I typically journey about three or four times a week. Sometimes I have a destination or a subject in mind before hand and sometimes I do not. Sometimes after I get to my Sacred Garden an idea for a journey occurs to me, or is suggested by my helping spirits, and sometimes I just sit, relax and unwind.
Sunday night I didn’t really have anything particular in mind when I headed off for my Sacred Garden. After arriving I offered my customary greeting to all those spirits that are in relation with me, and then told my spirit helpers, guides and ancestors that I was leaving the journey up to them. I immediately found myself at the head of the trail off one side of my Sacred Garden that leads to the lower worlds; the dreamtime of the earth, animal and nature spirits. The trail emptied out into a large clearing, and in the middle of the clearing was the spirit of the tree I wrote about in my post titled Grand Tetons, The Patriarch. I greeted my friend and asked if he had a message for me. I felt the spirit of the tree embrace me and my journey began.
With the merging I was given the privilege of experiencing the effect we humans have on nature and the earth at multiple levels, and I’m not speaking only of our environmental arrogance, but also our fears and wars; our hate, intolerance and injustices; our suppression of rights and freedoms. The earth and all the plants and animals feel these negative actions and emotions and suffer the consequences right along with us. As the feelings and experiences flowed through me, I felt it as sadness and pain although nature experiences it more as strong disharmony. It is difficult to express what I experienced because of the breadth of the experience; the multiple levels and layers of it all.
Humans are the only species on earth that can choose to ignore or deny their connection to all, and we have become very accomplished at it. Nature and the spirit worlds long for us to consciously acknowledge our connection to all and to begin to take responsibility for our actions. It’s a long steep road to where we need to be, but we are on the way. The only question is if we will make it in time. There was an underlying current of urgency throughout the entire journey that leads me to believe we had better get our butts in gear.
Richard.. thanks so very much for this post!! I am just re-membering the deep feeding to my soul that connecting with my ‘ancestors’, ‘the Presence’, ‘guides’ provides. As I read your post, my sacred place flashed into my mind… as if calling, inviting.
So, tonight — I have a date with these for the first time in years!
I thank you!!
terraflora,
You are welcome as always.
Sobering thoughts. It is a different slant on what I’ve felt to be true. I think that part of why we humans are so full of strife is due to the fact that we’ve cut off our spiritual bonds with Nature. We’ve forgotten that we’re animals, and part of the Ecosystem. It’s a delicate balance that I feel we should be pursuing. I don’t think we should go back to the brutal days of Darwin’s Laws of Hunter and Hunted, but I do think that we need to remember that we have to breathe, and drink, and eat untainted food. I remember hearing Tiny Tim’s The Otherside song as a child, and realizing it might very well come true if people didn’t work to reduce polluting the air. I learned as an eight year old child that elephants were endangered from National Geographic and cried, then asked my Mother to help me write a letter to the newspaper asking people to help stop the elephants from dying out.
Thank you for helping me find a way to express some of the “Whys” that come up with my younger husband. It isn’t that he is unable to percieve these things, it’s that he isn’t there yet. He doesn’t grasp the concept that failing to strive to be a thoughtful person the majority of the time injures the true person. Part of this is the way he was brought up*, it has blinded/deafened him, and part of this that he has been affected by the mentality of his peers.
*He had to choose to wear blinders and stuff cotton in his ears to not be hurt worse by being treated as unworthy. He learned not to speak his mind, or tell his thoughts because if his mother didn’t agree she’d either riducule him, argue him down, or ignore him. Hers was a coldly scientific mind, (She had a degree in microbiology, and was a good teacher.) and she didn’t like grown males. Example: She told me it was useless to try to teach a male manners, or to pick up after themselves. Her husband didn’t disprove her ideas about adult males either. She rejected ideas and sentiments from others if she thought them unworthy, she gave me flack for crying about 9/11 two weeks after the fact. She thought it was high time for people to “Get over it!” His father ignored him for the most part, he only cares for himself and his comfort.
That should read “Tiny Tim’s The Otherside”. *wry* Here is a link to a YouTube clip using the song. I was a late life child, and Mom and Dad owned Tiny Tim’s first album, which I loved to play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5bH_scWla0
@katm
The lack of connection most have with nature is certainly a problem, at least in my opinion, but more and more people are discovering that we are all connected; people, plants, animals, rocks, seas, all connected, and also connected to all that it outside of the physical world.
Relationships can be challenging and the best you can do is take it moment by moment. My best wishes with your journey.
I’m a country girl living in a breathtaking natural environment. I have more than one secret garden. The one that is my favourite is an old growth cedar grove where I sit to meditate and also where I just go to “receive”. It’s this secret garden that I prefer to go to when I’m troubled. And as I sit on the huge fallen log covered with a blanket of moss I gradually shift my consciousness and become one with all that is. All my relations.
Last night when I entered my secret garden my heart was troubled about the way a relationship I am a part of is going. I found a feather – a turkey vulture feather laying on my pathway. I gave thanks for the gift and picked it up twirling it in my fingers. This gift prompted me to reflect on the role of turkey vultures in nature and gave rise to many personal insights.
In essence I have received a message that I’m about to be taught a lesson. Hopefully I will be a willing student this time but if I’m not then the lesson will be presented to me again. Mine is a learn at your own pace journey and that’s the way of it for all other sojourners too.
All my relations.
@timethief
It sounds like a wonderful secret garden. I can smell the cedars.
One of the things I was told during one of my journeys was that we have all the time we need, and it is always our choice. We may indeed decide that we do not want to take a certain path at a certain time, and as you say if we do not, it will show up again. There really is no timetable, no schedule, except as determined by us.
Best wishes with the relationship and the lesson.
Oddly enough, one of my Inner secret gardens is a Summer day, with freshly washed white sheets blowing in the wind. I can smell their cleaness. I envision/visit it anytime I play Enya’s Aldebaran. It harks back to childhood days, racing by the washing line (being careful not to pull down the laundry) on my way to find a hiding spot. As a young adult, there was a pond out in the middle of a feild I’d go to, when I was a child I’d go to a stretch of the Arkansas river which was very close to our house. These days I like to go out to Elk City resevoir, the intermediate (bad knee) hiking trail is quite nice, and you can see the stars very nicely up on the overlook. I usually like to be where I can feel the wind on my face. If the wind stills, I get ill at ease. If it starts kicking up, I consider whether or not to move to shelter, and how soon.
I love to hear the cicadas zzz-zuu-zzz-zuuing on a Summer evening, with a nighthawk letting out a wistful cry now and then. There are bugs here in this part of Kansas that I am not as fond of, I call them “kek kek bugs” because that is the sound they make, all night. *kekKEKkekkek kekKEKkekkek kekkekkek kekkek* I know it’s a bug, I’ve seen one, it was rather large, green, and leaf shaped. I’ve grown more used to them though, and am learning to not mind their noise as much. We had a Great Horned owl pair nesting in the old oak last year, they didn’t come back this year though. (One night I heard one of them let out its “Battle Cry” when one of the cats leapt up into the open window to smell the night air. Scared the dickens out of me.) There are a lot of squirrels that live in the oak as well, that came back this Spring. We have grey treefrogs here, and I like listening to them calling, along with the other frogs and toads. Some nights the wind is alive, others it’s a quieter companion to thought.