There’s somebody new at our house and she keeps staring at me.

I recently fell for a fluffy creature with a big personality that I saw in a catalog. I loved that she was so unusual that I wasn’t sure what she was. I loved that her pink and gray feathers gave her a look both elegant and disheveled. I loved that she seemed insistent on being totally her odd self. She didn’t seem like a child’s toy. And she made me laugh so I decided to buy her.

Now that she’s here, though, she makes me uneasy. She is delightfully eccentric, both classy and rumpled at the same time. Her “feathers” are actually fluffy polyester, delicate and soft; they remind me of the downy fur of cats I’ve known. Her gray feet (and nose and neck) are velvety, delicious to stroke. She has a no-nonsense presence that I appreciate, uncompromisingly herself. Yet while her colors and odd fluffy shape seem to connect her with a playful, faery-like realm, the energy she exudes is a bit intimidating. She stares at me in the unswerving way my cats did when they wanted something from me. Eying me in heavy expectation.

When I ask Ora (my name for her) what she wants to tell me she stares. I listen, then ask again if she has a message for me. She just gazes ever more piercingly.

Sigh.

(I know I could simply turn her back to me, but that also makes me uneasy; it seems disrespectful to her forceful personality. And since I believe agitation in our outer lives is often due to agitation in our inner lives, I want to discover what that is.)

Okay. I think she is challenging me to go deeper in two somewhat paradoxical ways.

First, to spend more time staring into space, clearing my mind and opening my heart. (Yes, I do need this, as I’ve become distracted by household tasks and national news.)

Second, to act on—not push away–desires or intuitive urgings that I sense. (A call to move out of comfort–to get even weirder, more me.)

I know Ora will be watching me.

Now I realize that meaningful stares come from many of the paintings that sit all around me. Not surprising, I suppose, since I believe my intuitive paintings emerge carrying a message. Two speak loudest to me now.

This Truthteller listens and passes on messages from the Universe (the gold/silver near her ear). Her intense eyes urge me to do the same, honor what I know and speak my truth, first to myself and then to others. To embody my fierceness, to face and express hard truths, disappointments and disillusionment–about the world or myself.

This Being’s gaze emanates deep love. Both seem otherworldly to me, though the Truth teller listens to Spirit while this Goddess is Spirit. Her stare washes healing compassionate affection over me, reminding me that Spirit/Love is always present, holding me, and that I can choose to absorb and radiate that love and pass it along.

The two of them together make a strong pair.

All this scrutiny is a bit unnerving. Yet I love living in a Universe full of messages, help and information. A Universe that challenges me to grow and cheers me on. Where something bought for fun, or created during playful imagination, can guide my steps.

A world that keeps watching in case I need to hear those messages again.

When have things in your outer life unexpectedly given you guidance? When has outer conflict or confusion come from inner conflict or confusion? I’d love to hear.