25: A Visit From My Golden Angel Chicken

If you’re new to my world, not only am I really into A Course in Miracles, but I’m also really into my pet chickens! Yes, I’m a chicken mom (please don’t call me a “chicken lady” even though I guess it’s technically true!).

Over the past five years that I’ve had a flock, they have provided countless hours of free entertainment in addition to cultivating a lot of love.

I’ve been really lucky, because I have not one, but two cuddly “lap chickens.”

My first lap chicken’s name is Henrietta. From

Transcript

This is from Anxiety to Love Radio,

The show about undoing anxiety through a course in miracles and other pathways of love.

Gain insights and tools to deepen your awareness of the peace that already exists within you.

I'm your host Corinne Zupko,

Author of the award-winning and best-selling book From Anxiety to Love.

Hey spiritual family!

On today's episode we're going to talk about a very sweet experience that I had that really helped me to experientially touch upon the illusory nature of death.

Now I know that sounds kind of heavy but this is a very sweet experience and I hope it helps you as much as it helped me.

But before we dive in,

I have a quick sneak peek into the future for you.

I am beyond thrilled to share that the From Anxiety to Love masterclass is coming!

Yay!

I have been so excited about this.

It's been in the works for a while.

So if you have been working with my book,

If you're ready to go deeper into healing fear,

My 8-week class might be exactly what you're looking for,

Especially if you want to work more with me too.

So please keep an eye out for the launch in Spring 2020.

When the link is ready I'll definitely put it on the show notes page for this episode which is fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash 25.

In addition,

If you have been feeling at all flustered by coronavirus,

I recently had a very powerful Course in Miracles study group call where we talked all about it and I have the recording available for you.

So if this speaks to you,

If you feel ready to shift out of fear and back into peace and certainty,

The link to this audio recording will be also on the show notes page.

So let's dive into today's episode.

Now as you may already know,

My anxiety issues of the past were very existential.

Death freaked me out and anything that could bring about death,

Like sickness,

Was a massive anxiety trigger for me.

Now one of the reasons that I was so drawn to A Course in Miracles is that it leads you to question everything.

The Course asks you to question all of the laws of the world,

Even death.

I feel like most pathways don't question death,

They just accept death as a natural part of life but the Course is saying,

No,

Question that.

And so I want to get a little bit metaphysical on you before I share my story.

Just a few thoughts that are coming to mind.

According to the world,

Death is a natural part of life.

According to A Course in Miracles,

Death is not a natural part of life.

In Course terms,

Death would negate life.

The Course says that there either is life or there is death,

Both cannot coexist.

So there's actually a section in the manual for teachers and the Course says,

If death is real for anything,

There is no life.

Death denies life.

But if there is reality in life,

Death is denied.

No compromise in this is possible.

End quote.

Isn't that a good one?

So what we also think of as life here on earth,

According to the Course,

Is not really life.

This is a dream.

Our real life has continued without interruption,

Despite thinking that we're quote unquote living in this dream.

So the Course says,

Your other life has continued without interruption and has always been and always will be totally unaffected by your attempts to dissociate it.

End quote.

So in other words,

We are safe at home in God,

In love right now,

And our reality has not changed despite our crazy dreams.

But how is death not a part of life?

I mean,

It all seems so real.

But according to the Course,

Death is a belief to be undone.

And body identification is a belief to be undone as well.

They're both false.

So if the body is a projection of our sleeping mind,

We can't die.

We simply stop projecting the body.

As of Course in Miracles says,

The body is neither sick nor old nor hurt.

We merely lay it by when its usefulness is over.

So in other words,

We stop projecting the body,

The mind returns to recognizing the truth and we stop projecting the body when we no longer need it to learn who it is that we really are.

So that's my metaphysical musing for the day.

These teachings I believe with all of my heart and I'm slowly coming to experientially know the truth of these teachings,

Not just intellectually understand what they're saying.

But to be completely honest with you,

Do I still walk around thinking that I'm Corinne and believing on some level that death is real?

Absolutely.

My mind is still split between fear and love.

In other words,

I still listen to the ego and still choose again to listen to spirit instead.

My mind is still split,

Even though obviously only one of those is real,

Which is love.

I'm slowly,

However,

Allowing my trust to build to fully remember the truth again,

To fully remember love again.

So this awakening to the truth is very gradual.

Now it's experiences like what I'm about to share with you that really have helped me along the journey and I hope this helps you too.

