environment

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?

Tree energy

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We tree spirits are content. You might say we are happy, or even joyful!

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Grandmother Cottonwood

We feel delight when one of you two-legged beings spends time and attention in our proximity- laying in our dappled shade, leaning against our textured trunks, receiving earth energy through our roots; climbing, swinging, playing at our base, gathering our flowers, fruits, leaves, and seeds.

Through us you are connected to earth and sky. The truly sensitive among you, and of course, the children, will feel and know our energy and be uplifted and healed and calmed in our presence.

Do not treat us as part of the scenery only! We are an integral part of your world. Our energies overlap and interweave. We are inseparable. Our health affects your health!

Do all you can to keep our sweet earth humming in balance and harmony, so all creatures and their descendants may experience peaceful, expansive, healthy, and joyful lives!

Rushing

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What are you missing?

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New oak leaves

 

Why must you try to get 5 things done in an hour, rushing here and there in your shiny heat reflecting air polluting cars? As you rush do you notice the red cardinal zooming past the budding maple tree? Do you see the delicate blossoms of bleeding heart that will fade and go to seed soon, not to reappear for another 12 months? Do you hear the age old call of the mourning dove? Do you know one is nesting in your eaves?

Do you gaze at the sky, the dramatic mountainous clouds piling up in the west as you buy a ready made meal made not with love and care, but additives and an eye for the cheapest ingredients? Do you put this in your body? Do you taste and savor the real food the earth has provided for you today?

Do you pause to greet each person you meet? Or do you hurry past them as if they were a manikin in a store window while staring at your blinking shiny object? That is obviously more fascinating than your spouse or child or neighbor or your own ideas and thoughts.

You are missing your life! You are AWOL, locked up in some prison, not even realizing that enormity of what you are missing!

Slow down! Pay attention to the life, the people around you, the earth at your feet, the sensory delights of each day! Come back out of your trance and inhabit your body once again. You were given this life. It is not too late to live fully!