Speech was given on 9/15/2018 at Spirit Fest by Carole Stamm/Rayna Noire and is copyrighted by the author.
The sun is setting sending out rays of purples and oranges as the sky darkens to an indigo. A chorus of tree frogs warms up while the cooing of doves is heard as they settle in for the night. Basil and roses scent the air along with the sharp smell of tomato plants. Independent, tiny bursts of light occur as lighting bugs make their evening appearance. Cooler temperatures prevail instead of the sultry summer heat. It’s twilight in our backyard. My daughter and I converse about everything. This is the best part of the day. Nearby, I can see the color flashes from our neighbors’ oversized television as they stay inside their home and spend another hour in front of a screen.
Nature is calling, but are we listening? Sometimes, it is hard to hear with the constant demands of our lives and the bombardment of electronic waves through our atmosphere, in our homes and even in our heads. We are natural beings, not components assembled in a sterile factory. When we lose touch with nature, with a huge part of the Western world has, we become short tempered, anxious, and suffer from a number of ailments including migraines—but most of all we become lost. Instead of listening to our spirit and our intuition we believe the lies and misconceptions of modern society that hold progress over nature. If the natural world somehow interferes with the consumption of limited natural resources, then nature must perish. As natural creatures, we can’t let that happen. We need nature so very, very much and nature needs us.
First, maybe I should tell you my qualifications. I’m a farmer’s daughter and grew up on a farm. I’m also a 30-year veteran Earth Science and Special Needs teacher. Horticulture is my passion and I have spent years working with plants and have dedicated the last six years of my life in creating gardens that feed both bees and butterflies. I have a real affinity for plants and I do talk to them. As a Special Needs teacher, I have witnessed on a daily basis the positive changes nature has made in my own and my students’ lives. I’ve written Communicating with Your Animal Messengers and am in the process writing Getting Back in Step with Nature.
First, I’ll explain our current state, deprivation. Second, I’ll give you some easy way to incorporate nature into your physical world. Third, I’ll show you how nature is part of who we are and is attempting to communicate with us and include a short meditation. I do have handouts that not only include tips for bringing more nature into our lives, it also includes a link to the talk if you want to reread it or share.
Let’s look at where many of us are right now. (Not all—because the very fact you’re at Spirit Fest and you’re here listening to me talk means you have a great interest in working with nature.)
Nature deprivation is when we choose to spend less time in nature and more time in front of an electronic screen. With society’s dependence on screen time, the rate of depression, anxiety, and migraines has risen. Loss of daily interaction with nature also results in loss of empathy and increases feelings of isolation, which results in higher rates of death according to a 2009 Dutch study. Not being in balance with nature can wreck your quality of life.
The University of Exeter Medical School in England studied the mental health of 10,000 residents. What they discovered was those who lived on farms or just near green spaces had less stress and mental illnesses than their non-green space counterparts. It didn’t matter if a person was rich or poor---if there was NATURE in your life, you were the better for it.
So how can you put more nature in your life?
The simplest way is to go outside, but sometimes, your outside is pavement and buildings. To truly benefit you need greenery and blue skies. Both colors are soothing, and produce less stress. Employees who are able to take a ten-minute walk in a nearby park at lunchtime come back refreshed, less stressed, and are more productive the rest of the day.
Regular strolls through nature is being referred to as nature bathing in many parts of the world and is prescribed as a remedy to many health woes as opposed to pills—the current Western standard. In Japan, nature bathing parks have been intentionally built for their citizens. These islands of peacefulness include trees, stretches of greens, ponds, and waterfalls, plus flowers. There are pathways for strolling and benches for meditation and reflection.
I know I feel less stressed when I take time to go for a walk in the woods, watch the birds at the feeder, or even watch the sunrise. We are natural creatures who have an inherent need to be outside and connect. We do not have solid-state processors—instead, we have a brain, a heart, and a spirit that needs to be nourished by being in contact with nature. In many ways, nature benefits from being in contact with us, too.
Technology even tries to mirror nature. There are plenty of National Geographic shows you can watch that include panoramic scenes. A few of you even have sound machines that mimic the sound of the ocean waves to fall asleep. This does have some benefit. A Swedish study found that just looking at nature photographs is more beneficial than staring at a blank wall or non-nature photos. Listening to nature sounds as a similar benefit, too.
