Working with Nature

Have you ever had one of those moments where you throw your hands up in despair because nothing is working? Your brain is so addled that you can’t even remember what to do next.

That just happened to me. I had been amassing information for a protracted court case, which, when the day finally arrived, I was sure would turn out my way. Ha! The universe had other plans. Though things didn’t turn out as badly as they might have, I still was quite shocked at the end of the day.

I was in despair, my body quite numb, what shaman’s would call a "dark night of the soul." My brain was so out of tune with my body that I couldn’t even think to conjure up any of my shamanic tricks to make myself feel better.

Feeling hopeless about my plight, and engaging in a pity party of massive proportions, I decided to do something, anything, that would change the energy and dynamics of what I was feeling.

When I feel despondent, I always go sit on Mother Earth. This certainly felt much more serious, so I took my mesa , my medicine bundle, out with me and decided I would do a healing body mandala.

After calling in the directions and creating sacred space, I created a form of mandala large enough to hold my body. In creating the mandala, I used elements from nature such as twigs, stones, flowers, whatever I could find on the ground.

Inside the mandala I lay out some of my medicine kuyas (stones that have been initiated in the Inka path) with my powerful mountain stones where my head would lie, and the earth stones at my feet. I placed river stones on my right side and fire stones on my left.

I stepped into the mandala and lay down. Almost immediately I could feel the energy shift. Though my eyes were closed, I could sense that animals were nearby. I peeked open one eye, and right above, less than eight feet away and about eight feet up in the air, was a beautiful Cooper’s Hawk, just hovering right above me, creating an ever-so-soft breeze with the fluttering of his wings. Nothing about his being there frightened me. On the contrary, there was a strong sense of his watching me, willing me to make energetic shifts in my luminous body.

I closed my eyes again and felt a fierce need to lay on my stomach. Turning over, hands splayed out in front of me, I lay on the Mother, feeling her cool earth sending waves of energy through my body. With no sense of time nor space, I lay there, feeling the hawk’s protection, and Mother Earth’s cleansing. The tears I was shedding felt as though they were going down into the Mother, and coming back up as replenishing water to cleanse my despondent spirit.

I must have been out there quite some time, because it began to feel quite cold, and as I opened my eyes I realized it was getting very dark. I sat up, did a quick chakra check, and spent a few minutes saying prayers of gratitude to Mother Nature who had so lovingly looked after me.

Contact with Mother Nature is something we’ve lost in our society. It’s not just that we don’t go out into nature, or know about it, we do not ENGAGE with it, we don’t listen to the messages and lessons being given to us every day.

I learned an important lesson that day. In my own way, I had become complacent and neglectful of the wisdom I had been given from the universe. It took a crisis to remind me to go seek the one source that would heal me. And working with Mother Earth and nature always creates a shift and a healing.

That is the Art of Shamanism!