How to Connect with a Nature Spirit

Connect with spirit, Healing, Life Tips, Mediumship, Nature, Shamanism, Spiritual Wisdom, Spirtual Guidance

In the shamanic point of view, every thing and every living being has and is a spirit. We can communicate, learn from, and live in partnership with these spirits. They have access to information that we who live in a human body do not. The scope of our knowing is often limited by our human perspective, worries, fears, concerns and judgements.

Communicating with our unseen guidance, we can better understand the spiritual aspects of challenges and illnesses in our lives, receive wisdom and healing, heal relationship issues, and learn to live more effectively in this world in body mind and spirit.

The Spirit world is on a different energetic wavelength than our normal day to day human activity. A relaxed and receptive state of mind is required for tuning in to spirit. When we slow brain wave frequency, we come into attunement with the spirit world. Shamanic practitioners and students deliberately slow their brain waves and enter into a trance state by listening to repetitive drumming. Shamanic journeying is an example of this. Meditating and spending time in nature also help you relax and slow down.

To connect more deeply to spirit, even if you haven’t formally learned how to do shamanic journeys, I offer a few ideas to help you expand your spectrum of awareness to include connecting with a nature spirit.

This begins like mindfulness meditation, but takes you a step beyond meditation into direct communication with spirit. Choose a nature object, a leaf, stone, shell, flower, a fruit, berry, even a tiny radish sprout or small raisin. Find one that you will enjoy exploring through your senses.

Create or find a quiet place without a to-do list, the news, distractions like your phone or easy entertainment, TV in the background, etc. Your quiet place might be outside in a beautiful natural area, a park, leaning against a tree, your yard, or in a peaceful room or mindfully decorated corner inside your home.

Tune your awareness from your head/mind/brain and into your heart. Let those never ending thoughts float by in your head without giving them attention. (If they’re important, you can get back to them later) This will help your brain slow down. Lay your palms on the center of your chest and allow your awareness to move down from your brain/mind/head to center in your heart. Feel your breath moving in and out, your chest rising and falling. Hear the sound of your breath. Focus on your sensations of touch, smell, sound, sight hearing. Allow yourself to let go of any tension in your body.

Now pick up the object you chose earlier. Take time to experience it with all your senses, letting all judgments go. Absorb the information you receive about its texture, scent, color, shape, form. Does it make a sound when you touch it? If this is something edible, savor the taste. How does it feel on your tongue? Allow all of your awareness to be focused on this one thing. Experience it as though you were a curious young child seeing touching and exploring this interesting thing for the first time.

Now get a feel for this object’s energy. How does it feel in your hands? Do you enjoy holding it, or want to put it down immediately? You may receive subtle sensations that can’t be translated into words. Pay attention to them. As you keep your awareness at your heart, you may begin to get impressions from the object. These would be very subtle at first, and may come through any of your senses plus your sixth sense of knowing.

Ask the spirit of the object for a message and pay attention to what information comes through your being. Messages from spirit can come in many forms and can be very simple and direct. Often they come in symbolic form – showing you pictures, images, sounds, feelings, emotions, or other sensations that you then can interpret for yourself.

You can ask the spirit of your nature object questions, such as – What you can I learn from you? What advice do you have for me? Please show me what I need to know about you. How can I thank you for speaking with me? Add any other simple question you might want to ask. Pay attention to everything that comes through for you.

If your ego mind demands attention and makes judgements about what you’re doing, (for example: “This is stupid.” “I don’t have time for this.” “I can’t do this.”) try to imagine an image of the thoughts evaporating – cool steam dissolving them, fog enveloping them, an ocean wave washing them away, wind blowing… whatever image works best for you. Return your awareness to your heart and allow yourself to notice the sensations and spirit messages coming through.

When you’re ready to leave your meditation, disengage by thanking the spirit of the object for what you received, and let it know your time together is over for now. Set it down or take it back outside. Send a blessing and gratitude for sharing its wisdom with you.

Now is the time to write down any messages you received before you return to normal everyday concerns and tasks. You may forget them otherwise. Next, come back into your body by tapping your cheekbones, the center of your chest, collar bones or rubbing & massaging your feet to ground yourself and bring your awareness back into your body and your mind back into everyday life.

In this way, you can learn to connect with the spirits of nature and receive their advice, love, and deepen your awareness of what is possible in life.

photo credits: Featured photo by petr sidorov on Unsplash; photo of feather by Evie S. on Unsplash

Earth Element Release Ceremony

Nature, Shamanism, Spiritual Healing, Spiritual Wisdom, Web of Life

We belong to the Earth. We are attuned to the gravitational pull of our native planet, it’s powerful energy filling and anchoring our lives. She gives and gives. Her web of life supports all life forms. Our bodies thrive on the wide variety of food earth provides. We find shelter in materials gathered from the earth. She provides everything we need to survive and generously supports our lives of plenty.

