The Spirit of a New Year

All of us have just embarked on a journey into the unknown of a new year. No doubt, 2021 will be an adventure with challenges, discoveries, and possible delights. My year has begun with a bit of a disappointment. We writers like to talk about our muse—the person, goddess, angel, or entity that fuels our creativity. I’m of the opinion that my muse is still hung over from the holidays. She has been MIA.

I have, however, discovered something other than a muse to inspire me—a new spirit animal.

I used to identify with the owl. Not because I think I’m so very wise, but because my kids swore I had eyes behind my head. But this winter, which has been mild and quite beautiful, I have been inspired by the deer. We spot them regularly around our Montana home. They taunt our dogs, gobble up the seed from our birdfeeders, and offer hours of quiet entertainment. Our picture window has become a movie screen playing an everlasting documentary.

Both the whitetails and the mule deer come around, and I observe, with keen interest, the way they nonchalantly approach, stop, and then leap with Herculean strength and agility over barbed wire, weathered wood, and stone fences. Sometimes they duck under a high rail. Sometimes they go around. Deer are as intelligent, as they are entertaining.

From what I have garnered, a spirit animal is the creature with which you most identify—you see the same qualities and abilities in the animal as you wish to see in yourself. Deer are nimble and quick, resilient, and yet, vulnerable. Deer herd, and yet, at times they are loners. A buck appears out of the winter mist, regal and majestic, the doe regal and nurturing, her young huddled beside her. I greatly appreciate those qualities, as well as the fact that deer are herbivores. I like the idea of being an herbivore, but those damn canine teeth push me in another direction.

Where I grew up, in Northern Wisconsin, there is a special type of deer that is very reclusive. They are white, or albino deer. Some even have pink eyes. I have been told by a native American friend that they are ghost deer. I’m besotted by the idea of being mystical, magical, surreal—an ethereal and legendary inhabitant of the forest that actually exists!

According to the Chinese Zodiac, we are born under the sign of one of 12 different creatures, including the dragon. My Chinese horoscope suggests that my birth animal is the rat. Hmmm…I want to be a deer, so a deer I shall be.

And so, with the energetic and nurturing spirit of the deer, I wish you, rather tardily, a joyous new year. I shall spend a portion of my 2021 grazing on greens and curling up for a nap in a place as cozy and fragrant as a meadow. And I shall leap with joy, flick my white tail, and rejoice, because I do believe my muse has sobered up.

Photos courtesy of Dave Boyden.

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