So here's my story.

If you've been following me on Instagram and Facebook for a while,

You know that I have pet chickens that I absolutely adore.

I've always been an animal lover,

But for some reason I've just always had a thing for birds.

I can remember back when I was around 10,

I was obsessed with playing with a plastic parrot that belonged to a Barbie doll and I remember begging my parents for a real bird,

Not a plastic one.

Later in my teen years,

I had two very beloved cockatiels.

Their names were Pumpkin and Peaches.

They were the cutest.

And then when my husband and I bought a house with a decent sized yard,

I knew chickens were in our future.

So we've had a flock for nearly five years now.

If you have been with me for a while,

I'm sure you will remember my sweet,

Sweet pet chicken,

Henrietta.

Everyone loved Miss Henrietta's photos because that chicken was photogenic and she loved the camera.

This chicken was the queen bee of the yard.

She got her way and was at the top of the pecking order.

Yes,

Chickens have a pecking order.

And I'm going to go ahead and post some of my favorite photos of her on the show notes page because they just will make you smile and will make you happy because she's just,

She inspires joy.

That's just what she does.

So you can check those photos out at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash 25.

This girl was more like a dog than a chicken.

I remember she would gaze into the camera on my phone and look at her image on the screen and tilt her head in curiosity and she probably was surprised that she had a feathered face and didn't look like a human.

Now this is the first time that I'm actually sharing with you what happened to Henrietta.

I never posted it.

It just didn't feel right to post and it does feel right now to share this with you because this was just such a profound learning experience for me.

So what happened was that last spring,

Henrietta got an infection in her oviduct that is very common among chickens that are bred to lay more eggs than what is healthy for them.

So from what I understand,

A hundred years ago,

Chickens maybe laid a hundred something eggs per year.

Now we've bred them to lay more eggs because we just,

I guess,

Wanted more eggs and they're laying like 300 eggs a year now,

Let's say,

And it's just too much for them.

So what happens is that their oviduct gets stretched out and they get backwash from their droppings up into their oviduct and they end up with an infection that's life threatening.

So this happened to Henrietta and we got her to a vet right away,

Like right away.

I freaked out and we got her an antibiotics.

The antibiotics seemed to work.

She got better.

She completed the antibiotics.

She was totally fine for two days.

And then on the third day she started showing signs of sickness.

So I immediately got her back to the vet's office.

I remember it was a Monday morning that I got her into the vet first thing and she died at home on Monday night.

I was devastated.

I was so devastated.

She had become my little feather baby.

Most of the time I spent in my backyard,

I spent with her in my lap or in my arms.

And she'd often ask to be picked up.

She'd ask literally to be picked up and how do I know this?

Like how am I not just being a silly human and projecting?

She'd do something very specific.

So if I was sitting at my back table,

Usually on my laptop,

She'd walk up to me and she'd start pecking at my legs.

When I turned to her and started like lowering my hands to motion that I was going to pick her up,

She'd sort of stand up tall and get this like saunter where she'd like start to swing her hips back and forth and she'd turn around until her butt was facing me.

So she preferred to be picked up with her butt toward me and her head facing out.

It was just so cute.

So when she passed,

I cried every day for about two weeks straight.

I was so grateful she passed at home,

But I missed that chicken so badly.

She had such a big personality and her absence in our yard was just so noticeable.

And I know I'm crying right now.

If you've ever lost a pet,

I know that your heart is feeling all the feels.

And we have to keep in mind that we have to let ourselves be where we are.

We have to allow ourselves to feel the feelings and take those to spirit when we're ready to be willing to see the truth behind the form.

And this is what I was willing to do.

And this is why I had my little metaphysical teaching in the beginning of the podcast,

Because that's what's true.

Despite what was happening before my eyes in this little feather body,

The truth still is true.

I was grieving so hard and I was comforted by my other lap chicken,

Gloria Steinem.

And I have to say that Gloria,

I don't think missed Henrietta as much as I did because Gloria could never seem to get lap time on my lap without Henrietta getting jealous and attacking her.

So Gloria to this day has my lap whenever she wants it.

So I still pick her up all the time.

And that was really helpful to have her in moving through this grief process.

About two weeks after Henrietta made her transition,

As I've mentioned,

I was still having a hard time.

And on our Sunday night study group,

Course in Miracles study group call,

I ended up staying on the line afterwards to chat with my friend,

Deidre Stats.

You might know Deidre.

