In my last blog I spoke of the importance of using the hunter-gather way of ecstatic trance to communicate with the spirits of the Earth and with our ancestors for healing the Earth from Global Climate Change. When one learns from a spirit guide, whether a bear or coyote, a snake or frog, and eagle or humming bird, or even a bee or cricket, we realize that each has something of importance to teach us, and we begin to discover that we no longer can consider ourselves better that any of these other creatures. With this discovery we have begun to move back to your rightful place in the process of evolution of life on Earth, leaving behind the belief that we have dominion over the Earth and that we have the right to take all that you can from the Earth for our own benefit. I have each of these living beings and many more as my spirit guides and turn to each as my teachers. As children we have read stories of learning how to live from each of these creatures but as adults we have pushed away these stories as childish. We need to return to them with love and understanding of their importance. It is only now that I have started turning to Earth’s flora and am finding the importance of each plant that I sit with. They have so much to teach us, from the majestic black walnut to stinging nettles, from golden seal that is just now popping up around our place in the Hudson Valley to the long standing juniper. I find the ecstatic postures powerful avenues for reaching out to the myriad plants that grow on our acre. Three postures in particular open the door to the plant becoming one of my spirit guides, beginning with a divination posture, the Lady of Cholula, to first become acquainted with the plant; to a healing posture, the Chiltan Spirits, holding the plant to my heart to fall in love with it, to a metamorphosis or shape-shifting posture, the Olmec Prince, to become one in marriage with the plant. The plants have been living may thousands of years longer than human life and have gone through these years of evolution to adapt to life on Earth so have much knowledge in how to survive and to support other life in our great diversity of interdependence, each with something special to offer us and all other life. With this great abundance of healing knowledge, again how can we consider ourselves superior to them. With global climate change we are losing thousands of these species that we are so dependent upon in our love and marriage to them, leaving us grieving for this loss. It is past time that we again return to our rightful place among this other life to protect and cherish them all.
Nicholas E. Brink, PhD Author