There’s been quite a lapse of time since my last Findhorn post, mainly out of an awareness that to this culture’s underlying mindset – that everything non-human is therefore nonsentient – what I am writing about communicating with plants and nature spirits may sound quite mad.
I’ve seen a dear friend, a nature mystic with decades of experience, wrestle with this worry, and come to resolution through the endorsement of recognized Indigenous elders and medicine people. By comparison, I’m at the bare beginning of my path in the practice of communicating directly with the awarenesses of nature…but rooted in a childhood vision, verified by interspiritual study and by having been the wife of a Sun Dancer, witnessing and directly experiencing the truth that all beings, and the Earth herself, are alive, conscious, inter-aware, and interconnected by the Divine light of consciousness.
I’d seen my husband teaching sweatlodge participants to tune in to the trees used for building the lodge and the stones used in the ceremony, had seen their faces light up as they made connection…I’d experienced connection in that ceremonial state, and profound connections with nature awarenesses on sacred land elsewhere…had led a circle of my own and seen the attenders make their own first contact.
And if those experiences had taught me one thing, it was that everyone has the ability to hear and communicate with the awarenesses of our brother and sister beings – that this is not a paranormal, superhuman, mutant personal “power” but our birthright as beings of this planet, part of its web of life. And that is what I, in my stumbling way, want to communicate in these posts: I’m not special, I’m Everyperson.
These stories are my steps along the path; yours will differ, but anyone who seeks connection with Our Relations and Mother Earth can eventually find it, if the invitations are made with love and the desire to learn and serve the greater Whole. And I believe – pardon the soapbox, but I do believe that this loving conscious connection is critical to our survival and the survival of life on Earth in these changing times. And I am not alone in this belief.
So…where were we? I had just encountered the nature spirits of the Power Point at Findhorn, and had my first conversation with them.
After that, I couldn’t wait to get back to the Power Point and seek further conversations with its entities…but due to wild weather and structured days, it took a little while. Finally, on a wet, clammy afternoon, I slipped out in full rain gear, passed through the gateway arch and rang the windchime, bowed as I passed the earth altar, made my way to the beginning of the spiral path….
…and realized that the path forked: one side cutting straight up the hill along a property fence, the other swinging wide into the spiral. And the left side, the straight uphill side, was flanked by a slope of oxalis with its dark, clov
erlike leaves and nodding white bells, all of it shimmering with energy.
I caught my breath: if I’d walked into a glade of dancing fairies, I couldn’t have felt the energy of the nature spirits more strongly. Dropping into seiza on the muddy path, I quieted my mind in greeting and gratitude, and remained in meditative silence as I felt my energy body being scanned. My thoughts ranged over my life and work: how would these beings see me? To my relief, I felt general approbation: they saw that I’d dedicated my life to serving the planet and her beings. My relationships? Struggling, in process, but authentic. My relationship with the land I tend? Insecurity burst out of me: what can I do about the problems in my veg garden – yellow spots, aphids?
The response startled me: stop digging your anger into the soil.
I thought back to the beginning of the garden, how my late husband had been trying to teach me construction techniques in building the fence, and how our power struggles had manifested throughout the process. How my father and husband had insisted for years on bringing over Dad’s Rototiller to till the garden, while I was choked and paralyzed with the wordless distress of the soil ecosystem as the men gouged the roaring, bucking, petrol-stinking machine through the soil, the blades slashing through tender underground bodies. How, after years of this, after my husband’s passing, my insistence on spending days gently turning the garden soil myself and crumbling the clods by hand had sparked Dad’s scorn, which triggered my angry defensiveness…oh, anger had been dug into that soil from the beginning. And even now, after my father’s passing, with the garden mine alone to tend as I tried to practice no-till permaculture and sacred gardening, that patch of land still received my occasional self-defensive soliloquys.
The response rose in my mind: You’re never alone – the spirits of your land see you, hear you, and most important, feel your pain and anger. To heal your land, you need to connect to Earth Mother’s love and send love to the soil and all the plants you tend. Remember how Peter Caddy dug LOVE into the soil to turn sand dunes to gardens at Findhorn Park. Dig love into your land and we will guide you. We know you’re wounded. We want to help you heal as your land heals. There is no division between you and the land you serve.
There followed a wash of acceptance and love so strong that I burst into tears.
I don’t kn
ow how long I knelt there; that was just the beginning of the conversation. I received affirmation of the practices I’d been following, insights on new ones, and guidance in moving them forward. And most important, I received the affirmation that – as much as I’d stumbled and fumbled, my vision for the property, and my dreams for my own work, were on the right track.
Finally, the conversation was over, and it was time to move on. I bowed to the spirits, the plants, the trees, the misty rain, and walked one circuit round the hill, joining the other end of the path as it led down from the Power Point. Treading carefully on the slippery moss, damp stones, and mud, I made my way down the path to the archway, ringing the wind chime in farewell, and back to join my group at dinner.
