connected – Old Soul Medicine Crow

Nature-The News to Watch

July 19, 2024 Old Soul Medicine Crow3 Comments

Anyone who knows me enough to talk to me knows I’ve been obnoxiously in love with my garden over the last two years. “What have you been doing lately?” followed by “Let me tell you about my garden.” Maybe this is because I’ve always wanted to be the kind of person who raised and preserved her own food like my parents had or my friend Kim who makes it look easy. But it’s hard work so I’ve failed gardening miserably in the past, ambitiously planting but not keeping up with the weeds. It has taken me years to construct a system that works for me. One that doesn’t overwhelm me when crabgrass takes over. I’ve landed on a series of raised beds that I can tackle one at a time. Flowers here, vegetables there. Some perennials, some annuals. An aesthetically pleasing array, and, oh, the birds! My Merlin Bird Identifier registers 10-15 birds’ songs every morning. We have regular families of Mockingbirds, Cardinals, Redwing Blackbirds, Doves, Indigo Buntings, Flickers, Warblers, Finches, Wrens, Robins, and of course Crows and more. You name it, ours is rich with variety too many to name properly. I’ve even seen a Boston Oriole and a Yellow Billed Cuckoo! Working with the earth and nature spirits has been my saving grace. Something I can put my hard work and love into and reap the benefits. People will disappoint. Nature rarely does.

After building the raised beds, we hung cattle panel fencing around the garden with gates on three sides. I was so proud of my design I wanted to decorate it with more than flowers. I attached metal art panels on each of the gates and placed a gazing ball in the middle of my herbs, I hung a small metal birdhouse in the shape of an owl’s head with a small round opening for a mouth. A cruel joke but so very cute. From the top of its head was a dainty little chain and hook so I hooked this over a nail at the corner gatepost so I could see it from the house. I truly thought of this little owl as ornamental and not as a real bird house at all, or else I would have attached it with more vigor. Yet, all summer I have enjoyed watching a pair of Eastern Bluebirds return to this box time and again, climbing in and out of the owl’s mouth with dried grass from our compost or food for their babies. The box is eye level so I can sneak a peak each time I enter the garden.

From my usual spot on the back porch where I sit in the mornings with tea and a journal, or in the gloaming of day’s end, the garden with its little family of bluebirds is in my natural gaze. Behind them, a stand of cosmos. Beside me, a pair of binoculars. From my seat to the garden gate is approximately 50 feet. There is a boxelder tree between us that gives shade to the yard and holds a hammock. The garden gets full morning sun and then the tree protects that little metal birdhouse on the corner from getting too hot in the late afternoon. The first time I saw the birds furnishing their nest, I was a child again, only now I didn’t have to tiptoe or have my dad hold me up to see inside. Before long I was counting eggs, waiting for them to hatch. I watched each day as the couple took turns being in the box or keeping watch on the fence adjacent to it. Once I saw Papa fight off a larger bird that came too close. One evening when Mama and Papa bird must have been on a date or on a run to the grocery, I absentmindedly went to work in the garden without peaking at our babies and they squawked at me with their mouths wide open. If I’d had a worm, freshly chewed, I’d have dropped it in their eager beaks for sure. I felt like their nanny. I anticipated seeing them fledge any day and watched them closely so I could monitor my dogs’ activities and keep the little bundles of joy safe as they shored up their confidence. But the next afternoon, they were gone.

My first thought was not the grave one. Had they fledged during the night? Had I missed the flight while I was at work? Were my bluebirds so gifted at flying that they didn’t need practice? They were perfect, after all. Of course, I did land on the idea that something terrible had happened, after I went inside my garden fence to find a smattering of downy feathers peppering my beans.

The parents wasted no time cleaning out the box. Before long they were remodeling with new tufts of straw. I admired their tenacity. Maybe that’s how they grieve. I remember keeping myself busy when experiencing my own empty nest for the first time. And this gardening surge came along at a time when I needed the earth’s grounding and something to look forward to. Again, I watched their progress, counted their eggs and waited. In the meantime, I googled natural enemies and predators of the eastern bluebird. I found all kinds of ideas for protecting the box from predators.

