SOUL MAIL Sunday: Embrace the Power Within
Greetings friends! Another SOUL MAIL Sunday has arrived today, August 23, 2026, with the message: Embrace the Power Within.
This SOUL MAIL message has resonated with me all week, and Mother Nature has been speaking loudly as well. Important questions have arisen. It started with my son's question after he read last week's SOUL MAIL: “Great message, how do you practically put this into use?” Maybe he was telling me that the real challenge is not merely receiving wisdom, but turning wisdom into action. One of the questions that was coming up for me this week was: What helps us to stand up confidently and face challenges?
Dragonflies have been coming to me this past week. It started with creating dragonflies at last Sunday's community Art Table. The children had so much fun creating over 30 beautiful, colorful dragonflies! Parents engaged with their kids while making the dragonflies. The children and I even talked with our dragonflies, giving them personalities and stories of their own. Then they took them under the magnolia tree to play together.
The dragonflies showed up across different parts of my life over the week: At my home while watering my plants, escorting me out of the orthodontist's office, in my yoga class, through dragonfly twist pose, and as I welcomed my massage therapist into my home, and while creating dragonflies with my daughter’s precious sons when babysitting them. My Instagram account even sent me a memory of my 2025 Dragonfly Art Table. Like last week's cockroach, the dragonfly is one of the most adaptable creatures, but it does not invade my home or the space around me! The dragonfly reminds us that we are light and can reflect the light in powerful ways if we choose.
Grandsons’ dragonflies made with pinecones, watercolored paper wings, goolge eyes, and pipe cleaners
The Blood Lily offered another reminder. After the intense Houston heat, I had to bring many of my plants indoors. The Blood Lily had grown so large that it began to topple again. This time, though, I knew what it needed. I gently supported it with ties to the stake. I didn't need to panic or fight what was happening. I simply paid attention and responded.
Later in the week, I encountered ants overwhelming my home. I knew they were here to teach me something, but they were distracting me from working on this week's SOUL MAIL message. The ant animal spirit's message is about working together for the common good, building from the ground up, and not carrying burdens alone. Some were taking the ant baits, while others were not. I didn't want to call exterminators. Instead, I made a new ally at the bug store. He identified them as fire ants. They were definitely lighting a fire under me! He helped me understand what I was dealing with, and I now had the appropriate bait to address the problem both inside and outside my home. I thanked the fire ants for reminding me not to carry burdens alone but to create a team that will work together.
The fire ants arrived during a week when I was also feeling overwhelmed by larger world forces that seem determined to intimidate us and pit us against one another rather than bring us together. I asked myself: What kind of power allows me to meet life without losing myself? The ants reminded me to: Build the team. Tend to my self-care and home. Use my voice. Set my boundaries. Do what is actually mine to do. And don't try to carry the entire colony by myself. The dragonflies brought transformation, movement, imagination, freedom and the power within. Perhaps confidence doesn't always come from becoming stronger by making ourselves harder. Sometimes it comes from becoming light enough to move.
Power can be used in service of love rather than control. When babysitting my grandsons, I didn't need to force them to behave. I established healthy boundaries, they settled, and then they were free to create.
My son's question—“How do you practically put this into use?”—now has another layer. How do we actually do it? Maybe we: Notice the light within us. Trust it. Let it shine. Stay light enough to adapt. Change direction when necessary. And keep moving toward what we love. That is very different from simply “being positive” or pretending challenges aren't difficult.
What do we do with the power within us?
Do we use it to control—or to create?
To intimidate—or to encourage?
To divide—or to organize?
To harden—or to remain flexible?
To protect ourselves by shutting others out—or to establish boundaries that make healthy relationships possible?
There are natural powers in the world, human powers, and mysteries that seem to reach beyond what we can explain. Perhaps part of our human potential is learning how to use whatever power we are given in service of the common good—of one another, of all living beings, and of the Earth we share.
Just when I thought the week's messengers had finished speaking, another one appeared. Looking down at the plants sitting on my front porch, a beautiful green gecko with the perfect camouflage appeared. It was stretched out comfortably on a crinum lily leaf. Its animal spirit message was clear: "Take action! Do what must be done in struggles and to handle pests. Express righteous anger as necessary. Bring home conflicts to an end." from the late Ted Andrews Animal Speak Pocket Guide
Gecko stretched out on a crinum lily leaf
Today's SOUL MAIL message reminds us to embrace the power within us and take action to create the life we love. You may view the SOUL MAIL image and read or listen to the poetic message below.
May we remember that there's always a new messenger around the corner if we pay attention.
