Crossing Paths
With a mysterious shaman
Got up early today. Didn’t plan on it but my mind couldn’t fully relax with a fire burning down the street.
Went to the river to walk and came across a withered old Native American woman who was sitting on a rock directly under a massive bridge. There must be thousands of bats living under it, but she sat there unmoved by them or their guano.
I avoided eye contact at first. But I could feel her eyes on me. So I looked into hers and said hi. She smiled a big smile, and said hi back.
She was missing a few teeth but had a light shining from her eyes that didn’t match the missing teeth or tough, weathered skin. She was beautiful in the kind of way that a genuinely loving great great grandmother is.
She asked if I had a minute. I said sure, despite my mind wanting to say no.
She said her name was Toby and that she was a messenger of the spirits. My mind started racing; I might be dealing with something I was not prepared for this early in the morning. But my heart seemed at odds with my mind so I shared my name and asked how I got so lucky to cross paths with a messenger of the spirits.
She smiled and her eyes twinkled, like two little stars shining under a bat-filled bridge. She said she knows whose spirit is open to messages by looking in their eyes. And that she had one for me.
Not sure what to say next, I asked if I could hear her message for me.
What she said next blew my mind.
She said I once had a close friend, a soul friend, who knew my hidden intimacies and loved my soul as their own. She knew that he was a sacred witness to my life. She told me I was very lucky, because soul friends are very rare individuals who reflect the divine to us, seeing our potential even when we are broken.
That he was able to show me such depth of love at my lowest point while battling his own darkness was a testament to his incredible spirit, not a contradiction of his pain.
She said that the tears I shed whenever I wish he was still here are simply the measure of how deeply he loved me and how deeply I loved him. She reminded me that this type of pain is sacred.
Then she said he is still with me. He is in every one of the seeds that he planted and help nurture while he was here, and that by healing, I have done exactly what he hoped I would do.
I am positive I looked shocked. How could she know this?? I have never seen her a day in my life.
But she wasn’t done yet…
She paused. Smiled again, the light still dancing in her twinkling eyes. She said I have seen signs. She asked if I had been paying attention.
I said I have seen some things recently that I knew were not normal. But I wasn’t sure if they could be called “signs” or if they were just coincidences. She reached out, took my arm in her wrinkled hand, and pulled me closer. This made my heartbeat skip a few beats and start racing. Now we are eye to eye. And even though my heart is racing, I do not feel fear.
She asked what signs I have seen. I told her about the coyote saving the mama duck and her babies from a yellow snake a few weeks ago a little ways up the river. She smiled her biggest smile yet, and told me that the sign was more than I probably understand. That she would try to help me.
She let go of my arm and motioned for me to sit on the rock beside her. As I sat there beside her, she went on to explain how she would interpret such a sign.
The duck represents emotional flow, adaptability, and the harmony between mind, body, and soul, as it navigates water (emotions), land (physical reality), and air (spirit). She pointed out that when a mother duck is actively seeking aid for her ducklings, it amplifies the symbolism of 'nurturing care under threat'. This highlights the duck's role as a guardian of family unity and a symbol of unconditional love.
Spiritually, she said, this suggests a situation where emotional boundaries are being tested, and there is a critical need for external support to protect something precious and vulnerable.
The duck's call is a message that instinct alone is not enough, and collaboration or divine intervention is required.
I had not thought of it in that way. I just noticed the frantic quacking and looked to see what was wrong.
The coyote answering the call is highly significant as well, she continued, as this animal is a trickster, teacher, and shapeshifter. And while it is often associated with mischief, the coyote also embodies adaptability, intelligence, and survival. It acts as a spiritual messenger, bridging the physical and spirit worlds.
For a coyote to respond to a plea for help—especially one to protect rather than prey—indicates a rare alignment of protective energy. She said that in this case, wisdom and cunning are being deployed for a higher purpose, which means that the coyote's presence signals unconventional solutions or unexpected allies are arriving to resolve a dangerous situation.
She said it represents a shift from chaos to order, where the trickster becomes the guardian, using its street-smarts to outwit a threat that brute force alone could not handle.
The six-foot yellow snake, on the other hand, represents a potent force of transformation, danger, and primal energy. In the context of a river flowing from a mountain basin into a desert, the snake embodies the challenges of transition. Rivers symbolize life flow and emotional cleansing, while the desert represents scarcity, testing, and spiritual purification.
She told me that a snake of this size near water in a desert often symbolizes a major obstacle or a "guardian" of a threshold. It represents a necessary but dangerous transformation that must be navigated.
The snake's presence threatens the new life (ducklings) trying to move from the safety of the nest (mountain basin) into the wider world (desert). She asked if I was following this. I nodded in affirmation. I asked if spiritually, this confrontation highlights the struggle between life force (water/ducks) and destructive or transformative power (snake/desert). The twinkle in her eyes seemed to shine a bit brighter as she said yes.
The interaction I witnessed, she said—a mother duck calling, a coyote answering, and a snake as the antagonist—is an extraordinarily rare spiritual event. In nature, coyotes are predators of ducks; for a coyote to answer a call for help instead of hunting it suggests a miraculous alignment of natural forces.
She told me that this event is a powerful omen that protection is available from unexpected sources when one is vulnerable but vocal about their needs. That help is closer than we realize and to keep paying attention. She said all of us who are alive now have a purpose. But we must stop asking the wrong questions to find it.
I had so many questions for her. My brain was moving so fast that my mouth didnt have a chance to catch up. And before I could get a single question out, she took my hands in hers. They were warm and soft, like a super thin piece of wrinkled calf skin. She said B was still with me. That I am not alone. That none of us are.
Then she got up, looked around for a moment, and started to walk away.
I never mentioned B. I have never seen her before. How did she know that B was my best friend?? I got up and started to walk after her. I now had even more questions, but she turned, eyes still twinkling and dancing, and said that the future is not yet written. To write a better one, we all must find our purpose and stop letting our fear cloud it.
Then she turned, walked up the hill leading to the top of the bridge, and seemingly disappeared.
Just when I thought life couldn't get any stranger, an old Native American lady named Toby showed up in mine.
I really hope we cross paths again…