Nancy Lankston
‘’Turn down the noise. Reduce the speed. Be like the somnolent bears or those other animals that slow down and almost die in the cold season.
Let it be the way it is.
The magic is there in its power.”
~Henry Mitchell
Photo: Lair of the Bear
by Nancy Lankston
One tree can start a forest,
One bird can herald spring,
One smile can begin a friendship,
One hand can lift a soul,
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal,
One sunbeam can light a room,
One candle can wipe out darkness,
One laugh can conquer gloom,
One hope can raise our spirits,
One touch can show you care,
One voice can wake up everybody,
One life can make the difference.
Be that one.
-Author Unknown
Image: Old Ponderosa by Nancy L
She finds herself in a place that makes no sense. The people around her do things, mean things, thoughtless things all the time. Why did they act this way? Where is the Love? She knew in her heart that Love was key – the juice of the Universe. But she couldn’t find much love here. Just confusion and fear and pain.
Spirit Bear 🐻 came to her and comforted her in this crazy place. Bear stayed with her for years, protecting and comforting her whenever things in this crazy place got too painful and confusing. But gradually, over time she got sucked into the confusion around her. She made the mistake of thinking that the adults around her knew what they were doing and she started trying to do what they did, act how they acted. Bear was still there close, but she simply lost touch somehow. 🐻 Bear slowly faded from view.
After years in this place, she acted like she belonged. She was still so confused but she pretended that she knew what to do. She forgot about Bear. And she forgot about the power of Love. She became caught up in vying for power and status and money.
But one day she looked around and saw how empty her life was. The power and the status and the money didn’t fix anything or make this place any less horrible, any less confusing. What was the point of all this?
She began searching for “the point”. First at church, then in meditation and spiritual books and healing modalities. 🐻 Spirit Bear drew closer then, but she didn’t really notice. She was too busy searching for “the point.”
One day in the midst of meditation, a beautiful, ethereal light being 🌟 came to her and showered her with love, so much love. She was left shaken and wide awake. Oh yes! Love was the point! She remembered now. She connected with this beautiful star being ⭐ many times and felt better. She began to write ✏, filling journals with thoughts and feelings about her life and all her questions about this crazy world. But sadly over time, she got distracted and pulled back into the chaos and craziness of the world again. She stopped writing. She stopped connecting with her star being. She forgot.
This remembering and forgetting happened again and again to her through years of living in this crazy place.
Then the dreams came. She dreamt of another life as a Native American woman who lost her love and wandered grieving until she was healed by Mama Earth 🌎. In this other life, Mama Earth taught her to open up and love again.
She dreamt of this other life again and again. She LIVED an entire other life in her dreams!
The dreams shook her to her core. And they loosened the grip the crazy world had over her. She wanted to know more about this dream woman and her life. She learned how to explore dreamspace so she could explore this other life, this other reality. And her Spirit Bear soon showed up there in dreamspace.
She wept when she saw 🐻 Bear again. She held on and melted into Bear’s fierce softness. She began consciously calling Bear to her every day. And she began taking her troubles and questions into dreamspace. There she found answers – specific answers that fit for her. She began to slowly unravel her confusion and get glimpses of “the point”, her point.
She began to 🖌 paint and dance 💃 just for the joy of it. And the more she did those things, the more she felt like herself – her real self. She began to sing 🎶, first humming then joyfully making up little melodies that she sang to herself. She remembered how much she had loved painting and dancing and singing when she first came to this place. She remembered. And she began to love again.
And one day while she was happily playing with paint, her star being ⭐ returned showering her with love – Big Love that cleared away even more confusion. And she could remember who she was and what mattered when she first came to this crazy place. She remembered her point. ❤
Image: Goldi Goddess by Nancy L
I attended a writer’s workshop near Seattle last week. I camped in a little tent in the middle of a beautiful forest. I was camping alone, but I didn’t feel lonely. The frogs of the nearby pond serenaded me nightly. I would lie each night in my tent beneath two huge old spruce trees and revel in their chorus. Here’s what I learned about frogs…
Frog timing is impeccable. Each night, one or two tiny frogs begin the frog chant and then another 2 or 3 will join in echoing the melody of the first perfectly. Then a third group joins, echoing the same melody. They join their voices and build a master symphony piece by piece, until their ultimate harmony rises and falls, undulating and echoing off the pond. Each masterpiece only lasts for one moment, maybe two. And then silence. Each serenade abruptly stops as if a maestro has cut the air with his baton to signal cease! Yet there is no maestro conductor on this pond. Only a few tiny green frogs magically harmonizing together.
