some ones listening

CG

Hey LLB,
After reading your post I went out to the garden I have here at home with the intention of communing. It's a beauty garden, just to have beautiful plants growing here for myself, my wife and the other folks at this little apartment building overlooking the water in Queen Anne.
I've been moving some plants out of the way of oncoming construction and had more to move and save from losing them to a bull dozer, which is an uncaring and rude device. I asked the devas to please accept that I was moving the plants to a new home around the corner, and one with better soil and shade for them, ( azaleas ) because the full sun was keeping them to hot and dry. I got an immediate feeling in response and translated the feeling into words that seemed to fit it. It was very bouncy and talkative in a quick cadence and had a definite sense of how I should proceed. I went with the feeling and translation and did some things I've never done before. I let them pick what plant to transplant and found them very specific, like, "this one first, no no no not that one, this one"! OK I thought, that one, and then staying open to it asked about how to dig it up, not with words out loud, but in an inner voice, and got an immediate response, ........ "like this" and saw they wanted it done a certain way. So I did that and was carrying the plant in a container down to the new place, inviting them along when they said "hurry hurry hurry", and I thought what for, and they said, "no one likes their roots exposed for very long", and I thought about how I never even thought about that before or how it might feel to the plant.

Down at the new spot I was looking for where it should go and they said "no no no, over here", and were insistent that it go just where they wanted it. Ok......., I thought, you started this, so just keep honoring what your feeling, and I dug a hole where they wanted it and was adding some water to it, when the said, "that's enough, that's enough", and I asked why, and they said, 'look, you just get the roots covered and we'll find our way to water". While digging the hole for it I came across a worm because it's good rich soil, and they said, "no no no", as I went to move the worm, and said "put it on the side of the hole just there", which I did and started to cover with dirt, but they said "no just wait" and I thought to myself that this was getting out of hand. These chatty, insistent and highly specific instructions were not how I'm accustomed to gardening, and they said "you'll see why". So I continued with the hole and continued finding worms, which they insisted needed to be put all together in that one spot, and not just dumped there, and they had to be in contact with each other, touching each other. So here I am making a little pile of worms and then placing the azalea in the hole while being cajoled by voice/feelings to hurry up. When the azalea was in place they had me put the worms, who seemed to be waiting patiently, in a specific spot and cover them with a very light amount of soil, less than I would have thought good for the worms, but apparently exactly what was the right amount according to the chatter bug devas.

They were very clear that certain vines should be keep out, and vigorously removed, it's some kind of morning glory, (which is a monster to deal with) and that others should be left alone. As I went to remove a big dandelion they had a fit. "No no no"!
"Ok already", I thought, as I realized how many I'd pulled up this year and tried to hide the thought away.

I was gardening for hours and thought to myself that I can never go back to how I used t do it. I'm sure this sounds like a bit of a Disney cartoon, but that's also what it felt like to me at the time, like I'd unstopped my ears, and gardening was going to be good, but annoyingly noisy for awhile to come. I'm telling you this straight, not making it up, and it feels a bit heavy while it was certainly fun also. Geeze, it feels like everything is going to be different. I mean I'm happy about it, but feel kind of bad about all the years I've been doing it my way for my happiness, and not realizing it's not just about me alone, but the brothers and sisters in green and gold have feelings too.

I'm in relationship with several sacred plant medicines, and maybe this shouldn't be such a surprise, but it is. Not that it happened, but that it was so clear, and highly specific. Just like some people I know, who like there eggs just so, and placed just so, and only half a glass of orange juice please and not the blue tea cups with the green tea thank you very much.

I wouldn't kid about this, because my relationships are where I try to live out my spiritual ideals, and so this new one is going to need care and attention the way the others do.

All because some guy I've never met reminded me to open up to it. Yikes, and thanks LLB.

