Speaking with Nature: Awakening to the Deep Wisdom of the Earth - Sandra Ingerman, Llyn Roberts 2015
Mist - Llyn
Artesian Spring and Mist
Imagine traveling far from Sandra’s desert environment with its hidden Artesian Springs to a land that is saturated by water most of the year. You sit on cool, damp earth surrounded by luminous green plants. Tiny dewdrops cling to each leaf and blade of grass, and you breathe in the same pristine vapors that craft these watery jewels.
This is a world unto itself. You could gaze and smell and drink in its nuances for hours. Maybe even for weeks or years. Yet this verdant pocket is a threshold looking out to a large expanse not of water, but of gravel.
The river that carved this rocky bed is low. The spring rains have lightened, although the snows of higher altitudes have yet to melt. Look intently across the stretch of stone and sand, an ever-shifting stream of earth. Virgin plants—willow saplings, tender wild mountain lupine, and river grasses—root in the rocky bed the river possessed just weeks earlier. Nothing remains static in the Hoh River Valley. Nature and life constantly change.
Allow your gaze now to drift across the gravel bar to the forested hills where old growth is mysteriously draped in a low-lying mist. The wispy shapes look surreal, as if you are truly in a dream. The diffuse light varies with temperature, time of day, and the wafting of air. It is hard to fix upon these forms that constantly morph and evaporate. In trying to focus on the shapes, you merge with the white phantoms, as if you also float and dissolve. The sensation is euphoric.
It is during such moments that I invoke Mist’s sacred feminine wisdom: “Teach me. Teach me.”
Mist is condensed vapor—fine water particles that are suspended in the atmosphere. Mist reminds us that we, too, are mostly water and space, not solid at all, but one with nature’s harmony.
Mist also teaches about nourishment. Deceivingly translucent, it carries loads of nutrients to the nature beings of this cloud forest—mammals, insects, fish, and plant species unbeknownst to lands beyond these. The misty white cloaks infuse abundant life into all.
In the similarly shrouded cloud forests of the high Andes, I hiked with Quechua shamans descended from ancient Incan peoples. There the highland trees display lavish orchids that feed on air steeped in moisture and organic matter.
Airborne plants also grow in the Amazon basin and here on the Olympic Peninsula in the world’s largest temperate rain forest. There are almost one hundred types of epiphytes—nonparasitic plants that grow on other (host) plants and feed off nutrients and moisture in the air—in the Hoh Rain Forest. Instead of orchids a primary northwest tree-hugger is moss. Moss hangs heavy with moisture on the tree limbs. Contrary to what most people think when they first see them, mosses aren’t parasitic. They don’t draw from the trees but from nutrient-dense vapors that drift inland from the nearby Pacific Ocean. The trees, in fact, root into the moss mats to absorb organic debris and water, enabling them to grow and thrive at heights not otherwise possible.
In the same way that rain and cloud forest plants draw moisture and bio-residues from Mist—and humans draw oxygen from air and essential substances from food—people can absorb good influences from subtle particles in the atmosphere. These are more energy than matter, less dense than oxygen. We receive nourishment not only from food but also from the sunlight, natural spring water, fresh air, and invisible subtle energies that are also essential to our health.
In his book, Spiritual Wisdom from the Altai Mountains (translated by Joanna Dobson), spiritual elder Nikolai Shodoev writes of such sublime phenomena that occur in the Asian Altai. “Often in the Altai Mountains you can see a light bluish haze (ynaar tyudyuzek) which seems to have formed as the result of the unification of different elements, including radiation from the sun, ’the breath of the earth and vegetation,’ moisture, and the movement of air currents. Such natural phenomena are very wholesome for the human body and soul and can impart a huge charge of energy.”*1
Shamanic traditions around the world espouse nature’s life-giving powers. The spiritual myths of diverse cultures even include beings who have lived only on essential forces transmitted via the air and sunlight for hundreds of years.
This diaphanous enrichment is the sacred feminine wisdom of Mist reminding us that, as with ancient shamanic and Altai traditions, we can enliven with sublime forces. Likewise, as Sandra reflects in her work with water, we can positively affect everything around us with our own near-invisible, radiant force.
Nature’s luminous energies are visible to some, such as those who see the bluish Altai light of ynaar tyudyuzek. Yet Mist teaches that there are many ways to perceive, and also converse, through nature’s subtle pathways.
In the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, I hear singing—captivating chants that roll up and down this glacial valley. Sometimes the melodies sound like many female voices, and at other times the harmonies sound like male voices. Sometimes the choruses are combined male and female voices. I don’t hear musical instruments or words, only entrancing tones and chants. Just as Mist nourishes all life in the Hoh Valley, this valley’s own rhythms feed my soul. Some who visit these lands also hear the singing.
We each have our own way of relating to nature’s mystery. It’s possible that some people will perceive the subtle influences (such as the Altai light) I hear. Alternately, one may taste or smell energy while another may sense it.
One morning when my forest guide, Mick Dodge, stepped into the barn attached to my cabin, he felt a tug of expectation. Mick instinctively turned to look at a fallen branch he’d hauled into the barn a few days before, intending to do some carving. Barren when he had first brought it in, the log had literally mushroomed overnight. The tug this man felt was the life glow of tender new mushrooms.
Indigenous wisdom ways help us revive such passionate interchanges with nature that are innate to all humans. Nikolai Shodoev implies that the survival of the human species depends on our ability to connect in these ways with the natural world.
