EARTH ROOTS – Living An Embodied Life

a-1-1(Written1/21/2018 and Revised 5/8/2020)

Written more than 2 years ago now this piece surfaced as I was looking through my writings.  Though the current pandemic has changed some of this dynamic I observed then, the time is now ripe to NOT go back to this mindless rootlessness that so many live in their daily lives.

After a week away house-sitting for my oldest son in Sacramento I arrived back in my home sanctuary overlooking Wolf Creek in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.  I sat next to the creek where the water coursed down rocks to reflect on what I had experienced in the middle of the city in my time away. My reflections then….

There I found the sidewalks and streets most often paved over burying any connection with the surface of the earth.  Noise and lack of kindness abounding in the disconnection to what gives us life.

Though trees lined the streets, yards contained flowers and other plant life, and a few parks were sprinkled here and there (often with paved pathways), most often I observed city people staying to the man-made surfaces and transportation with cell phones in their hands, technology all around, rubber soled shoes blocking the earth energies and noise everywhere.

Watching life versus living life.

Disconnection to the earth, to others, and actually to themselves.  A disembodiment so profoundly present that the energy was wildly chaotic – over stimulation blasting nervous systems.

Sadly, my strong sense was that many have gone numb to even sensing this change in their bodies and minds.

Yet, we are interdependent with the very elements that create and sustain us.  The elements that we cannot live without. The elements we have taken for granted.  The elements that have been relegated to other.

I understand more clearly now why there is a revival of creating city and roof top gardens and making parks more available to every day use and recreation.  A hunger for connection to something vibrantly alive, real – not virtual – energetically sustaining.

Beauty unfolding in front of us and within us.

Perhaps it was just me – a nature girl in the deepest parts of my being – but I am willing to bet those leading city based lives who don’t take time out to walk barefoot on the earth, wrap their arms around a tree, see shapes and colors come and go in the sky and clouds, place their nose close to flowers and herbs, talk to the animals and insects and generally touch home base on a daily basis are losing a significant part of being human.

I am speaking of Earth Roots here.  When we lose our roots – our deep innate connection to the skin of this planet –  we lose ourselves, it is just that simple.

Roots burrowing into the earth, activating deeper potential – beyond the normal, beyond the habits.  An energetic and heart awareness of something holding and grounding each one of us into our lives.

To a creative lifetime purpose we have come in with.

A purpose of being that has been lost somewhere amidst the scattered attention on meaningless distractions and transitory “things”.  Leading to deep inner sorrow, a sense of being “lost”, un-grounded, and dosed with habitual mediocrity.

Do we trust when we are off course?  How do we even know if we don’t have roots to ground us in our daily lives.  To give us someplace to come home to.  To navigate from like a GPS that is forever there for us without the technology.

Can we find our way “home” by our senses?

That natural way of being that hears the trees breathe, takes note of the wisdom the creek teaches as it flows over the obstacles in it’s path, completely enraptured with the exquisite softness of moss, in a state of awe and wonder watching the miracle of a bee next to the hummingbird, soothed by the song of a bird nearby, aware of earth energy that pours from the soles into the soul.

Collapsing down onto the Earth in praise that we, as humans, have been given these roots to wake up!

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Copyright by Gaye Abbott 5/8/20, Natural Passages Consulting

GAYE ABBOTT lives and thrives in Northern California in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains where she communes with hummingbirds, flowers, plants and wild things.  Communing with nature is her favored activity along with ecstatic dance, Wisdom Healing Qigong at sunrise and sunset, volunteering in her community, laughing out loud and enjoying her family and friends with great appreciation and gratitude!

 

 

Content Within One’s Own Nature

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“There is no greater calamity for a nation, or for an individual than not finding contentment with one’s own sufficiency.

There is no greater mistake for a nation, or for an individual, than to be covetous. 

Hence, when one is content within one’s own nature, one will always have enough.”

Lao Tzu – The Tao Teh Ching, #46

Were you aware that picking too many flowers in the Spring from a fruit bearing tree will yield little fruit in the Fall?

Though common sense for most this is a metaphor for the senseless use and waste of our natural resources out of a deep discontent and unconscious egocentric gratification that permeates humans on this planet.

Take and use only what is yours – what you truly need –  only what fills you with joy.

Gift the rest and appreciate it’s beauty from the flow of generosity.

When we gaze out into the world – outside of our own inner dialog, filters and standards – do we clearly see and embrace the blessings that contribute to what our life is now and always becoming?

Or do we gaze out from the contracted space of depletion and “not enoughness” always taking action from a scarcity consciousness that never, ever allows the sacred into our heart.