We live in a healthy ecosystem on our farm by the river. We readily hear and see hawks, owls. We even had an eagle land in our yard once, but he was eating a groundhog. Too big for that little birdhouse. Rabbits are everywhere this year. I imagine that’s keeping the pack of coyotes happy who we mostly hear at night, down by the river. We watch parades of deer and turkey daily. We occasionally smell a skunk who’s perfume wafts in an open window at night and signals the dogs to bark. The peepers in the barn lot pond are deafening at times, especially if it’s going to rain. When I run the soaker hose in the tomatoes, I almost always see a fat bullfrog enjoying the puddles left from a leaky faucet.

I know there is death on the farm, I’ve witnessed it. Coyotes having Thanksgiving Turkey, Bobcats catching rabbits. Mockingbirds stalking and desecrating Luna Moths—which I find especially egregious. Sometimes the beauty and wonder of nature is so brutal it can break your heart wide open. What I haven’t mentioned is obvious. Google says the snake is #1 on the list of suspects. All of the friends to whom I’ve mentioned my bluebirds say, “Snake.” I say “I don’t think so.” Here’s why:

That smattering of feathers left behind. Another bird or a racoon would leave feathers behind but maybe a snake would swallow whole?
We mow about an acre all the way around our house and garden. We and/or the dogs are actively in the yard every day; claiming our territory.
The bullfrogs haven’t been snatched yet.
Most Important** and this is the kicker: I made a pact with their leader, a 6-plus foot black rat snake that I found on my porch one night (that’s another story) just after I moved in. I told her we had 140 acres here and if she would spread the word among her kind that I live in the house and the mowed part of the yard, they could choose their territories over the rest of the farm. The house had been sitting empty a few months. Maybe she had been delegated to check out the new neighbor. I requested she take the barn lot closest to the house to keep the poisonous snakes farther away. A rumor I’d heard but she said nothing, although she did as I’d suggested. She already understood the benefits of that location. I leave them alone. They leave me alone. We’re all happy.

This has been a good partnership for 12 years now. We sometimes see a random snake in a field, near the barn or on the road but for the most part not close enough to the house to have a reminder talk with them. I’ve only broken my end of the bargain once, last year, when I wanted an old wagon wheel for my herb garden. It was lying in a pile of antique farm equipment I call “the boneyard”. Several wheels and other pieces of antique mule driven farm equipment had been abandoned in the barn lot and overgrown in upstart trees, shrubs and tangles of honeysuckle since my dad traded his mules for a tractor in the early 70’s. It looks like where the 19th century went to die. I’ve seen my snake friend and her family there many times, on my walks. It’s the perfect location between a barn full of mice and a pond for frogs and drinking water. I knew I’d have to breech my contract with her but I hoped to be in and out without notice. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still scared of snakes. I don’t want to see one, and especially not be close enough to touch it, although I will give a snake a good talking to if I do see it. I’ve always known she was there and I’ve left her alone. I asked my companion to help me recover the easiest wheel I’d spotted and we donned our knee-high boots and work gloves and hiked over. As he pulled and cut and sawed through tough vines, I talked to her and apologized for coming into her home. I hoped she would forgive me. Turns out, she was wrapped around the very wheel we were pulling on. She disappeared quickly into the brush and we both jumped. I continued apologizing, profusely. I looked like a child hopping on one foot and then another while flicking my hands to shoo her away. I wondered then about payback but soon forgot as the spokes of the wagon wheel—lying flat on the ground—made a great dividing frame for my sage, rosemary, thyme and oregano.

My little bluebirds continued to teach me about persistence, making 2 more nests in a row. Again, I watched, counted, waited. Nothing. No more feathers were found but neither did I witness hatchlings learning to fly. The evidence was mounting but I hoped and decided that without seeing feathers, I’d simply missed their flights while at work. Three times! I was happy and surprised when the birds came back for a fourth time, cleaning, re-stocking, preparing.

A few days ago, I went out to enjoy the sounds of morning bird frenzy, as usual to collect a few minutes on a cool porch before the heat set in. Our days have been scorchers lately. To my surprise, dangling from the lowest tree limb of my backyard box elder, within ten feet and direct eyeshot of the owl’s open mouth, was the shed skin of a snake, about 3 feet long! Too bad the owl isn’t real. The skin did not belong to my friend the reptilian Queen, who I’d put in charge, because she is much longer than this interloper. One of her not so loyal subjects had snuck into forbidden territory!

