Tag: spirituality

Being Autumn

Autumn is a time for the cyclical reflection. Once again we have the opportunity to go inward. Just as sap draws down into the trees, our energy draws inward. How can we work with Unee at this time? It is a great time for connecting deeply, for feeling, for sensing and for trusting our intuition.

What needs our attention spiritually that we have ignored? Where have we ignored our intuition hoping things would be different than they really are? Where has our perception not lived up to reality?

Unee asks us to be autumn. To settle, to draw inward, to intuit – not think – about our lives. As the trees let go of the leaves, let go of your thoughts and let your intuition rumble and subtlety beckon you. Where is she leading?

Quiet, quiet listen to the leaves as they fall, not clingy, not striving, just letting go and drifting down to the ground. Next spring these old thoughts will have been fertilized in the ground of Unee and will resurface new and nourished.

Living aware of our karma

Living in neutral joy rather than striving is a more balanced way to live. Living aware of the karma we are creating at any moment and seeking to mitigate the effects of the energy we put out is simply responsible.

Are we causing drama? Anger, fear, anxiety, stress for someone? Are we just walking away rather than trying to prove we are right or to be confrontational? Do we consciously or unconsciously enjoy stirring things up? Wallow in depression? Watch with delight as someone runs around trying to meet our demands?

Or do we live life more conscious of our karma, being gentle with ourselves and others? Do we avoid things that feed the darker sides of ourselves or are we still getting off on them? Crime TV, horror movies, even cable news are all spewing energy that attacks and drains us rather than nurture and sustains us.

What choices are you making?

Living aware of our karma

Acorn meditation

I meditated with an acorn today. I have been carrying it around in my pocket for about week. After a few moments she started pulsating. Just lightly, as if telling me she is alive. I know she is, she is bursting with quiet unrealized life, while at the same time full of ancient wisdom.

We can learn a lot from acorns, they’re unassuming, small, easily broken. But if they are left alone to align with nature, they will and we all know what happens when an acorn bursts forth! A mighty oak is created, the strongest of trees with the deepest spiritual knowing.

Isn’t that what Unee is telling us? align with nature, get in sync and let our mighty oak within burst forth!

Down the Rabbit Hole

It has been awhile, I have been off exploring and searching again. I guess for me searching never ends. The good news is the path seems right and true, nature based spirituality being in tune with nature is the only truth.

Unee reveals herself to us everyday if we get out of the way. As mother energy in the Universe she is always present. Getting in rhythm with her is the way to connect with the greater Universe and to be in sync. We all know what happens when we are out of sync – we don’t feel well, we are anxious – we just know something is off.

Unee, the mother of the Universe can be trusted, she has no agenda, she doesn’t care if you follow her or not, she just is. She is the basis of being. Energy flows everywhere, can not be created or destroyed, Unee is the keeper of that energy all goes back to her.

We will function best when aligned with nature, when we are truly sensitive to all living beings around us. We need to learn to read the energy around us so we know what is impacting us at any given moment. For example, any cable news channel is spewing negative energy, it should all be avoided, we don’t want to pick up any negativity.

Most mainstream religions have been highjacked by negative entities. They have become judgmental, based on manmade rules , based on someone else’s ego and agenda and are basically unhealthy. Even nature based religions, Druidism, Witchcraft, “old religions” are twisted into something human made with rules you must follow.

Unee wants us to meditate with her trees, in her forests, by her streams. She wants us to be in sync with the cycles of the moon and live by her tides. Respect nature, recognize energetic changes, avoid ego traps – yours and others – and maybe a spirituality will emerge that is pure.

Like attracts like? Our sacred responsibility?

Does the universe seek to fulfill conditions we think about? So rather than creating our reality are we creating conditions to attract what will become our reality? Subtly different, but different none-the-less. In the Universe nothing can be hidden, no one person’s thoughts or actions are more of less important than another’s. We are all made of the Earth and the Earth and the Universe – Unee – responds to each of us the same. So how is the outcome different? Perhaps we create the magnet that like attracts like. We put out negative doom and gloom thoughts and we attract those conditions to fulfill the conditions we were thinking. We put out positive uplifting thoughts and perhaps the magnetic action we have created brings positive conditions back to us.

