Nature – Page 4 – Feminism and Religion

From the Archives: Oakness as a Metaphor for the Wild Soul: the Dance Between Life Force, Personality and Original Nature by Eline Kieft

This was originally posted June 16, 2022

The process of fitting in and learning what is required to participate in society teaches us many useful skills such as math and language. All too often, this happens at the expense of developing expressive and intuitive abilities and trust in our unique contributions and points of view, or what I call the ‘Wild Soul’. This represents our original blueprint or essential spark that makes us into who we are.

Fire by Beth Bartlett

The nature and meaning of fire have been appearing in several disparate aspects of my life lately – in the fire of Celtic spring rituals; in books I’ve been reading[i]; in the fireflies of summer nights and the fireworks of the 4^th of July; even as a clue in a game; and most ubiquitous of all – the smoke from Canadian wildfires. So persistent a theme begs pondering. It first appeared in a Rewilding course as the sacred element of spring in the Celtic wheel of the year. Spring is the time of new beginnings, of the sunrise – the element of fire in the sacred direction of east, of the fires of passion and creativity, and the celebration of Beltane.

Integrating Snake Medicine Part 2

In Part 1 of this post, published yesterday, I described the first steps of my personal journey of soul recovery, including my first encounter with Green Snake, in statues, dreams and hypnotherapy. Those experiences led to choosing to tattoo Green Snake on my left arm. Read more about finding my Medicine and embracing my Golden Shadow as I stepped into an ancient lineage of Snake Healers.

Sometimes we encounter really sweet, or funny gems on the road of individuation… Let’s start with one like that!

Sweet Intermezzo (6 years ago…)

In the film The Matrix, Neo receives a message to “follow the White Rabbit.” Just before I met my partner, he encountered a live Green Snake slithering across a forest trail in Thailand, followed by a Neo-like dream to “follow the Green Snake.”

Integrating Snake Medicine Part 1

This post describes some of the steps on my personal journey of soul recovery across many, many years. It can be traced back to when I was 3 or 4 years old. Each header reflects a significant moment towards finding my Medicine and embracing my Golden Shadow of stepping into an ancient lineage of Snake Healers.

Although many of the steps created an immediate shift in my consciousness, this kind of individuation usually doesn’t happen overnight. I’m sharing it to honour the unfolding trails across time, and to encourage people to surrender to their journey, while letting go of a specific outcome. Part 2 will be published tomorrow.

Understory by Sara Wright

“If this isn’t the manifestation of the Great Goddess Greening the Earth I don’t know what is.” – Sara

Time stretches, folds back on herself as I gaze out the window squared by the four directions. A slanted sun glows golden green in early twilight. How comforting to see the trees rotting on the ground and new green wrapped all around me like a cape. The hemlock branches are almost black against the sun that sets early in the gorge. The phoebes are still – a few leaves flutter – lemon lime emerald – we haven’t names for all the impossible hues of green. I am suspended. All thought disappears into shadowy sheltering hemlock and pine against a darkening sky – the day is fading into twilight…. To be steeped in green is to be blessed by the trees who will get to live out their lives as Nature intended because of the people who cared enough to save these forests – a gift for all who see…. Beyond the window a steep gorge has sprung to life – jewelweed and oxalis bubbling out of stone. Crystalline water flows down the hillside…It is clear to me why springs were experienced as holy places. The crisscrossing of downed trees fallen under wind and winter weather is nourishing the next generation of seedlings. Fallen birches send anti- bacterial mycorrhizal mycelial fungal threads to protect other trees and plants from disease. We know almost nothing except that the skin of this precious earth holds the seeds of new life. No wonder I can sleep…\

From the Archives: Earth-Spirituality in the Qur’an and Green Muslims by Elisabeth S.

This was originally posted on March 14, 2017

There is some very helpful guidance in the Qur’an for how we should and should not treat the earth. In my exploration of Qur’anic verses on the environment, I have found a great deal of Earth-love that I want to share.

The first idea is that the earth is not ours to trash and misuse recklessly or indulgently. Sura 2:284 says, “Whatever is in the heavens and in the earth belongs to God.” This sentiment is found throughout the scriptures. Individual wealth and the practice of financial profit and salary as reward has given us the illusion that, if we’ve earned the cash, we can do with it whatever we like. We can buy anything we want, show it off, hoard it, and then trash it. How often do we quell our suffering or attachments through consumerism as if there were no consequences? But we need to begin to shift to the perspective of honoring the earth as not something we are entitled to or even deserve. If we are supposed to be stewards of the earth, then fine. But it seems that selfishness and personal gain have distracted us, making us neglect our duty. The idea that the earth is a bestowed gift is embedded into the Qur’anic “golden rule”: “You who believe, give charitably from the good things you have acquired and that We have produced for you from the earth. Do not seek to give bad things that you yourself would only accept with your eyes closed” (2:267). Yes, we work the land to produce food, but not everything is within our jurisdiction.