As I sat, contemplating how to renegotiate peace talks, my partner told me he’d found a baby copperhead enjoying the heat of the compost pile about a month back. Although he’d killed the one he’d found I realized chaos had ensued without my knowledge!

“A baby?” I asked, “Only one? Are you sure there weren’t more?” Youngsters can go rogue without yet knowing the unwritten rules of their elders. That’s understandable. But as every old person says, this younger generation has a different set of values. Leaving the skin in both my view and that of the birdhouse, is a blatant show of disrespect. Also, I was aware this was supposed to be the year of the cicada invasion. Although our region hasn’t been the hardest hit, for months now, Rosie and Willow—otherwise known as dog patrol or affectionately “the girls”—have been staying out late to dig for beetles or cicadas or whatever other little crunchy larvae might be there. I’d read an article about snakes gathering beneath oak trees at night to eat the emerging cicadas and I hoped my girls were abating that possibility.

I wasn’t sure if Queen Rat Snake was dead, if there had been a coup for leadership, or perhaps she felt I owed her one after my breech into her territory last year. Maybe she decided staying out of my yard in a cicada year was too much for me to ask.

I went back to writing in my journal, listening to the usual morning rush of cardinals, jays and mockingbirds as they come into the garden for breakfast when I heard a flush of excitement. The bluebirds were back. They had spotted the skin and were sounding all the alarms. Mama was flapping her wings hard, hovering in front of the scaly replica, and if I had to guess cursing him mightily. I hoped she didn’t have a heart attack. I could almost feel how the realization hit her. Grieving her babies while finally getting closure for where they went. This brought Papa. They flew above it, below it, hovered in front of it, flapping their wings and yelling as if to scare it away. It didn’t budge, of course, except for wavering in the wind. The birds called in the cavalry and here came the flickers and mockingbirds, a larger line of defense. They too used their best scare tactics and sounded alarms which pulled in the officers—cardinals and jays. With all the sirens going off, it was the only show to watch, even the dogs were captivated. We were the rubberneckers at the scene of a crime; all traffic stopped. It seemed the teams had forgotten their colors and all acted as one unit to rid the area of this menace. They did all share the same feeders, after all. When the decomposing skin did not respond to their fury, except to sway with the breeze, they finally lost interest and gave it up for dead.

The skin still hangs as a reminder. My hammock chair also hangs in that tree. It’s the only tree I’ve got whose limbs are hammock or swing friendly. I’m not sure how long it will take me to sit there again, unsure what might be overhead. I know the bluebirds have not returned to their box. As with all trauma, it’s gonna take time. Well played Queen. I won’t be taking you for granted again.

Alchemy

February 26, 2024 Old Soul Medicine Crow4 Comments

Alchemy: a power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way.

I went to dinner in Lexington with some women. Friends, and friends of friends. Three of them had birthdays in the same month so not only was there reason to celebrate, after dinner we were attending a reading by another friend who was celebrating the release of her latest book. A night out for the ladies.

Since we had gathered primarily for the literary arts, the dinner conversation began with literature. Who recently read what, which books are must reads, what we’re currently writing, and morphed into general story telling since most of us were writers of one form or another. One person’s story reminds someone else of a similar story, reminds another, and so it goes. In this instance, we traveled the world going from Chicago to Milan to New York and all the way back to Kentucky, where we all currently live. One theme that emerged was housing. From tiny squeeze-ins to expansive high-rise sublets to starter homes, the ladies spoke of lucky breaks, exigent circumstances and turning bad situations into good. I saw a theme emerging.

“Alchemy,” I said.

“What’s alchemy?” my friend asked. I explained poorly that it was a term referring to the medieval attempt to turn base metals into gold. But that today it also meant just what she had been saying, how she’d turned a bad situation into a good one.”

Then, “Martha’s” Kentucky story of purchasing a farmhouse without prior knowledge of the den of snakes who had taken up residence beneath the front stoop drew gasps from everyone.

“I’d have to back out of the sale,” one said.

“Or put it right back on the market,” another chimed in. “You didn’t stay there, did you? Is that where you live now?”

The fear of snakes always sparks eeks and cringes followed by other close encounter stories. I’d venture to guess we all have snake stories. These ladies all did. The fear of the serpent is likely the most common phobia. We love to hate these creatures.

