By consciously working with the power of spring at the vernal equinox, we set ourselves to the rhythm of nature. Being in tune with the cycles and spirits of nature helps keep us in a state of receptive flow. In that state it is easier to connect with our guides and helpers and the spirit in all things.

We need to work with the energy of renewal and cleansing on all levels. Physically this means cleansing the digestive and lymphatic systems. It can be as simple as a one day fast, and then a shifting out of our heavier winter diet from fats and starches like nuts and squash to fresh greens, herbs and berries. Nature has made it so that what is growing seasonally now is exactly what our bodies need to detox. Stinging nettles for tea and miners lettuce for salad are abundant now in Oregon. I like to use red root tincture or tea to help flush the lymph, and a daily massage with sesame oil to move lymph from extremities towards the heart for re-circulation.

Emotional cleansing can come up while we are physically cleansing. We may find ourselves grieving with unexpected depth for someone or something we have lost. Anger may also come up, especially if we are adding liver cleansing herbs like milk thistle and turmeric to our cleanse protocol. The energy of anger is stored in the liver.

Mental cleansing is necessary as well. Going on a news fast may be essential for our reset, and we may find we like it so much that we never go back to it, at least not to the same extent! I also reevaluate activities and people I have been spending time with and decide if they feel like an obligation or a partnership. Is the giving and receiving between us reciprocal?

Energetic spiritual cleansing can be done by journeying to our spirit helpers and asking them to help us see what needs to be released at this time. They may do a dismemberment for us. This sounds gruesome, but it really isn’t frightening. This is a universal type of journey that happens at least once to all spiritual seekers and journeyers. It can happen spontaneously in dreams as well as shamanic journey. Our spirit helpers will take our body apart by chewing or pecking off our flesh and scattering our bones. It can also be facilitated by an elemental like water or fire that dissolves the body. It can happen in a myriad of ways, but the end result is the same; we become free of our physical body for a time. We may look back and see our bones - and what was in us that no longer resonates with who we are becoming - dissolving into dust. We will feel an exquisite lightness as we rise, buoyant, and expand without limitation. We become conscious of ourselves as pure light. We may find ourselves expanded into infinite cosmic realms, aware, and a part of all that is. At the end of the journey we are always remade anew, stepping into our lighter, higher vibrational body. It’s like a spring clean for the soul.

As a kid I loved the spring clean feeling that came with the first mild spring days after the harsh New York winter. We opened all the windows in the house, letting the breezes sweep out stale energy. In line with the traditional spring cleaning of our homes, I clean my altars. I take all the dried flowers and herbs from last year’s ceremonies and offerings and give them back to the earth. In their place I put pussy-willows, daffodils, and camellia blossoms. I re-dedicate my altars to focus on what I want to grow in my life this season.

 I hope you’ll take a pause for a reset this season and see what ceremonies, rituals or self-care exercises come up for you. Feel free to share your methods of renewal in the community comments below.

Stinging nettles, Miner's lettuce, daffodils

Last month I felt the Reiki spirits stirring around me, as if they were putting me on notice. Around the same time I noticed that my Reiki was turning on in my hands when I was doing other spiritual or healing modalities like shamanic journeying and meditation. That was an interesting new experience!

So I wasn’t surprised when shortly after I noticed the stirring, I got a message from someone who wanted to learn Reiki from me. I told her that I would see if there were another person interested, because I needed at least 2 students to make a class.  Right away I found two other students and scheduled the class. It’s a rather unusual way to offer a class like this – on demand rather than pre-scheduled, but it works for me. And for the Reiki spirits as well apparently.

I was so excited to engage in the teaching of Reiki again, it had been awhile since I taught it. When I printed the student’s certificates, I saw the last time I taught Reiki was exactly one year ago. And it was almost exactly five years since I took Reiki 2 with Sensei Kelly Jackson, which changed my life forever. That was the experience that connected me with the true path of my heart and my life purpose. I have been thinking about this synchronous timing a lot the past few days.

I’m seeing this as a perfect illustration of the spiral of spiritual evolution. Our Higher Self and helping Spirits assist us with our work and growth. Their job is to expand our engagement and integration of key life lessons. Their message is “Yes, you’re revisiting this, and now you can take it to the next level.” I feel like this leveling-up was in noticing extra energy running through and around me before the class even came to be. And also in integrating a deeper connection to the attunement process during the class.

