Speaking with Nature: Awakening to the Deep Wisdom of the Earth - Sandra Ingerman, Llyn Roberts 2015

Llyn
Snowy Owl

As I read Sandra’s opening lines to Snowy Owl, I can smell the crisp Arctic air and envision the barren (to our eyes) tundra terrain of this magnificent bird. I can feel, as if deeply in my bones, the silent flight of Owl.

I had two dreams about Snowy Owl before writing about this nature being. Following these dreams I mused with Owl so intently that I clearly imagined one flying through the forest near my home. I began to speak with this invisible bird that seemed so real to me.

The very next morning an Owl appeared outside my cabin in the Olympic Mountains of the Pacific Northwest. This was the first Owl I had seen since moving to this isolated glacial valley eight months earlier.

The great horned one flew soundlessly out of the woods and settled onto the moss-laden branch of an old-growth maple tree outside my barn. I stood with my bare feet on the earth looking up at the Owl. It was dark under the broad-leafed canopy, and blind as I am in one eye, I was frustrated not to be able to see details of the large bird’s body. Squinting didn’t help so I decided to sense instead of see it. As I tuned in to the Owl in this way, I had the most exquisite feeling. This feeling intensified when the bird’s head turned clear around on its neck to face me. I could not see its eyes but I felt them. Then, in a soundless flash, expansive wings spread from the tufted body as the bird lifted from the branch and took flight.

After this experience I traveled to an event and returned home to visitors and forgot about Owl. On my second morning back home, I awoke sensing the invisible bird I had mused with following my dreams. Within minutes my forest guide, Mick Dodge, came running into the cabin to say that an Owl was again in the tree. He had neither glimpsed one nor heard an Owl’s magical hoot while I was away.

The bird was gone by the time I arrived outside so I went for a walk. Moments down the path, Owl flew out of the forest and alighted on a branch close by me, and a shiver of excitement ran up my spine. The bird and I looked at one another. This time I could clearly see its tufted ears and striped body. My heart opened to this beautiful creature.

That afternoon Owl visited again, flying from tree to tree encircling my visiting colleagues, Marilyn Dexter and DiAnn Baxley, Mick Dodge, and me. We stood together watching the Owl in awe. Each of us spotted the bird for days thereafter and we were awakened by its nightly hoot.

During this time I asked the invisible now-turned-visible Owl, “Dear Owl, why all the dreams and visitations?”

Owl replied the obvious: “I want your attention, of course! I have important things to say!”

Owls of all species have long been symbols of wisdom and the ability to see in the dark. In this regard it is noteworthy that Snowy Owl’s yellow eyes are similar in size to a human’s eyes. In first spotting the Great Horned Owl, I had to let go of trying to see it with my physical eyes and, instead, soften my gaze and feel it with my heart. Only then did it come into focus.

Owl invites us to open to the feminine principle and seek beyond words, thoughts, and the linear ways of mind to deeper ways of knowing.

Sandra writes about internal radar. The knowing of the heart—the subtle sense, intuition, or whatever we like to call it—can prepare us for what lies ahead. It can also guide us when we’re under duress, such as when change arrives quickly without warning. At such times in my own life, I use a simple mantra that softens my panic and helps me to drop beneath confused thoughts to the creative place of inner knowing: “Relax the mind, touch the earth, and drop into the heart and body.”

It is common knowledge now that the human species is at a threshold. Overly rigid rational, linear, materially focused, patriarchal constructs are failing. As the world continues to change all around us, the whisperings of our hearts, the signs we see in daily life, the longings and gut knowing of the body—all related to the sacred feminine—offer guidance we need.

The birds I dreamed about and mused with became as real to me as those I encountered in the physical world. The dreams and the musing appeared to call out to the Owls living in the forest. Or perhaps the Owls of the Hoh Rain Forest called to me through the vehicle of my dreams and musing? Or both. Whichever the case, the coinciding of nocturnal and daytime dreaming with Owl sightings demonstrates what indigenous cosmology has been founded on for millennia—that all life is one connected web.

Feminine wisdom ways remind us to consciously engage the web of life by revering the Earth and by recognizing and honoring the signs that show up in our lives, which are reverberations from other aspects of the web.

In addition to tending to signs, some Amazonian tribes upon rising purge what’s left in their stomachs from the night before and share their dreams. The messages that appear in dreamtime guide them and shape their daily life dream.

