intuition

I drink Yogi Tea every morning, first thing, right after I feed the animals and take the dog out for his first sniff and tinkle of the day. Just after I ring my meditation bell, turn on three tea lights in front of my Buddha statue, and sink into my seat on the couch, facing the window overlooking our garden. I take a sip of Yogi tea, a deep breath, set my timer for twenty minutes, and come home to myself.

The other morning, as the cats were chowing down and my electric kettle was bubbling, I opened a new tea pouch and pulled out a fresh bag of ginger tea. As I unwound the paper tag attached to the bag by a thin thread, I was astounded to see this message: “The purpose of life is to know yourself, love yourself, trust yourself, and be yourself.”

I’m fond of the word ‘gobsmacked,’ which is British slang for being astonished. I was gobsmacked that the universe had sent me such a message, first thing on a July morning in the politically, socially, and personally turbulent summer of 2025. Right away, I knew it was a message that needed some unpacking, so I settled into my meditation posture—the dog tight to my left thigh, the Maine Coon cat spread across my lap. The black and white cat was, of course, doing his aloof morning meditation on chipmunks, squirrels, and birds at the screen door that opens onto the patio. I took a sip of ginger tea and began.

Know yourself. No problem for me, the most introspective creature on-the-planet, as my friend Bruce would say. Self-examination is my middle name, has been since birth, for good or ill. For most of my life, self-examination has meant self-critique. I have a more than passing familiarity with all my faults, bad habits, propensities, temptations, mistakes, and the karma that results from them. However, genuine self-knowledge or self-awareness has only emerged in later life as I learned to meditate and look deeply at the roots of my motivations—my fears, attractions, and repulsions. That self-awareness, though more true, is also softer, as I’ve allowed self-compassion to touch and soothe the wounds uncovered by my x-ray inner eye. It felt good to have my ingrained habit of self-reflection validated as part of life’s purpose by the Yogi Tea Messenger. Part of myself is okay. Phew! That’s a relief!

Love yourself. My stomach twisted in a knot, and I knew this was not going to be an easy one to delve into. I make this deeply personal revelation only because I suspect there may be a few of you out there who share my experience, and I want you to know that you are not alone. Since early childhood, I have sensed that I am, at my core, a flawed person. There is something wrong with me that makes me do bad things, or, at least, fear that I will do bad things. I think this sense may have come from my mother, and I am certain my Baptist upbringing with its emphasis on original sin reinforced it. I long ago forgave my mother, but I will never forgive St. Paul and the Christian Church for instilling the hideous notion that I was born full of sin. Buddhism, which I’ve gravitated towards in recent years, teaches that we each contain both good and harmful seeds in our store consciousness and can learn to nurture the former rather than the latter.

But let’s not get too theoretical here. Loving myself is challenging! And I don’t believe I am alone with this challenge. Understanding what self-love is and how to practice it will take me the rest of my life and then some, and I’m getting a very late start. But, while breathing evenly and gently as the ten-minute meditation bell chimed, I remembered the self-compassion I congratulated myself on developing as I’ve aged. Let’s start there, add a little self-forgiveness, tenderness, thanksgiving—whatever else might water those tiny seeds of goodness the universe has planted in me. I recalled my connection to all the beauty around me and recognized that I am made of the same stuff. Soon, I thought, I may have enough confidence in my basic goodness to…

Trust myself! Again, the passage of time, also called aging, is of some help here. It teaches lessons of humility but also repeatedly validates my intuition, my gut, or bodily intelligence. As I’ve looked back over my life, I’ve seen instances where I had a premonition, an insight, or an inner sense about the reality of a situation, the right course of action, or an action to avoid. Sometimes I heeded the hint, and other times I ignored the impulse. But time and again, what my body intuited was revealed as events unfolded. I pay more attention to my un-rational intelligence these days. The more self-aware I am, the more I accept and love myself, the more I can trust myself to make the right choices, the life-giving, kind, and just ones. And I understand these three—self-awareness, self-love, and self-trust as inextricably linked, forming the foundation on which I can…

Be myself. What a sense of relief and ease washed over me as I entered the home stretch of that morning’s meditation. I paid attention to my body, as I set my imagination free to envision what it might be like to be who I truly am, instead of who I or others expect me to be. I noticed a sense of effortlessness. Straining and striving melted away, replaced by an unhurried settledness. A pervasive feeling of well-being and wholeness refreshed my tired mind and body. Yet, on the horizon, I saw the tremendous responsibility of freedom dawning, and I experienced a charge of fear, like a tiny electric shock—joy and sadness, pain and pleasure co-arising and interdependent.

The meditation bell chimed three times, signaling the end of twenty minutes. I breathed out, letting go, and lingered for a few moments longer in the silence and stillness. Then I lifted my cup and took a long, full gulp of still-warm tea while reciting the Tea Messenger’s morning wisdom one more time: “The purpose of life is to know yourself, love yourself, trust yourself, and be yourself.”

Heedful of the 15-mile-an-hour speed limit, I drive carefully through the empty streets of my retirement community on an ordinary day. Suddenly, I see something extraordinary.

A Great Blue Heron presides regally on the left side of the road. Holy s_ _ t! I whisper to myself as I pull cautiously to a stop. The bird is immense, nearly as tall as I am. It looks at me intensely, slowly turning its small head atop its slender curved neck so that one eye can focus on my fire engine red car a mere twenty feet away. Its black legs equal nearly half its height. A pale blue-grey, aerodynamic cluster of chest feathers and folded wings perch atop them. The neck flows upward from this central mass and is crowned by a proportionally small head and a disproportionally long, pointed beak. The bird stares calmly; I stare, slack-jawed and awestruck. Moments pass, each of us immobile. Then, gracefully, the heron lifts one thin pole of a leg, revealing four equally skinny toes, three in front and one in back, bends its miniature knee backward, and steps over the low wooden barrier on the side of the road. It follows with the second leg and glides elegantly down the steep bank littered with fallen oak leaves, broken branches, and rotting tree trunks toward a shallow pond.

