Osiyo from Toronto during the continued war against humanity. As those walking the Spiritual Path know, we are moving through the darkest time of this prophetic period of transformation for humanity known as the Great Awakening and the 8th Fire among other names.
This week’s Medicine Card is Hummingbird, and she is joined in this reading by Grandmother Spider (who is hanging around from last week and spending time with Crow in the East – where our thoughts and words begin), Armadillo in the red – the South – reminds us about physical boundaries, Beaver with the Grandmothers in the West teaches us about appropriate action, and the Wild Boar Grandfather oversees this intense time of revelation from dark to light for the people of the earth from the heavenly North.
These creatures offer us their medicine – the lessons our Native Ancestors learned from thousands of years of watching and living closely with all of nature and learning the lessons each has to offer through their own relationships and behavior.
Hummingbird, Grandmother Spider, Armadillo, Beaver, and the Wild Boar offer us lessons in love, courage, strategy, and positive focus, good boundaries, right action and hard work, and the need for (sometimes ruthless) truth. This is the medicine we need at this time.
Since the beginning of this intense cycle in 2016, we have reached the bottom of the V, and people are beginning to awaken like never before. This is resulting in many a crisis around the globe.
Everywhere, we are seeing unrest as the people of nation after nation take to the streets to demand their freedoms (in accordance with the United Nations) that are being freely violated by the public SERVANTS they elected as their employees. 
And for many people, there is great danger at this time of becoming lazy and apathetic. We are seeing the restrictions by powerful entities and feel helpless to do anything about it. Our jobs and businesses are closed and we’re feeling scared about the future. Cut off from hope and our sense of self reliance. This is the point at which we need hummingbird medicine.
As BCM has shared many times, this is a powerful time and a blessing for many who are using the covid time out as a period of self-healing, development, and planning and organizing for the future. Those who have been following the healing path are now planting the seeds and beginning to write the new post-war chapters of their lives.
This time of chaos, response, action, compassion and truth is reflected in the beautiful Ojibwe story, “Hummingbird (Nenookaasi) and the Great Fire,” told here by Mr. Boozhoo, a Storyteller & teacher on YouTube.
Hummingbird Medicine is the medicine of love. It is the medicine of peace, joy, abundance, prosperity – all growing from the seeds of courage, self-awareness and sacrifice, strategy, quick action, generosity, and the ability to stay on course in the face of the nay-sayers of life – while having compassion for their apathy. Hummingbird brings medicine for the heart chakra, Grandmother’s medicine.
In the story, we learn – One day a terrible fire broke out in a forest – a huge woodlands was suddenly engulfed by a raging wild fire. Frightened, all the animals fled their homes and ran out of the forest. As they came to the edge of a stream, they stopped to watch the fire and they were feeling very discouraged and powerless. They were all bemoaning the destruction of their homes. Every one of them thought there was nothing they could do about the fire, except for one little hummingbird.
The Hummingbird Medicine story shows us what chaos, fear and overwhelm can do to a community or to our individual lives and psyches. When we have grown up in trauma, years of intergenerational trauma and the drama and toxicity that goes along with it, our homes and families are often living in constant crisis for that is a continuation of the homes we grew up in.
After too much drama, too many years of conflict, there will always be great forest fires of chaos. What we focus on grows. So when we focus on our feelings and thoughts of envy, anger, jealousy we tend to behave in negative ways as well. We continue the gossip and toxic behavior that we’ve always known and tear others down to make ourselves feel important.
We sit and wail about our losses as they grow greater and greater because we have refused to do the work necessary to save ourselves and our families.
This is the powerlessness that is embedded in intergenerational trauma. And virtually every family on Turtle Island suffers from intergenerational trauma through forced immigration caused by the genocide of their own Ancestors in their Native lands, through illness caused by the poisoning of our food and water supplies, of watching Elders die alone in institutions, children becoming afraid because of crime and forced behavior in the schools, people losing their businesses, drug overdoses, suicides, alcoholism – all because of repeated intentional bio-terror attack on the people of the Earth over thousands of years.
As long as the people aren’t aware of the impact of their behavior, in not knowing who is running the planet and why and making the changes to educate themselves, as well as doing the hard work to become conscious of their own needs for healing and personal change before anything else, there can be no change in the larger community. People will be like the creatures of the forest who do nothing but instead chide Hummingbird for taking action.
And the people who refuse to change will remain caught in the web of fate as Grandmother Spider teaches us. Tangled up in the lies of the ones who seek to control us and unable to take charge of our own destiny.
But if we are paying attention, Nenookaasi shows us what to do – even when we don’t have help or support of our community of family. Hummingbird reminds us to start small and remain loving and faithful during our times of exile.
Every Medicine Walk starts in the East, and this week Grandmother Spider is sitting in the East with Crow, the powerful bird of transformation. My crow Matilda (named after the Patron Saint of lost children) and Grandmother Spider the great teacher and strategist are sitting together this week to remind us to remember the thoughts we allow into our consciousness.
Are we loving ourselves with positive and supportive thoughts, only allowing positive and supportive people into our environments? Or are we hurting ourselves with negative thoughts and low-frequency relationships? Crow and Grandmother Spider remind us that change begins with becoming aware of our thoughts and perceptions about ourselves and others. Change always begins with our perception and our perception of life is the foundation for our attitudes.