She often shares so much wisdom on our study group calls.

And she also occasionally facilitates the call when I'm traveling.

And Deidre reminded me of something so important.

She said,

Corinne,

Remember,

A Course in Miracles says,

And here's the quote,

That communication remains unbroken,

Even if the body is destroyed,

Provided that you see not the body as the necessary means of communication.

These words felt like drops of healing rain that washed over me.

And I was like,

Oh,

Right.

Thank you for reminding me of this quote.

I'll say it again.

Communication remains unbroken,

Even if the body is destroyed,

Provided that you see not the body as the necessary means of communication.

Deidre shared with me that when she lost her dog a year prior,

Someone told her that she could still communicate with her dog,

That she could choose a symbol and ask her pet to send her signs.

And as Deidre was telling me this inside,

I was like,

Oh,

Yes,

Thank you.

And I immediately knew what my sign would be for Henrietta.

A ladybug.

So earlier this same day,

I was walking up my back stairs up my porch,

And the ladybug flew right in front of me and landed really clumsily on the steps of the back porch,

Like right in front of me.

I think it was probably a baby ladybug that was getting used to being in a body.

It was getting used to its wings and it just landed really clumsily.

And when I saw this ladybug land in front of me,

I immediately thought of Henrietta because she could be really clumsy sometimes and like trip over her own feet.

So when I told this story to Deidre at this moment,

Deidre was like,

Yep,

That's her.

And I was like,

Oh my gosh,

Thank you.

I have a symbol.

Thank you.

And I was open to receiving signs from Henrietta.

The story gets better.

That night I went to bed and Henrietta came to me in a dream.

This dream was a bit different than my usual dreams.

It had a different quality to it that's really hard to put into words.

It was as if the dream was brighter and more alive than my usual dreams.

In my dream,

Henrietta and I were standing and facing each other and we were communicating,

But it wasn't like her beak was moving.

Like she wasn't talking.

Her beak was not moving.

We weren't communicating through words,

But it was through thought.

And it was as if what she was saying was being just pushed through me and I understood it.

Now let's pause for a moment.

Henrietta was a sassy chicken.

She had an opinion.

And if she didn't like something that I did,

She would let me know it.

For instance,

I remember one time I picked her up when she did not want to be picked up and she lunged up and bit my face.

And that only happened once,

Thank goodness,

But she would just like lay down the law.

Like she wanted things to be a certain way.

And if I broke that rule,

She was going to let me know.

I remember this other time I had to pick up one of the other girls,

One of the other chickens to treat a wound.

And that chicken did not like being handled.

And as I was holding the chicken and she was kind of like making some noises,

Henrietta came running over to that chicken's rescue and she pecked at me to leave the other chicken alone.

She was a total peacekeeper.

So back to my dream,

Henrietta and I are communicating and her thoughts are being pushed through me and I had decided that a ladybug was her symbol.

So here's how our conversation in the dream went.

As we faced each other and with these exact inflections,

Henrietta said,

Ladybugs?

No,

Squirrels.

And I was like,

Squirrels?

Squirrels are everywhere.

They're not special like a ladybug.

And she said,

No ladybug,

Squirrels.

And I was like,

Okay,

Squirrels it is,

Fine.

As I threw up my hands in the dream,

Acquiescing to her request yet again.

The moment that I woke up,

I smiled.

I felt so filled with joy.

She visited me.

My feather baby visited me.

I felt like I was truly with her.

We were together again and I just laughed at her message of wanting me to choose squirrels instead of ladybugs.

So guess what happens?

I get out of bed.

I go to my back door to open the blinds.

And what is the first thing that my eyes rest upon when I open the blinds?

A squirrel.

My eyes did not first look at the porch or a tree and then the squirrel.

I looked straight at the squirrel first thing.

It was right there for me to see.

This was at a time when we were rarely seeing squirrels because we had a family of hawks living nearby that were keeping the squirrel population rather low.

At that moment then,

Seeing that squirrel,

I was just like,

Oh my gosh,

Henrietta,

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I got in touch with Deidre and I told her the story and she was like,

Corinne,

You see her main message,

Right?

Squirrels are everywhere.

She is everywhere.

Message received.

I hadn't wanted to pick squirrels in the dream because I felt like they were everywhere and ladybugs were more special like Henrietta,

But Henrietta was saying the opposite.

Squirrels are everywhere.

She is everywhere.

After crying every day for two weeks,

Once this dream happened,

Once this experience happened,

I could not muster a tear if I tried.

