Sensing the Subtle Energy of Nature

As we continue our practice of being heart centered humans, we naturally expand our perceptions of awareness. When we are in our second attention* and using our felt sense, we realize that we are receiving so much information on subtle levels. If we are paying attention we can begin to sense the rich layers of the subtle energies and beings that share our world. These are the nature spirits and elementals that inhabit the plants, trees, winds, water and stones. We can also sense the devas, which are the overlighting spirits of places, beings and ideas, among other things.

How we receive the information depends on how much we are paying attention. It also depends on how well we have come to know our own body's energy so we can separate what is ours from what is not.  If we are walking through a forest and we feel a sadness come over us, can we tell who it belongs to? Is it ours because we were thinking about someone we miss? Was it from the person we just passed on the trail? Or is it coming from the forest itself? 

If we can stay in neutrality and keep paying attention, we might get more information. We might pass out of the area of sadness to one of lightness, and we may not know the cause of the change, but we know the forest feels and looks different to our senses. And other times the cause might be quite obvious as we ascend the next hill and see the land below razed by logging. The forest is mourning the loss of their trees from a clear cut, the plants, trees and animals still in shock from the unnatural and unilateral destruction of their homes. Then of course we become sad as well, sharing in the mourning of the loss. 

And then it is up to us as intuitives, light workers and representatives of the human race to communicate and interact with the nature spirits. After all, it is one of the reasons we are consciously in our second attention. We want to work from this level of evolving intuition. 

So we may walk to the edge of the clear cut or just inside it. We let ourselves feel what we feel so it can be released. We can say prayers for the loss of life, for the beings who lost their homes. We can ask the overlighting deva of the area to come and help any beings who are still in shock or lost to find their way home, and to help heal the area. We might leave an offering of some sacred herbs or tobacco, we might offer a song. And we can bless. We bless by honoring what was lost, and loving what remains. 

Many times we go in and out of our second attention, flitting from our felt sense into mental chatter. When we are not paying attention, the spirits may use other means to give us messages. 

This fall I was exploring an area in the hills around us with my brother, and we were walking down a non-public trail I found that I had not been on before. A friend and I had done some tending in the area with the deva of the place and with the nature spirits a month before and I was checking in on how things felt. Overall they felt lighter, more balanced and connected. We came across a huge circle of mushrooms, the biggest I’d ever seen, maybe 15-20 feet in diameter. To me it felt like that was a sign that the nature spirits were thriving. 

The trail led on under old oaks and through lush long grass, and I started down it, chatting with my brother about something else. Then I started having a burning sensation on the bottoms of my feet. It was very odd. I stopped. I amplified my felt sense and took in the subtle vibrations around me, and got the direct message that the nature spirits didn’t want us going any farther that day. We turned around and started walking back the way we came and immediately the burning sensation in my feet went away.

I thanked the spirits for giving me the message that way, grateful to be paying attention so they didn’t have to give me something bigger to get my attention like a falling tree branch or a hole to step in for a sprained ankle!

The more we let Spirit know we are open to receiving messages, the more they will give us. It is up to us if we pay attention to them or not. 

*second attention is when our feeling and intuition primarily inform our awareness rather than our mental judgment