web of life

Come and visit!

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I’ve gotten my “haircut” for the year. Most of this year’s leaves are already scattered around my base, yellow and decaying, becoming food for next year’s growth and shimmering display.  A few of my dying leaves, still attached, flutter in the fall breeze sending silvery light through the woods and prairie margins. 

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Grandmother Cottonwood

Come and visit us here in the woods. Quiet down and listen to the sighing the singing, the flowing and fluttering, the heartbeat of the natural world that supports and feeds and nurtures each and every one of us.

Come visit your fellow earth inhabitants! Know that we love you!  Turn off that shiny “smart” object, put it in your pocket and commune with us.  Tune into your wild nature and remember your roots in the rich earth.  You are a beloved spirit, an irreplaceable part of the web of the whole.

We nature spirits and beings long to connect and uplift you, to soothe and comfort, and hold your feet firmly to the earth, the magnificent green planet that is our home.

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Hackberry tree bark

Lie on our fragrant cushion of fallen leaves, listen to the rushing creek, the birdsong, the crickets. Know that you belong, that we all belong together.

We are all on the same team!

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We quiet rooted ones have more influence on your lives than you could ever dream of. We shade and cool this planet. We hold the soil with our roots, we clean the air and water, we feed and clothe you. We shelter and protect you. We link you to the earth and the heavens.

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Shaded woodland with nettles

We are not flashy or loud or in your face. We do not beg for attention, yet we are an integral part of this world. A vital link in the chain of life.

I ask you all to tune in to the quiet frequencies of your rooted neighbors to breathe your thanks and appreciation for our contributions to you quality of life.

As we growing things prosper and grow and thrive, so do you, and all creatures. Our energies are interwoven in the magnificent web of all that is.

For those who would push us aside with a bulldozer, an earth mover, or cut us back with a weed whacker, a chain saw; level vast stretches of forest and destroy our living soil and roots with your heavy equipment, you show your misunderstanding of the web in which all things are one.

You have no choice! All living creatures, all things seen and unseen depend on each other! We are all on the same team, so to speak.

Take this to heart. Know this in every cell of your being and live in harmony with mother earth.

Communications network

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There is an energetic network connecting all cottonwoods on this continent. Yes, we communicate in our way. News travels fast. Our news traveling through energetic vibrations.

When lightning strikes, when weather conditions shift, when seasons change, when the vibrations and frequencies of human activity and emotion affect our physical tree selves, all in our network know it and feel it.

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Community of Cottonwoods

You may remark at the similarity between our ancient network and your invisible web, the internet.

What you call internet is a reflection of the invisible network of bonds that have existed between all members of a species, all humans, all cottonwoods, and if you tune in closely enough, all living creatures since before recorded time.

Everything connects to everything else.

These energetic bonds or cords enable psychic phenomena – A mother knowing when her child is in difficulty even though miles separate them; a sensitive person knowing and feeling the emotions of others; somehow being at the right place at the right time when you are needed.

Imagine in your mind’s eye, each person in your family, neighborhood, town, and state. Visualize them connected with golden threads to every other person. Imagine this for every plant, every tuft of grass, connected to all other living things with threads of energy and communication.

Those among you sensitive enough will know and feel the truth of this.

Try an experiment. Tune into one you’ve had problems with and send peaceful thoughts and friendly thoughts if you can. (Just like sending “web mail”) See if the feeling between you is different next time you meet. In a sense, nothing is secret because of your connecting cords

Remember, since all creatures are interconnected, your feeling and thoughts affect all others if they know it or not. Choose to feel the best you can. If you feel poorly, ask for help in clearing that so you can feel better, even a little bit. Each act of healing no matter how tiny how seemingly insignificant creates a more peaceful world.

You are a hub in a magnificent network! You matter! Your feeling and thoughts have incredible power!

What do you choose to radiate to your network?

Emotional healing is possible

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L of Ames, IA asks of the Orlando shooting, What is happening? How can this happen in our country?

My dear ones, the reverberations and ripples from this enactment of rage and despair have entered your bodies your minds and hearts and I sense your heart sickness, your fear, your anger and sorrow.

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Only those who feel separate from the web of life and the connections with all living things, those who seethe with the stuffed rage of many years do this. Those who feel separate feel powerless. Those who feel powerless may try anything to regain “control” and express what feels to them like “power” again.

Angry energy like razor blades radiates from those who have stuffed their rage. All who come near can feel it and sense the ugliness, the toxicity, the smelly stagnation of powerful energy eating away at the mind, heart, spirit and body.

It is not anger and fear that cause these rage events, it is the inability to express the anger and fear appropriately, without punishment, shame and humiliation.

Those who recognize and feel and allow emotions to flow easily do not ever erupt in rage and spread their damage like a hurricane destroying all in its path taking the easiest and nearest target.

There seem to be many humans on this earth who stuff their true feelings – Who fear their feelings. This is an epidemic!  So many humans have allowed unpleasant emotions to morph into toxic waste by hiding away from them even hating them and rejecting them! When you reject your emotions, you reject yourself! 

