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Animal Spirit Guides: Hawk Brings Focus By Steven D. Farmer, Ph.D. "Stay focused and don't get distracted. Keep things in perspective." It It had been several months since I’d last seen this hawk, and since Hawk for a number of years has been a consistently profound and accurate messenger and spirit guide, I asked Hawk spirit the meaning of this visitation. What I heard in my head was, “Stay focused and don’t get distracted. Keep things in perspective.” Straightforward and simple. Not cryptic or abstract at all. That’s the way I like my messages from Spirit—whoever is the messenger—and Hawk has always proven to be a trustworthy teacher and guide. Given that I was working on the book you’re holding in your hands and the manuscript was due in just five short weeks, I very much appreciated this counsel from Hawk. It takes discipline to write, and I confess that sometimes it’s easy to get distracted with any number of other seemingly important things, such as reorganizing my office, checking e-mail, or playing computer games (any of which I’d highly recommend if you ever want a pointless diversion from accomplishing your mission). So that morning I sat down at my computer and enthusiastically and diligently began writing, appreciative of my friend’s visit. My attention span lasted about 30 minutes, at which point I decided to check my e-mail. When I clicked the button to access my account, however, nothing happened. The Internet wasn’t working! Suddenly I panicked, feeling as if this were a crisis of immense proportions. I called our Webmaster, but he wasn’t available for the next few hours, so I proceeded to spend the next three hours on the phone with the Internet company and Apple computer, trying this and that with no success, growing increasingly frustrated and doing a lot of muttering and clenching of my fists and my gut. That morning following Hawk’s gentle reminder, I’d set an intention to get ten pages done, and now this incredibly urgent matter had come up to delay my progress! Just when I felt like throwing things, our Webmaster appeared, and after a few minutes of performing his computer wizardry, the Internet was up and running again. Of course, I immediately went online to check my e-mail. Since it was the day before Christmas, there was barely any at all, except a letter from a guy in Nigeria who wanted me to help him out by transferring several million dollars into my account for which I’d get a percentage. I tried to remember why it had been such a critical matter to check my e-mail in the first place, but I couldn’t. Whatever my reason had been at the time, it was lost to what had seemed to be a matter of grave importance—getting the Internet working again. Then I heard Hawk’s message again: “Stay focused and don’t get distracted. Keep things in perspective.” It was like one of those old commercials where a guy slaps himself in the head and says, “I could’ve had a V8!” I laughed out loud at my follies. I had completely forgotten about Hawk’s beautiful and purposeful message and had created an entire drama around a very minor dilemma! The Internet could have easily waited, but instead became a convenient diversion from my writing. Oh, well—joke’s on me. Maybe Coyote was around, working his medicine. So I dumped my computer games, put e-mail at the bottom of the list, and industriously and productively wrote for the rest of that day and every day for the next week. On the morning of January 1, guess who appeared once again in the tree outside our window? You got it—that same hawk. A gentle reminder from Hawk spirit—stay focused, don’t get distracted, and keep writing! As if that weren’t enough, about two weeks later on a warm Southern California day, I was at my desk plunking away on the computer, when out of the blue I heard a loud commotion between the front of my desk and the sliding-glass door that leads to the backyard. Startled, I looked up and saw what appeared to be wings furiously flapping away. I got up, walked around my desk, and sure enough, there was that same hawk I’d seen before, flailing away at the glass with his wings and talons, trying to make a quick exit. I spoke calmly to him, as he was obviously quite terrified. Doreen came in about then, both of us awestruck by this highly unusual event. I said, tongue in cheek, “Do you think this means something?” and we both laughed. After a couple of minutes, I opened the sliding-glass door and the hawk immediately flew away. Then we spotted a dove tucked away between the desk and the printer, who exited very quickly as soon as there was an opportunity. We realized that the hawk had been after the dove, and both had flown in through the open sliding-glass door at the front of the house, down the hallway, and into my office, and had come to a screeching halt due to the door being closed. So just in case I’d missed the meaning of the first two, Hawk spirit in this third visit provided a dramatic exclamation point for the previous messages. Once all this activity had settled down, I thought about what had just happened. In addition to Hawk’s earlier communications, he was also saying to pursue the goal (of this book) with relentless focus and diligence, no matter what happens, just as he had done so with his prey. Dove as animal spirit guide also conveyed a couple of messages through her visit: first, that there will be a happy outcome; and second, to remain as peaceful and calm throughout the process, in spite of any disruptions or disturbances. Excerpted from Animal Spirit Guides: An Easy-To-Use Handbook for Identifying and Understanding Your Power Animals and Animal Spirit Helpers, by Steven D. Farmer, Ph.D. Published by Hay House, it is available at retail and online bookstores.
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was the morning of Christmas eve, and my wife, Doreen, and I were saying our morning prayers, a sacred ritual we do every morning before we get going into the day, when out of the corner of my eye I caught a flurry of wings as all the birds that had been feeding outside our bedroom window quickly scattered. Since we leave birdseed there, it’s not unusual to see doves and a smattering of other birds on our deck and in the tree just outside. Obviously something had alarmed them, so I was naturally curious to see what had caused all this ruckus. As I looked outside, there perched on one of the branches a few feet away was a magnificent red-tailed hawk, solemnly gazing about, surveying his kingdom, supremely confident and poised, awaiting some instinctual signal for his next move.All content and articles copyright ©2006 by Lightworks Inc except where noted. All rights reserved.