All Our Relations: Learning Truth Through Our Relationship with Nature

Carolyn shares: January's Journal pages remind us that we connect with Creator through our connection with nature.  It's cold for  many of us this time of year; too cold for me to willingly go out and commune with nature!  So, how to communicate with nature when we aren't out in nature?

Here is an abbreviated outdoor practice for and expression of gratitude to 'All Our Relations':  When leaving your abode in the morning, and returning at night, Take a breath and give thanks for the earth and her creatures and the sky and all the celestial beings that hang out there.

Also, pay closer attention to your pets this month.  Talk to them with more interest and curiosity than you ordinarily might. Listen to them, listen while looking in their eyes.  You may be surprised at what you hear.  But, then again, if you are an animal lover, you won't be surprised.  You already know the wisdom animals share.

Watch out the windows of your home and your car for the antics of animals.  What might they show you about your own life?

You might also use the Medicine Cards from Jamie Sams, or another deck of animal tarot cards to ask for guidance from the animal kingdom.

Finally, Tune in to your favorite nature channel or pull out your favorite animal movie (mine would be Babe, with Bambi coming in second) and watch with your eyes and ears to hear what spirit might have to tell you through the animal kingdom.

Self-Reflection: I will find my own ways for connecting and relating to the natural world in these days where the cold can inhibit my movement in tature. Intentional practice is good enough, and that's all Great Spirit asks of me.

How to Learn Truth

How do we learn truth (best)?

Converse with wise people.
Engage in conversation with those who have an open heart.
People with an open heart are able to touch, and to be touched by others, even those with whom they are at odds, disagree with, come from a different place or point of view.

We can't learn Truth when we shut out that which we don't want to hear.
We can't learn Truth when we surround ourselves only with what we like.
We can't learn truth when we avoid those different from us, from our beliefs, our origins.

It is easier sometimes to begin this exploration of learning truth, by learning to communicate with non-human beings--animals, birds, insects, plants, trees, the wind, the moon...
Listening, and speaking as if they can understand us--because often they can. Our non-human relaions often understand us much more than we do them.  It seems less fearful to begin our learning truth through our relationships with these relatives rather than with humans.  THey have much to teach us.

Self-Reflection:  I desire to learn Truth. I take time to listen to the natural world around me.

If you would like to explore a wonderful practice for learning to listen to the wisdom and guidance of nature, click here: A Medicine Walk for Wisdom and Clarity

To Learn Truth We Practice Through Relationship

Richard Rohr (Center for Action and Contemplation), in one of his morning contemplation posts writes "We do not think ourselves into a new way of living;  we live ourselves into a new way of thinking."

If we want a new life for ourselves, we must be willing to return again and again to that place where we learn and can practice tools for living in a new way. The place we return to is through our connection with All Our  Relations.  What we learn is Truth. What we experience is Love. We learn to live in relationship with all Creation. We learn to think in the language of love.

Self-Reflection: I commit to practice living in relationship with all of creation in the best way I know how. In this way I wil Learn Truth

We Learn Truth Through the Sense of Touch

We begin the experience of being human through our 5 senses.  The 5 senses are not instincts, but they inform our instincts, and also, the other way around. We begin our learning about what it is to be human with our sense of 'touch'. We learn comfort and pain, hot and cold, hard, soft. Our first experience of being loved or rejected comes through our tactile experience during our birth.

In working with the Cycles of Truth, we begin with Learn Truth and the first of our five senses, touch.  This tactile sense is our first informer as to whether our world is a good and safe place to be. It is the first way we are in relationship with all of our world.

Reflecting on our early experience in the world gives us clues about where we need to update our sensory systems (quite literally).  Jamie Sams' experienced this first cycle of truth as 'Talks With Relations'.  Through the story she tells, she shows how our willingness to step into relationship with all of creation (not just people and our pets) is a tried and true way to Learn Truth AND to open our sense of touch to a higher level of sensitivity and frequency, which brings healing for us and for all we touch...

Self Reflection: I enter a new year of cycles and rhythms. I will be touched by the experience of living my life in rhythm and flow. I will Learn Truth through being present to whatever my life touches.

January New Moon and the Gift of Healing Touch.

Carolyn shares her thoughts on the night of the new moon:  I sat listening to what thoughts make themselves known to me during the time I set aside for my new moon meditation.  Thinking about the gift of the call to Learn Truth that I embrace this month. AND thinking, too, about the gift creator has provided for me through my five senses.

This month the sense we are asked to know better is the sense of touch.  My mind goes to a memory of one of the first times I laid my hands on the skin of a loved one and through that touch received awareness of their pain and the way to relieve it.  Remembering this, and reflecting on the other times my coming in touch with another has been healing for me, or them, and sometimes for both of us, I had this thought:  What if we are beings born as cells of the heart of Creator? What if our bodies are living ‘hearts of the Divine’?  Then this skin of ours, which is the largest organ of our body, is a magnificent receptor and giver of all that is possible of Divine Love.  It is no wonder that intuition is developed through our awareness of touch.  It is of no surprise that we Learn Truth through our willingness to be in relationship with all, and how often our sense of touch (as well as our voice) frames these relationships.  

Self Reflection: Am I open to the gifts which come my way with the willingness to learn truth?

As We Move to a New Year of Truth Cycles...

Being and living the vision for our life: Everything in the universe has a template for it's structure and existence (it's potential and possibility).  We, as human beings, are no different in this sense than rocks, trees the elements and the stars.  We are what we are.  Yet, as human beings, the template of our potential is often co opted by our ego and our thinking brain (a simplistic description; read Ken Wilber's  work on Integral living if you want to know more).  We have brief, fleeting moments of awareness and knowing--where we ARE fully present, and the person we dare  to dream we could be-if/when...makes herself/himself known to us! 

We are already who and what we were created to be.  But...because our sense of self is not in alignment with our 'Divine Template' it only means that we must learn how to bring our vision back from the distance of 'someday' to the present moment.  

We already are the person we sense we are called to be.  We CAN and WILL learn to experience ourselves as this person! How? We start by paying attention to the reaction of our senses in our daily lives.  We notice our preferences, likes, dislikes, prejudices, beliefs.  No judging, just notice.  No judging, just notice.

Self Reflection: The process of becoming who I am is not so much about becoming more, but a process of shedding, letting go, dropping what is not 'me'.

Stereopsis Moon

Stereopsis New Moon , Lisa Kay, 9/30/16

 Looking into a black ceramic crock pot, soaking in my sink, I captured this strange and astounding photo that I titled,  Cyclops. The mandala image was created from the interaction of  vinegar and baking soda. I have been contemplating and wondering about the meaning of this image ever since the new moon. What does this have to do with the moon cycle? What I discovered is that a more fitting name for this mandala is Stereoposis rather than Cylops. This greek term (stereo meaning "solid" and opsis meaning" appearance") refers to one's ability to see with both eyes that which may is hidden from each eye alone.  For me, this is a reminder to stay open to seeing and perceiving with what Educational Philosopher, Maxine Greene has called a "wide-awakeness."