Thursday, June 2, 2011

How Do We Speak to the Earth?


 "speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee[Job 8]

I've been  re-acquainting  myself with  the people, and their work,  who have informed and inspired my life.  It's a kind of backtracking I feel I need to do, to "archive" and "update"  these sources.  To Celebrate those who have been touchstones on the path might be a better way of expressing it.

Recently I posted a little interview I did with Frank Barney, at the Brushwood Folklore Center in  New York state.  My question to Frank was "How do we talk with the Earth?"

Since then, the question has hung around me like the mythic floating mountains of Avatar's "Pandora", long roots dangling in the  atmosphere.  What does it really mean to talk with the Earth?  How would we live and act if we experienced the World, as  Joanna Macy famously put it, "As lover, as mother, as self"?  How does the Earth "speak to us"?  How did people from other cultures and times do it?  How are people in contemporary settings "talking to the Earth" now, in this time of great crisis? Where and how are they engaging the conversation?  What have my own ecstatic, and sometimes inexplicable,  experiences been?

Now that I think about it, this question has been fundamental to my art and spirituality ever since I blundered into a workshop in 1982 on ancient sites of New England, and Sig Lonegren taught me to dowse at a cairn, and ley crossing, site in Vermont.  Come to think of it, he and his wife Karyn live in Glastonbury as well!  Circles!

 
 So, friends who may be reading this blog, forgive me if  I use it for research for a while.  With my trip to the UK coming soon, I realize that this question, as I visit sacred calendar sites, meet Goddess women who invoke the Deities of their homeland,  as I perhaps visit crop circles and listen to speakers at the Glastonbury Symposium......under it all, that's the question I ask.

How do we interact more consciously with the mind of Gaia, our mother earth?

"Today we suffer from Geomantic Amnesia, forgetting that our planet is interactive with and responsive to consciousness." 

John Steele, GEOMANCY: CONSCIOUSNESS AND SACRED SITES
 
So here I sit, surrounded by books and links to UTube.  I re-visited the  writings of Starhawk.  I re-visited James Lovelock and the Gaia Hypothesis, which is now Gaia Theory. I pulled out articles about Vision Questing, and wonder anew what that question might mean within the practices of traditional cultures, shamanic cultures, and ancient cultures.  I watched Avatar again, delighted with the way Cameron  introduced the idea of  "Tewa", the "Anima Mundi" of the planet Pandora.  Among my books I find Earthmind, remembering a conversation I had with one of its authors, John Steele, so long ago. I looked up Michaela Small Wright and Perelandra, and the Book of Findhorn. I re-read an article by eco-feminist Gloria Orenstein,  in  Re-Weaving the World,  and checked out what's happening at the Source, founded by contemporary shaman Jewell, and the Anima Nature Sanctuary in New Mexico as well.

Sure enough, within a day of doing that, I received an email from Jesse Wolf Hardin, founder of the Anima Sanctuary.   Threads.......

Most of all, I had an "ah ha" ...... I'm going to Glastonbury, and Findhorn,  this summer, to encounter people who, in their own ways, have been asking this question themselves, and like my friend Frank, have found their answers.

So......now  I know why I'm making this trip.  Let the adventure begin!

"Earthmind 5" (2009)

9 comments:

T said...

Findhorn!! You MUST write about it. It's on my bucket list. Can't wait to hear how this trip goes. You're certainly preparing yourself, heart, mind, soul.

Lauren Raine said...

Thanks so much......I really am excited!

Valerianna said...

What a great trip, not only Glastonbury, but Findhorn as well! How cool is that??!! Looking forward to your post travel posts.

And greetings from the very topsy turvy valley after the tornado yesterday - we in the hills avoided the twister, but we did get a major storm and hail the size of cumquats! The sky was that eerie green all afternoon and evening, which didn't allow for a true sense of peace.

Safe travels!

Gail said...

I was advised years ago to find a path linked to my own ethnic heritage (Celtic) because finding our way home it tied to our local Earth roots. Just recently, I came across Scottish author, R. J. Stewart who is helping me traverse the Celtic Path. I am so looking forward to your travels and will be there with you in Spirit. Blessed Be!! Gail

Lauren Raine said...

I will do my best to report on my trip! Thanks for your good wishes Gail....I'm familiar with RJ Stewart's writing. Val......I was worried about you and Jewell. Tornados in Western Mass, hard to imagine. Here in Tucson we're plagued with the smoke of many forest fires.

Janece said...

Your art is so beautiful! I was led here from a link on Syncrosecrets !
Have a wonderful trip...

I make sure to walk barefooted on the earth every day, and I talk to Her. Just like I talk to the animals that find their way into my garden, and the veggies themselves. It comes natural - although, since leaving my protestant roots, I've come to see it as the 'first' and maybe inherent "religion", this communion and honoring of the Earth and Her creations. It is an honor to Tend to Her, and a blessing to be supported by Her.

If we could - as a human tribe - get back to that space, what a different world we would live in.

Lauren Raine said...

Thank you Janece, for expressing it so well. What you say is about recognizing that everything is alive, interactive, interconnected, just like physicists are saying, and ancient people knew. How different it would be indeed if we lived in a world that took that knowledge to heart, as you do.

Nancy said...

I am very interested in what you learn - especially about Findhorn.

Lauren Raine said...

Thanks Nancy........me too! I won't be leaving until July 13, and two weeks then in Glastonbury.