Birthing Soul

Plant wisdom

As much as I like the color green, it's clear I do not have a "green thumb." Unfortunately my gardening mother didn't pass that down to me in her genetic donation. Maybe I only need a few lessons and a good dose of fertilizer, but it seems the only plants I can keep alive are those tropical vines that are so hearty you could freeze them or leave them for a week and they still manage to hang on.

I am trying my hand at tomatos this year - though my mother planted them for me as a birthday present. They are sitting outside on my porch looking withered in the summer morning sunlight. My mother tells me tomatos need to be stressed in order to produce fruit. Well, if that's the case, it looks like they will be producing plenty! (Hmm, is there a life lesson nestled in there?!)

So I also tried my hand at some aloe vera plants. In our household we call them "Mr. Plant" and treat them with respect. We use his medicine on everything from burns to scrapes, chicken pox and invisible owies - he truly is a magical creature. Naming him also seems to help keep the three-year-olds from pulling them up by the roots repeatedly - as was the case in the beginning. Surprisingly, that first plant is somehow holding onto life.

The other two aren't doing so well. I had gotten a couple more from my mother's place and transplanted them into a new pot. No matter how much I watered them, or didn't water them, or left them in the sunlight or in the shade (I tried everything), they have since lost all vitality and withered away into sad, drooping, empty arms, some dried up completely and others holding on to a bit of life, still half-firm with a sad bit of the gooey life-gel inside.

But what was interesting to me (other than my lack of ability with plants), was that out of the drooping, withered and dying plant sprang beautiful, tender, green shoots of baby aloe plants from the dying one's roots. I realize that this is how these plants reproduce, but it still seemed to hold a metaphor to a deeper life truth: out of death comes life. And sometimes the old needs to die away to give nourisment and way for the new to come forth.

So next time I'm feeling stressed and wilted I'll remember my tomato plants that only bring fruit after stress. And when I'm grieving the dying parts of my life, I'll remember the new life springing from the dying aloe's roots, and in the midst of death look for the vibrant, firm shoots of new life sprouting out of me.

Maybe I should learn more about this gardening thing. There seems to be a lot of wisdom hidden in these little plants.

Befriending the wild nature

Lions, such graceful, powerful and wild creatures. In my days and weeks of preparation for my Spirit Quest, they started showing up in my dreamtime. I don't often dream of animals, in fact I can't remember the last time I saw an animal in my dreams. But here they were, making a dramatic mark on my psyche.

The first one was in my house with me. A massive creature with a flowing mane, sitting next to me while I partially hid behind a wall in case he decided to turn wild on me. I was ready to run.

The next one I see from my car. I pass a wildlife farm in a quaint beach town where a huge lion is hopping over the fence with ease. Realizing this was not ok, I turn with alarm to the driver of the truck I was in and we head to the place the animal was escaping. Coming to an intersection, we meet this massive creature face to face; he was larger than the truck. He comes to the passenger side where I am sitting, quite alarmed, but feeling somewhat safe because my window is closed. Only, it wasn't closed, and when the lion reaches his huge paw into the car, touching my face, I nearly pass out from a heart attack. I can still feel the fluttered pounding of my heart and taste the fear that coursed through me.

I let these images ferment while I prepared for my Vision Quest time in the canyon, wondering what Psyche might have in store.  I knew the moment I stepped across the threshold of the swaying, rickety bridge - swirling river rushing beneath me - that this was going to be a magical time.

A lush oasis in the middle of the eastern Washington desert, the canyon floor was vibrating with life. Every sense was flooded with the wildness of paradise. I could taste the smell of the wild roses and mock oranges wafting through the air. I could smell the multicolored landscape, painted with every variety of green imaginable - from dusty blue-green sage to chartreuse lichen on the rugged canyon walls, and every tone in between. Hundreds of birds sang through the aspens and cottonwoods. Fragrant sage bushes reached out to embrace us and brightly painted copulating butterflies flitted here and there, oblivious to everything but their own sensuous yearning for conunctio.

And so I left behind clocks and computers, cars and cellphones and immersed myself in the wild, sensuous paradise, apprenticing myself to the cycles of nature and the canyon creatures. For eight days I slept on the earth, nestled nurturingly in the grasses with the canyon walls rising to either side; under the piercing white-hot stars that studded the brief darkness of the solstice night sky. I befriended bullsnakes and rattlers, a beaver and a large herd of graceful bighorn sheep, and woke up wide-eyed, heart pounding several times a night to the unknown night visitors or to a pack of coyotes howling in the near distance.

  It was a dance with the wild and a dance with my own fears - not unlike the fears that I vividly felt in my lion dreams.