The power of intentional thought – once called prayer – was well documented in the 1980’s when focused intention was placed on a desired outcome. Collectively people focused on the same outcome could attract the conditions for that outcome to occur. We are not talking beggar’s prayers that rely on an omnipresent figure to grant or not grant the request, we are talking about creating the conditions to attract what is the desired outcome.

Has this power to create the conditions we wish to experience been dormant? Were the ancients, the indigenous peoples more connected to this current in the Universe, connected to Unee than we? I think perhaps so. I think we have learned to give away our power to unseen Gods we couldn’t function with out, to priests claiming only they had the power, to anyone, but ourselves. Likely conditioned into us, but we were also willing participants. We wanted someone else to perform for us maybe so we weren’t responsible for the outcome.

But we do have the latent power to create the conditions we want to be our future. We need to remember and to be intentional using our intuition and our thoughts and accepting that we have a sacred responsibility. We individually and collectively create the conditions that become our reality. It becomes so very important that we learn to discipline our thoughts, feed our minds carefully and be always conscious that like attracts like and our thoughts are magnets for our future.

Turn off the news, think the world you want to see let that be your new current event.

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Church of the Earth Top 10 “not”commandments

Commandments were written at a time when social mores were defined more by religious authorities than civil authorities. The 10 commandments addressed societal concerns in a legitimate attempt to protect and preserve certain social conditions that were causing harm in the society. Ok, that is laudable. So are they still relevant today?

I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt not have strange Gods before me – here one has to assume a “God” is necessary. Written at a time thunder and lightening and other climate related events were thought to have been caused by a God angered by human behavior one could understand why making sure everyone sang hail to the chief could be understood. Now we just check our weather apps.

Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain – again, stood to reason if you thought crops failed or there was a drought because God was mad at people, you may want to show him ample respect.

Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day – Still paying homage to the big guy here and making sure he is happy. Similar to how one might treat a Roman Emperor or Egyptian Pharaoh, King on England even – and we know what happened if they weren’t given their due.

Honour thy father and thy mother – common sense unless your parents are awful people. Does this really have a spiritual application though? Is this imperative to one’s spiritual growth? Only perhaps from a Karmic perspective, if we are the one’s that are awful people we may be building an account of bad karma.

Thou shalt not kill – it’s against the civil law so just not a great idea

Thou shalt not commit adultery – just generally not nice, makes for bad karma, but no real spiritual application

Thou shalt not steal – again, against the civil law and not a great idea, who wants to get arrested

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour – can also land you in jail especially if you lie in court. Why would you do this?

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife – especially if the neighbor’s wife doesn’t want to be coveted, I think this one is past its prime

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods a materialistic society is based on coveting thy neighbor’s goods, doesn’t make one happy to have more toys, but generally not terribly spiritual in application.

The 10 Spiritual Recommendations of The Church of the Earth

  1. Meditate daily
  2. Sit with trees, learn their attributes, take them to your meditation
  3. Sit with plants, share energy with them, study the effects on you and your plant
  4. Learn the characteristics of certain animals, adopt some of them to overcome your shortcomings
  5. Be conscious of the elements Air, Fire, Water and Earth begin to understand how you can work with them and incorporate them into your daily practice
  6. Seek like minded friends, share spiritual practices
  7. Do not create a hierarchical structure in a group, form a community that shares it’s gifts
  8. Spend your days trying not to create karma
  9. Abortion is a woman’s decision, it is her body growing a new being, do not interfere
  10. Stay out of politics in your spiritual life, poltics and spirituality do not mix
Photo by Luis del Ru00edo on Pexels.com

We don’t need a deity, do we?

Haven’t we moved past the “my God is better than your God” phase? Maybe not, but maybe we should. I think we all agree there is a life energy of some sort out there that defines living versus not living. Most deity based religions state that God is in us and around us, so life energy would be somewhat universal. I think we get into trouble when we try to identify too strongly with and become too attached to “our” deity. Maybe if we genericize the deity and just agree that there is a life energy it is a place to start.

