healing

Disappointment

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Maple leaf

Maple leaf

GCW speaks of disappointment

Will you allow disappointment, failure or a big mistake to shipwreck your life?

Rooted things do not make mistakes. All we must do is grow toward the sun and send our roots down. We simply exist with no judgment, no standards of beauty, no measure of success, no report card.

But for you magnificent humans, who can move, speak, decide, think, feel, and make choices, you who must answer to others, you must find a way to love yourselves when life doesn’t unfold in the way you’ve so carefully planned. Love and forgive yourself, feel the grief, the feelings of disappointment, but never let your spark go out! Then get back up on that pony & ride like the wind! As long as you are focused in a body, you have another chance and another and another.

Let the memories of your disappointments be like autumn leaves. At first they stand out with blazing brightness, then they let go, drop to the earth, and crumble to dust under foot to feed next year’s growth.

Illness

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GCW speaks of illness

New life from old

New life from old

Do not blame outside forces for your illness. How is it affecting you? Are you tied, achy, is it hard to breathe? Go inward to the mirror that knows all things. Ask what you are tired of. Ask what is making you ache with emotion. What is preventing you from taking in life fully and allowing it to express through you? Where do you feel these things in your body? Pay attention. Befriend your body.

Your body is not separate from your emotions, feelings, thoughts, spirit. Take care of all of you. That includes your spirit. Acknowledge and befriend your infinite spirit, the essence of you. Pay attention to your feelings and emotions for they are your true guidance in all things.

If you persist in doing something that feels wrong, or too much, or unpleasant, something in you will send up an alarm. Pay attention! Address it before it mirrors itself in your magnificent body. Then you will be forced to pay attention!

Do those things that feel good and make your heart glad! If that means resting, sleeping extra, curling up with a book, closing your eyes while the sun shines, find a way to do it! Do not be contrary! I know you will try to argue and say you do not have time! Grandmother Cottonwood wishes the best for all living things, that this community, this mother earth may continue to bless all who dwell here. When you make time to do what is right and healthy for you, it strengthens the exquisite web in which all things are one.

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.

Addiction

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Monarch butterfly on purple coneflower

Monarch butterfly on purple coneflower

C of Ames, Iowa asks:

Q. Why is it so hard to give up my addiction to sugar?

A. What is sugar, but a substitute for love? Wasn’t it easier for your parents to give you a gooey brownie or warm cookie and send you away than deal with the truth, the messy feelings, the real inside of you, the heart and soul, the hidden depths of you?

There is always some sugar filled or encrusted thing available to give you another high. But it keeps you distracted from what is going on deep under the surface of your being.

Your physical being is altered by sugar. The energies of those on sugar feel to me as though they are on overdrive; too much – too fast – not real- not a source of real sustainable energy. It revs you up and wears you out! Your body wants it, your mind wants it. But your spirit does not want it, Your wise self knows the addiction to sugar is distracting you from your true power.

And then, there is blackness when you crash- when there is not another candy bar or doughnut within reach. You focus on that, on getting the next cookie or bag of candy, removed from the only thing that really matters, your heart and soul, the feelings that flow and form the fabric of your life.

Tune in. Become aware of your feelings, the promptings of the spirit and learn to be with them, and you will need less and less of the sweet stuff that is unnatural in such huge amounts!

GCW Speaks

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Cottonwoods

Cottonwoods

GCW Speaks:

My entire being cries out to express the love and delight, the expansive energy that is at the heart of my being. These qualities my beloved, reside also in you. My purpose in speaking through your representative is so that you may know and feel and live your true nature. So that you may know that at your core, you are love, the energy that holds this planet together. Know that love is the stuff, the quantum particles of the universe that saturate all things seen and unseen.

Know your magnificence! Know your nature as powerful beings of light! You are so much more than you think you are. Step up into knowing with all that you are, and you will never question your worth again! You will know your true nature and you will never be able to un-know it again!

These words do not express the expansion, the joy, the delight that we all are! Feel and know these feelings that lie far beyond the scope of words!

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.

Spreading warmth

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Golden cottonwood leaves

Golden cottonwood leaves

L of Ames, Iowa wonders:

Q. As fall approaches and your leaves fall, what is the best way to spread warmth?

A. My dear L, you are a source of warmth yourself. The beauty of you when you allow yourself to shine fully is like a pure candle flame, drawing from the darkness others who will learn to shine and glow from you.

Keep your flame burning. Tend it wisely. Honor it! All of those who allow full power, full brightness of their light create a network of love the beauty of which you cannot imagine! Know your beauty! Tend your flame! That is your true work. Without effort, you spread the light and the warmth you speak of.

You are not here to rescue anyone or make something happen. You are here to be fully and completely yourself; and in so doing, the web of all things is enlightened, blessed, and warmed.

How many children will I have?

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N of Central Iowa asks:

How many children will I have?

My dear N,

You have the loving all-encompassing heart of a mother. Your sweet energy emanates from the heart of you and encircles all those around you in the energies of pure love. You have so much to give and you wish to give it! In the giving the love circles back to you, for the giver and receiver are one.

GCW cannot, will not predict your future for you, for you have before you many choices, many paths, many probabilities. You are free to choose, to change your mind, to take the alternative route. However, know that at this time in this place, there is a probability of you with three children. I see you with these beloved children and a bright shining countenance, loving beyond all you have known before, the moments you share. Your aura envelops and allows your precious ones to grow and become and thrive in the sweet light of your heart.

You need do nothing to make this happen. If you are struggling or pushing for what you want, let that go. Simply allow your love to flow, allow your heart to sing, allow yourself to feel fully, allow yourself to feel the perfection of each moment of your life.

Blessings to you and your growing family!

Energy Exchange

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Betty asks:

GCW, can you describe what will it feel like when someone sits at your roots or leans against your trunk?

If you are tuned in and aware, you will feel a sense of peace, like a soft blanket and a sense of being cared for and loved, recognized, wanted, accepted. It may feel as though your worries melt away and you are more relaxed. You will feel the magnetic energies of my existence drawing you to me for I love you! I delight in your being, I enjoy the exchange of energies between us.

Whether you know it or not, you are enveloped and held in this sweet bubble of my energy, and I am in yours. It is simply a gift of living on this earth in which all living things are made of energy and surrounded by their own bubble. They intersect, overlap, interweave, create amazing and beautiful patterns and play!

You are a gift to me when you come near. I feel the complex energies of you. In this way I feel that I know you on a deep level; beneath thought, beneath words, beneath appearances. Here we are one and can communicate and know each other.

When you allow yourself to tune in and exchange energies with me, we are enriched and refreshed. And I am HAPPY!

Art

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Artful garden

Artful garden

GCW speaks of Art

I feel the flow of power and energy through your physical bodies when you are letting your creative power move freely! It is as if you have allowed a spotlight from the heavens to pour through you! Your exquisite music, powerful words, visual images, the movement of your bodies with pure joy in the dance delight and enliven this earth.

Do not mistake the human word “art”, for creative power can pour though every human on this planet, no matter what you choose to focus on. Building a house, creating a business, cooking a meal, planting a garden all can be called art when this power is allowed to inspire you and flow through you unimpeded – when you create with joy!

Are you open to the outpourings of all that is? Do you allow the flow or do you shut if off like snapping out the light? Do not fear this power, for this is the stuff of life itself!

You are all meant to be channels and carriers of this light! You are meant to create beauty from inside you as a spider unreels her filaments while spinning her magnificent web. Then, when you have finished your creation, you can witness with your senses in a form you can understand, the beauty, power and amazing magnificence that is you! Your creations are mirrors of you!