It’s been a couple of weeks since my shamanic retreat and I’m feeling good.  This particular retreat was a foundation course, teaching how to journey and how to connect with our dreams.

Support

The retreat took place in an amazingly supportive atmosphere.  Despite not knowing anyone before the course started, it felt like we’d all connected deeply by its end.  I felt so comfortable for those few days.  There were no pretences, no masks, no worrying, and it got me thinking: why was I more comfortable there than (for example), a recent night out at a bar with friends? 

The environment definitely had something to do with it.  The retreat centre was set in the beauty of the rolling Welsh hills and had a wonderful, welcoming ethos.  The delivery of the course was incredibly nurturing, supportive and inclusive.  The attendees played their part as well.  Everyone arrived open and eager to learn and created a supportive environment for each other, and this is where the sledge -hammer of realisation dropped for me.  I was chatting to another participant about how I thought people might think I was a bit weird for coming on the course when in fact they didn’t, and I realised:  I was the one being judgmental!  I tend to judge myself more than others, but by doing so I am judging them: I’m making assumptions that they will judge me, when in truth I’m the one judging myself and projecting that onto them.  This was a powerful realisation and one that’s had me doing my morning ceremony in the garden each morning without fear of what the kids might think, the truth is they’re probably not even thinking about me anyway (unless they’re hungry). Now all I have to do is apply this self-acceptance to my next big night out.

Connection

The course showed us not only how to connect with ourselves, but also how to re-connect ourselves to nature, recognising that we are as much a part of nature as it is of us.  Nature wasn’t spoken about as something separate or inanimate, but as something alive and imbued with spirit, from the plants and animals to the rocks and rivers. 

I went on a cave tour with my son this week.  Our tour guide was a captivating storyteller who used his words and gestures to paint a picture of how limestone rock is made of fossils squeezed and compressed by the ocean over millions of years; the rock had been alive once, who’s to say it isn’t still in the spiritual sense?  Do you ever find yourself talking to trees when you’re out for a walk? Maybe the plants in the garden?  How about the stars? We all talk to our animals, is it so different to talk to other aspects of nature? 

Key to me about this way of thinking for our current times, is that if we recognise the earth as alive and feel our connection to it, it will naturally follow that we change the way we live, and that can only be a good thing for the planet. Whether you believe in man-made climate change or not, the havoc our species is wreaking on eco-systems cannot be denied. But if we re-connected to nature, that copse of trees wouldn’t be standing in the way of a new bypass, they would be ancient residents of the local area that we wouldn’t dream of uprooting.

We took part in a morning ceremony on the retreat which involved connecting to the earth each day, and I’m finding this practice incredibly valuable.  I’ve easily found time to do it each morning because it’s filled a hole I didn’t realise was there.  I spend time in nature walking the dog, I watch the world go by from my window and write rhymes about the creatures I see, but this intentional greeting of the world helps to elevate that connection and set the tone of my day.   If I took nothing else from this retreat, that gift would be enough.

“Meaning emerges from engagement with the world, not from abstract contemplation of it”

Dr Iain McGilchrist

But I’ve taken plenty more: a deeper connection to myself, those in the circle, and the earth, and plenty of new practices and ideas to explore.  The work involved took us firmly into the right side of our brains as we explored these connections, reminding me of this quote from Albert Einstein:

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.  We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

As retreats and courses like this increase in popularity and more people rediscover these kinds of connection, it’s exciting to imagine the kind of world that we could be on the cusp of creating. I’m reminded of what the robin found in a verse of one of my poems:

“The red breasted robin was brazen in her people watching ways

Studying them with fascination, sometimes watching one for days

She traversed the world by magnetism and was awed by what she found:

Peace in all nations, healed relations, respect for being that knew no bounds.

A world healed by love and reverence, connection burning bright at its core

A people who trusted the Earth and each other need never ask for more.”

I have a long way to go, we all do (baby-steps) but take some time and imagine the possibilities of a world where it’s commonplace for people to recognise the consciousness that’s present in all things in the natural world, including us.

“You don’t ‘have’ a life, you ‘are’ life. The One Life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy.”

Eckhart Tolle

What ways do you connect to nature?  What are your thoughts on consciousness?

---

That was a deep one for my first post in a couple of weeks! I’ve been missing writing.  It’s taken a back seat while I engage in all these wonderful retreats and courses, but I’ll soon be off on my writing retreat where there’ll be plenty of time to make up for it.  But I’m not going just yet, there’s still time for another Sunday rhyme , hope to catch you then.