Halfway through our time there, we were to have a three day solo quest. So having had some moving experiences with the bighorns, I perched myself on a rugged bluff, surrounded by cliffs above and below, and plenty of evidence of sheep life all around. By day I could watch the heard make their way along the opposite canyon wall. You could always hear them first, moving along the uncertain slopes of fallen rock, often causing mini-avalanches. I woke up to magical mornings, with mamas and babies watchfully grazing on the bluff next to mine. But by night I huddled nervously in my mummybag, hoping nothing wild would eat me.

By night my rugged canyon cliffs became darkness and shadows. And while hearing night movement on the far canyon wall was somehow comforting, hearing movement on the talislope 10 feet away was highly alarming. More than once the talislope avalanched in the moonless darkness with a large creature moving over it, and all I could think of was cougar. My dreams were coming back to me, but this time in real life - what our quest guides called a waking dream. Night after night, I'd wake up to pitch darkness, utterly alone, with a large animal very close. My heart would pound adrenaline through my body and every nerve and fiber of my being would train itself on the blackness, my ears and eyes and even senses I didn't even know existed would strain to get a glimpse of what I was certain would be my death. And then I would hear nothing for a while, and the moon would rise and I was still alive, and I would slip back into a fitful sleep. That side of the canyon was officially the "wild" side though, and I couldn't sleep facing it, I felt too uneasy.

On one of those nights, I dreamed again of wild creatures - this time skunks - on the other side of a window. I wanted to reach out this time and pet them, but I was afraid of their wildness. Afraid they would spray me. And so I didn't break through the barrier. I kept the protection of the window between me and the wild.

Afternoons grew hotter and hotter as the week progressed, and I found the only shade on my solo was at the base of the cliff on the "wild" side of the canyon. So I found a place where the sheep had nested to lay my tarp out and spent midday napping and journaling there, listening to sound of the creek far below as it echoed through the canyon and graced my ears with the roaring of a thousand trickles.

By the last night of solo, I was no longer afraid of the wild darkness and woke up facing that side of the canyon, smiling. In the end, I lived. Nothing wild ate me (other than mosquitoes), and I think I actually befriended a bit of my own wild nature. They say dreams are a snapshot of your psyche. If so, the dream I had the night I returned home speaks volumes.

I was at a retreat in the mountains, and through a window I could see two tigers climbing the tall fir trees with ease. Next thing I know, they are on the other side of the window from me. One of them is reaching her paw through the place where the two panes connect. Instead of shrinking back in fear, I reach out and touch the massive, soft paw and she curls it gently around my finger. I feel no fear. Even as she moves her body through the two panes of glass I look on with awe and delight. Both tigers circle around me and snuggle up on my lap. I am aware that this is an amazing experience, even recalling the other dreams where I was scared to death. I bask in the beauty and strength of the powerful creatures knowing this was a monumental moment.

So if you look at me and notice something a little different, it could just be that I'm a little extra sunkissed. But if you look closer you may see the faintest glimmer of a wild tigress in my eye.

Unfurling

The damp spring air kissed my face as I headed out for the first adventure into the Whidbey Island woods. We would be spending the next days becoming intimately connected with nature here, letting it serve as a mirror to our own wild nature.

I was greeted by chattering squirrels and stinging nettles nearly as tall as I was. The woods were enchanting, the colors vibrant and beautiful.

On my walk, one plant in particular caught my eye. It was a tall stem with a tender, spiral curl at the top. It really moved me, it looked so tender, almost like a baby wrapped in the fetal position. I sat with it for a while, just letting the feeling of it sink into me. This tender, sweet shoot, unfurling into something - though I wasn't sure what.

I remember speaking with Anu, one of the guides about it. I was so curious to know what kind of plant it was. She smiled knowingly and commented that maybe in a week it would be in a different stage and it would be more apparent what it was. Instead of telling me, she left it a mystery and instead suggested that I try to embody the plant somehow.

On my next walk, I saw it again. This time I tried to become the plant, as curled up as I could be - head to chest to knees in a modified yoga position, then slowly I unfurled my body to the sunshine, just as I imagined the plant was slowly doing. A symbolic action that I didn't quite know the meaning of, yet I had an inkling of an idea. In a similar way I felt like a tender new shoot, in some ways still in a fetal position - all curled up, not knowing yet what exactly I would unfurl into.

Near the end of my time on Whidbey, we headed out for yet another walk on the land, and again I saw my plant. Yet this time I saw some of the leaves unfurled! I was ecstatic and immediately sat myself down to study and commune with my little plant. It was a fern! Somehow the mystery of that little plant being revealed to me was one of those numinous, exciting and beautiful moments (many thanks to Anu for leaving it a mystery!).