The Swedish proverb, “Enough is as good as a feast.”, reflects on contentment – whether as an individual or a nation – as pivotal to halt, reverse and shift consumerism, unconscious and short sighted use of our planets resources, and the ugliness of racial, ethnic and religious fanaticism leading to tensions, hatred and violence.

Finding contentment within one’s own sufficiency or “enoughness” is powerful. It is an inside job and a community intention.

The striving for more is replaced with compassion in action taken on behalf of the well being of all life – enough.

What a different world we would love in…..

….if we simply lived our life as enough.

 

Copyright Gaye Abbott, 9/19/19

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Other Blogs by Gaye Abbott:

WildlyFreeWoman

LifeAtWolfCreek

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THANKSGIVING ADDRESS

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Posted 9/2/18 on LifeAtWolfCreek.com,

We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep.  Their life is in their movement, the inhale and exhale of our shared breath.  Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put into the Universe will always come back. “

~Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

In the Haudenosaunee native peoples Thanksgiving Address there rests a constant reminder that we already have everything we need.  It recognizes the abundance that constantly surrounds us rather than scarcity – and is a pledge of interdependence and of gratitude for all that is given to us in every single moment, day, year…..lifetime.

What if we started our day with a Thanksgiving Address not only recognizing, but pledging to and being deeply grateful for, the constancy and blessing of earth, water, wind, animals, moon, sun, plants, trees, berries, fish, medicine herbs, birds….all life.

The first two paragraphs of this particular Thanksgiving Address are as follows, spoken aloud every morning at a school for Native children:

“Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us we see that the cycles of life continue.  We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living beings.  So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People.  Now our minds are one.”

 We are thankful to our Mother the Earth, for she gives us everything that we need for life.  She supports our feet as we walk about upon her.  It gives us joy that she still continues to care for us, just as she has from the beginning of time.  To our Mother we send thanksgiving, love and respect.  Now our minds are one. “

 …and it continues on.

Robin says “What would it be like to be raised on gratitude, to speak to the natural world as a member of the democracy of species, to raise a pledge of interdependence?  No declarations of political loyalty are required, just a response to a repeated question: Can we agree to be grateful for all that is given?”

Isn’t it time for this pledge of gratitude to be a constant refrain of humans at this pivotal and challenging time we live in?  How would it change the fabric of our days, the communities and countries we live in and the lives of the generations to follow us?

As I write this on my deck I drink in the animacy of the natural world embraced by the energy of all living beings. Lavender and healing plants communing with the brilliant pink, purple, red and orange of blossoms on their neighbors.  Touched by the gentle sound of bees and hummingbirds who land to nourish their aliveness only to gift it elsewhere.

At times the sound of footsteps below the deck which could be the mama deer and fawn I have spotted recently or the wild turkeys that waddle their way down to the creek as a community – or the sound of the many birds that gather in this neck of the woods and that I awaken to each morning at sunrise.

The tree beings who are communing through their intimate community network above and below the earth.  Each one with it’s individual characteristics.  Whispering so softly that I have to drop into a deeper state of being to catch their messages – sustaining and protecting each other and at the same time gifting us with rich oxygen.

The creek below that is certainly not shy in voicing passage through the beds of rock, silt, plant life and tiny microscopic beings that dance within the sunlight reflected off of the flowing surface.

How can we live in a mindset of scarcity and separation when nature informs us every single moment that it is a false premise to live by….and one at odds with the survival of all living beings.

How can we forget that we live in an animate universe that is filled with energy enough for everyone, is interconnected –  and with every act or word spoken from a place of separateness and not enoughness disconnects us from the very essence of all life breathing.

I invite you to create your own Thanksgiving Address to be spoken aloud before moving into each day, to share it with others and to live by it’s pledge every day of your life by your actions and words.

I know I will…..

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Copyright by Gaye Abbott, Natural Passages Consulting, 9/2/18

Life At Wolf Creek

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ABOUT THE NEW BLOG Life At Wolf Creek:

Life At Wolf Creek provides a space of sanctuary and peaceful reflection.  A stopping place to refresh and renew.  To remember what is vitally important in our lives and what is to be cherished in pure devotion.

This is where I thrive.  Where I feel most at home.  For this environment is the very soil of my being.  Each breath amidst the family of trees below me and the flow of Wolf Creek in front of me brings me home.  Home to all that I am.  Home to all that everything is.

We have forgotten our origins.  Our beginnings. Feeling the earth energy course up through our bodies we are reminded.

It is this essence that brings us health, well being and reminds us of the complex interconnection that sustains and connects all life.

http://LifeAtWolfCreek.com

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