Earth Spirit Dreaming: Shamanic Ecotherapy Practices - Elizabeth E. Meacham 2020
Spirit-Connecting: Working with Light and Vibrational Reality
Spirit-Connecting Practices
When the idea for this book was born, I meant it to be about Earth-connecting practices only. I did not yet realize the shifts in consciousness that awaited me as a result of these practices. As my commitment to nature-based spiritual practices continued, alongside my writing, what the Earth was teaching me expanded far beyond my expectations. I discovered, and it was revealed to me, that reconnecting with Earth leads to engaging with spiritual reality in ways that I had yet to know through an entire lifetime of spirituality and religion. Over time, and through many adventures, engaging with Spirit on an Earth-based path uncovers a view of human nature that is completely distinct from Western conceptions of the self.
As I follow the life-world beyond the realm of the rational and continue to open and develop my sensitivities to the natural world, the reality that I discover “beyond the realms of reason” blows my mind wide open again and again. Through blocks and fears, joy and wonder, I now often relate to life with a raw, non-linear wildness that is increasingly integrated with my “everyday” experience. Each day I discover that what I think of as “nature” is much more vast, surprising and magical than seems possible in the current Western concept of “the real.”
This journey into the realms of the wild mind and body of the Earth began for me with simple nature meditation. I followed my intuition to many of the practices that I share in this book to find my way back to my own ecological consciousness. This Earth-connected consciousness unveiled an enhanced kinesthetic experience of what we might call “energy” throughout nature and people: Connections of light as an expression of the stories and overlapping dreams of all beings between and around us including trees, rocks, animals, moss, rivers and people. I understand the shift in my perceptions to be a direct result of my many hours of spiritual practice in nature; I understand this expansion of consciousness to be an outcome of directly asking the Earth to teach me how to best live in alignment with life and healing for the world.
In shamanic traditions, it might be said that I began to undergo an initiation, not intentionally sought by me or because of any outside human influences. Rather, this was somehow a result of my commitment to listening to the Earth. I hesitate to use the word “shamanic” because I did not train with a shamanic teacher, an indigenous healer or medicine person, or anyone who might have shown me the path to developing increased levels of shamanic sensation. Despite not intentionally seeking a shamanic path, or even knowing that I was in some way self-guiding myself toward a shamanic awakening, it happened to me. My conclusion from this is that all people can find their way to profound, consciousness-shifting spiritual development through intensive contact with nature and the Earth community. Not everyone’s path leads to what I came to see as my spiritual mission: to live as a healer and teacher of these ways. Yet, we can all come to know Earth and Spirit sensitivities, perceptions and practices that can enhance and heal our lives.
Through relearning how to know nature — what Joanna Macy calls “Coming Back to Life” — we can eventually learn to interact directly with nature spirits, ancestors and spirit helpers.60 To get to that level of communication with these beings in parallel and interrelated realities, we must first learn to experience the web of light that forms among and between all of the stories and dreams of the Earth community. Our minds will never be able to understand or know all that there is in this vast and endless web, as it stretches beyond limits of perception to the outer reaches of the universe. We can, however, begin to perceive and work with this web as it is expressed in an immediate matrix around our own lives and communities.
Over time, as we learn to feel and move in these webs of light we can directly relate to and influence things within this realm. We all have it in us to find these ancient ways of wisdom simply by connecting with the forces of life around us. With time, intention and commitment, we can all “wake up” from our daze of industrial culture.