THE FROG AND THE CONDOR.

High in the Andes Mountains there once lived a frog in a cool stream. This poor frog was born not like others -her front right leg was nearly twice as long as her left one. "if only I had two perfect legs like my brothers and sisters," the frog bemoaned whenever she caught her limping reflection in the rushing waters.
Near the stream, and feeling just as sad as the frog, lived a girl in the cave of a huge black condor. She was forced to remain at his nest in a faraway cave on a rocky mountain outcrop. The giant black condor had plucked her from her happy livelihood as a shepherdess and carried her back to its nest, where she had to work hard every day, beating his vicuna skins into blankets for his bed and into rugs for his nest, and preparing huge meals to satisfy his appetite.
The little frog would sometimes watch the condor sail high in the air, then swoop for food. And the frog sometimes followed the condor home, to the girl and her wailings, a sound that reminded her of her own sad heart.
One day, she overheard this conversation: "So, did you beat the new vicuna skins to add to my bed?"the condor asked. The girl said, "Yes, sir." Then the condor asked, "Where is my dinner?"
She responded, "It is ready for you, sir. Now please, may I go to the stream to wash my clothes?"
The condor said, "Absolutely not! Do you take me for a fool? You would try to escape!"
She said, "No I wouldn't -please- I simply must wash my clothes. And besides, as long as you hear me beating my clothes on the rocks, you will know I am still here."
The condor said, "Very well then, but be sure I hear you beating your clothes or I will fly there in a second and beat you myself."
So the girl, whose parents had named her Collyur, which means "Morning Star," wrapped herself in one of the vicuna skins and tied her clothes into a bundle that she carried to the stream.
As Collyur beat her clothes against the rocks, she cried bitterly for her lost freedom. She was nothing but a slave, tending to the condor's every demand, while fearing every moment for her very life. With each beat of her clothes she burst out with another wail.
"Please don't cry," said a small voice. Collyur looked down to see a little frog on a rock, looking at her with sympathy. "What is the matter?" And the girl poured out her troubles to the frog while the creature listened and sighed.
"I can help you," said the frog finally.
"I am afraid there is nothing on earth that can help me." Collyur turned away, still careful to hit her clothes against the rocks with a regular beat.
"But I can,"said the frog. "I have a bit of magic. For a few minutes, I can change myself into any creature. If I change myself into you and keep beating your clothes, the condor will think you are still here and you can escape."
"Do you think it would work?" Collyur brightened and looked with wonder at this little frog, who seemed at that moment to be the most beautiful creature on earth. She leaned over and kissed the frog on the forehead.
"We cannot wait a second more," said the frog, and in an instant changed into the image of Collyur. The new Collyur picked up the girl's clothes and resumed beating them against the rocks.
"Now go! "the frog said. At once, Collyur ran as fast as she could down the mountain to the valley and the shepherd's home.
The little frog, as the image of Collyur, kept beating the clothes with the same motion.
"What is keeping that foolish girl?"the condor hissed after many minutes had passed. "She will make me wait here all day!"
The condor flew to the stream where he saw the image of Collyur kneeling over the rocks, beating her clothes. Landing on a high rock, he shook his beak and shrieked, "Stop at once, you silly girl! Come back with me now!"
The girl stood up, jumped into the stream, and completely disappeared. The condor flew directly over the very spot but saw no shadow of a girl swimming underneath the water, only a frog hopping about.
While the condor flew up and down the stream, she was running away, closer and closer to her freedom. After several hours had passed and he could find no sign of the girl, he flew back to his cave in a rage.
When the frog rejoined her brothers and sisters in the stream, they all gathered around her in a crowd.
"What is it?" said the little frog nervously, and she tucked her too-large right leg underneath so it wouldn't show as much.
"Why -you are beautiful!" said one sister. Fearing a joke, the little frog glanced in the water and noticed a shiny jewel glimmering on her forehead, where Collyur had planted a kiss.
"It is like the morning star!" said another. From then on, the frog lifted her head with pride, no longer afraid to catch a glimpse of her own reflection in the rushing waters.