Before now, I had always experienced the spiral of evolution as one that brought only tough, often painful lessons. This happened a lot in energy healing workshops, as a core part of our learning is to look deeply at our own issues that are coming up to be healed. Many times I have said or heard a friend say “I thought I’d already dealt with this issue!” The teacher’s reply was always, “Yes, but life is a spiral, not a straight line. You’ve gone around the spiral to the same issue, but now you are ready to deal with it on a different level.”  We used to grumble then about never being done with our work!

But this recent experience has given me a new perspective on the spiral path of our soul-self evolution. It works the same way with issues we judge as positive, beautiful, and power-full as well as with ones we judge as negative or painful. Each one can have its challenges or opportunities, it depends on our perception. Each time we come around the spiral we have a chance to expand, energize and level up to a higher state of expression of our soul’s divine perfection. 

Like the spiral, our soul’s evolution may be an infinite path. Ever onward, ever upward.

Much of my life has revolved around nature and being outside. My dad was a botanist and naturalist and he and my mom took my brother and I hiking and camping a lot when we were growing up in upstate New York. I always felt at home outside, with my bare feet in the grass or dirt and the plant and stone beings all around. It’s been the same in my adult life too, hiking, gardening, just sitting under trees. It seems like I fell out of the habit the past year, as I was devoting more time to activities that had an indoors focus, like writing and other creative projects.

For this year I have made getting out into nature a priority. Going hand in hand with this is that I have entered a mentorship with nature spirits. My teacher is an elemental, and most of my learning has been taking place in non-ordinary reality during shamanic journeys and dreamtime. But he has told me that I also need to spend more time outside with the nature spirits to get used to seeing them as they appear in ordinary reality.

So now I am out as much as I can be, strolling around the neighborhood, and trail hiking once a week. Even though in my current apartment I don’t have a garden or a yard, I feel very fortunate that there are so many amazing trails and forests and woodlands nearby. And because it’s western Oregon, there are waterfalls and ocean only an hour away in any direction.

I like exploring new trails, hiking for a while, then going off the into a grove of trees and sitting to focus on meeting the deva of the area. I like to get a feel for the places I’m walking in, taking note of what I feel in my body and my energy field.  Much of the time I find the places feel good, light, sometimes magical as I can feel the nature spirits all around.

Last weekend I ended up on a section of trail in a managed part of the McDonald forest that felt uncomfortable. I didn’t notice it right away, but as I walked, I noticed a heaviness, and a vague sense of unease. I looped back towards the first section of trail that felt fine and light and spotted a dense grove where I could sit hidden from the trail. I sat on the edge of the large stump of what once was an old growth tree. It had rained earlier, and everything was freshly dripping, fragrant with damp cedar, fir and earth. A bird flitted by my head, unconcerned by my presence. I felt welcomed and closed my eyes. I reached out my consciousness in greeting to any deva or nature spirit of the area.

A large presence came in with the essence of evergreen. Boughs and needles formed a vague face that streamed from a green etheric mass of lifeforce energy. They communicated a request for help to my subconscious, which responded by forming a geometric figure in the shape a faceted blue diamond for it.

“Yes.”, they responded. “Three more.” The blue diamonds formed in my mind behind closed eyes and were gathered up by the forest deva in its essence. Then with a breeze of gratitude, they were gone.

It all happened very quickly and afterwards I tried not let my conscious mind analyze it too much. My shamanic mentor and dear friend, Cheri Melton, who works with devas, has told me about her experiences building energetic structures with devas. The devas then use these structures to return balance to the land. I knew these geometric figures were going to be used to build something to bring harmony the area. 

I was left feeling immense gratitude for the spirits for involving me in their world and their work. I will go back to that trail in a few weeks and see if there has been a shift in how the energy feels. Maybe I will meet the deva of the forest again and tell them how much I love their work.
 
*Note –The deva has no specific gender so am using the gender neutral pronoun “they” as I do not feel comfortable using the term “it” for one so vibrant and alive.