Earth is the foundation for our physical lives which gives us a platform for the growth and the development of our souls as we meet the challenges of life in a body.

Earth heals. Nature heals. Think of the peace of a riverbank, resting on a pebbly sandbar, the solid bedrock beneath your feet, holding you steady, the peace and patience and beauty of trees, the fragrance of the evergreens, breathtaking and inspiring landscapes of all varieties.

Attuning ourselves to nature and connecting to Earth energy, we feel calmer, at home. Feeling calmer gives us the ability to slow down and tune into the quiet rhythms of life. The rhythms of life are those of the energies and cycles of nature, the ebb and flow of our breath, the beat of our hearts, sleeping and waking, light and dark, life and death.

The spirit of the Earth teaches us through the love and wisdom contained in the ancient stones here since our planet’s fiery beginning. We learn from the past through buried clues and hints from those who came before us, the transformation and renewal of new life feeding on the decay of the old. She shows us how all things are interconnected, interdependent, how nothing and no-one stands alone in the web of life. Her example is one of generosity. Earth teaches us giving and receiving when the timing is right, going inward and reflecting in season, gathering strength and sending down roots, grounding ourselves and opening to the light of spirit.

Release Ceremony with the Earth Element

What feelings, negative patterns, ingrained false beliefs are you ready to release to the Earth? For this release ceremony, create a power object of nature materials to hold those feelings. You will infuse the object with the feelings you wish to release, then bury it in the earth. The earth will dissolve it into its component elements that will feed the soil and fuel new growth when the timing is right.

The Earth will disintegrate or dissolve your object over time in some way. Because of this, don’t get too attached to your object or make it too precious. Your creation must be biodegradable. Plastics or artificial materials that persist in the environment for many years are not suitable.

Your handmade article doesn’t have to be beautiful, clever, or complicated. Since it contains the energy you are releasing the earth will will dissolve, disintegrate, and recycle that as well. The physical object will rust, wither away, decay and dissolve, return to its original elements and feed the soil. At the same time, the earth will absorb and re-integrate the energy of emotions and feelings you are releasing.

Your power object is a symbolic assembly that will represent those feelings, beliefs, patterns of thought or action you wish to release. Before you create your object, spend some time thinking and writing about the concerns and challenges you are ready to release. Think about how you life will improve after letting them go, surrendering them to nature.

For your object, you might use leaves, small sticks, slabs of tree bark, seed pods, paper, an offering of food, vegetable matter such as you would place in a compost pile, a bouquet of wildflowers, a bundle of hedge trimmings, cotton string or hemp baling twine, Use your imagination and creativity and enjoy the process of making this article.

Now assemble your power object. It doesn’t have to be artistically pleasing or pretty. Remember, it will be destroyed. After your object is ready, gather the energy of those feelings you wish to release into your lungs on a deep in-breath and then breathe the feelings into your power object. This powerful out-breath empties you of those unwanted, unhealthy feelings, and transfers them to the object you will shortly surrender to the Earth. The earth will cleanse and clear, and make new again.

Next, find a place to bury your power object and give it up to the earth. Get permission if needed, and dig a shallow depression or hole. (If you dig deeper you may need to plan ahead and check with the utilities locator in your area.) Place your object in the earth and cover it with soil. You may also want to place an arrangement of stones, flowers, or dried grasses on top of your refilled hole.

Thank Earth for her assistance, her healing and clearing power, for her ability to recycle, transform and transmute energy, to clear you of those feelings that were holding you back in life. If you are so moved, do a happy dance, sing, drum in gratitude for the healing Earth has so readily provided.

Trust the earth to work in its own time to heal and diffuse the energy of your stagnant emotions, dissolve your object and return it to the soil. This is the power of the earth element in action.

Earth will hold you, she will shade you under her magnificent trees, she will calm you and restore you.

Winter Solstice

Nature, Shamanism, Spiritual Healing

The Low angled sun illuminates our land with brilliant light,

Bathing the mundane, the everyday scene with exquisite beauty, with burnished gold for a fleeting moment.

sunlight low in the sky, reaching into dark corners that have been without light for many months. Piercing and illuminating the shadows with long sunbeams across the land, reaching into the unlit corners your homes, Creating great beauty, Spotlighting this fleeting and precious moment in time.

The cycles of our seasons, those contrasts of light and dark, winter and summer are integral to our existence. The autumnal earth tilts slowly on her axis, as the northern hemisphere moves farther away from the sun, bringing darker, colder, days, snow and winter.