Green man

I had a dream of the green man the other night... its a classic image the green man being driven out of a village out of fear of his wildness by the people... it was a sad scene...
it makes me wonder about deforestation, habitat loss, the destroying of large areas of land to create housing developments.
People do not build or create their communities with nature or with any mindfulness to the wild... natural communities, wild communities of other-than-human-persons are destroyed to make room for homo-domesticus. The green man is most definitely driven out of these areas.
I was also thinking of a faun that comes and enters into my body from time to time... it often feels that Cernunnos, the green man and the faun share a common ethereal body manifesting as either or depending on what is needed of them. The faun was of a large wild wooded area near my home I had given offerings to him and asked for him to share space with me so I could learn from him... and he did... it was an amazing process... at any rate his level of mischievousness was intense... bordering on a sick sense of humor, and a wrathful sense of justice. What made this faun sick? The forest was nothing compared to the size it used to be that he was one with. The level of respect payed there was higher then most however trash was to be found all over. The forest itself was chopped up into islands with pavement roads and developments tearing it apart.


The other night my grrrrl friend pointed out how dangerous and mischievous forest spirits can be, I know to well how much this is so... and she pointed out how much more mischievous and dangerous they are when threatened, we discussed how important it is to make them our allies if possible, to be wild and a part of the forest again in our communities and ways of life.
I look at the forests destroyed by housing developments and i see that none of it is necessary at all! That its all poor planning and life style decisions as well as ecological and social apathy brought about and perpetuated by those first colonized European Christan’s driving the green man from the village.

How can we invite the green man back into our communities again? What offering and ritual action is needed to invoke him into our communities? What will bring the faun back to health, to make him seem less of a demon to those who see him as such out of ignorance? How can we honor the horned god where we live?

We can start by looking at how we consume the bounty of nature, how we live our lives daily, where we get our food. We can invite the green man back into our village by including the wild into the village again. Creating bio-swales instead of draining street water into the sewer system, creating green roofs on our houses, building with natural materials like cob, straw bale, and renewable resources, getting rid of pavement and the need for mass transit by re-designing our communities around COMMUNITY, so we can walk to all the places we need to go. Or we can create our own villages as a permacultured part of the wild forest... human beings have the ability to actually aid ecosystems with their presence as well as bio-remediate the areas that have been damaged. What would the psyche of a people be like if they lived not in civilization but in and with the wild again, not beside it but a part of it?
The joy of the green man and the growth and balance of his dancing feet would be in our hearts, the masculine stereotypes and gender roles would change and no longer would men be seen as symbols of oppression. Art and beauty would be just another natural expression like a birds song, simple and humble and to be found in the artifacts we create for daily living.
To invoke these beings of nature, these spirits and powers the ritual is a change in the way we live our lives. The new magical training is skill building in eco-design, whole systems design, permaculture, renewable resources, sustainability, and alternative energy. The circle that is cast is the recognition of our interdependence, and the chants are the affirmations and oaths that we will change the way we live and no longer participate in this driving of the green man from our village. We invite him back and give offerings to him, by create the pace for him to exist in our village and in our actions.

The importance of communion

Many years ago now, I moved my friend to New Mexico. He was a buddy, brother and a cohort, a teacher to me in many ways, and when he left it was a big transition for me to be with his friendship and guidance. I drove all his worldly possessions, his dog and his cat and his soon to be future wife and mother of his child from the PNW to New Mexico in a U-haul and before I left him there to start his new life in a new bioregion, I felt some what over whelmed, like a cloud was surrounding me and I couldn't see past it... I kept thinking, now what am I going to do with out my best friend? He called me up stairs and held out in front of him a hawk feather ( hawk being one of his personal medicines) and handed it to me say. " What your going to do now is go back to the PNW and teach people about the importance of communion."
So since that day this is what I have been doing via bioregional animism. If I could further simplify what bioregional animism is to some one I would perhaps say it is communion with nature, or perhaps it would be the art of conversation with nature, or communication with nature where you live for mutual benefit. WOW I could just keep going... but really its communing, its communion, or as Graham Harvey would say a relational ontology which is place based or locally-centric.

What is communion? What does it mean to commune?

- sharing thoughts and feelings
- a sharing of thoughts, emotions, or beliefs
- communion with strong feelings for: private communion with nature
- a religious group with shared beliefs and practices
- the act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings.
- religious or spiritual fellowship.

as well as to commune... from Old French communer, to make common, share...
- to be in a state of intimate, heightened sensitivity and receptivity, as with one's surroundings
- to experience strong emotion for: communing with nature
- to talk intimately with
- communicate intimately with; be in a state of heightened, intimate receptivity; "He seemed to commune with nature"

and ironically...

