Even in this dark and frozen time, I am alive and thriving. I am fully aware in the way of trees. My spirit never sleeps.
Grandmother Cottonwood
Here in my beloved home my roots reach deep into the soil. I do not question my existence. I do not worry. I do not fear. I simply am.
I do what trees everywhere do. I root to the earth and grow effortlessly toward the light. I respond to the seasons, sending out seeds in spring, bursting with growth in summer, releasing my leaves in fall, sleeping in the winter.
I am expansive. I am so much more than the magnificent tree you see before you. I feel what you humans would call love for this life.
This love is me. It is my energy, it is who I am. It may be invisible, but those who have the sensitivity, the ability to feel beyond the five senses will know it.
Life here on this patch of earth under the dome of the eternal sky, day and night, sun, moon, planets, and stars brings me what you humans might call joy.
Perhaps joy is my true purpose here…
…the joy of being, the joy of living, of expanding toward the light, the joy of knowing the precious gift of life!
To heal the web of life on Earth, we must all clean up our act! Individually and collectively.
Begin within your heart.
Do the difficult yet vital work of healing your own hurt and bitterness, sadness and grief so you can be clear and help lead the way forward, be part of the solution, be a weaver of the web of life.
Learn to feel and know your anger and express it in healthy ways that will fuel you to your highest good and create true justice. When anger is expressed as hurtful rage at others and rotting hatred, great damage is done to the intricate web of creation and will come back to harm the rageful one.
Pay attention to the magnificent web of life, know your vital place in it. Turn down the volume on your ear buds, close down Facebook, turn off the news for a time, and tune into your heart and body, your spirit.
Ask for help to move toward wholeness, otherwise known as healing. You are a powerful and vital element in the web of creation. Your healing and moving toward the light and releasing anxiety and fear benefits you beyond measure and creates a healthier and stronger web for all beings.
Beware of those in power who try to control through hate and fear and convenient lies. This damages the web of all things and the trust and connections between people. The brokenness these leaders bring to the world may take generations to repair. Choose your leaders well!
Don’t let large corporations manipulate you, addict you, and steal your privacy so you become a product in the wheel of e-commerce to be used and discarded when you no longer click or buy. This harms our world and destroys trust.
You are a vital thread in the web of all things! You belong here on this planet at this time! The healthier, the more clear, the stronger you are, the more you can access your own inner power, the brighter your light can shine, the stronger and more resilient the web of life will become!
Dear reader, this post is from the archives of AskGCW.
Heavy cloud cover
Dear ones, we can feel that the energy you call anxiety is contagious. You feel it and pick it up from each other. It is in the air, so to speak. In the atmosphere around an anxious person.
Those on a similar wavelength tune in and the red frenetic energy you call anxiety spreads to the other like a virus. It is like what you call panic, and can spread like fire through a family or group of people.
This does not help anyone! It saps your strength and power, distracts you from your inner light, as you are felled by the churning in your gut, the tense neck, the heart that hurts, the throat that closes up…
My dears, you do not have to be imprisoned by these feelings of anxiety. Learn to breathe deeply from the belly. The heaviness you feel will clear like clouds before a breeze. Run, swim, walk, move. You are meant to move! Dance. You must move as much as you can, to be fully who you are meant to be. Your body is not designed to be still!
All feelings must move, all beings, all energies must move! If not, you become stagnant like the smelly water backed up in the creek on a hot summer day.
Surround yourselves with people who light you up! Hug a tree like me and imagine your roots growing deep in the earth as if pulled be a magnet to her core. Then feel the stability when the winds of emotion blow. You are anchored and nothing can knock you down.
Trees and rooted things do not know anxiety or worry,doubt or fear. We can be an example to you! Are you open to that?
Put your hands on your heart and breathe deeply. In this way you calm yourself and soothe yourself. Know that in this exact moment place and time you are safe.
To heal the web of life on Earth, we must all clean up our act! Individually and collectively.
Begin within your heart.
Do the difficult yet vital work of healing your own hurt and bitterness, sadness and grief so you can be clear and help lead the way forward. Be part of the solution, be a weaver of the web of life.
(Please get help from a therapist, counselor, healer or friend for working with difficult emotions)
Learn to feel and know your anger and express it in healthy ways that will fuel you to your highest good and create true justice. When anger is expressed as hurtful rage at others and rotting hatred, great damage is done to the intricate web of creation and will come back to harm the rageful hateful one.
