Easter has always been a holiday of gentleness in my family, rather than the incredibly powerful message of a man rising from the dead. It was a sweet, sunny morning of gathering pastel colored eggs and smelling the fresh jonquils of spring. My father was rarely drunk on Easter for some reason and it was the one holiday of the year that we were a family.

This year, I woke up and groggily shuffled to the windows to open the shutters and watch the sun coming through after a soaking rain.  As I sat on my bed, trying to get my eyes to function properly, I looked up, into the eyes of a rather large deer – looking through my window AT ME!

She was quite beautiful, but mostly because of the ease with which she was meandering through her day.  I doubt that she found any colorful eggs in our neighborhood, but she was finding tasty morsels of fresh new buds from my rose bushes.

Since I am a big believer in signs from the Universe – especially on this big holiday – I decided to look up deer in my dictionary of signs and symbols.  Deer represent the idea of NOT being a victim. Of taking back your own destiny.  Yet doing it with gentleness and trust.

Since my angel card for the YEAR was all about approaching life with gentleness, this certainly seemed like a vivid reminder of the message. So even though I wasn’t able to find a single hidden egg this year, I received a treasure worth far more. A reminder of the gentleness with which I can approach my own life of rose bushes – thorns and all!