environment

Weather

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DSCN1861

GCW Speaks of the weather:

I have noticed how humans love to comment on the weather. It is not often good enough for you is it? It is too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry, too humid, too windy, too much, not enough.

Can you simply bless each day as it comes to you? Do you know what a blessing each day of this life is? Can you feel the power of the meaning of you in this body in this place at this time? You have chosen to manifest as a physical presence here on this earth! This is an honor to be cherished and acknowledged….but I digress into a speech….

Can you bless even the coldest windiest day of the year? Can you feel joy within you during an overcast week, or is the cloud cover a mirror of your human atmosphere? Have you allowed the clouds of fear and stuffed feelings to accumulate in your energy field until they block your light? Do you clear them? Crying, like rain, can clear and air. Let clearing be your daily practice, for your health and the health of the planet. Simply feel, as you were born to do. Allow yourself to feel. Acknowledge your feelings and locate them in your body, and this will help to clear them.

Hurt no other in this process, for violence of thought word or action is a gross misuse of nature.

What is emotion but energy; like wind and breeze it needs to flow and move. If you stop it up the layers of cloud get thicker and thicker. You may feel a storm coming on. You may feel restless, unhappy, sad confused, anger may build within you if you squeeze and hold back and stifle and pretend it is not what it really is.

You are meant to clear the clouds daily and shine brightly like the sun! Create your own weather! Let it flow and all the earth will be blessed.

Christmas tree farm

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2015-11-28 12.30.21GCW speaks of a Christmas tree farm. (with guest help from evergreen tree spirits)

This farm is such a place of beauty and serenity. We are a community with trees of different ages, shapes, sizes, colors, and varieties of evergreen so beautifully kept and nurtured for your human delight and enjoyment. You beautify this corner of the earth through your farming, and you spread the joy for miles around. This is a sacred place.

We (evergreen tree spirits) bless you with our heady scent, the texture and beauty of our green leaves, thin and short, long and soft, the sticky sweet sap, the sharing of your holiday season.

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You bring us into your home and we bring you joy! Human tree interactions at their best! Our greenery decorates and freshens your spaces, giving you hope in the cold, dark and gray time, when most green things have died or gone to sleep. You are welcome!

We love you! Even when you come and cut us down, another of your kind will plant seedlings next year to continue the cycle of yearly blessings. You make a fuss for us. You bring more of us to life on this farm than would grow naturally. We are given more chances to feel the sun and rain, the cold winter winds, to witness the lightning in summer, to feel the thunder, to know the earth supporting our roots and pulling them toward her loving center, to be fed by the rains, to sense the wheeling hawk and vulture above, to support nests for lively songbirds, to shelter the little furry ones that come and make their home here among us. This life on earth is precious and not to be missed!

Remember the earth in which we grow and receive our sustenance. Give us back to the earth when you are finished with your holiday, and we will feed next year’s growth.

Winter

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GCW is on far left

GCW speaks of winter

The shift in seasons from autumn to winter reminds us that all living things must die, ourselves among them. There, that’s out of the way!

So many fuss about the cold of this coming season. Do you wish to add the energy of fuss and complaint to the web of all things? Would you prefer endless summer? That is available elsewhere, not in this place.

The cycles of light and dark, seasons, the rise and fall of waves and our breath are intimately intertwined with our cells and our energy. We have been created for this ebb and flow of the life force, the time of growth and fruiting, and the time of rest and pulling inward. When you live by the clock and calendar, by human devised definitions, by the preset schedule, you limit yourselves severely! You do not allow the flow of the natural world to provide you clues for the structure of your lives. You create your own climates and curse the one outside that is too cold, too hot, too humid, too wet, but this is a curse on the earth that you have evolved to exist in so successfully. Cease and desist!

Bless each flake of snow, bless the northwest wind. Bless bright sunlight sparkling on a million ice crystals. Bless each day of your life with your inner warmth, and light. Find something to bless each winter day. Then if you dare, express your delight at living on this planet so exquisitely attuned to support our precious lives.