Upon returning home, I forgot about my plant in the busyness of life. I was processing other, more dramatic and highly emotional ceremonies that I undertook on the Island. My little spiral, fetal-curled plant encounter seemed just a highlight, a sweet little detour from all the psycho-spiritual death encounters I had experienced.

So the other night I decided to google images on the "unfurling fern." So many came up! Among images of different varieties of the curled up plant, another image caught my eye - a Maori spiral carving. When I looked more closely, I found that the Maori spiral is called the Koru  - a sacred symbol of the newborn, unfurling fern frond symbolizing creation, rebirth, new life, personal growth, positive change and awakening, strength and peace (!!!).

Wow. I was really nearly dumbfounded. In the middle of all my death ceremonies, in the middle of my darkness and muck comes a sacred symbol of rebirth. Seems that synchronicities abound when you are working near the Soul!

I'll be sitting with my precious little spiral plant, waiting to see what other mysteries it may have to share. It's just nice to know that I'm not the only one who found it sacred - a poignant symbol of a deeper inner process. I just may have to find myself a Maori Koru carving now!

La Luna Roja

I took the girls tonight to the little strip of country on the edge of town to watch the moon be gobbled up by the earth's shadow. Filled with wide eyed wonder and excitement we saw our first glimpses of the partly shadowed moon through the trees as we made our way to the dark little road that cuts through an agriculture area.

We pulled up into the same little turnoff where I stumbled onto the Leonid meteor shower a year or so ago. We unloaded from the car and watched in the cold night air as the silvery brightness gave way to a deep reddish hue.

The last time I remember seeing this event was as a child of maybe 4 or 5. I vividly remember the moon turning red and I didn't understand why though I'm sure my dad explained it to me. I just remember the wonder I felt.  Maybe that's why I felt full of excitement, giddy like a child again tonight, seeing the world with eyes of awe.

Through the many phases of my life, I've looked up to the night sky and felt that same sense of wonder and awe. A sense of the infinity and grandiosity of the universe that overshadows our short little lives. To see the intricate workings of the cosmos in such a dramatic way like tonight's lunar eclipse makes you for a short time, glimpse the world - and your place in it - in a vastly diffrent light. And even though you feel like such a small organism in the scheme of the universe, it somehow imparts a sense of honor, a sense of purpose. I belong to this place, right here, right now, and yet I'm a part of the infinite expanse of time and space, part of the universe becoming conscious of itself. Wow. What an honor!

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The edge of infinity

 It was one of those moments where the universe opens up, where the infinite and the finite meet for a magical moment in a lingering, passionate, cosmic kiss.  A moment that floats down to you from the crystal clear star speckled sky like a fragile, precarious bubble descending on a moonbeam. It's beauty you hold in your hand in awe and with the tenderest of touches knowing that if you even dare to breath, the moment might be lost.

The moonlit waves crashing on the sand stretched longingly toward nearby mountains; pounding relentlessly against the massive rock that rose like a giant out of the surf. The sweet smell of a smoldering driftwood fire hung in the air. The air was cool and still, pregnant with an aura of magic beauty. It was a moment that you savor. A moment that you honor. A moment you hold in awe, in reverent worship. You talk in hushed voices about deep things of the soul. In the moment where heaven and earth connect, you quiet yourself enough to hear, to see eternity with your own eyes.

It's a moment that the soul connects to the deep - the deep that calls out with a mournful sound as it crashes upon the shore. The seemingly infinite, realizing its finiteness as it stretches itself upon the moon drenched sand. The deep that calls from the endless expanse of sky, stretched from horizon to horizon, reaching back through the eternal expanse of the universe, yet coming to meet you in that moment, in that place.

It was the deep that resonated from the giant rock standing firm for aeons against the pounding surf, testifying to a stubborn strength beyond imagination. It was the deep that echoed to me from the mountains behind, rich with history, a life of their own. It was the deep that beckoned to me in the flood of silver moonlight, splashing all around, gently gracing the landscape with a magical glow.

It was the deep that rose from the depths of my own soul in that moment, that yearned - that cried to mingle it's voice with the depths of eternity, the depths of that very instant, the voices of the depths that serenaded around me, echoing against the hills an eerie, harmonic symphony that crescendoed to a climactic... silence. And just like that, the moment passed. The cascading symphony caught in the fragile bubble of time burst with a tender pop. And all was once again normal.

I walked back through the sand feeling a bit sad that I left the magical moment at the base of the powerful rock, under the moonlit crashing waves, under the canopy of stars. Unsavored, but not unrecognized. Yet in one last burst of magic, I see a star streaking through the sky reminding me that I may not always be in that magical moment, but the depths of infinity are never far away.

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