Spirit Guide of the day is Cardinal! Slow your actions and focus on observing your surroundings and the sensations within your own body. You may have someone you needs your compassion and attention. Listen to your inner self for the creative time you are entering and express yourself in newly creative ways. This can include adding a pop of color to your environment, clothing, or home. This may be a sign to take a look at religion in a new perspective. The Cardinal guide is known for it's connection to gaining vitality through realizing your self-esteem. These birds are known for their bright colors and year-round presence and so have become a symbol for the ability to renew our own vitality no matter the day or season. Cardinals are named for the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church who wear bright red robes and can show past-life connections with the church. Cardinal reminds us to pay attention to our surroundings as well as to what our gut instincts and creative mind are saying. Cardinal teaches us how to build our own self-importance and realized our abilities. They are a sign for the feminine aspects of our creativity and express to be more strongly expressed. This guide also reminds us to take responsibility and realize the importance of what you are doing. People who connect with Cardinal prefer to stay in one place for long amounts of time in order to build a stable living condition. These individuals are often centered on bringing color and joy into the world with the ability to stand out in a crowd or instantly lighten the mood of others. Cardinal types contain a strong connection to feminine creative energy and enjoy expressing it whenever possible.

Cardinals, Cardinalis Cardinalis, are large, long-tailed songbirds known for their bright red color and black face. Although it is only the male cardinals who possess this bright red color. Female cardinals are pale brown with reddish tinges in their tail, wings, and crest.They are so loved for their iconic red color that they are the state birds for seven States in America. These avians live exclusively within the North American continent ranging from north United States down into Mexico. Cardinals prefer habitats with dense foliage such as forests edges, marshy thickets, overgrown fields, and hedgerows. They can often be seen in urban areas such as landscaping or back yards where there are high perches where they can observe their surroundings. Female cardinals are one of the very few North American songbird females that actually do sing. They have been known to sing from their nest in order to give the male information on when to bring food back. When a mated pair sings, it is actually the female that will sing a longer and more complex song. It is common for Cardinals to sing from high branches while they will often forage hopping along the ground. They often will forage in pairs during the breeding season. Interestingly, young cardinals will move out of the way for adults to feed and females will let males forage. Cardinals even sometimes share time foraging with other species such as sparrows, goldfinches, titmice, and other small song-birds. Their wings are rather short and round reaching approximately 12 inches of a wingspan and so they prefer to fly only small amounts between thickets when searching for food. This reluctance to fly may also be one of the explanations for why Cardinals do not migrate like other birds. They can be seen year-round and easily spotted against the white snows of winter. Cardinal diets consist of primarily seeds and fruits such as wild grape, dogwood, grasses, berries, corn, sunflower seeds, and more. They are also known to eat a range of insects such as cicadas, flies, centipedes, spiders, butterflies, katydids, and crickets. When breeding season occurs, Cardinals will create mated pairs which often stay together but will, at times, be known to split up after the season. Around a week before building a nest, the mated pair will fly to possible nest sites with the female leading. They will call back and forth while holding building materials in their bills. When they decide, the chosen site is usually wedged into the fork of small branches in trees, shrubs, or vine tangles. Often, they will be between 1 and 15 feet high and hidden within the foliage. This nest is mostly built by the female with supplies that are provided by the male. Twigs are crushed by the female with her beak until they are pliable. She will bend these twigs around her body and push it into the shape of a cup using her feet. This intricate nest has four layers consisting of rough twigs covered in a leafy mate which is lined with grapevine bark and other soft materials such as pine needles, stems, and grasses. The female will create this 3 inch tall nest between 3 and 9 days and will usually be abandoned after one use. The female cardinal will lay between 2 and 5 eggs which hatch into naked, clumsy young with closed eyes and grayish down fluff.