Family

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Autumn in Iowa

Family of growing things

Grandmother Cottonwood speaks of family:

Technically, in the great classification system devised by humans in which all things are separate, we are not defined as members of the same family. I, a magnificent and glorious Cottonwood tree, am not related to your potted snake plant, your beautiful shiny philodendron, your red flowered geranium according to this way of seeing and analyzing the world. Worst of all, this system states that I am not related to you, my many layered human friend.

Yes, we are not family by blood or sap. We do not share hair and eye color. On the surface of things we share very little in common. Your bark is very thin and would never stand up to winter storms of summer suns like mine does.

Can you guess where I’m going with this? Then you already know that you and I and all living things, all rooted things, all six legged things, all bacteria in the soil, all creatures on this earth are intimately intertwined and interwoven of the same stuff, the same energy – the stuff of life that permeates and enlivens all. I am here to tell you that you must expand your idea of family! We are family. We all belong together in our shared home.

Let us take care of each other and love each other! Let us know that each of us from the tallest redwood to the tiniest speck of algae to a minuscule deer tick to a new human baby, each of us belongs here, is desired, wanted, needed, loved and cherished by all that is. Each of us has our part to play in the great web of life, which is our extended and beloved family.

Rushing and resting

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Tiny seedlings and concrete

Tiny seedlings and concrete

GCW speaks of rushing and resting

You’ve built your human world right over our world. You’ve divided, paved over, fenced off, mown down, and altered our world beyond recognition – so your noisy motors and machines can have access to every bit of space. You leave untouched only those places that flood or where the soil is unsuitable for your mega plans.

You rush here and there, in your cars looking neither right nor left. Missing out on your present moment while speeding toward what is next, and next and next. Do you rush home so you can do it all again tomorrow?

Do you feel your breath as it flows though you like ocean waves?  Have you rested your body and soul on the loving earth today? Have you gazed upward through golden leaves at a slate blue sky while crows sail high above? Have you taken just a moment to breathe and slow down, to allow the thoughts in your mind to drain away, so that you may be in tune with your true nature? – the silence and infinite depth at your center.

Four elements

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Burned tree

Burned tree

GCW speaks of the four elements:

Fire

Leaping, consuming, transforming everything in your path. A reckoning! Change is commanded, forced. A fresh start, a renewal from scorched and blackened earth.

Contained and tended you mesmerize, encircled by bodies and hands that need your warmth. Out of control you are a tyrant rolling forward with no pity– Destroyer.

Creator of new beginnings.  Tend and keep your inner flame.

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Water

Must seek its way, must join droplet to sea, creek to river, river to ocean, to all that is, where all finally become one.

Simply to merge and become one; to give life itself to all living things. And all living things must know in time, what it is to merge and become one with spirit. Stuff of life, roots reach deep for you, thirsty souls are blessed by your giving. You draw us to your shores and banks with your power and your effortless flow.

Carry us easily on your flow to the river’s mouth, where waters join and mingle, where all our burdens can be released.

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Air

Unseen giver of life. Surrounding, breathing through all living beings the rhythm of this earth. The rise and fall as you support life on this planet without effort. You exist and permeate all. The ultimate giver.

And we breathe you in, carrier of sweet scents, this earth atmosphere that clears and heals itself. Leaves roots branches, all alive, all breathing- grasses, trees, flowers, every bird, every animal, every insect, every living thing; all breathing. Our health and your health inextricably aligned.

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Earth

Ground of being. Roots reaching deeply into your heart for our daily bread. Nothing here is severed. Nothing stands alone. All is interwoven in a vast web that extends to the reaches of the universe. You dear Earth, are love made visible, made physical.

All that make their home here commune with you in the age old dance of life – death – life. Ebb and flow, seasons of the year, moon cycles; we are deeply attuned to your elegant rhythms. Each of us belong here as an integral part of this magnificent web of which you, dear Earth are the center.

Autumn

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Cottonwood leaf

Cottonwood leaf

Grandmother Cottonwood speaks of Autumn

Now the time of rest is upon us, the great release. Countless leaves drifting to earth to feed the soil. They simply let go.