Nenookaasi decided she would do something, so she swooped into the stream and picked up a few drops of water and went into the forest and put them on the fire. Then she went back to the stream and did it again, and kept going back, again and again and again.
Our thoughts are directly connected to our emotions, and we can see how Hummingbird medicine comes with the beginning of our awareness. Dropping seeds of water (tears and memories) into the forest fire of our burning, raging psyche. Dropping the cooling, soothing lessons and medicine of the Grandmothers – the right plant medicine, time, and love to the wound and doing it again and again. The Grandmothers teach that tears are the most healing medicine, and it is during times of crisis that we meet those old emotions that come up for a blessing and the purification of our tears.
It is through this work of changing our perceptions, of spending time learning the ways of our Elders and Ancestors, that we reach a place of clarity that will allow us to know right action and begin to take it and to begin changing bad habits into good ones. Over and over again.
But paradoxically – what usually happens when we begin to take right action on our own behalf, is the nay-sayers of our psyches and in our lives begin to challenge and ridicule us. And it is at this time we need Armadillo’s strong shell.
All the other animals watched in disbelief; some tried to discourage the hummingbird with comments like, “Don’t bother, it is too much, you are too little, your wings will burn, your beak is too tiny, it’s only a drop, you can’t put out this fire.”
These ridiculing, hostile creatures remind us of how important it is to remember our lessons, lean into our healing and focus on our own mission with compassion for our challengers. For it is only through this combination of right thought and action combined with compassion and forgiveness that we are healed.
And our friend Armadillo in the Southern Quadrant reminds us of how important it is for us to set strong boundaries when we’re working on the deep healing of our psyches. We cannot control the words and actions of other people, but when we are healing and learning a new way to be (outside of the chaos of the forest fire), we need strong boundaries and space of our own.
Armadillo reminds us to set up strong personal boundaries and to define our space to reflect the best aspects of our lives. Our homes should be our sanctuaries, so it is important to make them comfy, beautiful and safe.
In spite of Nenookaasi’s inspired solution and hard work, the animals stood around disparaging the little bird’s efforts, the bird noticed how hopeless and forlorn they looked. Then one of the animals shouted out and challenged the hummingbird in a mocking voice, “What do you think you are doing?” And the hummingbird, without wasting time or losing a beat, looked back and said, “I am doing what I can.”
This is the lesson that Beaver – who is sitting with the Grandmothers in the Western Quadrant of Emotion/Heart remind us. Do whatever you can. It is the smallest gestures that often make the biggest difference in someone’s life. The smallest adjustments in our perception or our daily routines can often be life changing.
Beaver (and the Ancestors) remind us of the importance of hard work, industriousness and remind us also not to paint ourselves into corners with group-think or small minded criticism of others. She shows us how paying attention to the spark of our own inspiration, sitting with it and protecting it, and working hard to bring it to life will change our lives.
In this Medicine Wheel reading, we see Beaver with her power of industriousness and hard work sitting with Owl, the keeper of the Grandmother’s western doorway – the Night Eagle who brings us ancient Wisdom.
And Bear, the great healing mother with her security and plant medicine who connects us with our sky relatives as well as those we have come to help heal on the earth through the power of tears and emotional healing.
In the video story above, Mr. Boozhoo tells us the Ojibwe ending that some versions of the story leave out: That Gitchi Manidoo, the Great Spirit, saw Nenookaasi’s great efforts and was very impressed.
So Creator said, “Nenookaasi – because of your good attitude, I’m going to give you super speed. And soon Nenookaasi could fly faster than any bird. She could flap her wings so fast she could just hover there in the air. Not even the Eagle could do that. And in some ways, Nenookaasi became the most powerful of all the birds.” – Mr. Boozhoo
And this is the Grandfather Medicine power of the great Wild Boar – the beauty of truth, quickness, agility and love that we receive when we are courageous enough to stare at the ugly truths surrounding our lives and our planet and make the commitment to change based on the teachings of our Ancestors.
Nenookaasi’s wings flap very fast and in the pattern of a figure eight – which is the sign of infinity. So, as Grandmother Spider, Hummingbird and our animal totems of this week remind us – the work is never done. It is only through the attitude that we bring, the work we are willing to do – on ourselves, and in the world — that we can make change.
It is my honour to be your messenger.
S’gi (thank you in the Cherokee language)
It is my honour to receive and share these teachings from my guides and the Ancestors. These are messages received and written to the best of my understanding. If I have made mistakes, I would be grateful for your input. If these messages don’t resonate with you, that’s okay. I wish you well. And if these messages do resonate with you – welcome to the family.
— kandace keithley, namadaki aandeg miimiiwe gekek kwe ~ Tsa-La-Gi
Whether you have input and comments for Bird Clan Messenger or are interested in learning how we can help you learn about and understand Native culture, please Contact us here
Support Bird Clan Messenger
If you appreciate our work, please consider making a donation to help with our expenses. Chi Miigwetch.
11.11 $
Bird Clan Messenger 