Nature Spirits are trying to get our attention, trying to get us to connect with them. They want us to hear their messages, to realize that they exist in the subtle realms around us. Nature Spirits are a broad term that I use for beings that include Elementals, Devas, and Hidden Folk like dryads, fauns, faeries, sprites, elves, leprechauns, and many other beings that most of us don’t usually see, but are part of our world nonetheless. Since they share the world with us, they are trying to help us become conscious so we quit destroying so much of it. And then we can work together to create harmony and balance in it.

Some of these beings become emissaries. These are majestic, special, larger than life, and something we can relate to on an emotional level. Sometimes they become iconic, showing up on postcards, gift shop art prints, in films, on television and social media. They work their way into our collective consciousness in images of famous waterfalls, rivers, mountains, trees. They are part of our personal consciousness as the “make believe” friends we had in childhood, and in the gardens and backyards that we cultivate as adults.

I was fortunate to meet an emissary on a recent stay in Astoria, a port town on the northern coast of Oregon. We had done the touristy things on previous visits, going to the historic forts, and the Astoria Column. Now we just wanted a walk in the forest. We found a trail to the Cathedral Tree, a 300-year-old Sitka Spruce in a forest on the hills above the town.  The trail is well maintained by the city and climbs up through hemlock, Douglas fir, cedar, and spruce.  Another trail splits off it that leads to the Astoria Column about half mile away.  There was a family ahead of us, so we waited on a bench nearby as they took pictures of their Corgi pups in the hollow of the tree.

Everything about this tree is majestic. Its base has a hollow big enough to climb through. Its roots create a textured floor in the ground all around it. The solid, deep presence of its roots firm in the earth and its soaring height caused my energy body to feel the same way. As I sat there looking up at it, I felt the tree reach out to me. A gentle but sure voice arose in my head and said, “I am the original Astoria Column.”
I opened all my senses to the tree. Its energy is that of a guardian; not as a warrior, but as a teacher instead. It continued.

“I have opened myself to be a bridge between the spirits of nature and humans. Even to those who don’t consider nature as spirits being alive. When humans come and stand on my roots or duck inside the hollow of my trunk, they receive a subtle shifting. They give their permission to it by coming to visit me. It is a better take home than any postcard. They might not realize it, but in the exchange of energy between us, there is an exchange of love, recognition of connection, unity.

“Yes, I volunteered for this. I have seen, heard, and felt so many changes during my lifetime planted here. The cries of the native people as they slipped away, the silence of the fish as they have diminished, the static and strange smells in the air. But humans still come to visit me, and their hearts connect with me. And so I have hope that I will continue to stand here and witness more and more humans recognizing that they are all part of the web of all that is and that what they do, say, and think has an impact. When this is realized we will step into a new co-creative relationship. For that, I will stand here another 300 years. But let’s hope it doesn’t take that long. Thank you for coming. Thank you for hearing. Thank you for relaying my message.”

Nature spirits have interesting ways of reaching out to us. A couple days before our hike, we went to Astoria’s Fort George Brewery and Public House for dinner and sampled a few brews. One of the beers we had that we really liked was called Cathedral Tree. We had no idea what that even was then, but it planted a subliminal seed. This Sitka Spruce has a savvy spirit marketing team. 

The Astoria Column

This summer I unexpectedly and divinely deepened my relationship with flowers.  The virus lockdown slowed the pace of life and I had a few months to just be more present and observant. Working at home on screens all day opened a need for daily walks around the neighborhood where I noticed that there seemed to be so many more flowers this year.  There were more types I had never seen before, and the volume of blooms was spectacular. I felt them getting my attention, waving in the breeze, flashing their colors, dropping petals at my feet. I found their uncommon beauty in the wild; tiny calypso orchids beneath the firs, and delicate “pussy ear” mariposa lilies at the meadow’s edge. Then I had friends giving me unusual flower starts; red nasturtiums and watermelon poppies. I was surrounded by their colorful beauty, and I was paying close attention.

At the same time I was meeting so many flowers, I was reading co-creative gardening books by Machaelle Small Wright. She works with the Devas and nature spirits to co-create her garden in Virginia, which she calls Perelandra. She makes flower essences from the flowers in her garden and has been using flower essences for healing and balancing for many years.

I realized that the flowers were saying to me that now is the time for me to make flower essences.  I have wanted to try making my own flower essences for many years, but never got around to it. Apparently the time was not right until now.

Flower essences are not totally new to me, I have used them on and off for the past 15 years or so.  I was introduced to Bach’s Rescue Remedy first. We used to take in and socialize feral kittens and find them homes. I put a few drops of the remedy in their water and rubbed some on their ears to help their anxiety as they adjusted. Impressed, I also used Bach’s remedies for myself and family (if you have an adolescent in the house, I highly recommend checking out Bach’s remedies for teens - and for yourself as well!).

The amazing thing about flower essences is their subtlety. They are a form of energy medicine. Similar to a homeopathic remedy, the energy of the flower is imprinted into pure water, and then highly diluted. I knew how they were made, but I didn’t exactly know how they worked. Then I had a journey.