Emotions are energy, and energy must move.

I ask you to learn to feel your emotions when they first resonate in your body; to gain skill and discernment at naming and feeling your full spectrum of emotions from despair to joy. Learn to express anger without harm to yourself or any other.   Teach this in your homes, places of work, in your schools, learn to cry, learn to sing, lean to feel.  Learn that your feelings must flow.

Learn to tolerate your feelings and the feelings of others. Feelings and emotions are what make you human. It can be done, and it is not too late. Learn to stay with the discomfort. Discomfort will pass like clouds in the sky.

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This toxic waste of stuffed emotions can be transmuted by shining the light of love, compassion  and acceptance on them. Please ask for help if you cannot do this on your own! Healing is possible and you too can feel better.

Yes, even you.

Commitment

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Grandmother Cottonwood, evening sunlight

Sending down roots is making a commitment to life! I commit to this life, to this place and time, for the seasons, years and decades I’m blessed to live. My roots reach deep and wide. My roots and presence are my pledge of participation and involvement in the here and now – in the life of our beloved earth.

I take what I need from the earth and the atmosphere. I feed and sustain myself and allow the development and unfolding of my being from a tiny seed. I do not need to give myself permission to take the sustenance I need. My existence is permission enough. I am here to expand into my life’s design and purpose.

If a choice was possible, I would choose once again to be what I am now. I am blessed in this life to send my roots deeply into the soil and raise my branches and leaves, to scatter my seeds proudly.

In my home, a wooded margin at the head of a grassy flood plain, I make a commitment to live with my whole being, my entire spirit, to send my roots deeper and wider each year so I might know my part in this exquisite web of life and add my unique tone to the harmony of all that is.

GCW speaks

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Cottonwood seedpods and bark

My roots anchor me deeply to the earth. I am content to be here now, day after day, year after year, feeling the seasons shift, the sun’s warmth growing stronger as the earth turns toward spring. The winds and lightning, cleansing rains, the dear ones who share life with me here on this fringe of open meadow. I wake to my home, my circle of life.

After my long winter’s nap, I am gently opening to the birdsong and the frenetic activity of nest building and seed sprouting all around me. Groggy insects crawling out of their nests greet the warmth.

Vultures soar overhead against a backdrop of dramatic spring clouds. They’re back from their exotic winter home, come back to grace our air and land with their effortless easy sky dance as they catch the white sunlight on their magnificent wings.

I feel the millions of buds on my crown beginning to swell, the life force flowing into the tiny embryonic seed pods forming just as they have for millennia.

I am an integral element of this earth, I belong and so my dear, do you. We are all meant to be here. Your dear energy, your gifts and talents, your emotions, and thoughts are all part of this delightful tapestry that we call life.

Diminish yourself or any one of the creatures who make this earth home, and you diminish the whole, and yourself with it. Know yourself as a vital thread in the tapestry of life on our beautiful green earth.

Newborn babies

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Beloved newborn

Grandmother Cottonwood speaks of newborns.

You know you are in the full presence of the divine when you are honored to hold, or look at, be near, or touch a newborn infant. All the universe is contained within this tiny perfect being. All possibilities, all collective wisdom, the web of life is reflected in her.

The newborn radiates trust and peace. She allows you to contemplate the divine light she brings to your family, to all who call this planet home, for she is an expression of the infinite unending love that holds this universe together.

Allow yourself to learn from the little one. Let her teach you to simply be, to bask in the simple joys of life in a body. Let her teach you the sense of wonder as you open your eyes to the magical world of material form before you each morning.  Learn to see through her eyes, everything, fresh and new and magical.

Allow yourself to be moved and changed by this new relationship, to connect and feel and know once again where you come from and who you are. A miracle of divine light.

Love is…

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Q.   L of Ames, Iowa asks: What is love?

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A rose in winter

A.   Love, my dear, is your natural state of being. Do you remember what you felt like before you were clouded with fear, doubt, resentment, inadequacy -when you were a fetus in the womb, then an infant?

Love is the flow of the life force, unencumbered throughout your entire being – your physical bone, blood, muscle, tissue, and spirit, your aura, your energy. It is the highest, most delightful vibration. It isn’t solemn or stuffy or “good”. It simply is the thread that weaves the web of life and holds the universe together.

You are made of this thread. You are part of this fabric, interwoven with all existence. Behind all the clouds in your mind is the bright and shining foundation of all that is, the design and structure of your being.  As in the song, it is “a crazy little thing called love”… except it is a big thing.  It is the only thing.

You will find it inside of yourself, this love, and nowhere else. What seems like love outside of yourself is only a mirror of who and what you are.  Enjoy your reflection!

Let this love that you are shine through little by little just as the sun rises over the horizon until all is light! Allow yourself to connect with it at your core. Learn to feel it know it and live it.

You are love itself.