Dead ash tree
Ask for help as you move toward wholeness, otherwise known as healing. You are a powerful and vital element in the web of creation. Your healing and moving toward the light and releasing anxiety and fear benefits you enormously and creates a healthier and stronger web for all beings.
Dear ones, I ask you to pay attention to the magnificent web of life. Do not take this daily miracle for granted! Turn down the volume on your ear buds, close down Facebook, turn off the news and tune into your heart and body, your spirit. Tune into the music, the voices of nature.
Robin in winter
When you know your own wholeness, when you become a weaver of the web of life, your very presence will be a blessing to this Earth.
The web of life that has existed since before the Earth whirled into being has been weakened by human wars, torn by pollution, worn thin by widespread human anxiety, and broken in places by acts of violence.
We rooted and wild creatures are at the mercy of human behavior, the sometimes out of control egos, the mindless lashing out at others, the hurt flung out at random into the world, thinking that will make things better, but only adding to the garbage pile of ugliness that hurts all beings by damaging the precious web of life on which we all depend.
To renew our priceless web, we must work in harmony and peace with all beings, co-existing with our Earthly neighbors to heal ancestral wounds and resentments that keep us stuck, to face and reweave the patterns that cause resentment, war, greed, and violence.
Amazing spider web
I feel hopeful that we natives of planet Earth, humans, plants, one-celled beings, animals, insects, fish, arachnids, birds, all together can reweave the amazing web of life that sustains us here on our blue-green planet. Every living being including every human being who is able must step up and do our part.
Dear humans, I ask you to clean up your act now as we begin this necessary work of planetary healing. Bring in leaders at all levels who have a heart instead of a vast emptiness at their center that can never be filled.
Instead of leaders with inflated egos and mean spirits, choose those who set the example of compassion, human understanding, those who know that true power comes from within, from connection and common ground, not from a nuclear weapon. Let these compassionate and courageous new leaders inspire you!
Grandmother Cottonwood
The web still holds strong, even with the damaged and weakened places, for the power of love and connection and peace are stronger and more resilient than fear and pettiness and hate and war.
It is the season… for releasing the old and welcoming the new
…for renewing yourself in mind body and spirit
…for reconnecting with your dreams
…to reaffirm your soul’s purpose.
…To gently clear out all that would keep you stuck in unhealthy patterns of the past.
Single feather in winter
Release with blessings and gratitude those people, places, actions, beliefs and situations that no longer work for you, that now feel out of harmony, off balance; those that drain you; obligations that numb your mind; those places and traditions that shatter your peace; Entertainment that hurts your heart; People you you must defend your sensitivity against; Beliefs that harm you and others.
Welcome the new with confidence and grace
Be patient as you shift into new beliefs that lift you up, healthier thought patterns, new pathways and plans for a well lived life, creative new ideas and goals.
Welcome the light, the source of all things, into a creative partnership with yourself as you step up to a new level of self understanding, love, harmony and flow.
Winter robin
Be kind and gentle with yourself as you navigate this amazing time of change, transition and transformation.
No matter what happens in your life, no matter how you feel, no matter how fearful angry frustrated or hurt you feel, your infinite spirit is always with you.
It is at your center, knowing your wholeness, tending and holding the eternal flame of your being. Your spirit lights the way in the darkness for you to reclaim and rediscover your true self. It is whole and complete and calm underneath the dark storm clouds of emotion and fear.
Heavy storm clouds in winter
When you are hurting, tap into the spirit at your center, your wise self, and ask for guidance and comfort. When you are in pain, ask the light deep within you for relief and healing and insight.
When you are angry, ask your spirit, your higher self to show you how to release the anger in healthy ways. Ask to let it fuel your growth and creativity and show you how to create boundaries that keep you safe and protected.
If you cannot tap into your spirit or have never known the light and wisdom at your center, ask for help from a loving friend, kind therapist or wise healer to mirror back to your your light and your amazing bright star of wisdom, wholeness, and purpose deep at your core.
Late evening sky
Take a journey of discovery through your inner landscape and get to know your indestructible spirit.