As a veteran special needs teacher, nature has done tremendous things for my students and classroom. Many progressive teachers use natural sunlight in the room as opposed to fluorescent over head lights. Sunlight is more calming than the buzzing of fluorescent lightning, which can be destructive to concentration and energy zapping. The flickering of a fluorescent tube going bad can even trigger seizures. The colors in a classroom are important to—so I often wonder why they tend to paint the walls beige or battleship gray.
The most favorite color in the entire world is blue. Not too surprising since it is the color of our sky. Both interior designers and reputable mental health professionals will use this color when designing mental health facilities. The second most calming color is green—the color of grass, growth, and spring.
So far, you know you to make your home or office more beneficial that you need natural light, colors blue and green in the scheme, and photographs of nature. It’s great if you or your family are in the photo, too.
We can bring nature inside with cut flowers, live plants and herbs, and pets. Cut flowers makes us happy and more productive. Just the sight and scent of nearby flowers settles us and allows us to work harder. So many movies and travel brochures feature a person walking home with a bouquet of flowers and a loaf of bread. I sold most of my homes with fresh flowers and the scent of an apple pie. Most people have a positive response to fresh flowers.
Live plants suck up the carbon dioxide from the air while providing a calming presence. The best plants at taking carbon dioxide from the air is bamboo proving a lucky bamboo plant in your home is truly fortunate. This brings us to fresh herbs, which can be used in cooking. The scent can make us happier and more alert. If there is a positive memory associated with the herb, it can bring that with it, too. Maybe fresh basil reminds you of helping grandmother in the kitchen. Aromatherapy relies on the herbs, lavender and rosemary for relaxation.
Many of you probably have a salt lamp in your home because it is cool looking. Hopefully, there is one near your computer or router. If you have any type of electronics, then you are being constantly bombarded with electric magnetic rays, which increase stress levels, cause chronic fatigue, and decrease the body’s immune response, among other things. The salt light cleans the air and soaks up the excess protons the electronics put out. It balances the air. It also cleans the air of allergens. If kept in the bedroom, it helps you sleep.
Watching fish swim is another relaxing opportunity. It could be outside sitting by the koi pond or inside a building, too. The very act of watching the graceful creatures takes us out of our heads and our busy world for a few moments. Pets, no matter what they are, give us purpose in our lives. The Eden approach to nursing homes includes live plants, outside gardens, along with pets, and an attached child care facility. This allows the residents to part of a live, growing world and has proven very successful for all involved.
At this time of year, insects may be finding their way into your home. Many use chemical sprays to kill them. Some have our houses sprayed. A responsible pest control person may ask you to remove your pets and children for a couple of hours because what is toxic to bugs is toxic to us. We don’t roll over and kick our legs up in the air like the Raid commercial, but we take the toxin into our bodies and it plays havoc with our hormones, sometimes resulting in chronic diseases. Children who are exposed to pesticides have a much higher chance of developing cancers. There are pesticides embedded in genetically manufactured seeds. Monsanto is the major producer of them.
How did our grandparents deal with unwanted visitors of the six-legged kind? Many ways from fly paper to dishes of vinegar to catch gnats. Lemon juice wiped over counters discouraged ants. Cinnamon and peppermint has the same effect. Mint planted around a building discourage mice.
You’ve done all you can inside. It’s time to get outside and do some nature volunteerism. Most of us feel better in sunlight. In fact, SAD, seasonal affective disorder, occurs in the winter, making us blue due to the shorter days and less sunlight. For years, we’ve been warned that sunlight is the enemy while bathing our bodies in a toxic bath of chemicals via sunscreen. There are environmentally friendly sunscreens out there—a few including green tea as an active ingredient. A Japanese study found that twenty minute exposure to sunlight on a daily basis would reduce the incident of cancer (especially prostate and breast cancers.) Sometimes, just feeling the sun on our face after a long, rainy period makes us happy.
Those of you who have just spent the entire summer with out of school children realize the big difference between children who have spent most of the day in front of a screen and those who actually went outside and played. As a mother of three, I spent plenty of time at Boy Scout camp---usually fishing the non-swimmers out of the deep end, girls scout camp, hiking, and 4-H which sometimes involved wrangling escaping livestock projects. I saw the difference between kids who were engaged in active outdoor pursuits and a day spent playing video games, the outside children were happier and were kinder to their fellow campers. The same kids exposed to excessive screen time were argumentative, whiny, and complained about being bored despite having an expensive game and gaming system.
Playing outdoors helps us to become problem solvers. It could be little things such as how to cross a stream without getting wet or how to get as muddy as possible. The scenarios most video games prompt us to do from fighting aliens to building empires we’ll never do, but we do need to know simple things such as identifying poison ivy, how to build a fire, and how to act around wildlife.