Tending to signs in the environment and in life is second nature among many original and shamanic peoples. Far from the Amazon, in an equally exotic part of the world, indigenous peoples on the Asian steppe display astounding ability using their “moon ears” to decipher the meaning of sounds too faint for most of us to hear. They also read the subtle behaviors of animals as prophecy of what is to come.

Although it may seem the case, this level of enchanted engagement with the world isn’t reserved for far-flung lands. Magic is alive and well on our own lands, though largely ignored in modern life, just waiting for us to pierce through illusory veils that cause us to forget life’s wonder.

It’s time to rediscover wonderment through the eyes of the divine feminine, and the phenomenon of unexplained healings indicates this is happening.

It’s not uncommon these days to know of someone whose medical affliction has vanished in a single healing session. I’ve seen many miracles in my own practice of almost thirty years. Likewise, spontaneous recoveries account for an untold number of allopathic successes. These examples, and discoveries of quantum sciences, confirm what ancient worldviews convey: that our reality is not static, but mutable. The power is here and now.

Just as Great Horned Owls showed up in my backyard, Snowy Owl is showing up in our backyards here in the United States. As Sandra wrote, Snowy Owls migrated south en masse at the beginning of 2012. Thousands were spotted across the country. Despite their appetite for tundra lemmings, these dignified Arctic birds are now traveling vast distances from everything that’s familiar to hunt other small mammals in lower latitudes.

In our own lives many of us feel we are also reaching beyond everything we know, as we experience major changes in relationship, occupation, health, finances, or in other ways. The personal shifts we undergo seem to reverberate with the global changes we see happening all around us: economic, environmental, and social. Our individual and world terrains—reality as we know it—are being stretched, reshaped, and redefined. Owl’s message is that we can find our way through these changes by using our intuition, reading the signs, and cultivating a deep trust in the interconnected web of life.

Owl says, “You must feel your way through these times. Everything you need and seek you will find within yourself.”

Owl’s eloquent adaptation to change is helped by the fact that it is a comfortably nomadic creature much like our human ancestors, the original people.

There are nomads living in yurts on the Asian steppe today who can pack up everything they own in an hour and be on their way. Few of us can even imagine this. Rich and poor alike, we are steeped in possessions and obligations. Despite this, money and busy-ness have not made us happy because true wealth is found in how we relate to and care for each other and the Earth.

I witnessed a Mayan elder saying that corporations do not hold the power we in the modern world think they do; it is we who wield unshakable power when we align with the Earth. This man lived simply, with little money and few goods, and had been jailed and abused for his allegiance to traditional ways. Despite his troubles he felt happy and rich. The Earth filled this beautiful elder; they shared a bond that could not be shaken.

Similarly, in days of old Tibetan and other spiritual pilgrims lived austerely in caves and traveled by foot on the land. They owned and carried virtually nothing and even relied on patrons to feed them. However, their communion with the Earth brought them and their followers untold rewards from the natural world and mystical realms.

Disregard for nature and contemporary insulated lifestyles cut us off from this natural flow and intelligence of the Earth that barefoot cultures—who also dreamed while lying upon the earth—have known for centuries. Science now confirms that the thousands of sensory nerve receptors in the soles of our feet channel vibrational energy from the earth. Many people claim that opening these connections not only makes us happier, it can heal us. Test this out yourself by walking barefoot, or lying down, upon the earth. Try this when you’re feeling out of sorts, such as when you’ve spent too much time in a shopping mall or on the computer. Commit to thirty minutes of earth contact a day and see how you feel.

The Earth and our own earth-bodies are inseparable. There are spiritual paths that ignore the body and/or view our worldly and earthly human journey merely as a distraction from “higher” states.

In this earthly life there is no Snowy Owl without a nest (this bird is a ground nester), and there is no bird that soars vast distances without a strong body—physical mastery. It is much the same for human beings. We must care for our bodies and also revere our larger nest, the Earth.

Owl’s message is that we need to grow strong in our bodies, get sacred and active in our respect for the Earth, and also let her wisdom flow through and guide us. This inspires us to live more simply and with integrity, in accord with all that is shifting now on our planet.

The mass Great White sighting of 2012 that Sandra mentioned is a sign of this shifting. The unprecedented migration reflects changes in our environment, and as Sandra wrote, indigenous cultures have always seen Owls as predictive of weather changes. Native American lore cites the significance of the rare white animals being born during these times, such as white buffalo, but also all white animals. Their color—and unusual migration—tells us we are in the midst of great change.

Why white?

