ecology

The river speaks

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

I am ceaseless and timeless. I flowed past the camps of your ancestors in ancient times, and I flow now under the concrete and steel bridges of your streets and highways, between fields of corn and beans. I flow past the towns and factories through forests and wetlands.

Life flows endlessly here- always the same, always new and fresh.

I may change course over time, undercut and topple the tallest trees, cut through solid stone, shape and carve the landscape.

I carry much that you choose to discard, your pollution and garbage. It becomes part of me. Is this what you want?

I rise and flood in spring, after the long winter freeze, swelling and spreading expanding beyond my banks. I pick up speed and power.

Do not argue with a flooded river!

My ripples respond to the most delicate vibrations of wind and weather and light and water currents, to rumblings in the earth, the movements of the stars.

The sun reflects and creates sparkles and dancing bands of light in my depths. You might sit near me and meditate on my hypnotizing moving light and water show. Find peace here.

Sunlit ripples on shallow water

I provide a home for the water dwellers, the fish of all descriptions, crustaceans, insects, the tadpoles and frogs, turtles, food for the fur-bearers and birds, a place of thirst quenching for all.

I grind and polish rough stones to smooth. I grind and polish smooth stones to sand. I compress sand into sandstone. Do not ask me how or why. It is in my nature to do so.

I run under the open sky at night, only the stars and moon lighting me in the uninhabited places. I move under the earth in complete darkness, carving the structure of this planet into caves of great complexity and beauty.

I am the river of life that flows through your ancient memory into your present and on toward the future.

It is my purpose to collect the waters of the earth and channel them effortlessly, to cleanse and shape the earth, to reach oneness with the great waters at the end of my journey… which is only the beginning.

Joy!

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

I want you to know what you might call the joy, expansion and contentment I feel rooted to my home and reaching for the sun, moon and stars.

It is my life’s work to grow to full mature height, to put out new leaves and bead-like fruits containing numberless seeds each spring, to be fully present in my physical being, to inhabit my allotment of earth and sky, to pull in nourishment from soil and sunlight, rain and air. 

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GCW in summer

This life is all I know, the seasons changing, the weather moving across my valley, wind storms and lightning, torrential rain, or mist, heat and cloudless summer days.

My leaves, shimmering in the breeze, turning golden as the sun dips toward the south, each one released in its time, thousands of them forming a brown carpet at my roots, enriching the soil that feeds me.

Now the late summer slides moment by moment into  fall…  fall into winter… Soon, I will know the deep rest, renewal, and quiet of winter. I welcome this time of release…

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GCW in fall

Yes, I have lost branches, they’ve rotted, fallen away and thumped heavily into the soft earth at my roots… I let them go without regret… My crown is thinner now, down to the essence of what is needed for life.  No more, no less.

Until I am ready to release life itself, I shall continue stand here with patience, knowing and welcoming every creature that shelters with me; knowing those that fly above and burrow below, those 6 legged crawlers  and spinners that live in my bark, the scaly ones that slide silently through the underbrush, the fur bearers that visit, the winged ones large and small that nest in my branches or perch momentarily on my crown day and night. I know their songs, their colors, their habits, I know the grip of their tiny claws, the vibration of the beat of their wings.

I know intimately those rooted ones in our community – the grasses, thistles, oak, locust, sycamore, the sunflowers, goldenrod, the cone-flower, the milkweed the Queen Anne’s Lace… there are too many to name… our roots, stems, and branches interweave, our energies overlap – we are a living neighborhood.  We know and communicate with each other. We thrive together!

This life is so precious to me.  It brings me joy!  Can you feel it too?

Big Bluestem

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I am the deep rooted tall prairie grass that you call big bluestem.

My commission is to send my roots deep into this rich black soil, down through the fertile layers deposited over many thousands of years, from the decaying roots stems and leaves of my ancestors, to draw in sustenance from all the elements of the earth, to anchor myself firmly here as my stems and leaves reach toward the nourishment of the naked prairie sun.

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Big bluestem

I grow taller, absorbing the joyful energy of the light and atmosphere, swaying gracefully, bending, in waves with the wind. I have learned to be flexible when storms roar through and lightening strikes.

Then, when the sunlight begins its slow late summer slide toward the south, my flowers appear, bloom, and quickly develop into seed heads.   Next spring, the age old cycle will repeat itself.  It begins with one seed!

I feel the feeling that you call “joy” as I grow taller than a man, spreading into the vast sunny space under the prairie sky. The roots of our community interweaving, holding the earth, gripping the soil, forming a vast deep network, a wreath of intricate connections across this wide open land, anchoring all the grows here.

Know that I love this life – I am a native- I belong here! This is my home!

I drink in the life giving sunlight and rain, swaying and dancing in the wind with a million others like me; we who grace this timeless landscape.