The Feather: A Symbol of High Honor
Yesterday, I was drawn again to all the geese that abound in my community. Not before the last couple of days did I notice so many of their feathers all around the grounds. I gathered enough molten feathers for a feather bouquet. My research found that Native American culture believes that all things possess an inherent virtue, power, and wisdom. For example, the feather signifies a connection between the Creator and the feather of the bird that lost it. It symbolizes trust, honor, strength, wisdom, power, and freedom. It is deeply revered.
My feather bouquet is symbolic to who I desire to be – a woman of trust, honor, strength, wisdom, power, and freedom. I also learned that Native American warriors were awarded a feather when they won a battle or were particularly brave in war. When a feather falls to the earth, it is believed to carry the bird’s energy, and perceived as a gift from God.
No wonder I was drawn to pick up those feathers. They were a gift to me from the geese and God. I read that they shed their feathers because they are dead structures, like our hair or nails and are made of the same ingredient, the protein keratin. That means when they get damaged, they can’t heal themselves. They have to be replaced and that’s called molt. Molt keeps birds in top flying condition. Timing is everything in molting so they avoid other periods of high energy demands, like nesting or migration. So, there you have it – my biology lesson on molting.
Timing is everything for us, too. What about this timing of stay-at-home and focusing more inward than outward? Are we in a time when God is causing our “dead feathers” to be replaced like the molting process when birds get a new look and so they will be in top flying condition?
Maybe we need that process to get rid of the old, broken, worn, damaged areas of our lives that cause old, broken, damaged thinking? Just as those geese don’t stubbornly hold on to their dead feathers, so we shouldn’t hold on to the unnecessary weights of negativity that have clung on way too long in our lives. I am so ready to move on to a new season from the old one that was filled with stinking thinking, poor self-image, mistakes made, regrets and disappointments to the new feathers that symbolize our connection between our Creator — whereby our new feathers are those of trust, honor, strength, wisdom, power, and freedom.
Oh, how God longs to empower and strengthen us to be able to take flight from all those things that have held us earth-bound and weary. “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18,19
God longs to help us let go. All we have to do is go to Him in prayer and ask Him to shine His light on any thoughts, circumstances, habits or other “dead feathers” we might be clinging to. My prayer is that we let go of anything that would hinder a fresh relationship with God, with our family, with our brothers and sisters as children of God. I’m determined to “let go” and let God have His way in me. I’m looking for some new feathers! How about you?