Henrietta felt so alive and so present to me.

It showed me that there is a world just beyond this world of form.

Through turning to spirit,

Allowing fear to be undone in our minds and through extending love,

We can literally begin to see that real world,

Not with the body's eyes,

But with our spiritual vision.

The cool thing is that Henrietta then came to my husband in a dream a few weeks later.

His dream was much more symbolic.

In my husband's dream,

We were actually worried because Henrietta did not get put away at night,

But my husband was like,

She's going to be okay.

She knows how to survive.

Then he remembers in his dream that someone saw her in a courtyard and they were trying to catch Henrietta,

But she flew up high,

High,

High,

High in the sky.

These are my husband's words.

And she was roosting up on the trees and someone said,

There's the golden chicken.

And my husband said,

She's fine.

She's up there.

She's fine.

Although my husband's dream was much more symbolic than mine,

It still brought me back into that same teaching from the course.

There is no death and that's a literal teaching.

There's literally no death.

I will also say that I've since had some really awesome experiences with squirrels.

I take yoga classes in a barn and the week after Henrietta came to me in the dream,

There were squirrels coming into the barn during our yoga class and that never happened before.

Shortly after that,

I remember I was sitting in a chair where I often held Henrietta and I heard the sound of a squirrel chirping.

I turned around and in a tree that was about 10 feet away from me,

There was a squirrel sitting on the only branch that was visible through the leaves staring at me and it chirped and stared at me for about a solid 10 minutes.

I just smiled and I was like,

Hi Henrietta.

This experience has really opened my spiritual site more so than before and I hope this story awakens your spiritual site as well.

Henrietta is very much alive for me.

She continues to inspire my work,

My chicken drawings.

Come check them out on Instagram and she's also inspiring some very fun upcoming chicken inspired products.

What we are experiencing here in this world is a dream and the truest,

Most real parts of it are the parts that we look upon with love.

I was sharing this story with my friend and fellow spiritual teacher,

Corine Walson,

And she said,

How can we possibly think that we can collapse that love into a body?

Think about that.

How can I possibly think that I can collapse into a little fluffy butt chicken body,

The love of God?

So think about those you love,

Your family,

Your friends,

Your pets.

How can we possibly think that we can collapse the love that we feel for them into a little body?

What we truly are is so much greater than a body and it's our job as miracle workers to wake up to this now.

I'll leave you again with this quote from A Course in Miracles.

Communication remains unbroken,

Even if the body is destroyed,

Provided that you see not the body as the necessary means of communication.

May you rest in knowing that you do not walk alone and separate.

All of heaven is with you and my golden Henrietta.

You know,

I'm just remembering that my sister humorously comforted me by telling me that Henrietta is now laying golden eggs for God.

I love that.

And I also have to say that as I'm sharing this with you,

My eyes are resting on a beautiful frame that I have on my desk and in the frame are two panes of glass and between the two panes of glass are two of Henrietta's feathers that are painted along the edges in this beautiful gold sparkling paint.

I reached out to a jewelry maker.

Her name's Carissa.

Her business is called Velvet and Slate.

I love her jewelry.

I have purchased a few different pieces and she does a lot of work with feathers,

So I commissioned her to make this for me and of course I'll share a picture of it on the show notes page because it's just so beautiful and I'll also share a link to Chris's website as well.

Please come over to the show notes page to see some super cute pictures of Henrietta.

In addition to the course quotes,

The link to my fun chicken products will be there when they're ready.

You can find all this on the show notes page at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash 25.

In addition,

The link to the masterclass will be there when that's available as well.

So when you see pictures of sweet Henrietta,

Allow them to remind you that you do not walk alone.

I love you and so does Henrietta.

I am with you in your journey of undoing fear.

I'll leave you with the last few sentences from my book,

From Anxiety to Love.

I believe in you.

We're healing together.

Every gain that I've made is a gain for you and every gain that you make is a gain for me.

My gains are yours and yours are mine because we are one.

We're going to make it.

The light in you is too bright to fail.

If you buy a copy of From Anxiety to Love,

Make sure you take advantage of your free bonus,

The From Anxiety to Love Summit,

Which features six interviews with experts in undoing fear.

Get access at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash summit.

Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.

Reviews

Wow, what a lovely experience! This made me think about some of the more impactful dreams I have had and what they could possibly mean. Thank you for reminding us that there is more than what meets the eye.