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A New Day

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A new day lightens the sky in the east. This is life giving you another opportunity to start fresh. Life allows you the time to reevaluate and renew your life, to grow into the person your spirit calls you to become.

Nature’s rhythms show that you can begin again after setbacks and illness, after disappointments and sorrows. Spring follows winter without fail. The moon cycles through her phases each month. Storms roar through the valley pushing much old growth to the ground, leaving food and light for new life to reach to the sun.

A tree cut off at the ground will sent up suckers reaching for the light. Tender new grass appears after a prairie fire. Green shoots of crocus push through the melting snow in March. The world greens and leafs out finally after a hard winter softens into a joyful spring.

You too after the fires, storms or winters of life have passed may send forth green shoots, leaves, and blossoms and renew yourself. This may look and feel like new energy flowing through your veins, new ideas and creative projects, new vibrancy, a renewed sense of humor and playfulness…passion for life.

The sun will rise again and you will have another day to move toward becoming who you are at the level of your soul, to choose a new thought that supports you in place of the old stale thoughts, to choose a different pattern of being, to tune yourself to a more pleasant feeling, to take the first small step to realizing your dreams.

Of course, patience is your friend as these changes take time and attention and perseverance. Trust and give yourself the grace to accept yourself as you are while at the same time moving toward the new way of being that you desire.

Open your heart to this most amazing gift of a new day.

Connect to Earth

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Yes, dear ones, I return to a favorite theme. I speak of grounding once more because it is so vital to your well-being!

When your body and mind are exhausted, when you feel as though you can’t take another step, when you are depleted, shaky or frantic, recharge your power supply by reconnecting with Mother Earth.

Plug in and let her entrain your energy to her heartbeat, the rhythm of our planet, to the reality of her loving support.

When you are ungrounded you may seem to float away like an untethered space walker. Humans ungrounded deplete themselves and try to compensate for a lack of Earth energy, try to find a power supply elsewhere – food, drink, drugs…?

When you are grounded, you are filled with Earth energy pulled in from the chakras at the soles of your feet. This energy rises up within your body to anchor and root you to your home. This is mother Earth’s way of telling you – you belong here, this is your home.

Rediscover your power supply in the most simple and natural way.

Walk stand or sit with your bare feet on the earth, on grass a beach, in mud or soil. Lay under a tree. Hug a tree and lean there for a few moments. Visualize yourself as a tree and send your roots deep into the Earth. Gently massage your feet. Walk in nature. Rub the soles of your feet with a stainless steel spoon.

As you are here in a body, you are meant to live fully within the parameters and limitations, joys sorrows and challenges of this physical existence. Getting grounded will help you be here now and experience the fullness of life.

Practice simple grounding daily and recharge your batteries. Live in your body. Live more fully as you are meant to.

At the Heart of Your Spirit

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Dear friends, thank you for your patience while I paused my blog due to an illness in the family. My family member is doing well. We’re back now. Many blessings, Betty

Now, in the words of GCW:

If I could weep, I would not weep, for our Earth and her many inhabitants have survived upheaval, turmoil, danger, disease, war, plague, drought, famine, violence, death and destruction over the eons life on this planet has existed.

Beneath the fear, the terror, the hate and destruction seen in current events, beneath the profound deprivation visited upon so many families lies the spirit, untouched by death and destruction, enduring, gaining in wisdom from lifetime to lifetime. Unbreakable, unshakeable.

At the heart of your spirit lies peace.

GCW in Midwinter

At the heart of your spirit lies a loving and profound silence in which all things are possible.

At the heart of your spirit lies the unfolding of love, the love that carries us from lifetime to lifetime with joyful anticipation, that permeates the billions of living beings on Earth, that infuses the cells and DNA of all living things.

The very web of life is composed of the energy of this love. All spirits are joined as one in this magnificent web.

When times are difficult, when you feel fear, when all you’ve known is breaking apart, tune into your spirit for the wide angle view. Like a soaring bird, your spirit will help you rise up and see your life, your family, your community, the events of the day from 1000 feet up.

When you are able to gain this spirit perspective you can feel the temporariness of fearful and dangerous events, the immensity of peace and love surrounding and permeating this world, this universe.

Love endures. Spirit endures.

Time for a pause

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Dear friends, due to a family health crisis (non covid related) Grandmother Cottonwood will go on pause for awhile. There won’t be any new posts for an unknown period of time.

In the meantime, please enjoy some of GCW’s older offerings from our archives. Thank you for your kind attention and support throughout the past several years. Dear readers, you are much appreciated!

When we’re ready to come back, I’ll let you know.

Best wishes, Betty

The view from GCW’s stump

The Great Meeting Place

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I am swimming in this river of life. Sometimes smack in the middle of the fast moving current, surrendering to the flow. Not fighting it.

Sometimes the river of life runs low during dry periods and grounds me on a sandbar for a time, until the rains come and the water rises again.

And then, once again, I give myself to the river, trusting its course and flow as the current pulls me downstream.

The water of this river joins all waters of the earth, all creeks, rivers, streams lakes, inland seas, all melted glaciers, ice and snow. The current’s pull grows stronger.

The flow of all water on our planet culminates finally in the one great meeting place.

This is the ocean, where numberless droplets merge and become one universe of surging and living water, the stuff of life.

Come back to your roots

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When you come back to your roots, you rediscover your true self. The soul of you, the deep center of you that knows your purpose here, that knows and accepts the truth of you you are.