Noun
1. a group of people living together and sharing possessions and responsibilities
HAHA!

For me these words commune and communion are KEY to really being animist. Quite possibly the very foundation of cultivating animist relationship dynamics. They were certainly

Recently I posted a short piece on a ceremony I had with my partner and my friend and I spoke about the communing people experienced with other than human persons. This has felt like the real basis and focus of Bioregional animism. Having respectful relationships with the living world requires communication and not just communication but communing with each other... to talk intimately with another, with an open heart and an open mind so that we do not harm each other out of carelessness. It takes real communing to have that authentic respect for the living world we seek to manifest through our being animist.
To commune with other than human persons and many time each other it often requires an approach I have called transrational or an intuitive approach that may require some slight shift of awareness or a drastic shift in awareness via an altered state. Animist people traditional embrace some form of transrational practice. For me personally and the people I generally associate with this is done with the aid of visionary plants and substances, though not relied upon to do so. This communion with these visionary people aid in communion and communing with other than human persons, just as any altered state of awareness will do so, though in some times subtle and not so subtle ways.

So how are you communing, how is this communing shaping how you live your life? Who have you been communing with and what messages have been received and given?

Being a bioregional animist I have focused on communing with the land I live upon and those that live around me so that we might live well together. Currently my life ha been changing in very big ways because of this communion and I am in awe of it.
I would love to hear from others who have been changed by such communion.
blessings
LLB

Co-creating with the devas of findhorn garden

Co-Creating
with the Devas
of Findhorn

by Celeste Adams




Today, the concept of communicating with the plant beings as a way of creating plentiful crops and beautiful gardens, if not exactly embraced by commercial growers, is well known and widely used in the new age and organic farming communities.

Forty years ago, this approach to agriculture was pretty much unheard-of in the Western world. But on a barren, sandy, windswept corner of a rundown trailer park in Findhorn, Scotland, Peter and Eileen Caddy were changing all that.


The Findhorn Foundation, located in northern Scotland, was founded 40 years ago by Peter and Eileen Caddy and their colleague, Dorothy Maclean. It is one of the largest intentional communities in the United Kingdom and is a model for holistic and sustainable living. Despite the fact that Findhorn was built on sand dunes, it is known for its beautiful gardens, which were co-created with the nature devas.In The Faces of Findhorn, David Spangler writes:

Many people see Findhorn as a place; but to understand truly what Findhorn is seeking to make manifest we must see it from the inside out, and that means from the center of our being outwards. This is true of any of the other centers of Light that are now beginning to emerge.

New age communities are springing up in many countries, and small groups of people are coming together to help educate each other into a new way of living. All of these people are agents of the divine plan, in order that at this time in human history there might be worldwide demonstrations for the birth of a new Earth and a new humanity. . . .

So the message of Findhorn, the message which is unfolding throughout the Earth, is for humanity to awake, to arise, and to be the creators, now, of the world you have envisioned, and through envisioning are bringing into being.


The Findhorn Foundation attracts four thousand visitors a year, from countries around the world. It is a member of IONESCO and is recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization, or NGO, by the United Nations.

In The Spirit of Findhorn, Roy McVicar describes how Eileen Caddy heard the voice of God in simple, day-to-day directions that inspired her, with Peter Caddy, to create Findhorn:

Little in Eileen Caddy's early life indicated that she would one day be the co-founder of a New Age spiritual community or that she would develop a unique power to hear and to share the voice of God within....

After five years there [at the Cluny Hill Hotel] and a year at another hotel in Scotland they [Peter and Eileen] found themselves out of work, with no place to stay, puzzled that divine guidance should work in such devious ways. They then made the move which is now widely known; they went back to their caravan [mobile home], which was sited at Findhorn, and brought it to the very last place they would ever have chosen, a dirty, windswept corner of Findhorn Bay Caravan Park, because that was where God said to go.


Despite the fact that the land was barren and dry, beautiful gardens began to grow. In Faces of Findhorn, Professor R. Lindsay Robb of the Soil Association speaks about the vitality and vibrance of the Findhorn garden:

The vigor, health and bloom of the plants in this garden at mid-winter on land which is almost barren, powdery sand cannot be explained by the moderate dressings of compost, nor indeed by the application of any known cultural methods of organic husbandry. There are other factors and they are vital ones.