The winter solstice, the day the earth stands still, and begins its tilt back toward the sun, is our time to welcome life and light returning. Know this: Even in winter, sleeping life is stirring deep underground in the roots and seeds, the hibernating creatures as they wait for their time to grow, to wake. when conditions are right – for spring.

You may doubt that the light, warmer days, and growing buds will come again now that we are deep into this season of cold. There is no way to rush or hurry the cycles of our lives or the order and timing of the heavenly bodies.

This is the time of Dormancy, resting fields, and fallow ground. This is the time to let your soul rest, your mind restore itself, regain energy beneath the surface, releasing what is stagnant and used up within, making room for fresh new ideas to emerge.

Even during playful, quiet or idle moments the mind and heart percolate deep below the surface of life and create new connections, new insights, and ideas that will come forth effortlessly when the timing and conditions are right.

So, Celebrate! Now is the time to welcome the light returning, the Earth tilting back toward the sun, toward growth and spring and new life once again!

Thanks and Gratitude to the Four Elements of Creation

Connect with spirit, Nature, Shamanism, Web of Life

On this Thanksgiving week, I invite all who read these words to offer gratitude and appreciation in your own way to the spirits of Earth, Water, Air and Fire for making our lives possible.

Thank you Earth for our lives and all of life. Thank you for our home, for the solid bedrock foundation supporting our physical lives. Thank you for providing everything needed to thrive and maintain our lives in health and wholeness.

Thank you for the variety and beauty of your landscapes, your mountains, forests, deserts, plains, all manner of living beings, Trees, insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, sea creatures, fur bearing four legged ones, all forms of vegetation, each an integral component in the web of life.

Thank you for your powers of restoration, your prolific growth, your creativity, the seasons and cycles of birth, life and death and birth again.

Thank you Water for our lives and all of life. Thank you for your flow, for nourishing the cells of our bodies with your life giving energy, for facilitating the flow and movement of energy throughout our bodies, Thank you for providing a home for all water creatures, from the microscopic plankton to all manner of fish, and aquatic life forms to the blue whale.

Thank you for sculpting the landscapes of our Earth into caves, valleys, canyons, coastlines, alluvial plains. Thank you for your beautiful and wild oceans, rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, for the underground aquifers that shimmer still and silent beneath the surface of the land. Thank you for our health, for nourishing every cell of every living being.

Thank you Air for our lives and all of life. Thank you for our precious breath, the breath of all creatures who breathe and those who absorb air to sustain their lives and health. Thank you for filling our lungs with your energy, for permeating us with your chi, or life force, for sustaining every cell of our bodies and blood stream with your oxygen. Thank you for carrying away airborne toxins with each exhale and cleansing our bodies in this way.

Thank you fire/sun/light for our lives and all of life. Thank you for fueling the web of life here on planet Earth. For fueling the growth and life cycles of all living beings here on our home planet. Thank you for making our very solar system possible, and all life forms on Earth we depend on for our continued existence.

Thank you to the flames keeping us warm in winter, for cooking our food, for bringing light into the darkness. Thank you for fueling our lives with passion and purpose and creative power, for mirroring to us our light and our brightness!

Thank you Earth Water Air and Fire for our lives and all of life.

More wisdom from Fox

Mediumship, Nature, Power Animal, Shamanic Journey, Shamanism, Spiritual Wisdom, Web of Life

Dear Fox, What do you want us humans to know?

Please – get out of your heads, into your heart and body. Try getting out of your cars too, now & then. Park them and walk! Skip off work! Walk under the trees, mute your phones, and listen to nature.

Observe the beauty, the life all around you. Listen deeply, observe everything in your world through a state of silent awareness. Feel the energy around you. Try this every day.

_{Photo by Daniil Silantev on Unsplash}

Your phones and devices rule your world, implanting ideas and thoughts into your heads, creating an alternate un-reality, meant to distract you from your inner knowing, wisdom and your higher self. This is meant to keep you off balance…

Why do you put up with this?

You must own yourself and your power, not give others the power to distract you and steal your precious life moments that can never be recovered.

Note from Betty: If you silence your phones, you may notice your thoughts racing, anxiety growing, and come face to face with your own inner being, your heart, and feelings.

When you go inward, when you observe and attune with nature in silence, your mind may try to distract you and may fill the quiet spaces with worries, fears, and anxieties that have no basis in what you refer to as reality.

This may be uncomfortable. Try to sit quietly and notice your fears and feelings. Allow yourself to feel them in your body as you breathe. Notice them as they shift and change and move through you. This practice will diminish their power over your life.

When you have mastered the art of managing your life from the inside out, acting as your own authority, you can open your view and learn how you fit into the larger web of life on this planet. Your place in the cosmos.