I, too, am no fan and prefer not to get personal with a snake. I thought about reminding us all that snake symbolism was originally that of the divine feminine and that maybe we had been conditioned to fear snakes based on the patriarchal need to control the innate power of women. According to Ted Andrews’ book Animal Speak, seeing a snake denotes resurrection, renewal, rebirth (shedding of one’s skin to become anew). In dreams, simply encountering the snake is thought to be the subconscious awareness of a pending new cycle of life. Being overly afraid of the snake symbolizes fear of the changes necessary for internal growth. Getting bit might symbolize the level of resistance or blocks you’re throwing into your own path. I’ve had plenty of these dreams throughout my spiritual awakening journey as well as in person sightings. An explanation like this might be interesting, but it rarely does much to allay a well-honed fear of snakes. Thinking of the power of transformation, I juxtaposed one of my own snake stories instead.

I am the third generation of my family to inhabit the family farm, in a house that was built in 1901. Dad refurbished the house, mid-seventies. Insulation, Drywall, paneling, popcorn painted ceilings and area rugs turned the place around, even before electricity or plumbing was added. Instead, fireplaces, a Warm Morning stove, outdoor toilet and a rain barrel became our every summer adventure, heading back to a small abode with a thermostat and a real bathtub during the school year. We merrily frolicked at the river’s edge, raised cattle, pigs and chickens, the occasional mule, helped Dad with tobacco, hay, planting and harvesting vegetables, hunted arrowheads, shot BBguns, picked blackberries and maintained a healthy awareness of snakes like we lived in the 19^th century. In his head, my father sort of did. I was having the time of my life. Today, I am grateful for this character-building years-long sojourn into the past. My parents installed plumbing and a few other upgrades and moved into the farmhouse after all of us children were grown, around 1991.

In 2012, due to Mom’s cancer and other circumstances, my father bought a house closer to town and nearer to doctors and the hospital. The farm is isolated with sometimes inaccessible country roads. Since I was freshly divorced, he convinced me to take up residency on the farm so that the empty house would not get vandalized or become a drug den.

In the seventies, Dad didn’t believe in the future of electricity or otherwise could not envision the number of useless appliances the next generation would find not only convenient but necessary. He felt ahead of his time including two whole outlets per room. Re-learning how to live in an old house whose electricity has not been modernized to meet today’s standards and whose prior inhabitants had learned how to “make things work” without actually having them repaired, included several “combinations” of actions I needed to learn to keep the house running smoothly. Namely, deciphering the tangled web of which outlets in how many rooms, both upstairs and down, whose wiring led to the same 15-amp fuse. I should have bought stock in Buse fuses for the number of boxes I purchased and went through in those early months, grateful they still existed.

Another thing he made sure to tell me was about the relationship he had formed with a huge black rat snake that lived in the shed out back. As I’ve indicated, snakes aren’t even my favorite subject, but out of reverence to my father, I listened to his tutorial.

“You know I store feed in that building, for the cattle. Mice get in it and make a big mess. That big snake keeps the mice and rat population down so I like him being in there. He’s not poisonous and he never bothers me. When I go into the shed to retrieve the lawn mower I talk to him, warn him I’m coming in. He may be hanging from a rafter or laying on the ground someplace. I pull the riding mower out and start it up. When he hears the engine, he comes out and makes his way down toward the pond. I guess he’s getting a drink. I don’t see him again until after I’ve finished cutting grass. Later in the evening, when it’s quiet, I can sometimes see him returning to the building. We’ve been doing this for years. We made a deal.”

“Okay,” I tell him, “I can live with that.” Even though secretly I thought, okay then, I’m not going in that shed, which turned out to be impossible. So, I did indeed follow in my father’s footsteps and tried my hand at snake whispering, which might or might not sound more like clanging and banging and yelling warnings rather than actual whispers. I named the snake, Earl.

Dad cut more grass than the immediate area around the house. He had cleared and tamed almost an acre of land, to keep the snakes at bay, he’d said, even though he made exception for Earl. He thought it wise to claim territory separate from the wilder fields and fence rows that bordered the woodland’s edge to provide a clear view of encroaching wildlife. He advised me to do the same. But since he took his riding mower with him to the new house and I still only had a push mower, I hired a neighbor to keep my lawn tidy. I told him the snake story and asked if he could please respect my father’s wishes and look out for Earl. “It’s been there for years,” I tell him. “It doesn’t want to harm anyone.”

