If I want to have a good day, I go down to Antique Trader’s on Antique Row. The upstairs shop is owned by a dark haired lady with lively brown eyes named Linda. 

I met Linda back in October when I started writing the Montly Tarot Forecast for  Witch Way Magazine. Along with the forecast, I wanted to include original Tarot cards I made myself in my column. 

I knew from the get go thst it was a massive project. It was exciting to think about creating my own deck, but I needed so many antique and vintage photos and I couldn’t afford to buy them all. So I took a chance and asked Linda if I could work for the photos and she said yes. 

The more time I spent at the shop, the more I realized I could run a bad ass vintage shop online if I could get a good stock going. As I worked with Linda, I amassed a jewlery, books and curious items that could easily fit into an occult themed vintage shop. I haven’t had much luck with online sales yet. I tried Etsy but it didn’t feel right so now Linda is helping me get acquainted with EBay.

When I come home with my goodies, the first thing I do is sage  them because antiques hold a lot of memories. Once everything is cleaned, I put it in a case and pretend I’m the owner of a great antique store. I think about how cool it would be to share all my awesome finds with people and ship them to customers all over the world.

But I fall in love with my treasures and don’t want to say goodbye. However, now that I’ve offered to split what I make with Linda because she deserves a lot for helping me with all of this, I have to learn to let go.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t take my jewlery for a spin before I put it up for sale.

So today  I decided to try out ta little, turquoise, hand carved kachina necklace. I found it when Linda and I were combing through a lot of jewlery looking for silver, gold and diamonds. 

The kachina looked so friendly, I felt like he was smiling at me. I was captivated by his unique shape and his perfect, round little eyes. He reminded me of the friendly, Shinto kamisama (gods) that I connected with in Japan. He had the same simple, earthy, gentle energy of the native Japanese gods and I liked him immediately. I decided to take the kachina home and add him to my stock instead of throwing him back into the lot.

Fast forward to today. I was rushing to fasten a cornflower inspired necklace so Adam and I wouldn’t miss the bus but I couldn’t get the damn thing on. So I grabbed the kachina. We missed the bus anyway because a neighbor’s dig followed us and no matter how much it’s master called, it refused to go to go to him. So Adam and I  had to walk to Petsmart to get food for our cat, Marley.

We were walking past a glass case of small, fury animals at the pet shop when I noticed that a chinchilla was laying in an odd position, smashed between his food bowl and the glass. I stepped up to the case and noticed the poor thing’s eyes were glazed over. It squinted at me and we made eye contact.

Then what happened next was strange. It’s difficult to explain but the necklace reacted. Suddenly, I felt something switch on in my awareness. I connected with the chinchilla and I felt his suffering. It wasn’t ESP or anything like that. It was more like a feeling that told me exactly what was wrong — past present and future. The chinchilla had been depressed for a while, alone and bored in its glass house. It was so sick it didn’t care if it died or not because it was miserable. It never knew freedom but nonetheless, it desired it so much it made it sick.

“I don’t think that chinchilla feels good,” I said to Adam, surprised at the wave of sorrow and sickness that passed through me. Adam agreed.

We walked the store and looked at the fish. But the chinchilla was still on my mind. 

I passed by the chinchilla on the way out. He had hoisted himself up against the glass. His eyes were half shut and he looked like he was about to fall over from feeling so bad. I stared into his eyes again and I knew he was asking for help. 

I found a clerk and told her the chinchilla looked really sick. She thanked me and rushed off to find pet care, probably because the chinchilla cost $100.

I cried when I left the store. If we didn’t have our cat, I’d buy that chinchilla and give it a good home. But a small apartment with a cat is no place for a sick, depressed chinchilla.

But the boost in empathy didn’t stop there. I continued to see what needed nurturing and love, what was sick and what was well, what was healthy and what was dying all day long — especially with plants and animals. I even helped a lost dog at the library. 

And other people noticed. I went to a vision board making class with Adam. It was mostly middle aged metaphysical women who kept giving us little cut outs for our wedding vision board that fit perfectly into our piece. And at the end, we had the perfect amount of photos to cover our poster. Everyone told us it was beautiful. It’s hanging in our room now, waiting to be framed. I hope to hang it up at our wedding and see what comes out of our little project.

I still felt “activated” so once we got home, I looked up information on kachinas, searching for any kind of lead on why I would be affected by that necklace the way I was. Although I didn’t find the exact kachina, I learned that they are lesser Hopi gods that bless you with gifts if you give them a gift. Thus, like the rune Gebo, which I’ve been connecting with lately, it’s an even exchange between you and the gods to keep abundance flowing on both sides of the veil between the worlds. 

Perhaps the kachina gave me the ability to connect with nature and animals in a way I usually don’t and in exchange, I intuitively helped them. And that made the kachina happy and it blessed mine and Adam’s vision board. But since I’m not Native, I can only speculate ignorantly. But that’s what I felt.

You see, I often don’t feel it’s right, as a Western woman, to work with Native American gods since I know very little about the mosaic of traditions. But today, I felt a Native spirit reached out to me. I didn’t seek it out but I accepted the invitation. And it was a very powerful experience.

In the end, I’m not sure what to do with the kachina because I don’t have the knowledge or training to work with it. And it’s a powerful little guy so I feel it’s wrong to sell it.

Maybe I need to find a Hopi elder or medicine man to take him to a place where he belongs and can be understood.

So thank you, kachina. I’m glad I could help. And please let the chinchilla find a good home ❤️