In freeing and healing yourself from unhealthy relationships, patterns, beliefs, and situations, you free others. In the web of life, all things, all beings are connected.
In this way miracles happen, coincidences occur beyond your awareness, without your conscious participation.
Set your course for health of mind body and spirit, then trust and allow the mystery to unfold for your highest good and the good of all beings.
Amazing spider web
Set your healing intention into motion, follow the instructions of compassionate helping spirit guides and helpers, and ask for more guidance.
Ask for spiritual guidance. Pay attention!!! Listen and act with integrity. This is all you have to do.
(True spiritual advice will never hint at or ask you to hurt yourself or another, will never ask you to curse anyone, will never advocate hatred or violence.)
When you are compelled to heal and free yourself from unhealthy situations and patterns, you are regaining your power, autonomy, life force, and vitality.
When you free yourself you unlock what may be many lifetime of enchantment. Then like Sleeping Beauty, you wake up the potential and renew the life energy that has been dormant in you
When you do the sometimes lonely and often difficult work of healing by moving closer and closer to your own pure spirit, your own soul, healing your wounded heart and psyche, reweaving the hurt, making yourself whole again, you send ripples of well being and freedom throughout the web of all things, making those broken places stronger and more resilient. Creating wholeness.
Red wing blackbird, bare branches
Through you, others are set free as well if it is their soul level wish. You cannot control the ripples of the web, you cannot control who receives healing. These assignments must remain a mystery to you while you are still in a body. You can only work on behalf of yourself and do what is right for you.
So much is beyond your knowing and control as a human being in a body. Surrender to the mystery!
Dear ones, It is vital to take the time you need to heal, to grieve, to grow, to be. Allow yourself to take the time you need
Even if it is to pause in an overcrowded day so you can take a deep breath, to feel your chest, ribs, and belly expand with life giving oxygen. Pause a moment to fill yourself, then slowly release with full attention.
Surely you have the time to do this, to give this moment of calm to yourself.
Grandmother Cottonwood
You might pause a moment to notice the feelings and sensations in your body- where they are located, their quality, intensity, the fleeting nature, how they shift and change with your breath.
Pause for a brief time in your crazy busy day and pay attention to this moment. Feel the weight of your hands in your lap, the balance of your head on your neck and shoulders, your feet contacting the floor or earth, your body’s contact with the chair.
You are paying attention to being in a body and loving yourself in these small and simple ways. Let yourself feel and be without judgment, without worry or hurry.
Have you bound yourself with too many shoulds and oughts and must do’s, striving for an impossible perfection? I ask you to come back to your body, your breath, the stillness at your center beneath all the surface flotsam, the noise and the rushing from point A to point B.
When you learn to quiet your crazy busy life for several moments each day, you will learn to know and love your true and deep self once again as you knew yourself as a child.
Does the prospect of change, even a small shift toward the light feel challenging, as though you must move a boulder off your chest, a ton of bricks from your back, extricate yourself from quicksand that is sucking you under?
You can ask for spiritual assistance, guidance, and help with problems and challenges in your life that seem insurmountable. When you ask from a place of self honesty, surrender and trust, you will receive answers and assistance.
Painted lady butterfly on red zinnia
The answers and assistance from spirit may come in many forms. You may see a sign in nature, such as an amazing spider web, a colorful bird in flight, a full moon surrounded by colored light… You may receive spiritual wisdom and assistance through your senses, sight, sound, touch, taste, smell as well as simply knowing the truth in your heart and mind.
Your challenge is to discern the true and helpful spirit given messages from other random thoughts or ideas in your head.
Loving spirits will never ask you to harm another living being or the environment or send hateful messages or energy to another. Loving spirits will never ask you to harm yourself, put yourself at risk, or keep yourself small.
True spirit messages will give you a feeling of energy and possibilities and purpose. Spirit messages will resonate with your wise self and in your heart.
When you carry out loving spiritual advice your actions will enhance and reweave the web of your life and all life with energetic threads of love and renewal.
Robin in winter
We loving compassionate spirits are all around, supporting you, waiting for your awareness and awakening to our presence and our support for you.
Please ask for our help, receive our communication in whatever form it comes to you, then do your best to carry out the loving and compassionate advice you receive.
Trust what you receive from the compassionate spirits, and more will be given to you.
Ask Grandmother Cottonwood 