw them flying to or perched on roofs when looking out the window, I saw book covers, illustrations, and videos in my day-to-day. Still needing reassurance (I’m working on this haha!), I set an intention to see one of my animal guides while on a hike and to my surprise I saw and heard several crows along the trail.
Even though western narratives have driven the idea that crows represent death and the spookies, it’s not quite the scary ideology they truly mean as a totem.
Crows represent transformation, change, guiding us through that scary inbetween deterioration of the old and falling into the foundations of the new. Crows seen around the dying aren’t an omen to a forced ending, but guides that help make the transition into the next part of the cycle that is already underway. My life has been one of great transformation, constantly shedding the skin of a previous version of me as I develop into my next higher self.
This current transformation into my next chapter has not been an easy one. It has required testing and questioning beliefs I’ve carried for a long time, self doubts and core beliefs from childhood that I wasn’t even aware I had. I’ve been so deep into the headstrong, stoic woman I’ve embodied that I had chosen abusive dynamics in personal and work relationships through familiarity with focus on only accomplishment and a complete disregard for sense of safety within myself or finding genuine peace within my life.
As I’ve worked towards re-wiring my brain and calming my nervous system, it was reassuring to know that if I asked for guidance or a sign to keep going, my dear crows would always be there for me. As I hinted, I’m someone who needs a lot of reassurance, especially on those days that I feel so isolated and alone in this journey. One day I felt like I was spiraling, so I went to the mountains to hammock and just let myself cry. I asked for a sign (begged is more appropriate), and sat trying to regulate my breathing. I heard a crow’s caw and chuckled. I looked up and I kid you not, a full murder of crows flew into the trees next to me! If you find yourself losing hope, there is a sign if only you ask for it.
Forget Me Not flowers accompany my self portrait and the crow to honor and remember my past chapters, my past selves, as I slough off the walls and harshness I have needed to survive through each phase of life but are no longer necessary at this point.
This painting has felt the most “me”, a blend of my passion for painting and otherworldy things. An ignition of the hope that drives me, an understanding that we never actually walk our paths alone even if it can feel like it at times. Don’t forget to keep moving and growing while honoring your accomplishments and trials that you’ve overcome. If you can honor pieces of yourself or experiences that you have conquered, you can release those lessons and not feel like you need to identify with those struggles anymore. Give yourself that freedom to be who you are now, what you’ve worked hard to become and open up the possibilities that you can become without the weight of where you’ve been. I believe in you just as much as I believe in myself.
If you’d like more posts about finding guidance please comment and let me know! Thanks for sticking around and seeing this piece of me.