Mother Earth and Mother Nature, body and spirit, two parts of a whole, have their ways of communicating. They have their moods, their temperaments, their means by which to speak their wisdom. Listen carefully to what they say and take action to persevere and flourish even in the worst of times. For though Mother Earth shifts and changes she cares for all of her creatures and in consort with Mother Nature, her eternal spirit, she seeks new evolution within and without. It is time now for great change and advancement, she says. Know this and abide in her beauty and her fury, under her fine sun by day and her calm moon by night. Bask in her growth and her destruction, knowing that she has things under control. Be her earthly companions and treat her well. Be her spirit companions as well and find her spirit in you and she will support you all of your days. Matter and spirit, body and soul, are everywhere and in everything, within and without, even in your eternal Mothers.
Study nature, its unpredictability, its dependability, its beauty, its fury, how it is one way and then another, fine and fantastic then cruel and harsh. The human being is a creature of nature, living in nature, part of it all. Your survival depends on what nature provides. Even though you may feel far from what you consider nature it surrounds you with day and night, light and dark, wind and clouds, rain and snow. You can’t escape it.
Study it. Respect it. Be in awe of it, for it is both your kindest friend and your worst enemy. It can hurt and harm or soothe and delight. Make peace with its dichotomies, its fickleness and its abrupt changes, as well as its peaceful beauty. Get along with it by being kind and attentive to the earth, your true mother, who provides you with so much. Study her, get to know her intimately. It may be your only recourse in a rapidly changing world.
In trying times look to Mother Earth for guidance. Notice how her trees react to what comes, how they bend in strong winds and stand still in calm air, how her flowers show their brightness in the sunlight and how they close in the dark of night, how her creatures instinctively know what to do no matter what comes in a day’s unfolding or a night’s drama. There is no better guide than she whom you walk upon, who’s air you breathe, who’s water sustains you. She is your mother too, for she supports you and keeps you safe no matter what happens. Even in her wildest moments she remains intent that this day is important and worth giving her all to, and that includes you, for she is dedicated to all of her creatures, including her human beings. Though you may forget her, she remains your eternal mother and teacher. There is always something new to learn from Mother Earth, for she teaches always. Look to her on this day and all days and learn her secrets, knowing that she wishes only good for you.
[I will be going into retreat for the next few weeks, so this is my last blog until the week of July 18, 2016. Enjoy it. May it bring you some new things to consider as the world situation heats up. Do look for our daily Soulbytes on the channeling page, as they will continue to be posted even during our retreat. Until we meet again.]
Old Man River… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Dejectedly, Tom Harmer muses with his shaman teacher over the stilted fate of the Columbia River, riddled with white man’s dams. Tom’s mentor laughs at his hopeless mood.
“Well, you stuck then,” he says. “But not me. Maybe all you can see is what’s wrong. What bad things are happenin’ to the earth, to all of us. Maybe just stuck on that, what you don’t want to see happenin’, eh?”
“What’s the alternative?” Tom asks. “They seem to be the ones who have the power, like nothin’ can stop ’em from eating up the world!”
“The big river, that’s alive,” the old shaman says. “The river, that’s forever… Those dams, they not gonna last. The river is old, old as time, and will run free again someday… And so, that dam not make me bad in the heart, not make me feel hopeless. See, to hold the river in my heart, that dam not have any power over me.”
The question does arise, however, as to why all-powerful living Mother Earth, the feminine side of God, waits so long? Why so much pollution, destruction, and desecration before you act, Mother? Yes, the river will run free again one day but upon a vastly changed body. Those of us who really care are drawn to pity for you, for your victim body. We, like Tom Harmer, are drawn by powerlessness and hopelessness as the fires rage and the ices melt. How do we not see you as a defenseless victim, Mother? How do we stop blaming ourselves for allowing your demise?
Perhaps we do well to remember the Garden. Wasn’t it your incarnations, the snake and Eve, who instigated breaking away from your natural instinctive self? Wasn’t it your move that threw us into this desert of discontent, Mother? For the truth is that your move threw us into our mental body, freed us to tinker with your body, to bring to consciousness your secrets, all of which have led us to a Frankensteinian restructuring of your body.
The spiritualists contend that you intended to raise the vibration of your dark planet, Mother, that you invited in spirit beings to merge with your flesh and raise its consciousness to new heights. Don Juan Matus and his shamanic line see humans as those spirit beings, wings clipped, merged into the material human animal, the stuff of your substance.
Human identity confusion and the desecration of the Earth have escalated, reflecting the severe animal body/energy body split of the human race. Many humans have exercised their mental prowess and freedom to exploit the material world, and each other, for their own exaggerated human pleasure. This was an inevitable permutation of freedom. This is where we find ourselves now, at the highest level of exploitation, clearly a state too unbalanced for your body to bear, Mother.
On the other hand, those who have found their way to some form of recapitulation are gaining access to the fuller truths of who they are, energy/spirit beings temporarily inhabiting finite material bodies. This realization of our dual nature both frees the fuller potential of who we are, as well as elevates our human lives from mere inhabitants of your body, Mother. As spirit beings we cannot help but appreciate the energetic interconnectedness of all life. We cannot but move beyond greed to a governance of truth.
There is no doubt that this quantum leap of consciousness will reshape our relation to your body, as well as your body itself, Mother. We are in the midst of cataclysmic reshaping as we speak. All of our actions are the stuff of your pregnancy, of your transformation.
So, ultimately, it would seem, Mother, that you are the ultimate trickster, primed to evolve us forward. In true form of the total passivity and receptivity of yin, your magnetic draw of our spirited yang has resulted in the quantum leap we are all taking right now. It is a most chaotic birthing, yet we do well to not attach too much to the rapidly shifting psychotic underbelly of our time.
Like the old alchemist with his retort, you, Mother Earth, now contain in your womb all the charged elements needed to complete your transformation into your new golden world, Columbia River restored to its full grandeur!
We’ve waited so long,
Chuck
Excerpts from:What I’ve Always Known by Tom Harmer