THE JAGUAR AND THE MAYANS.

Monumental ruins prove that the Yucatan Peninsula has been home to people for about a 1,000 years.
The ruins contain elaborate Jaguar imagery, testifying that Jaguars shared the forest with humans who saw them as entities possessing strong forces. Admired for its hunting prowess and strength, feared for the same reasons, the elusive Jaguar came to represent beauty, power, cunning and mystery entwined in rituals and stories.
The people have a saying: "Spread the Jaguar's skin, and you spread the heavens of a starry night." In some of their stories, the soul of the Jaguar prowled the heavens in day as well.
According to another myth, the Jaguar was a supernatural being who represented the Sun, who rose each day in the East and prowled the West, aging along the course, until finally plunging into the Darkness of the West. Then the Jaguar Sun fights the Lords of the Underworld (Xibalba) all night. Through his strength and cunning soul, the Jaguar Sun wins the right to rise each day in the East. Thus the Jaguar Sun dominates both Day and Night.
Such duality sparks fear and admiration through fables and myths about the Jaguar, but at least one story recognizes why this 3rd largest feline in the World doesn't have a reputation of 'man-killer.'
"As God created people out of mud, Jaguar curious watched. God didn't want Jaguar to know how this was done, so God sent the Jaguar to the river to fetch water, using a leaky calabash to fill a jar. God figured to finish people by the time Jaguar returned. At the river, as Jaguar was mindlessly scooping water with the leaky calabash, Frog advised patching the holes with mud. Very quickly, Jaguar filled the jug and returned to God who had finished 13 of the people and 12 arms; God was in the process of making a Dog. Jaguar said to himself: 'the Dog looks tasty.' God said that the Dog was to serve people and that the arms were to teach Jaguar respect. When the Jaguar boasted superiority, God made the Jaguar stand in the distance, and one of the men harm the Jaguar in the paw. The Jaguar, after the human bandaged the paw, still claimed the Dog as a good meal. This time, the man sent the Dog after the Jaguar who ran up a tree to escape; the human wounded its paw again. That is how Jaguar learned to leave humans alone."
In spite of this story, the Jaguar's powerful hunting skills strike 'fear and envy' in people's conscience.
But although these powers are alluring, the Jaguar also teaches that 'people should never try to be what they are not,' as in the story of the Opossum (an American family of nocturnal, largely arboreal marsupial mammals, and when threatened with danger or caught, they pretend to be dead) who asked the Jaguar to be Godfather to her son.
"Jaguar, to be a good Godfather, took Little Opossum hunting at the water-hole. Jaguar leapt on a very large animal. The Little Opossum and the Jaguar ate their fill. Later the Little Opossum took his mother to the water-hole where the Little Opossum leapt upon a very large animal, but the animal simply shook himself and threw the Little Opossum off into the mud. The Little Opossum called his mother for help, but when she came to him, she, too, was trapped, and they both died."
Another lesson that we find in the Jaguar stories is that power, by itself, is not enough.
"Three Jaguars were dying of hunger but didn't want to look for food. Rabbit asked, 'Why are you complained so, my friends? What about of your claws and fangs?' The Jaguars protested against the work of hunting. Rabbit offered to carry the Jaguars into the forest if they would climb into a net. Once they were in the net, Rabbit tied it shut, then found a long green guava stick and beat the Jaguars. 'You are built like great hunters, but you are lazy beasts.' "
Thus the soul of Jaguar can be wise and foolish, powerful and week. Other contradictions appear in some stories as well. For instance , while the Jaguar Sun has the wisdom and mystery: Day and Night;
Life and Death, the soul of the Jaguar as a deity also has the power to eat the Sun.
Other Maya story says the the End of the Earth will come when Jaguars ascend from the Underworld to eat the Sun and the Moon; an eclipse will foreshadow this final event. Sometimes this almost happened, but people made noises, sang and honored the entities in control of the forces of nature, until, appeased, the Jaguar Sun reappeared.
The stories and details about the Jaguar are contradictory because people themselves are contradictory.
Humans protect the jungle of their own emotional feelings and share in its bounty, sometimes taking more than is needed for food, consuming their own self.