In a recent shamanic journey circle, we were doing a Lower World journey to an animal who had a message for us. I found myself in a meadow full of flowers. I lay down in the grass and watched the flowers swaying in the breeze. Honeybees and bumblebees gathered around me on the flowers and they began to speak about their relationship with the flowers.

They said in addition to the pollen, they receive the energetic song of the flower. The song is like its frequency. Each flower has their own song. The bees can hear it, and they hear which flowers are singing at the frequency that is resonant with them for what they need right now.  This frequency of the flower is what is imprinted in the water when making flower essences.

They took me to a thistle to have me hear what its song sounded like. I couldn’t really hear a sound, it was more of a feeling or sensing of that frequency. Then when we went to a lily next, I felt the song was different, but I couldn't say how. I remarked that I didn’t seem to be very good at hearing the flower songs. They told me that it would take some practice for me because I was not a bee. They said they would help me.  They said that learning to tune in to the frequencies would help me to know when flowers wanted to make essences with me. Then as I was ready to make them, I needed to ask the flower to infuse its frequency into the water.

They reminded me to thank the flowers too, so I would have a harmonious relationship with them, and they would want to keep working with me in partnership.

I have much gratitude for my balcony plants and my friend Francie’s backyard garden. We made some beautiful flower essences to work with and share. The joy I felt making the essences helped me know that I was tuned in to the songs of the flowers.

There is an unflinching light that is being focused on the massive inequality and injustice in our world. It is illuminating the deep shadow work we are all doing as a collective. The shadow of racism is very old and runs through all our ancestral lineages.  We are steeped in it, have been steeped in it for centuries. But this light holds us all in in its embrace and is making us accountable to end the culture of killing, fear, hate and irreverence.

We stand in the light of our soul. But we look at the shadow.

We look at those times in our lives where we witnessed racism and intolerance and kept quiet. It is so prevalent in our society; chances are good we have also participated in racism and prejudice. We also see and accept that we may have unconscious bias.

Our most sacred work is to recognize the shadow within ourselves and own all parts of it. To become whole. To continue our journey into consciousness. We must also look for the gifts in owning our racism. That may make us feel uneasy. How can there be any gifts in it?

There is a gift in seeing that we cannot arbitrarily judge people as good or bad because its not so cut and dried. Not so black and white. And by recognizing that a generally kind person can get caught up in the collective social ills. And as we see just how pervasive it is as a collective shadow, our eyes open and we become conscious of any privilege we have due to the color of our skin. And due to our economic level. And where we live.

This shadow work activates compassion. We can’t help feeling compassion when we see suffering. Compassion for families and communities who fear they may never recover from the grief and PTSD because the murders keep happening again and again. And compassion for the murderers who were programmed by centuries of prejudice and the repression of the reverence for all life.

We become ever more conscious of racism around us. And we get to decide how we participate in the healing of it. If we feel called to take action to bring about the healing, then it is a spiritual act and we don’t need to worry about whether we are perpetuating duality or failing a Divine neutrality ascension test. We open our hearts to sacred activism.

Inner actions we could take:

Clearing ancestral wounds that may reside in us that were hundreds of years in the making.  Using shamanic journey, meditation, or journaling, we ask to be shown the seeds of racism in our lineage.  They may show as contracts, vows, imprinted belief systems, past life karma, or other issues. We then call on our team of helping spirits and healed ancestors to energetically tend to the issue. They will help us clear the contracts or unravel the imprints of old belief systems. This healing will travel throughout our lineage and will affect our ancestors as well as our descendants.

For most of us, our soul has had many other incarnations, being both the oppressed and the oppressor. A deep healing shamanic journey is to ask our team of guides to show us if there are any parts of our soul essence that got split off and lost from any past life trauma that needs to be returned to us now. If there are, they may facilitate their return right then or guide us to seek out a practitioner for help.

Another powerful journey is to ask our guides if we have inadvertently taken any soul essences from another. If they show us that we still have custody of any soul essences that are not ours, we ask our guides to return them to where they came from. Then we can seal the work with a ceremony symbolizing the returning.

We do forgiveness work for those we may have hurt, knowingly or unknowingly, with our words and actions. We can include forgiving ourselves as well. We can do this by using recapitulation, prayer, ceremony, or other methods our team of helping spirits may suggest.

Outer actions we could take:

If the color of our skin gives us privilege, we use it to be an ally.

We take to the street and stand in solidarity in vigils and protests for every person who is not in a place of safety because of their color, creed, or economic level.

We support businesses owned by blacks, indigenous, and people of color; and donate to social justice causes.

We call out intolerance and injustice when we see it.

We have courageous conversations explaining why we are focused on Black Lives Matter with people who contend that All Lives Matter.

We are decent and kind to one another no matter what the circumstances.

We have reverence for all life.

Social reform is part of the human consciousness crisis. It will not happen by itself. We need to do the work to make it happen.  These are just a few ideas of what we can do for ourselves, each other, and humankind. Even if we only do one small thing it effects the entire collective. Never doubt our power to make a positive shift in the world.