A Serving of Vegetables with Love: Plastic, Poison, and the Simple Salad Solution

Years ago, I remember looking around one day and realizing that I was surrounded by plastic bottles. Of course I already knew it on some level; I had bought them, after all. But it was one of those epiphanal moments – you know, where you kind of freeze, and time seems to slow down, and everything goes a little out of focus. And I realized – yet again – that I had been hoodwinked. That we all have.

Because I felt like I needed every single one of them. Yet somehow – and not that long ago, either – everyone used to get along fine without all these plastic bottles in their lives. Yes, it probably involved more domestic labor; but it also just stemmed from a local, circular economy based on common sense.

Aviana, 20th Century Crane Goddess by Judith Shaw

People think that goddesses only came into being long, long ago. People think goddesses are only found in ancient mythology. But people are wrong. I know because I am Aviana, the Wetlands Crane Goddess who helped create the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Reserve of New Mexico. I first manifest on Earth as an Otherworldly force in the early 1900s. It was the migrating birds and waterfowl, in particular sandhill cranes, who called me into being.

You see before Euro-Americans arrived in the land of the American Southwest, the Rio Grande was a mighty river which flooded every year bringing life and renewal to the land. These wetlands were a favorite wintering habitat of the Sandhill Cranes. They left their summer nesting grounds of Alaska, Canada and the northern United States and headed south for the winter. Every year in November hundreds of thousand of cranes arrived in New Mexico. Here they fed on grasses and small animals throughout the short winter days.

Spiritual Practices for Summer Flourishing by Molly Remer

The spiritual life need not be
divorced from the physical.
It is with our hands that we make magic
It is with our breaths that we offer prayers.
It is with our eyes that we see beauty.
It is with our hearts that we know love.
It is with our ears
that we hear birdsong and ballads.
It is with these bodies
that we reach out to touch the holy
every day.

This morning, I watched the baby woodpeckers. Still nestled safe within their tree they stab wildly at their brave parents who cautiously poke snacks into the trunk and then dive away again, narrowly evading the enthusiasm of their progeny. I peek at the baby phoebes too, heads nearly full-feathered, no more room for a parent in the nest against the wall of our house. They peer back at me, black eyes solemn, while the hummingbirds dodge and weave and battle it out between branches. I hear the thin and persistent cry of a broad-winged hawk from somewhere in the oaks just outside my vision. Summer is settling into the woods, though spring seems just barely to have arrived. The woods are becoming heavy and green and closing to exploration as the bugs and brambles stake their claim and exact their blood prices for entry. The blackberries are in bloom, wild and riotous, their white flowers open gratefully to both rain and sun. The wild raspberries have already begun to set their fruits, hard knobs of green clustered hopefully on each cane. The mulberries were brave enough to try again after frost crisped their efforts to black, now re-leafed, small green flowers and starts of berries once more emerge to hang with delicate promise next to their ruined brethren. As I finish writing my poem and offer my prayers, I look up to see a bald eagle making great wide circles above the house. The sky is clear and blue and the air is sweet and fresh and full of promise. I sit, as I do, in this cocoon of green, my heart wide, my mind soothed, and my soul replenished by the magic of place and all it manages to hold and teach each day.

Coming Home: The Goddess Rises…(part 2) by Sara Wright

Part 1 was posted last week, you can read it here.

I have been conversing with plants most of my life sensing the reciprocal nature of green beings and treating them as equals, so I was delighted by the bean’s behavior, although not surprised (western science has finally caught up with Indigenous knowledge as new studies indicate that plants listen/ and respond – see Gagliano, Simard). My magic bean is thriving, and every morning I make a promise to Scarlet Runner that the day will come when s/he will finally be free to climb to the stars… Relationships like this one sustain me.

Opening the door to mist ‘Mary’s Garden’ is entering another magic realm. Ferns I never planted are unfurling. Two hemlock seedling have emerald bristles on the tips of their needles, Partridgeberry is spreading, twin flowers are appearing, unknown seeds are sprouting, fungi come and go, lichens abound, some cascading from pieces of old wood. One old piece of pine bark supports the tiniest fungal trumpets. This terrarium is a source of endless enchantment and comfort on the coldest winter day.