The time of great silence and sleep, of drawing inward, of low slanting sunlight, sweeping and intense, with no canopy of leaves to soften and filter the brightness. Shadows here in my home lengthen as the daylight grows shorter. I am ready once again for my long winters nap.

I have earned my rest as have all rooted things. We have once again shown you, given you the best that is within us, the season of leaf; millions, perhaps billions of leaves here in this small valley. We are the silent community that supports your very life here on this green planet. Blossoming, leafing out, shading you, blessing you with our gifts; pouring our woody hearts out as we grow toward the warm sun all summer.

We love you in spring fall winter, summer. Our love encircles and holds this earth together like our roots hold the soil You may think we cannot feel, but there you are mistaken. We thrive when you thrive! We are acutely attuned to the vibrations in all things, acutely attuned over eons to the shifting slanting light, moving southward day by day, the cooler air, the age old tale of love, the pulling inward, the sleep followed by new life, blossoming into fullness after a long rest once again.

I’m ready for the season of rest. I shed my leaves as easily as a drop of rain merges with the ocean. But one last shimmer of my crown before I bid you all a good night.

Cherry pickers, chainsaws and shredders

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GCW speaks of cherry pickers, giant shredders and chainsaws.

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It is well known that you humans wish to contain and control our treeish growth! See what huge, noisy, expensive equipment you need to maintain your illusion of dominance over our exuberant life force! Yes, you can trim and top, shape and prune, but our mandate from time immemorial is simply to grow, to take in as much sun, water and air as possible.

Your loud and jarring chainsaws do not harm or threaten us, for we will simply grow in another direction, reach farther, generate new and wider branches after this year’s chips have fallen. It is a game we like to play, you see. The game is called life! We will see you and your energy shredding chainsaws next year!

I delight in the fuss you humans make for us trees!

Lessons for a tree whisperer

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GCW

GCW

C of Urbandale, Iowa asks:

Q. Is the red oak in my back yard dead? I planted it a year ago.

A. Dear C, I will not tell you because then you would not discover your gifts as a tree and plant whisperer. You must discern this for yourself. Get yourself into a quiet state. Put your hands on your heart and breathe deeply. Let your awareness come into your body. Release thoughts.

Now stand near the tree and touch it if you like. Ask the question and allow the energy of the tree to answer you. You may hear words, see pictures, or simply know the truth deep within you. You may feel an emotion or feeling in your body.

Do this with other trees and garden plants near your home and the soil and grasses. Practice! All these living beings have tales to tell that will amaze and delight you! You must drop all doubt and skepticism, all fear of being seen as a kook or nut case. Those who label you have not the exquisite sensitivity, are not attuned to the frequencies of earth and plant spirits as you are!

Trust yourself! Practice your superpower! Enjoy

What can I learn?

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2015-08-05 19.02.13

J of Ames, Iowa asks:

Q. What can I learn from you?

A. Can a lively woman full of energy, vigor, curiosity, passion and excitement for life learn from a tree? (I delight in my observation of you and your sparkling energy!)

I say yes! We can all learn from each other in this planet in which energies of every living thing are interwoven. All energies are one in the great web of all that is.

We appear so different. Those that classify and label things with your scientific accuracy, class you, a human woman, and me, a cottonwood tree at different ends of the spectrum of life forms – different branches on the cottonwood tree of life, so to speak. But we are both made of energy, energy that overlaps, interplays, affects the other.

Can you slow down enough- can you learn to tune into the tree energy  of who I am? Can you feel the joy with which I exist? Can you feel the delight, the exuberance of my being as I reach for the sun with my branches and the core of the earth with my roots? Can you learn to tune into and communicate on a new frequency? Can you open to this foreign and perhaps woo woo experience? You will have the entire population of trees at your back as you do your powerful healing work.

Powerful energy and powerful new knowledge will flow through you. It will not take the form of words or thoughts. It will take the form of feelings and sensations and the flow of new energies.

You are a life long learner, and you will never be done learning, no matter how many lifetimes you live. Welcome to a new dimension for your exploration!