We are living with a living world, and it needs you
We are living with a living world. The waterways, stones, trees, and mountains... all of it ensouled and wise. All of it with medicine to impart.
Can you feel this when you spend time with the nature beings? Can you feel the medicine hovering in the air? Can you hear the whispers of their loving voices?
When we slow down enough to recognize the gift of this life, we have the ability to grow and deepen relationship with these animate forces around us and within us.
We have all we need for a life rich and meaningful. A life resonant and purposeful. It’s simply a matter of listening to our deep-selves and the way they communicate with the beings of nature around us. Embodied listening. Embodied living. Embodied earth medicine.
As Emma Farrell says in her book Journeys with Plant Spirits, “by expanding our consciousness into the inner realms of nature, we are opening ourselves up to a deeper level of our selfhood, and therefore all of our mundane and spiritual pursuits are enlivened.”
I’ve found this to be true for myself over the years of my embodied-earth journey. That the more we open to nature, the more we uncover ourselves and our truth.
And the more we allow ourselves to open to the experience of being a nature being, the more we open to the multi-dimensional truth of our spiritual-interconnectedness to the wider world.
I’ve always felt passionately that embodiment work cannot be done in isolation. It needs to be grounded in the wider matrix of our earth connection.
And earth medicine, journey work, or plant spirit medicine doesn’t provide the same depth if we’re not integrating the experience into our lived, embodied existence.
Living from this place isn't always easy. When we experience the truth of interbeing it means we feel a lot more. Especially if you are a sensitive in this world.
And boy is there is a lot to feel right now...
This July is the Earth's hottest month ever recorded. Antarctica's sea ice is at it's lowest ever recorded. And temperatures off Florida, in The Atlantic Ocean, have broken a world record high.
Aside from policy changes and climate activism, I truly believe in the healing power of growing our relationship with our embodied-earth selves.
This means 3 things:
#1 We must learn to grieve well. We must get practiced at allowing ourselves to feel, and get embodied enough to tend to our inner terrain.
#2 We must get practiced at how to listen more deeply to what the Earth is asking of us. Practiced at slowing down, out of the frantic mind and into the deep, connected space of interbeing.
#3 We must remember the ancestral practices of ceremony, earth-honoring, journeying to guidance, and living in alignment with the energies of Earth.
I'm going to be offering some free classes this August (Loving Embodiment (8/8), Energetic Tools and Plant Allies for Empaths and HSPs (8/15), and Elemental Magic, date TBD) that can support you in some of these realms.
But for now, try doing some simple:
*Putting your hand on your heart, take a few deep breaths, and let yourself know you're here.
*Feel your feet on the floor and where your body is connected to the wider matrix of the Earth. Know you're held and supported here.
*Sit with your grief outside, barefoot on the ground, and grieve together with the Earth.
*Go outside, place your hands on the Earth, and speak a prayer of well-being, or leave another offering that feels meaningful to you.
*Find a tree or plant that calls to you. Sit for them for a while, and do your best to listen to what they have to share.
And if you are longing for a longer-term container to support you as we navigate rocky waters, The Golden Stone Wisdom School is a loving place that seeks to explore how to live well as an earth-being, from a place of both belonging and responsibility.
