Living in Lines vs. Living in Circles

By Dana O’Driscoll

Nature is a perfect system. A tree falls during a thunderstorm. Within several weeks, the wood is colonized by fungi, bugs, and others who begin the years-long process of breaking down the wood and returning all of the nutrients into the web of life. Soon, oyster mushrooms are erupting from the log, bugs burrow in deep, and mice make their home under the old roots. In 10 or 15 years, moss grows thick, and an acorn takes root and begins to grow in the soil that was a stump. The tree’s trunk becomes a nursery tree for many other plants to get a foothold, off of the forest floor. Suddenly where there was death, there is life. This circle continues and continues, connecting us all in a great web of life. There is no waste in this system–every single part of nature can be recycled and reused infinitely.

Serviceberry is part of this beautiful ecosystem!

One of the challenges humans have in this age is that they have built systems that have disregarded the cycle of life, which includes both creating things that do not easily return to nature and removing ourselves entirely from this system. Rather than think in a circle or cycle, we think in a line. This embedded linear thinking currently pervades modern Western human society. The Story of Stuff short film series does a great job of visually describing these problems: many human systems are based on the foundation of greed, quick profit, and short-term linear thinking. What often happens when someone takes up nature spirituality is that their patterns of shifting slowly change from lines to circles. This happens with people connecting to many different nature-connected communities: including nature spirituality, gardening, rewilding, bushcraft, natural building, or permaculture practice. As soon as you start being part of nature, living with nature, and connecting to nature, you are aware of the cycle. The longer you take up these practices, the more profound this cyclical thinking becomes.

Solace Stones: Retreating into Stone Spirit Medicine ~ Krista Mitchell

There is a solstice occurring tomorrow, Saturday Dec. 21st.

In the northern hemisphere at dawn this will herald the rebirth of the sun and the return of the light.

In the southern hemisphere at sunset there will be a gala of light meant to raise us to ascendency.

Both are rites of passage and devotion that were once held sacred by the wise ones of old.

They would gather or retreat within stone circle and dolmen. They would purify and pray. And then they would prepare to commune with their higher powers, receive the Earth’s song, and heal from the geomagnetic energy that poured through the stones themselves.

While in our modern times this no longer occurs, the stones still stand, and they remember.

I can feel within our own community here an increased desire for fellowship, communion, and to have a genuine experience of the sacred. This is understandable in a world that feels increasingly unsafe, uncertain, disconnected, and cruel.

But it’s also something in our blood: I firmly believe that all of us here walking the spiritual path now have walked it before, in lives past, and we remember the circles and rites of old.

We remember the stones, too.

It’s why we feel a pull to crystal and stone, water and trees, the sun and stars, and each other.

Crystals for deep listening: Nuummite, Moonstone, Labradorite, Amethyst

When I feel lost I know now to retreat into Spirit. I take hold of a crystal that sings to me, close my eyes, and listen for its voice. I drop down deep within, and I listen for my soul’s voice, too.The collective crystalline consciousness that I channel teaches us that Spirit finds us in silence. That all we need to do to reconnect with the Sacred is to simply go quiet, let ourselves have some peace, and listen.Tomorrow there will be plenty of circles (you can join the replay of mine, here), and ritual ideas and tips, but for some of you it may be the simple act of finding your own inner sacred that will bring you the greatest healing, or peace, or revelation.Spirit and consciousness is in all things, which means it’s in you, too.If you can tomorrow, or any time leading up to the end of the year, see if you can carve out some time for quiet for yourself. To sit simply with a crystal, and listen. To let the Earth’s song rise up through and around you, and remember your magic. Wishing you all the best of the season. ~ Krista Mitchell

Druid Tree Workings: Exercises for Deepening Tree Relationships

The Druid's Garden

A wonderful tree to get to know!

Trees are wonderful and amazing beings, true teachers, friends, and wonderful introductory guides to nature’s mysteries. Sometimes though, we don’t realize what a powerful impact different trees have had on our lives. As one step towards cultivating a deep relationship with trees, this week I offer a series of exercises that can help you explore your memories of trees and see what existing connections you may already have.

These exercises and meditations can help you develop relationships with trees or deepen relationships that you’ve already started. You can do them either as meditations or as freewriting activities. Discursive meditation or journey work would be appropriate if you wanted to use these as meditation tools. In a discursive meditation, you might meditate on the question or theme given (in each exercise) and work through your thoughts. In a journey meditation, you would use the…

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A Spring Equinox Meditation: The Mysteries of the Dandelion and the Three Currents

The Druid's Garden

Fields of dandelion

One of the hallmarks of spring is the blooming of the vibrant and colorful dandelion. Emerging as soon as the coldest of the temperatures ease, the blooming of the dandelions affirm that the long, dark winter is indeed over and summer is just around the corner. In today’s post, and in honor of the Spring Equinox and the incredible dandelion, I offer a spring tonic and meditative journey to celebrate the Spring Equinox and learn more about the mysteries of the dandelion. This is one of my monthly AODA-themed posts, so I hope you enjoy it and have a blessed spring equinox!

About the Dandelion

The blooming of the dandelions is a special time of year. For us here in Western PA, dandelions bloom just as the final frosts are easing, and are a sign that we can start planting some of our more tending crops in…

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Songs of the Soul’s Awakening

Meditation

Herbal Meditations and Magic for Thriving in a Neo-Colonial World

Ancestral Apothecary

Guest student post by Avani Mody

Sunrise:

There is an incomparable beauty to sunrise. The time of the gods, as it is described in Ayurvedic traditions. As a child my father told me, walk barefoot on the earth and take in the green grass at sunrise, to strengthen my eyes. The combination of a luscious green and morning sunlight, calmed my eyes and mind. During my recent, formal herbal education, this advice remains in my psyche. The colors, beauty and feel of the plants, indeed calm my mind, and strengthen my vision — my ability to see in multiple dimensions. Plant meditations are one of the ways I like to spend time with plants and imbue myself with their serenity.

