Everyday Practice; Walking with the Earth and Animals

When I truly sank into a nourishing earth/spirit tending practice so many years ago, I learned pretty quickly that it isn't something you "do" now and then, it is someone you are always becoming. Although I might not be formally checking in with my ancestral and other spirits in a ritualized way all the time, I still inhabit an animistic, dreaming consciousness that continually shapes my perspective on everything and affects all of my behaviors everyday. To always be in relationship with the Earth, sensing her heartbeat, hearing her songs and seeing how she illumines a path to walk; always feeling the spirit that enlivens all of life, both the vast mystery as well as the intimacy of detail. This Earth walk makes it possible to be increasingly conscious of all the connections we have with the elements, the animals, all the growing beings, all that lives on the Earth. We can feel within our cells without constant analyzing that our thoughts, words, daydreams, intentions, beliefs, and even smallest actions all have their effect within the web of life and that our energetic signature in the unseen world has momentum, interrelational complexity and creative force.

Each day is timelessly sacred, unique, important., because it just is…... each moment an opportunity for presence and for acknowledging all the love we have been gifted with to live well here. In gratitude I rise, greeting the Sun, even when it's behind dark clouds and notice my in-breath and out-breath. I retire, praising the Moon, even when she’s at her darkest, for the dreams she seeds and nurtures within the water of my body, awakening memories of passions, possibilities and potencies. Attending to things in their season creates such openness to relish and rejoice, protect and nurture, embody and dissolve, shed and grieve when needed. Living this way is all in our DNA; we have mostly just forgotten.

So this night, I move in light and shadow...on an in-breath..then out-breath. Tidal. Gibbous moon, half-light, half-shadow. Tonight. Whoever doesn't believe in true enchantment, beguilement, rapture and heartbreak, I think has never really seen the moon. The Sun, that constant star, never fully breaks my heart, but the moon, well.... something about hearing her silver songs as they thread through me and feeling that liquid touch of light dissolves all my barriers and fixed attachments to any identities or answers. I move...and the spirits move with me. Light and shadow. Our world.

For all the years in these Virginia mountains before I injured my leg, I would walk long in the moonlight, my favorite walks...up and down the singing rippling creeks, over faithful wise boulders, through the deep humming trees, in tall whispering grasses, among dancing shadows and soft foot-falls. Watching...listening....sensing.....blending in...breathing the fae night. All so utterly quiet and thrillingly alive.

Often one or two of my cats, or a dog, would sweetly move with me and bring their own magic. On these night walks I would gradually feel the veil between life and death shimmer and thin and the presence of all those animals I'd loved who had left would walk with me as well. So many gone over the past 25 years it takes my breath away at times. Each of their names a pulsing heartbeat in the rhythm of my nights.......

Squirt, Squeak, Willie, Suzie, Chancey, Nimbus, Silver, Missy, Badger, Julie, Bess, Haley, Zack, Zeke, Harley, Chloe, Pansy, Gracie, Pinky, Matilda(but you can call me Tillie), Mars, Chester, Chelsea, Emma, Grinch, Littleface, Toby, Lil, Katie, Rosie, Hoover, Reggie, Bluebell, Tansy, Nellie, Jack, Lucy, Keila.   And as my familiars are evoked and they touch my night senses, I think of all those wild ones who I love, an infinitude of beings, who are my family, and who are so at our mercy.

Some close by on these lands, I speak Falcon, Trout, Coyote, Fox, Kingfisher, Mink, Spider, Mountain Lion, Damselfly, Bobcat, Honeybee, Wood Thrush, Beaver, Mayfly, Copperhead, Swallow, Salamander, Eagle, Firefly, Bear, Possum, Heron and on further lands…, Dolphin, Sloth, Elk, Elephant, Starfish, Prariedog, Tiger, Orangutan, Octopus,…. the names cascade endlessly and you can fill them in.......oh, how many, many will we lose, each a singular precious gift from the Earth, before we've even begun to sing to them?