The other factors that Robb is referring to were Findhorn's co-creation with the angelic and elemental realms. In her book To Hear the Angels Sing, Dorothy Maclean writes about communicating with angels:

I had never set out to learn to talk with angels, nor had I ever imagined that such contact could be possible or useful. Yet, when this communication began to occur, it did so in a way that I could not dispute. Concrete proof developed in the Findhorn garden, which became the basis for the development of the Findhorn Community. The garden was planted on sand in conditions that offered scant hospitality and encouragement for the growth of anything other than hardy Scottish bushes and grasses requiring little moisture or nourishment.

However, through my telepathic contact with the angelic Beings who overlight and direct plant growth, specific instructions and spiritual assistance were given. The resulting garden, which came to include even tropical varieties of plants, was so astonishing in its growth and vitality that visiting soil experts and horticulturists were unable to find any explanation for it, and eventually had to accept the unorthodox interpretation of angelic help.


In The Faces of Findhorn, devas and elementals are described as living forces of creative intelligence that work behind the scene. All life is considered an outpost or point of entry through which great intelligences externalize themselves. "The devic or angelic beings work at that level where the divine image or idea is sketched out into the archetypal patterns for all forms. The devas, whose name stems from a Sanskrit word meaning literally 'shining ones,' hold these archetypes in consciousness, wielding and patterning the forces which vivify the physical form and stepping these energies down to the elementals or nature spirits, the 'blue collar workers' who build the forms through which Spirit reveals itself."

One member of the community describes a kind of sensitization process that takes place in learning to communicate with the nature spirits:

When I came to Findhorn in 1971 I began to realize that I was experiencing a broadening of perception; it was as though my physical senses were being extended in a way that's very hard to describe. Walking through the central garden I experienced an extraordinary sense of being greeted and caressed by presences there which seemed to be connected with the flowers. Later that winter I came to follow up that contact with the nature kingdoms when Dorothy asked me to try illustrating her messages from the Devas.

For me that whole period was like a sensitization process leading me into a whole different area of communication, a way of perceiving too subtle to say it was through images or sound but rather a direct reception of the essence of another being inside my own essence.


Today, Findhorn has become an important part of the world group. As their website explains:

On December 8, 1997, the Findhorn Foundation was approved for formal association with the United Nations, through the Department of Public Information, as a recognized Non-Governmental Organization. This was the culmination of a series of official collaborations between the UN and the Findhorn Foundation.

The new status was also a sign of a great maturing of our community, which has been promoting principles of sustainable development as put forward by the major UN conferences of the last decade — including the environmental aspect of the Rio Earth Summit, the human settlements aspect of Istanbul, and the women's aspect of Beijing — in an attempt to provide a contemporary and evolving model of sustainable living.


To learn more, we spoke with Richard Coates, a public relations officer who has lived at Findhorn for 25 years, and with David Buswell, who operates the enquiry line there.

Celeste: Can you describe the relationship that people had with plant devas in the early years at Findhorn?

Richard Coates: In the early days, we were famous for our 42-pound cabbages, which we don't grow these days. Well, I haven't seen any lately. We're told that this was necessary as a demonstration of the power of the people and an example of what we could achieve by cooperating with the nature realms.

By working with those beings, we could produce amazing results. But having demonstrated that, we don't necessarily need to keep doing that. Our gardens are quite magnificent and are admired by many people who come and visit.

Celeste: Dorothy Maclean is known for communicating with the devas and elementals. Are the people who come to workshops at Findhorn learning to communicate with devas?

Richard Coates: Anyone who comes here does one of our "experience weeks," which we give all year long for various nationalities. People work together, live together, and explore together in the gardens. It's a personal experience of being here and how that relates to nature.

We allow people to explore on their own and to have the direct experience of working in the garden. It's a very healing thing to do.

Part of our experience is a nature sharing in the evening. One of the gardeners will come in and talk. We also have an evening on spiritual practice. Many people like myself will spend the evening, after work or on the weekends, in the garden, and that's part of our spiritual practice.

