Earth Spirit Dreaming: Shamanic Ecotherapy Practices - Elizabeth E. Meacham 2020
Working with This book
How to Use This Book: Growing the Gifts of Ecological Consciousness
Introduction
There are many ways to experience and move through this book, and they are not mutually exclusive. The first three chapters introduce readers to the Earth Spirit Dreaming method and the format of the book. Chapter Three offers a brief introduction to the visionary environmental thought that inspired and supports my own work. Reading that is optional, but probably useful for anyone who is new to these ideas or wants to teach or facilitate the work with others. The following sections of the book provide a context and practice for each step in the method: earth-connecting, spirit-connecting and dream-connecting.
It is up to you to decide how much time to spend with Earth Spirit Dreaming; there is value in any amount of time that we spend reconnecting with our Earth and Spirit sensitivities. As I’ve been practicing and teaching these methods for decades, I’ve come to see the value in years, months, days, hours, or even minutes of exploration with various combinations of these practices. You can jump right in, pick one or a few practices from each section and put them together in order to create a ceremony for yourself or for or with a group. When creating experiences for others, I highly recommend that you spend time with the practices to help you understand the sometimes surprising shifts and feelings that can arise as we wake up to life in new ways. Expect occasional sudden floods of feelings and flashes of unusual perceptions, and learn how to “come back” from these moments to re-enter the “normal” world. When facilitating, you will need to support others through these kinds of experiences, so it’s important to find your own ways of managing these moments and transitions. When in doubt, know that the Earth and the helping spirits are always there to guide us. Whether or not you feel the presence of any spirits or ancestors, or even if you do not believe in anything, you can always pray and ask for help from the Divine Spirit of the Universe, and ask for guidance from the helping spirits. Even when our minds and hearts feel very blocked, or we feel lost and alone, we can always speak to the Earth and ask for help. I always ask the Earth and Divine Spirit to guide me in my practice and teaching. We are part of concentric circles of collective wisdom and never have to move through rituals, or teaching and facilitating, on our own. One important thing to do is to find others to talk to about Earth- and Spirit-connected awareness as they grow in your life. We need to reclaim and rebuild a nomenclature for eco-shamanic experience that captures and helps us express the wonders and mystery that surface. When I lead groups, I find that most people have experiences of contact with nature, spirit, guides and ancestors. Building language around them in community brings them more and more to the “front” of our psyche.
As you approach this book, begin as you feel most inspired. It is a book that can be read in many different ways and is not meant to be a “front to back” read. Turn the pages until something speaks in your heart and start there, no matter what section you are in. Then, build a ritual around it using at least one practice from each section. Doing any Earth Spirit Dreaming ritual that you create, for just 15 minutes a day, will transform your life. An hour a day, or over many days, with these practices may shift the course of your life, as it has mine. We hear the guides more clearly with every moment that we practice with commitment, and more practice eventually brings us into community. Eventually, through mindfulness of our connection with life, we will well and truly do our part to shift the consciousness of our global culture toward regenerative, life-supporting, Earth-honoring ways.