Neo-Colonial Herbalism:

Learning herbal medicine that is rooted in traditional cultures, resilience and a holistic worldview is complex and profound. In our contemporary society, and perhaps especially here in the…

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Walking Meditation Garden with Hugelkultur Beds

By Druid’s Garden

The Druid's Garden

As a practitioner of permaculture and as a druid, I am always looking for ways to work with the land to create sacred and ecologically healthy spaces. That is, to create self-sustaining ecosystems that produce a varitey of yields: create habitat, offer nectar and pollen, systems that retain water and nutrients, offer medicine and food, create beauty and magic. But conventional gardens, even sheet mulched gardens, can falter in water scarce conditions. So building gardens long-term for resiliency and with a variety of climate challenges in mind is key. At the same time, I am also looking to create sacred gardens, that is, not just places to grow food (which is simple enough) but to develop sacred relationships and deepen my connection with the living earth. Given all of this, I developed a design for a butterfly-shaped garden that would use hugelkultur raised beds and allow for a space…

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A Druid’s Meditation Primer

The Druid's Garden

In this time as the light is coming back into the world, the time surrounding Imbolc, I find myself often going deeply inward for healing and strength and turning towards meditation as a guide for spiritual balance. This deep winter period is, of course, coming on the heels of the frenzied holiday season where many of us get burned out by the amount of hustle and bustle. Further, many of the demands of modern living, particularly for those working wage-earning jobs, require us to move faster, be always “connected” and present with new technology, and have an increasingly fast stream of information pouring in and out of our heads. This can lead to long-term drain on the spirit. In this quiet time of the year, amidst the snows and frozen earth, various meditation techniques allow for rest, centering, and rejuvenation.

The quiet that nature provides…

Meditation offers us…

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MORAG: “The Mysteries, Myths, And Magic Of Meditation”

What is meditation?

Meditation is prayer, before the kabal took the heart from it. Meditation is sacred ritual before it became outlawed as wiccan and wicked. Meditation is being one with nature before we were plugged in to the 3D matrix. Meditation is being still, at peace, present and connected.

We meditate when we walk in nature. We meditate when we color in. We meditate when we dance, free and connected to the music. We meditate when we quieten our ego and hear our soul. We already do it. If you step off the grid, step into your bubble of present you are tuning your cellular frequency to the universal frequency of peace, love and abundance.

When we hug a loved one we are raising our vibrations to the love wavelength. When we laugh we are releasing denser energy, lightening our energetic load. When we make love we are embracing the universal flow of love. When we smell our child’s hair we are fully present, mindful and grateful. The emotion, the vibration of gratitude, like love, can connect us to the higher dimensions, by its very nature it is present, graceful and humble.

When we sit down, comfortable though preferably with the chakras open, lying down is good for some people, we choose to connect, to meditate. Using our breath we can raise the vibrations of our cellular system in turn raising the energetic frequency of our whole being. This enables us to tune in, like a tuning fork, to different wavelengths of energy.

The matrix manipulates us into breathing in a very shallow way, barely into our throat. When people experience panic and anxiety they are told to breathe into a paper bag. This is because it slows our breathing down, helping us to reach a calmer place. This inner equilibrium is the space we start from to meditate. Using long deep breaths we can calm our system down and raise our frequency.

As our ego (you know…that annoying voice that goes on and on in your head) faces this calm stillness it can freak out. This lessens the more you meditate as the ego is programmed to fear anything it doesn’t know so familiarity calms it. The ego also fears this stillness as it is trained by the matrix to be ‘doing’ and not meditating. We are to obey, conform, work, rest and play. Not connect to the universal love vibrations of the multi verse. Reassure your ego, give it a hug, tell it to quieten down and have a rest, everything is easy.

The ego will continue to pop thoughts of doom and gloom, fear, insecurities, anxieties and stresses into your mind, breathe these out. As you inhale draw in love, peace, calm and positivity as you exhale release pain. Say in your head ‘I breathe in love I release tension and doubt’. Do this for as long as you want or need or have time for.

This is meditation. Reaching a state where your ego is quiet, your body is connected and your mind is open. Where you go from there is entirely up to you. Deep relaxation, chakra balancing, guided healing visualizations, higher self and guide meetings… the multiverse is your oyster.

You can ask your guides for love and protection, for healing and guidance for you and your loved ones. You can send healing heart led love energy to people and places. You can anchor your light to the Gaia grid. You can float on a cloud in a rainbow chakra shower.

Meditation is one of the keys to awakening, transition, alignment and eventually ascension. If you are a lightworker, starseed, indigo or Rainbow it’s a way of phoning home. It’s a way of detoxing from the system, of expanding your heart and your mind, releasing stuck karma and growing as a spiritual being. A key to evolutionary growth, wisdom and enlightenment and in a practical sense a brilliant way to manage stress, anxiety and tension. Meditation is the Jedi tool to awakening the force within you. Embrace it, harness it and own it, making it apart of you. Can I get an Ommmm up in here! Ommmmmmm!

Namaste _/\_.

Source: MORAG: “The Mysteries, Myths, And Magic Of Meditation”