Sweet Journeys

[REPOSTED FROM TEXTY LADIES BLOG]

I'd like to thank everyone who has kept my family and me in their thoughts and prayers over the last few weeks due to my mom's sickness and passing.  It has meant so much and it was wonderful to feel supported in that way. 

After my mother's memorial service on Monday, many friends and family came over to our house to share a meal.  When everyone but our immediate family had left, some of us stepped outside to enjoy a few moments of balmy November weather when we noticed we had a visitor.  A beautiful bald eagle was sitting in our Maple tree.  I have not seen one in our neighborhood before.  It seemed strange that it would be there and someone made the comment that maybe it was Mom or Dad giving us a message.  Later that night, I did a little research on the spiritual meaning of eagles and this is what I found:

The Eagle represents spiritual protection, carries prayers, and brings strength, courage, wisdom, illumination of spirit, healing, creation, and a knowledge of magic. The eagle has an ability to see hidden spiritual truths, rising above the material to see the spiritual. The eagle has an ability to see the overall pattern, and the connection to spirit guides and teachers. The eagle represents great power and balance, dignity with grace, a connection with higher truths, intuition and a creative spirit grace achieved through knowledge and hard work.

For the Egyptians, the eagle was the messenger to the gods and the sun, a symbol of eternal life.  To Native American cultures, it tells us that the universe is giving us the opportunity to fly above our life's worldly levels, or above the shadow of past realities.  The Eagle asks us to grant ourselves permission to be free in order to reach the joy that our heart desires.

I'd like to believe that this Eagle was carrying our prayers to God or maybe it was there to give us strength and healing.  The Eagle sat there for some time, then slowly soared back and forth above the trees, its magestic wings spread wide.  Perhaps its visit was to tell us that Mom is now soaring high above this life's cares and worries and that we can rest easy.  It felt like a thank you, a benediction...a promise for the future.

Maybe it was nothing more than happenstance and my proclivity for the romantic.  Regardless, it gave me joy and a sense of future things.  I miss my mother but know that she has been returned to herself and soars high and close to God.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?  Do signs like this really exist and what do we do with them?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.