At times, the nightly frog serenade would get so loud that I would literally have trouble thinking. But I was actually ok with that. Witnessing their creation up close was my compensation. It was fascinating to me that each frog sang out his piece of the symphony so loud and proud. I sensed zero hesitation and not an ounce of shame. One night as I listened to the symphony, I wondered to myself what I might learn from these little frogs. There had to be a reason my tent was positioned on the front row at this frog concert. It was too serendipitous to be an accident.
On my third night in the front row at frog symphony hall, I finally received the lesson frog was offering. I realized that I had been lying in my tent each night, debating with myself about how much of my story to write. I had been debating how much of me it was safe to share with the world. Meanwhile just outside, a tiny little frog sat on the muddy bank of a tiny little pond and bellowed out his song. He bellowed out his offering to the Gods with joy and gusto, night after night with little hesitation, Frog refused to be silent. He just belted out his creations for all the world to hear.
Frog didn’t waste time worrying about who was listening. He didn’t worry about what his audience would think of his song. He just sang his song night after night. He sang it with gusto. Maybe, just maybe I was lying there in a tent next to frog’s pond to receive a lesson in the art of expressing myself with joyful abandon?
Joyful abandon… I love the sound of that. Juicy green joyful abandon! I could definitely use more of that in my life. 🙂
—
A·ban·don əˈbandən/
noun – complete lack of inhibition or restraint
“love the world as your self
then you can care for all things”
~Lao Tzu
There is an earthy Celtic tradition that I enjoy very much. This tradition is simple, healing and fun. It involves speaking or singing your love and appreciation directly to the trees and flowers, birds and animals that you encounter in nature.
For example, I might go out into my backyard and whisper to the pine trees and tell them just how lovely their green branches are today. Or I might smile at the lavender bush and praise its scent. I might stop as I’m walking the dog, and thank the sky for the amazing cloud shapes floating by. If I’m feeling especially exuberant today, I could even go so far as to sing my gratitude to the trees and flowers and sky. Or create a little poem about their beauty and effect on me.
This ancient Celtic practice gives me a simple way to honor and acknowledge my relationship with nature. Our human lives are interwoven with the natural world in a multitude of ways. But I often forget just how important nature is to my life. This gratitude practice helps me to remember.
“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet
and the winds long to play with your hair.”
~Khalil Gibran
Below I share yet another way to shift into a naturally grateful state:
Take a walk in a beautiful natural space. As you walk, just notice what is beautiful around you. Whenever you notice a beautiful object, silently say thank you to it; thank each beautiful tree and flower and blade of grass for existing and brightening up your life.
Can you come up with 10 things to be grateful for? 25? 50? Make your list silently. And then notice what happens to your mood when you practice gratitude.
∞
“So, the world is fine. We don’t have to save the world—the world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about, is whether or not the world we live in, will be capable of sustaining us in it.”
~Douglas Adams
I hiked into Sanitas Valley last weekend. It was so gorgeous that I decided to stop and sit on the east ridge for awhile. I found a big rock high on the ridge and sat surrounded by scraggly pine trees clinging to the rocks. And I could feel layer after layer of tension melt away as I sat in the afternoon sun.
As the sun dropped lower, I walked across the valley and sat under a huge old ponderosa pine on the west side of the valley. I closed my eyes and listened to the wind blowing through the grass; I felt so grateful to be in this beautiful place. The wind danced around me. Wind seemed thrilled to have one person listening and a little bit aware, if only a little.
I sat and day-dreamed about everything this valley has witnessed; dinosaurs roamed here billions of years ago when it was a swamp on the edge of an inland sea. Later the Arapaho tribe hunted and camped in the shelter of this valley. And now every weekend, thousands of people roam here in tennis shoes and hiking boots and flip flops. Many of the trails are eroding away from too much foot traffic. We risk destroying the valley we all love.
Personally I don’t believe that Mama Earth is in any real jeopardy, she will be just fine. Even though we pollute, misuse and mistreat Earth, she has proven powerful enough to shift and accommodate every change humans throw at her.
Our Earth will continue to flow and teem with life, despite our inept treatment of her. It is people who risk annihilation; it is people who need to be reminded how to live in nature’s flow. We act as if we believe we can rule over Mama Earth and bend her nature to our will, but history has proven that idea to be folly again and again. We mistreat Earth at our own peril.
We’re not killing our Earth. We’re killing ourselves.