“Biological energy is also the informational channel by which man can communicate with the animal and plant kingdoms,” Shodoev tells us. “Through this energy man can find common language with plants and animals learning to feel and understand them. This channel is more reliable for preserving a unity between man and nature than contemporary technological attempts to solve ecological problems.”*2
I have given up wondering whether the singing of these lands comes from the mountains or the trees, or the water, stones, wind, or other aspects of nature, or people, or spirits. I can’t see the answer. Nature is sentient but some things are known only by the heart and through experience. When I stop trying to figure it out, I simply hear the spirit, joy, and love of the Earth—the vibrant harmony of life. These voices move my soul and have a profound impact on my work. They are part of the natural mystery of life, of which we have much yet to discover.
Interestingly, indigenous teachings as well as Christian doctrines reference the singing of the land and trees. These lines from Isaiah in the Old Testament express it well:
“The whole earth rests, is quiet: they break forth into singing. Even the cypresses rejoice at thee, the cedars of Lebanon: ’Since thou hast gone to sleep, no one will come up to lay the axe upon us.’”
When drifting, floating high, Mist and I touch age-old treetops on the ridge above the river. A sentiment wafts from tree, through misty vapors, to me:
“This enchanted world of trees, land, nature beings—all unite in spirited harmony. When humans forget their place in this harmony, we nature beings are vulnerable to you, ever so sensitive, even to your thoughts and feelings.”
I live on a small strip of private land bordering state and national parklands. There are about fifteen cabins here, most times empty. Some owners are here only during hunting season and others show up for occasional weekends. The elk that visit my cabin, and the singing, stop when these folks arrive. The winter elk return after they leave. One time forty elk showed up on my land after everyone drove away. Elk-sense is uncanny. The singing also resumes.
To open the subtle pathways, empty out. Drop agendas. Let go of time. Walk barefoot, softly on the earth, and listen from the heart. Work, move, and play on the land and listen from the heart. Sleep and dream on the earth and listen from the heart. As with a human friend, offer your time and loving attention to our invisible kindred. Mist teaches such things and more.
My eighty-two-year-old father tells of sitting at the border of hidden marshlands in New England. In the spring he intently listens to the thriving, ecstatic life of the marsh. My dad fights the urge to walk into the marshlands to see all this amazing life, yet he cannot bear to impose a human footprint here; he instinctively knows his place in the spirited harmony of this ecosystem.
The deep feminine wisdom of Mist opens us to subtle enrichment and to delicate exchanges with nature. Mist rouses the mystic that lives within each of us.
Practice
Let us listen deeply to, and protect, our wild natural places and open to invisible kinships with nature. The insights above will help. We can also encourage nature’s vibrancy and open to her subtle communication anytime and anywhere. Below is a simple way to cultivate this.
If possible, take a barefoot walk in a natural environment where you live. If this isn’t possible, or if you live in a city, walk to a park. If you can’t go walking, sit in your backyard, gaze at an indoor plant, or take an imaginary stroll.
As you begin your walk (or experience), take a few deep breaths. Relax your mind with each exhale and with each step and movement.
Walk aimlessly; wander like a child. There is no goal but to explore and open your heart and senses to nature.
Move slowly, feeling each footstep upon the earth and the movement of your body. As a child might, sense what is around you as you move. What do you see? What do you smell?
Enjoy the experience.
When something catches your attention (tugs at you)—whether flower, tree, field, stone, sky, stream, or other—linger for a while. Take time to appreciate this nature being and to invite the subtle channels of communication to open between you.
Study this nature being’s physical details. Ask permission to touch and smell it, if this is appropriate. Speak aloud to this form; share from the heart. Or share in another way, such as by singing, gently moving, praying, or simply being in silence. Notice what feelings arise in you as you offer good energy to this nature being. What are the sensations in your body? What do you sense beyond words?
When you feel ready for the next step, prepare to listen deeply to this being. Close your eyes, if that feels right. Or move in ways that call you. Drop your expectations. Desire nothing from this being but to extend interest, appreciation, and a gentle presence. Listen with more than physical ears; open your whole heart and being. Relax and notice the subtleties of what you feel in your body. Do you feel warmth, or tingling, or another sensation?
Where in your body do you feel this, and how would you describe it?
What do you feel in your heart? What do you feel?
When you note these experiences, relax into their texture. Settle the mind, open the heart, and drop into body awareness.
Spend as much time as you like in deep listening. This simple practice will restore you and it extends good vibrations to nature. Feel what exchange occurs between you and the nature being. Notice any tangible signal back to you from nature, such as a waft of air, a bird’s trill, a shaft of sunlight, an insect’s hum, a leaf that gently falls from a tree, and so forth.
You may enjoy consciously breathing in the light, beauty, love, or whatever good forces you feel radiate from this nature being. Allow these qualities to infuse you. In turn, you can breathe out to the plant, tree, or other form your gratitude, radiance, harmony, or whatever good energy you feel. The more you open, the stronger the invisible pathways will be.
Take time. Stay in your heart and be aware of what you feel in your body. Breathe, be, and listen. In addition to how you feel, also notice any subtle messages that come.
Take your time.
When you feel complete with this exchange, express gratitude. Then say goodbye for now to the nature being.
On your return stroll, walk, move, and breathe with these vibrant qualities of nature. You can also set an intention for some of the good energy that radiates from you to extend to plants, stones, winds, waters, other aspects of nature, or people who may benefit from it.
The more you practice, the deeper will be your experience. Over time your exchange with the subtle aspects of nature will become a natural and powerful part of your life.