Vernon was on the lookout for Earl, no doubt. His first encounter with Dad’s rat snake shocked them both. He entered the shed looking for a weed eater. The lanky sentry hung from a rafter at eye level as he entered, probably wondering who the hell this guy thinks he is entering Herbert Crow’s field mouse buffet. After that, unbeknownst to me, Vernon began strapping on a sidearm before arriving to mow the grass.

After a month or two of cutting the grass with no further incidents I thought all was well. However, one day, Vernon gave in to his own fears and ignored my sentiment about the friendly cohabitant of my abode. He knocked on my door, and using a hoe to extend his reach and not actually touch the old guy, held out his conquered prey to me the way my dogs string out a dead rabbit on my doorstep…as a gift.

“That’s Earl,” I say, confused.

“Don’t worry, I got him,” Vernon said. “I hate me a snake. That’s why I carry this.” He proudly pointed to his waist band where he’d holstered the offending weapon. The story he told was just as my father had described, the snake heard the mower and came out of the building to head down to the pond, minding his own business. Only Vernon didn’t care where he was going. Seeing the snake, he chased it down with his lawn tractor, close enough to get a good shot with his pistol because he sure as hell wasn’t going to get off that mower and possibly get bit. He also wasn’t going to let it out of his sight for fear of where it might go…and…he didn’t want to miss. Poor Earl had made it all the way to the fence row, about to cross the threshold to safety before he felt the blow. Vernon was proud.

My father had warned me about the snake we’d named Earl. But we both failed to warn Earl about the viper named Vernon.

“Oh, that’s so sad,” said the lady who would have instantly sold Martha’s den-of-snakes’ house.

“I can’t believe he did that!” said another. “Did you let him keep mowing your lawn after that?”

“Do you hear how you have all changed your attitudes from loathing to compassion and concern for a snake?” I ask, “Now, that’s alchemy.”

Intuition: It’s Elemental June 2023

August 20, 2023 Old Soul Medicine CrowLeave a comment

It stormed last night. This morning I worked the softened soil around the garden plants to remove weeds, built a fire in the back yard pit to burn broken limbs from heavy winds. As the fire crackles, I sit on my back porch with Willow, our German Shepherd, enjoying a slight breeze, barely enough to intone a single, deep meditative OM sound on the windchime.

Willow’s ears perk up, perfect triangle receivers, alert to some far-off presence only she can detect. This is stillness, peaceful and quiet in the way only nature can be. Yet, there is a choir of birdsong so concordant that even the app on my phone can’t keep up with who’s saying what. All creatures of earth and sky are moving, changing, chanting, feeding, creating, evolving. They are making space for me. I am listening, learning, wondering, appreciating, allowing, accepting, making space for them. All elements are present. This is prayer. This is church.

I know that I have to stop the chatter in my own head (my ego), in order to open the door to the other side. What’s on the other side? Imagination, creativity, answers, ideas, words, spirit, connection, intuition, love, faith. In another word, GOD.

Once the door is open, I am aware that it will close all too soon. These “gasps of joy” are fleeting because of my own human frailty, but joyous. They can be a moment of calm or peace that overcomes my well-placed obstacles to connect me mind, body and spirit. It can be an idea or word or a turn of phrase that inspires me to get lost in my writing. Sometimes the words that come inside my head, are in a different voice, I think to remind me that they are a gift and not of my own doing. I muse that maybe that’s what Willow is hearing when she perks up her ears. Maybe she talks to angels. She is certainly in touch with all the nature spirits, my sentinel. I wish it was that easy. Just perk up my ears and hear Spirit talking to me. Oh yeah, it is! It’s called intuition. It takes practice though, and patience and desire and confidence and trust. I’m still working on it. It’s been my lifelong journey.

