I was sitting today, watching a tarot reading, as I was surprised by a ladybug on my leg. My bodily reaction was to shake it away. Only afterward, I realized, that I had slung out a ladybug. I searched for where it had fallen and as I found it, it was injured. It had fallen on the ground beside a small paper note, that I made in December during one of Dr. Daniel Foor’s classes on Practical Animism. In that lesson, he was talking about connecting with the other-than-human – the animals, plants, spirits, deities, etc., – who are in our local proximity.
I connected with the ladybug spirit. They told me, that the ladybug had come to bring news. What that news was, is another story. I imagine, though, the bug had not planned to die for it. It happened so, nevertheless, that the messenger did risk their life. Now, they wanted me, as the bug was breathing its last, to lay it near a plant in the kitchen with some sugar beside it (Is that a thing with bugs and sugar? I have heard it also from other bugs). I followed its wish and said my condolences.
The irony of the event, reminded me, of how much the wintertime in a city had estranged me of another body touching mine. I say: sorry, Ladybug. And learn this: move to a place that is not a city! Living in the air, on the third floor, for several months, is ungrounding for my human body. It reaffirmed what I already had planned: to leave town.
Take care of each other, dear ones,
human and otherwise,
<3