Spirit Guide

The idea of a spirit guide is an ancient one. A guide may be manifested at certain times in a person's life to help them along a journey or a when a person faces a critical decision in their life. 

It was two weeks before my journey when I was hiking along the Greenbelt in Austin, Texas. I decided to turn off the trail and hike up a large hill to get a view of the gorgeous Texas hill country. As I made my way back down I found a small creek and what I thought was the original trail. I ended up following this creek upstream when suddenly the trail came to a dead end with thick brush on either side of the tiny river. I decided not to turn around to find the original trail but to stay and absorb the splendid isolation. Kneeling down and combing the creek bed with my eyes I found primordial fossils such as the bivalve texigryphea, deer hearts and porocystis. One can spend hours scouring the ground looking for these bits of ancient remains.  Forty-five minutes later I came across the find of the day. It was a well-preserved raccoon skull complete with most of its teeth. Over the next couple of days I washed it, sun-bleached it, painted it and decided I would repurpose this once living creature of the night to be my spirit guide. It now lives on the dashboard of my truck as we travel thousands of miles across Northern America.