Wanting more, I push the gear shift into “park,” slide out of the car and grab my iPhone from my right back pocket. I walk quickly but fluidly—not to frighten the bird—to the side of the road and look down the bank. The heron has already reached the pond and is moving deliberately through the water on its stick legs. It is well camouflaged by autumn golds and browns—bare branches, yellowed leaves, and black water. Its body feathers blend with the trees, and its legs, neck, and pointed beak are almost indistinguishable from the willowy saplings around it. The Great Blue appears to be the forest gliding through itself.

The terrain is too steep and cluttered with woodland debris for me to descend on the same route as the bird, so I swing around to the right and take the familiar path to the pond, clicking pictures of the heron whenever it emerges into view through the underbrush. Click, click, click. (None of the shots are any good; it turns out later.)

Finally, he stands still at the edge of the pond. I do, too. I am entranced—all glowing eyes and beating heart. I don’t know how to take in such exquisite beauty, powerful fragility, and deep composure. The heron and I are alone together. From my perspective, I am the admirer, and he is the admired—there is no space in my mind to consider his perspective.

For several minutes, neither of us moves. Then I think, I have to tell someone! Quietly and slowly, I turn and walk back to my car, still idling by the side of the road, the driver’s door open. I slip my phone back into my pocket, drive the remaining minute to my front door, and burst in, “There’s a Great Blue Heron in the pond!”

Sarah Faith is impressed and immediately Googles “Great Blue Heron” on her iPad, reading aloud to me the information the search engine pulls up. It is a large bird with a wingspan of 5.5 to 6.6 feet and a height of 3.2 to 4.5 feet. It hunts alone but nests in colonies, usually in tall trees near water sources. It feeds mainly on fish but also eats other aquatic animals, insects, and rodents, and it can eat up to two pounds of fish per day.

In Native American tradition, it is associated with good luck and loyalty. In Christianity, it represents perseverance and patience. In Celtic tradition, it heralds renewal and calmness in challenging situations. It symbolizes the characteristics of balance, strength, clarity, and connectedness.

The facts, myths, and omens wash through my ears and into my brain. Google encourages me to consider my encounter with this bird a fortuitous event. But I’m only half paying attention, impatiently, to the information. I feel a powerful urge to return to the pond as quickly as possible to see if the heron is still there—to feast my eyes on this miracle again. But I don’t go alone. My entrenched sense of responsibility reminds me that my dog needs his afternoon walk, so I leash up the frisky little guy and take him with me, insisting, “No barking!” as we go.

It takes only a couple of minutes for us to reach the pond. Lo and behold, the heron is still there, standing stalk still in the same spot it was ten minutes before. Because it is camouflaged, the dog doesn’t see it, and it is too far away for him to pick up a scent, so while he sniffs the decaying leaves at our feet, I stand and gaze again. The heron is not fishing; it’s waiting. Motionless, we watch each other.

Moments pass, and I have another brilliant idea. I must share this experience with someone likely to appreciate its specialness as I do. I think of my neighbor on the street next to the pond, a woman who loves the forest and its creatures. You stay there, I silently tell the bird, I’ll be right back.

I knock on my neighbor’s door; sure enough, she’s interested in seeing a Great Blue. While she puts her coat on, the dog and I shuffle from foot to foot impatiently. When she emerges from her front door, and we walk toward the pond, we hear a faint drone in the distance. “Leaf blowers!” she exclaims, extremely annoyed. “They ruin this place. They drive me nuts!”

I try to be sympathetic, but I want her to focus on the beautiful bird I am sharing with her. However, the noise from the blowers has ruined it for her, and perhaps for the heron too, because he looks around anxiously after a few more moments and glides upstream toward the footbridge. My neighbor and I decide it’s time to move on and leave him in peace. She invites me to walk in the woods a little longer, and we take the dog for his afternoon stroll together, chatting quietly about the quotidian details of our lives: sleepless nights, failing health, and community news.

Later that afternoon, in a pause between activities, I recall the image of the Great Blue. I’m antsy and annoyed with myself. I sense I’ve missed a profound opportunity for communion and insight. I rehearse the compulsive behaviors that prevent me from being fully present in life: photographing experiences to preserve them, researching facts to understand, seeking to share soul-stirring occasions with others to pursue intimacy, and letting responsibilities deflect me from my heart’s call. Why could I not simply stand still and look, listen, and open myself? Why could I not be fully aware of the essence of the encounter? Might a veil have lifted? Might I have seen the truth?

The following morning, during meditation, I calm my agitation and recall the image of the Great Blue, as I first saw it, regal, by the side of the road. I breathe deeply and gaze long, feasting on the mental vision with my third eye, the eye of intuition. The bird, in all its majestic peacefulness, revisits me. This time, instead of analyzing it, I recognize it. I know it for who it is—an avatar. The divine source of everything, incarnate in the form of a Great Blue Heron, stands amid an ordinary day. Solitary yet inseparable from the world, it moves effortlessly through beauty, chaos, and debris, self-assured, serene, and unafraid.

In the last few weeks, I’ve repeatedly returned to my mental picture of the Great Blue Heron. Each time, I feel revisited by an inexpressible peace and humble confidence that the bird and I are kin. I am also an avatar, an incarnation, though partial and flawed, of the source of all goodness. Each time the vision of the Great Blue returns to me, I am certain of the indestructibility of this exquisite world, the love from which it is born, and my intrinsic place within it.

Tea Bag Wisdom – Self Respect

Everything is an Opportunity for Waking Up