The first week we moved into our home, we spent long, enjoyable minutes throughout our days just watching the neighborhood deer wander through our wooded yard. They were, and still are, a constant source of wonder and delight to us. On our morning walks, we quickly discovered the older ones hardly seem to notice if you are only feet within reaching distance as you walk by them.
A close friend of our who was visiting, went out three sunny mornings in a row to meditate and greet the sun, in the company of a deer who came to join her by sitting only a few feet away from her. When she left our home before the fourth morning, I wondered if “her deer” would be waiting for her the next day. Indeed the doe was there the following morning sitting in exactly the same spot as she had before.
When these sweet moments of trust and friendship occur, we are reminded that we are part of a greater relationship—a larger circle of life and creation that we actually understand very little about. Yet, when we pause our routines long enough to notice that greater relationship, we have an opportunity to employ time-enduring wisdom in our own acts of creation.
Enjoying our neighbor deer so much, I said to my husband one early June day last year, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could see a fawn?” We had seen a number of bucks and does, but had not yet seen a fawn. And I love baby anythings!
I gave it little more thought as we were getting ready for SpiritQuest in New Mexico. I was expecting a house-full of travelers and excited about meeting with old and new friends. They arrived, on schedule, on Solstice Day. So that evening, my friends joined with me around our patio table as I facilitated our annual Solstice tele-meditation. We were all floating in peace as we ended the meditation, breathing in the sunshine and sweet air around us. Our peaceful reverie was instantly broken by the sound of hoof-beats running down the hillside. A buck jolted itself to a stop about two feet from our deck and only about five feet from the nearest person. He seemed bewildered as he looked at us cautiously. In return, we all gawked with our mouths open at our sudden, but handsome visitor.
We shared this unusual experience with our listeners on the call and then opened up the conversation to those who wanted to experience their insights from the meditation. I then thanked everyone to end the call, when we were once again startled by the sound of another deer racing down the hillside. This time it was a doe and she stopped exactly where the buck had been, looking equally bewildered. By then, we were all in our own state of bewilderment, but smiling widely as we acknowledged the blessing of their presence at the time of our meditation.
The rest of the summer nothing more so dramatic occurred, though we did notice a buck and a doe who seemed to spend a lot of time near each other in our yard throughout the summer. We had not seen pairings like this before. Typically the doe hang out together, the bucks hang out, the bucks are chasing the doe during rutting season, or they are all grazing and mingling together, but not pairs of bucks and does.
Fall and winter passed, and with the spring, I was looking for fawns. I didn’t have to look very far, because there in our own yard we got to enjoy the company of the buck, the doe and……yep……..a fawn. The three of them spent a great deal of time in the shade of our upper story front deck and grazing on all the greenery in our back yard. So, I spent countless hours looking up from my desk to enjoy the three of them at home and at peace in our secluded little woods.
Enjoying lunch with my husband on the deck, I told him the deer had taught me a valuable lesson about manifestation. If I retraced the series of events that seemed to bring this sweet little fawn into our lives, it went like this. I lovingly spoke an intention and desire. I trusted I would see a fawn but did not attach to when, where, or how that would happen. I did my sacred work—blessing the sun, the plants, the land—the elements of nature that nurture the deer (and us too). Then, when the season was right. Yes, this was the observation that meant so much to me—when the season was right my heart’s desire was filled beyond my anticipation.
So now, when I am holding something in my heart that I would love to experience, I remember, it will happen when the season is right.