The spiritual connections that are most prevalent for me come at night, when I’m dreaming. My dreams are often vivid metaphors that enlighten me to truths I have denied. A “knowing” that is buried. A message from the other side. Whether we are aware of our surroundings or not, our brains and our physical bodies are constantly absorbing pieces of information. Body language of the people we speak to, sounds of nature alerting us to weather changes, the dynamics of close relationships, unspoken facts, the things our loved ones won’t admit. If you are empathic, like me, you also feel in your body the energies that surround you, good and bad. What lives in the subconscious gets processed while sleeping, like placing files in a file cabinet in case you need it later. I know there are a lot of people who believe they don’t dream. Scientifically, it has been proven that everybody dreams.

Whether you remember your dreams or not, your body and brain are still processing your experiences and helping them make sense to you. All that knowing lives inside you whether you ever expose it or not. This is part of your intuition. What a deal! Everybody has access to it. Those who call themselves intuitives are only those people who have become still enough, often enough to hone their skills of listening and they’ve learned to trust their hunches and they’ve been right enough times to build confidence. But we’re all intuitive if we choose to pay attention. For me, enjoying this kind of awareness is being in conversation with God. The guidance is there if we get out of our own way. Whether you call it God, Goddess, Holy Spirit, a close personal relationship with Jesus, support from the Universe, Intuition, Synchronicity, talking to Angels, knowing… it’s all part of the same energy. I believe my dog Willow knows this already, that all things are connected. Sitting on my porch, I am one with my surroundings.

There is a quote I like to repeat often, by French Jesuit Priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “You are not a human being having a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being having a human experience.” This puts everything in my life into perspective. It is a very human trait to want to name everything according to our own comfort levels and judge others for not agreeing with us. That is ego, the most human experience there is. If we are in our authentic truth, connected to that which is spiritual, we have less time for pointing fingers, condemning and judging others. We will see plenty within ourselves that could use lifting up to a higher vibration of being. We have lots of work to do. I know I do.

I heard someone say that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening. I like that explanation. Talking less and listening more, in any situation, is how we learn. I believe God uses any and all means to help us stay connected. Source wants to be in communication with us. It brings joy. Sometimes, the answer to a prayer comes in the form of words spoken by a happenchance interaction with a friend or stranger. How cool is that? Sometimes our connection to Spirit comes when dreaming. If we’re still enough, and in our bodies fully enough, we can know God’s presence by what we feel, hear or see. Intuition is nothing more than that. It doesn’t come from us. We are not “the power” because when given the chance, our ego will always guide us in the wrong direction. But God lines up the truth all around us and we have access to it through intentional awareness. I believe intuition is communication with God’s power living within us but we have to set aside the ego to hear it. Not an easy task.

Instead of convincing others to come to “our church” to listen to “our way of being” we could teach people how to be still and listen to what God says to them, whether it be in church or on the back porch listening to birdsong and the crackling of wood in the firepit, the wind in the leaves of trees or the gong of a windchime. Earth, Fire, Water, Air. The elements of God are all around us. I am grateful for the Holy Mystery.

Welcome to Old SOUL Medicine Crow by Donna M. Crow

May 31, 2023June 22, 2023 Old Soul Medicine CrowLeave a comment

This, I believe: Writing is a life saver, a game changer and a creative endeavor. I use it to understand myself, the world around me and the universe which holds us all in her vision. I believe all things are connected. Just as each strand of a spider’s web effects the whole structure, so too each individual’s behavior matters. Words matter. Even thought matters.

Ours is a journey toward CENTER.

Located at each of the junctures or turning points on this big web of life is an opportunity for growth and an opening toward enlightenment. Free Will allows us to choose to “step up” to our higher selves or to remain stuck in repeating patterns or even to make a turn toward darkness. These “decision points” can be subtle but will definitely effect our life’s experiences and outcome. Without being mindfully aware of our choices, we can create damage and destruction for ourselves and others.

Sometimes, making the right choice looks like the hardest one, where we have to face an underlying fear. The good news is that at each of these junctures are light workers. Teachers, Mentors, Guides, Guardians, Angels, Seers or Healers who are assigned by GOD to be available to help but it is our choice to ask. Sometimes the way forward comes through the unknowing words of a friend or even a stranger. Words that were meant for our ears at a particular time, delivered by God’s messenger. It is my prayer that more people choose to follow the light, to do no harm, to protect and respect Mother Earth who has given her all for us and to keep following that path to the greater good. When we spend more time working on ourselves, we have no time to point fingers at others.

Writing is a powerful mode of transportation to self awareness which leads directly to a closer relationship with Creator God.