BURAK, MUHAMMAD 's FLYING HORSE.

Muhammad's birth is said to have been in the Year of the Elephant, which is pointing out to the invasion from Yemen, where an elephant was brought along in order to smash the most holy structure in Islam, the Ka'Ba (570 AC).
The Ka'Ba, a rectangular building made of bricks, is situated in Mecca, the most holy city in Islam, revered from being the first place created on earth, as well as the place where Ibrahim together with his son Isma'il built the centre of Islam. Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, 80km from the Red Sea Coast around a natural well.
Muhammad's family belonged to the clan of Hashim, a branch of the Quraysh Tribe. While the Quraysh was dominating Mecca, the Hashimis had little but religious prestige connected to the shrine of Ka'Ba, at that time non-Muslim. As his father died before he was born, and her mother when he was 6, Muhammad, during two years, was in the care of his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib. Then he went under the care of his uncle Abu Talib, until he reached mature age.
At a very young age, Muhammad started working with the caravans. It was while working as a trader, that he came to know the widow (and divorcee) Khadija, who was the owner of the caravan company where Muhammad was employed. At the age of 25 he married Khadija, then 40. Even if Khadija had children of her former marriages, she got 7 children with Muhammad.
Khadija died in 619 AC, and soon Muhammad remarried. Unlike in his marriage with Khadija, he chose to have several wives, 9 is reported. Some of these wives who were widows represented for him ways of knotting closer relations with powerful people in the society.
In the year 621, at the age of 51years old, Mohammad flew on a magical Winged -Horse which he called Burak, which literally means White Horse but seen as "Thunder-Lightning."
The story of the ascension began when Mohammad fell asleep on a carpet at his cousin's place and became an inspirational source of different "Stories of the 1001 Nights of Arabia" involving "Magic Carpet Rides."
Mohammad had gone to rest at dusk. He slept deeply on the carpet of his cousin, Mutem ibn Adi. Suddenly, the silence was broken and a voice as clear as a trumpet called: "Awake, you sleeper, awake!" And he saw in front of him, dazzling in Darkness the shinning archangel Gabriel who was inviting him to follow him outside. Before the door stood a Horse as dazzling as Gabriel. It had wings, glittering wings of an immense eagle. The archangel presented the Horse to him, saying that it was the White Horse of Abraham. The Horse whinnied and allowed Mohammad to vault on his back. Then, drinking the Wind, the Horse galloped to the streets and as the Horse came to the walls of the sleeping city, the Horse spread its wings and soared into the starry Night.
First of all, they went to the summit of Mount Sinai, at the very place where GOD had given the stone tablets to Moses. Then, they flew on and went to Bethlehem at the exact place where JESUS was born. And finally, they went to Heaven, or into a Holy Temple in Heaven, where Mohammad met with many of the Holy Land's previous Horsemen ... Adam, Noah, Enoch, Moses, Isaac, Elijah, and JESUS. And they spoke and told him: "O you the first, because you will be the first mortal who, on Resurrection Day, will come out of the grave; and the last, because you are the seal and the last prophet. You are a gatherer of men in the meaning that it belongs to you gather everyone for the Resurrection and as such the whole community will resurrect."
In Islam it is believed that there were a total of 25 Prophets instructed by GOD to warn the community against evil and urge them to follow GOD. JESUS is the result of a virgin birth in Islam as in Christianity, and is regarded as a Prophet like the others, and as the MESSIAH as well. Here is the complete list of Prophets: Adam, Enoch, Noah, Heber, Shelah, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Jethro, Moses Aaron, David, Solomon, Job, Elijah, Ezekiel, Elisha, Jonah, Zechariah, John the Baptist, JESUS, Muhammad.
So this is basically the dream. Anyway, Mohammad was a very intelligent man who loved discussing about dreams and interpreting them and became very frustrated when he encountered  leaders of the Christian Church who had a negative attitude in regards to dreams. He said, that GOD created the dream not only as a means of guidance and instruction, but as a window on the World of the Unseen.
Mohammad also said, "He who does not believe in the true dream of the Winged Horse, does not believe in the Holy Spirit of GOD, does not believe in GOD, nor in any of His Horsemen, nor in the Day of Resurrection and Recognition, nor in the existence of the everlasting spiritual Kingdom of God, and will be left alone."

NATURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ANIMALS.

ALLIGATOR : Aggression, Survival, Adaptability.
ANT : Grouped Minded, Perseverance, Step by Step, Self-Discipline, Group Effort, Teamwork.
BAT : Guardian of the Night, Cleaner.
BEAR : Power, Mother Cunning, Healer, Gentle Strength, Dreaming, West Direction.
GRIZZLY BEAR : Mother, Nature's Pharmacist.
BEAVER : Builder, Gathered.
BUFFALO : Sacredness, Life Builder, All Good Things for Living, Great Curing Powers.
BUTTERFLY : Metamorphosis, Carefree, Transformer.
COUGAR : Leadership, Courage, Swiftness, Balance.
COYOTE : Prankster, Insight, Playful, Duality, Ability to present Both Sides of an Issue, Clowning and Humor, Sarcastic.
CRANE : Solitude, Independence.
DEER : Love, Gentleness, Kindness, Gracefulness, Sensitivity, Purity of purpose, Walking in Light.
DOLPHIN : Kindness, Play, Bridge Man to Ocean, Teachings from Water, Breath Control, Awareness of Tone.
DRAGONFLY : Flighty, Carefree, Whirlwind, Swiftness, Activity, Shamanistic creature with supernatural powers, in Art symbolize a Vertical Line with two horizontal cross line.
EAGLE : Divine Spirit, Chief of all creatures of Air in its habitat, Primary Servant of the Sun, Powerful in Battle, Protects People from Evil, Clear Vision, Soaring Spirit, Associated with Success, Prosperity, and Wealth, Up Direction.
ELK : Strength, Agility, Freedom, Power, Nobility.
FOX : Cunning, Provider, Intelligence, Twilight, Feminine Magic.
FROG : Connection with Water Element.
HAWK : Messenger of the Sky, Observer.
HORSE : Stamina, Mobility, Strength, Power, Shamanistic Figure pictured flying with its rider, Cope under difficult circumstances, Love, Devotion, Loyalty.
HUMMING BIRD : Messenger, Stopper of Time, Optimism, Sweetness, Able to Roll with punches.
LIZARD : Conservation, Agility, Promotes Dreaming.
MOOSE : Headstrong, Unstoppable, Longevity, Value, Integrity.
OTTER : Laughter, Curiosity, Mischievous, Feminine Power, Grace, Empathy.
OWL : Wisdom, Truth, Patience, Carrier of Souls of recently deceased, Death Messenger.
RABBIT : Alertness, Nurturing.
RAVEN : Trickster, Teacher, Hoarder, Shaman's Power, Transformation between human and animal spirits, Change in Consciousness, Mark of a Shape Shifter.
SALMON : Instinct, Persistence, Determination.
SEA HORSE : Confidence, Grace.
SHARK : Hunter, Survival, Adaptability.
SNAKE : Shrewdness, Transformation; Life, Death, Rebirth by shedding skin; Snakes and Lightning are equated with Rain and Fertility.
SPIDER : Creative, Pattern of Life, Connects Past with Future creating possibilities.
SWAN : Grace, Balance, Innocence.
TURTLE: Self Contained, Creative Source, Mother Earth, Informed Decisions, Planning, Adaptability.
WOLF : Loyalty, Success, Perseverance, Stability, Thought, Path Finders, Teachers, Represent Constellation Sirius, the Dog;  East Direction.