David Buswell: Dorothy Maclean wrote a great deal about devas and nature spirits. She comes back here several times a year and gives workshops. When people are sensitive to plants, a relationship begins. Communicating with devas is a matter of sensitivity. There's no methodology as such to learning how to do it. That kind of sensitivity is inborn in some people.

People who really want to develop that sensitivity go to our workshops, run by Dorothy or others who do these things.

The gardeners here all have a basic connection. It really is an individual thing. Some say the plants are "talking" to them. Whatever they mean by that, the essential truth we've found is that the spirit within a plant is capable of communication. And when the plant spirits find humans they can communicate with, it's a boon to them. When human beings can recognize the subtle levels, the plant beings are overjoyed.

In ages past, far more people had these gifts. In folk history, they had connections with what they called the fairy folk, or in Ireland, the "little people." So communication with nature devas is not something new. It's an ability that existed when people were closer to the land, one that atrophied with the development of the intellect and industrialization. But today, people are developing sensitivity, and these connections are once more being made.

Celeste: How is the Findhorn Foundation organized and how does it operate?

Richard Coates: The Findhorn Foundation was originally a charitable organization run by charitable laws, not corporate laws. Then it became too cumbersome to handle as a single entity, so it's been broken down into different organizations. Some are charities, some are volunteer organizations. There's also an organic farm, a café, and a shop. This has enabled a lot more people to become involved.

Not everybody who is involved here needs to become a member of the Findhorn Foundation to be associated with the work that we're doing here.

Celeste: Why is it important that a place like Findhorn exists?

Richard Coates: It is a place where people can experience different ways of relating to each other, to themselves, to the planet, to society. It is a place that twenty-five or thirty years ago was on the cutting-edge of changing aspects of society. Many places around the world that now exist are based on what the foundation has been doing and demonstrating.

The things we have been doing, like health care and organic farming, are now very much a part of mainstream society. Even thinking about the planet as a whole, instead of selfishly looking at the nuclear family, "my country" or "my town," is a change since Findhorn began. Findhorn has inspired people to look at the whole picture, not just part of it.

Celeste: How is Findhorn spreading its message to the world about honoring and preserving the environment?

Richard Coates: Six weeks ago, we had a Restore the Earth conference, all about trees — reforesting, and how we could influence politicians to take care of the environment.

This was a precursor to the United Nations conference coming up in South Africa. We are recognized by the UN as a Non-Government Organization, or NGO. We have people at the UN who meet regularly and represent us there.

We also have our Trees for Love project, which was started by Alan Watson Featherstone, who has lived here for as long as I have. The plan is to reforest the highlands of Scotland with native trees, going out with work parties and fencing off areas to protect them from deer and so on.

Projects like Trees for Love might be small in terms of their individual impact. But as a whole, energetically, these projects build up exponentially.

Thinking about the whole planet, and not just my little bit or my backyard — that's how we have to think.



References:

The following is a short selection from the many books about the Findhorn Community.

1. God Spoke To Me by Eileen Caddy (to be republished by Findhorn Press 2002 in a special edition), the first book of Eileen's Guidance — still in print after 35 years.
2. The Findhorn Garden by The Findhorn Community (Harper Collins), the story of the community's early days.
3. To Hear The Angels Sing by Dorothy Maclean (Lindisfarne Press), Dorothy's autobiography.
4. Opening Doors Within by Eileen Caddy, daily selections from Eileen's Guidance.
5. Flight Into Freedom by Eileen Caddy (to be republished by Findhorn Press 2002), Eileen's autobiography.
6. The Kingdom Within edited by Alex Walker (Findhorn Press), a selection of writings on the history and work of the Findhorn Foundation by David Spangler, Peter and Eileen Caddy, Myrtle Glines, William Bloom, Dorothy Maclean, and many others.
7. Simply Build Green by John Talbott (Findhorn Press), a guide to the principles and methods of Eco-building.
8. In Perfect Timing by Peter Caddy (Findhorn Press), Peter Caddy's autobiography.
9. Growing People, compiled and edited by Kay Kay (Pilgrim Guides 2001), a recent collection of people's personal experiences of the Findhorn Community.



You may write to the Findhorn Foundation at The Park, Findhorn Forres IV36 3TZ, Moray, Scotland. Phone: +44 (0)1309 690311, Fax: +44 (0)1309 691301. The Findhorn website is at Findhorn.org.


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