You can have a “personal relationship” with this energy, how could you not if it is in you and around you? It would treat everyone the same or else you would have to curry favor with it, not very deity like. And what of worship? again, life energy is in us and around us so kinda seems it is there whether we “worship” it or not. Maybe we are worshipping for our benefit? So that would seem to be able to come off the list.

Does the deity bless certain people and not others? I think some people think so, but again I would think a deity would treat all equally otherwise we are attributing human characteristics to a deity. If the deity treats all equally then how or what we do when approaching the deity i.e. worship them, is irrelevant. The deity acts for all.

Deity seems a human construct to help personalize non personal interaction with life energy. Religion would seem to be a man made construct to satisfy the attributes man has given to a non-human deity. Religion drives conflict and it is a manmade construct.

Spirituality with out a deity is so much more. Spirituality is alignment with the flow of energy from a life energy that we all exist as a part of and can not be separated from. We are a part of nature so to align with nature is to align with the flow of the universe and the life force energy of the universe.

Prove me wrong.

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Meditating with Plants

I started a new practice just because the idea presented itself. i was sitting in my office studio and had just watered my plants. I was looking at them and the thought occurred to me to pick up 2 vines from my pathos plant and meditate with them. Maybe the plant called me, I don’t know. So I sat with one vine in each hand started thinking about giving and receiving energy. I sat with the plant and dropped deeper into meditation.

10 or 15 minutes later I started to notice myself palpably feeling calmer. I felt like energy was gently flowing back and forth between us. I relaxed and just enjoyed feeling connected.

The next day sitting in the music room I was feeling anxious. I was tired from not getting enough sleep and have been a bit tense and on edge from work and from being at home for almost 4 weeks with our Great Dane who is recovering from knee surgery. I seldomly allow myself the luxury of a daytime nap, I am too much of an action driven person. But I reclined on the divan and noticed my big peace plant next to me. Again, maybe it was calling me. I decided to gently hold its leaf and meditate with it. It hasn’t been doing well, it is large and pretty old for a plant at 15 years old. I am not sure how long plants live? I have been wondering if it is nearing the end of its life span. So I gently sat with it and sent it healing thoughts and absorbed what it was sending me. I do think it is not well, I did pick up what felt like mini pin pricks or light electricity zaps. I told it it was an old friend and I would sit with it. Again I felt a sudden relaxation that was different than when I normally meditate, it was a release.

I think we can enhance a nature based spirituality by incorporating plants, trees and other aspects of nature consciously into our daily practice.

I am curious to see if I notice any visible difference in the health of my plants by sharing energy with them.

Trees in Daily Practice

I have just started a new practice to help me connect more closely with nature and the resources available to us. Trees have been an important part of Druid and other Pagan practices, but there is not a lot of documentation on how they were used. Generally different types of trees were used to make wands and other magical tools. Groves of trees, especially oak, were often the site of rituals and other services.

I believe we can share energy with certain trees to help us with challenges we are facing in our lives. James Redfield’s Celestine Prophecy is a good book to reference on sharing energy with plants and trees. Certain trees are associated with unique properties that can be incorporated into our practice. Respectfully touching, sitting and leaning against or standing by certain trees can support us in ways unique to the individual species of tree.

Here are some characteristics that can be accessed in communion and meditation with individual tress:

Apple: To increase abundance and prosperity

Birch: Helps heal our deepest wounds

Catalpa: Used to enhance creativity and embrace uniqueness

Cedar: Helps break spells, provide clarity and focus

Cherry: For increasing love and sweetness

Elm: Believed to enhance psychic abilities and to help to achieve justice

Maple: For enhancing balance and learning to go with the flow

Oak: For strength, courage and deep roots or enhancing groundedness

Olive: For divine healing

Pine: Releasing guilt, healing

Sycamore: Sharing energy may enhance love, fertility and protection

Walnut: For health and healing

Willow: Helps us learn to bend and not break, to be flexible

Sit with a tree, hug a tree, breathe with a tree and think of their individual qualities. I find they enhance my sense of well being and I gain a greater appreciation for nature.