White is related to transcendence, a recurring theme in classical epics. For instance, in the J. R. R. Tolkien trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, a grizzly battle unfolds between a wizard, Gandalf the Grey, and a fire demon, the Balrog. Gandalf does finally overcome the fiery monster, and in the process Gandalf the Grey becomes Gandalf the White. He’s no longer the wizard he was. In fact, Gandalf ’s identity is so incinerated by the transformational fires that he barely remembers his name. His higher nature (represented by white) is the sole identity that remains.

We may not be wizards yet we all know what it’s like to be forged by life’s fire. And similarly to Gandalf’s experience, we cannot avoid the heat of change now playing out on the planetary stage. This infiltrates every aspect of the world we know. We can use the opportunity to purge mindsets and habits that keep us from living in more wholesome ways. We can retrieve our higher nature.

In an attempt to align with indigenous ways, many healing arts practitioners now use shamanism as a means of fighting bad spirits and warding off dark forces. Some healers smudge and guard incessantly to cast off bad energies. But this fear-based approach is very different from the attitude of powerful people I’ve worked with in remote parts of the world, where the focus is less on how to protect and more on empowerment and resilience.

Resonant with this the fictional Gandalf the Grey indulges the battle that burns away all but his luminous self. As Gandalf the White he stands radiant, emitting light that casts no shadow. His divine presence is so forceful that enemies naturally fall away.

This perspective is worth considering, as it helps us look at life less dualistically.

Spiritual elders from diverse traditions say we are at a precipice: We can choose to live in more fluid ways, aligned with the Earth and the mystery of life itself, or suffer the consequences. The rare birth of white animals and the unusual migration of Snowy Owls are but signs of a new era yet to fully manifest. The mundane world that we know has never been separate from the divine world we aspire to; now the illusory veils between them are growing thin.

In greeting the fires of change, we invite alchemy and magic. We open to wonderment and to feeling our way through powerful change. The inspired feminine expression calls to each of us.

Practice

The Great White, or Snowy Owl, invites us to get strong in our bodies and in our care for, and connection with, the Earth. Among its feminine teachings are to follow the signs, trust our inner wisdom and subtle senses, and remember the interconnected web of life.

In addition to what is outlined above, here is a simple practice to help us embrace these deep qualities.

Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down undisturbed. Being in nature is ideal but this can also be done anytime and anywhere.

Take several deep refreshing breaths and relax further with each exhale. Even if you are indoors, feel that you sink into the embrace of Mother Earth with each outbreath.

When you feel relaxed, imagine a meshing of luminous strands, a weaving of sparkling threads of light. Envision or feel this light-weave as clearly as you can. Or simply know this illuminated web is there.

The light web is crafted of pure life force. It links all sentient forms, suffusing and connecting everything material and physical. Life-affirming actions, thoughts, and feelings strengthen our ability to remember this light webbing. At such times we may even sense, see, or feel it. Yet, when we are in a state of separation and fear, we tend to forget this light web. Ultimately the luminous mesh of life force is independent of what we think or do; it is unconditionally always there, never separate from us.

Take time to imagine and feel the light that weaves this living luminous webbing. Drop into your heart and body and make this experience as real as you can. Reach out with your fingertips or palms and feel as if you can gently touch a luminous strand, or several threads of light.

What are the sensations?

Sense that the web reverberates with your touch. As it does the light brightens and glows.

Stay with your experience of this webbing. Again, make it as real as you can. How would you describe the texture or shape? What do you feel?

People often describe the touch of this light fabric as a warm tingling feeling or like the buoyancy you feel in moving your hands and fingers through air or water.

What do you notice?

What do you feel as you gently move your hands through the pulsing web of pure light?

Divine light interconnects and suffuses all life. We are part of this web-work even when we feel angry, lost, or fearful. Our state of mind and emotions do not affect this web-work, yet our state of being can affect whether we will remember and feel our unity with the light. Luminosity is all around and within us, all the time. We just need to open to and remember it.

Feel the loving intention and the indestructible quality of this light—the source from which all life arises and to which all life returns. Bask in power. Feel the goodness.

Take all the time you like.

When you feel complete, take some time to make a gentle transition back to ordinary time and space. As you come fully back, make a silent commitment to remember that this life-web is always with you. Feel it move with you when you walk. Sense it when you go to sleep at night. Know this force is never separate from you, even when you forget about it. Just know this.

And remember to ask the light to help you feel its presence more; invite it to be a conscious part of your everyday life. Open to participating and co-creating with this intelligent and loving force.