You were born with this wisdom, you knew your spiritual roots as a child. Can you remember?

When you live from your true self, your roots nourish you and connect you to the Earth, your home and your spirit. The roots of your true self are roots of integrity, of self respect, of knowing who you are.

Only humans can choose to appear as something they’re not, to misunderstand and cut off their connection to spirit, to disconnect from their true selves.

Then you are like a tree without roots, vulnerable to storms, high winds, and stress, weaker than you might be, disconnected from your strength and source of nourishment.

Uprooted Cottonwood tree

Dear ones, if you have become disconnected from your wise self, you can renew yourself and regain wholeness. The damage is not permanent, you can regenerate your life and regain your power.

You are flexible and resilient. You are a survivor! Send you roots deep and reach to the light!

Come home

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When you feel distraught, take a moment, bring your awareness to your heart and breathe. Let your breath soothe you.

When you feel unsettled, ground yourself by walking barefoot on the Earth, or hugging a tree and come home to nature. Let the sights and sounds, the smells of nature calm you.

When you feel ungrounded, come home to your roots. Plug yourself into Earth energy by hugging a tree or imagining your energetic roots sinking deeply into the Earth.

When you feel exhausted, rest awhile and come home to your inner spirit, the part of you that never tires, that lasts forever, that will never lead you wrong.

When you are worried or anxious, come home to this present moment of your life. Release regrets for the past and worries for the future for several beats of your heart and feel the peace as you breathe in and out.

Come home to your heart and body, to the present moment. In this way, you will live a true and authentic life.

Leadership

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Dear reader, this post is from the archives of AskGCW.

If your leaders guide you astray – away from what you know to be right and true and good, you must let your heart guide you instead. Trust yourself!

When your leaders are mistaken, misguided, ill informed, emotionally stunted, you yourself must step up and be a force for good in the world. You don’t have to shine on a national stage, run for elected office, or head a large corporation to make a positive difference in the web of all things.

Grandmother Cottonwood, winter afternoon

I ask you to allow yourself to become a force for good and kindness, guided by your heart and by Source in your own life, within your own sphere of influence.

If you feel alone in your beliefs and actions, hold fast! Do the right thing and you will respect yourself and gain confidence. Others of like mind will be drawn to you. And you will create ripples of compassion and loving kindness in the web of life.

The ripples you create flow from the center of your spirit and touch all things on the energetic level, the level of spirit. All creatures benefit from your heart’s wisdom and your wise and kind actions.

Let your guidance and leadership come from within, from the depths of your heart and spirit. Let Source be your partner, and you will make the world a kinder safer place.

Ground with your favorite tree

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Dear reader, this post is from the archives of AskGCW.

Yes, I repeat myself once again with rooting and grounding theme. I do this because so many humans walk this earth with their awareness and their spirits partially outside of their bodies.

The energy of ungrounded humans feels as though it floats in space without an anchor or home. This causes many to feel anxious and unmoored. Ungrounded people are disconnected from a vital source of life-giving energy.

Making sure you are grounded in times of trial and uncertainty, when you feel spacey anxious or disconnected.

Here is one simple way to anchor yourself with my friends and cousins the trees. Which tree are you drawn to? Oak, sycamore, sweet gum, hackberry, cedar palmetto, beech, elm, walnut, fir, hickory, maple, ash, cherry, apple, spruce, poplar, aspen, magnolia, pine, cottonwood, mesquite, …?

Grandmother Cottonwood

Choose your favorite tree. If needed, find a picture of a magnificent tree to help your imagination see the details.

Now envision for a few moments that you too are a magnificent tree. Bear with me, you don’t have to tell anyone else about this…

Now imagine that you have roots reaching deeply into the soil, gripping the earth. Your roots range in size from mighty ones the size of main branches, tapering down to the tiny tenacious hair like roots that draw in nourishment directly from the soil.

Strong roots

With your imagination see and feel your roots reaching deeper into the soil and subsoil, through the bedrock and mantle of the Earth to the molten core. (Anything is possible in your imagination)

Now as you breathe in, pull in the anchoring Earth energy up into your feet, legs and lower torso to fill the cells of your physical being and help bring your awareness into your body – where you are meant to live.

Now you are plugged into the frequency of the planet.

Breathe the Earth energy in through your roots and let it travel upward through your trunk and branches through the tips into your leaves. Do this breathing several times as you imagine the energy filling your from the center of the Earth up.

Interwoven branches and nest

Feel yourself relax and become one with our planet. Allow the Earth energy to soak into every cell of your body.

Let the trees show you anchoring. This simple practice can help calm you. No equipment or expensive accessories are needed, no experience or skill required.

All you need to tap into Earth energy are your heart, imagination and intention.

Connect with Earth Energy

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Dear reader, this post is from the archives of AskGCW.

Dear one, do you feel shaky, off balance, flighty, un-tethered?

Our great mother, the Earth asks you to lie down heart to heart, belly to belly with her and absorb her loving grounding energy into your body.

When you feel anxious she will calm you, when you feel unmoored, she will give you solidity. When you are tired, she will fill you with energy. When you feel lost, she will provide a home, a safe resting place, a solid foundation.

Go to the Earth when you find yourself off balance, jittery, bereft. Let her energy heal you.

Let her envelope you in the energy, the safety, and feeling of home. Know that we belong to each other!