Many parents keep their children inside because they believe the world is a more dangerous place than when they grew up. It is more dangerous in certain parts of the world engaged in war and certain inner-city neighborhoods. Generally, it is safer because of improved health standards, better tracking and imprisonment of those who would hurt children, and general education. How many of you waded in the creek, climbed trees, spotted or even handled snakes?
Yet, you’re still here. When I was five or six, my father showed me the different snakes on our farm and explained, which ones helped us by keeping the rat population down and which ones I needed to give space. Indiana only has about four poisonous snakes and two of them lived on our farm. Even though I was allowed to roam our 100+ acres, I was never bitten.
By living on a farm with chickens, ducks, cows, horses, dogs, cats, frogs, and the occasional mouse or two, I was exposed to all types of bacteria and germs. By being exposed at an early age to a variety of harmless germs, my immune system was strengthened. Not only did I not get sick, I had less allergies. There weren’t any hand sanitizers outside of soap and surprisingly, I hardly missed a day of school much to my regret. Studies have found that the more a child is outside in nature, they are strengthening their ability to resist sickness. When your parents or grandparents forced you to go outside and play, they were actually doing you a favor.
Spending time observing nature makes us a little in awe of it. It also teaches us that it is not the dog eat dog world we’ve been taught it is. Most species avoid fights whenever possible—not so with humans. It makes me wonder if animals were forced to watch endless hours of television or play video games would their behavior change? My dog who spent seventeen years with me---never watched television. He never even responded to a dog bark on a show. He often turned his back to it proving in some ways he was much smarter than me. What mattered to him was his people and what they might do. He had no interest in non-existent folks in a pretend story. Dogs live in the now.
My dog didn’t depend on Google for answers. He depended on past experiences. Not so with children of today, who often do not know their own telephone number. Our need for immediate answers via the Internet—answers that are often wrong and biased is short changing the thought process. According to Richard Carr, the author of Is Google Making Us Stupider?, our dependence on the search engines makes us less willing to engage in reading lengthy or difficult text. Instead, we want things dumb down for us in put in a bullet list of ten. We also do not want to remember anything! Many of us grew memorizing scripture, poems, state capitols, the preamble to the constitution, times tables, and phone numbers. This skill developed new neural pathways that help with slowing down mental decay often associated with aging. Consider if we are becoming smarter due to our dependence on the Internet are the opposite.
Nature not only has so much to teach us, but delivers messages to us daily---on just about everything.
Communicating with Nature
I will admit to talking to plants, but endless studies have shown plants respond positively to encouraging talk. Everything in nature is alive and responsive. Even water. Dr. Masaru Emoto was best known for his work with frozen water crystals. He would often have students and scientist repeat only one word or a phrase to a water crystal. He found positive words such as love, peace, even thank you made beautiful crystals similar to snowflakes. Ugly words such as hate, evil or you disgust me made distorted crystals. He went onto play music to the crystals. They preferred classical music, but enjoyed the Beatles classics such as Yesterday over Elvis Presley’s Heart Break hotel. One of his most surprising results came from his work with rice in water.
This experiment had three separate containers of rice in water. People were asked to tell the first container that they loved it. The second container received the message I Hate you! The third container was ignored—totally. Which one do you think did the worst?
The ignored one. The loved one sprouted healthy rice plants. The hated plant produced weak, colorless leaves. The third container’s rice never sprouted anything---in fact, the rice rotted. This begs the question are we loving nature, hating nature, or just ignoring it?
So, how do you not ignore nature. Go outside. Be appreciative. If it feels to over the top to thank a sunflower for its hard work and beauty, spend time observing and appreciating it. Care for it. Some use Genesis 1:28 to explain their need to exploit nature even to the trophy hunting Lions and Rhinos. Doing so is not smart because we all have a place in the circle of life. Take out one species and it changes.
A good example of this is how the re-introduction of wolves changed the course of a river. Wolves disappeared from Yellowstone Park due to nearby ranchers deliberately killing them. The park trapped the wolves and moved them to Canada. The deer population grew up checked and food was scare. The deer ate all the grass and started on the young trees and any branches they could reach. Most of the birds left because there was no place for them. The squirrels went with them. The rabbit numbers died out since they could not compete with the deer. Since there were very few rabbits or squirrels, the foxes moved on. Naturalists convinced the park to reintroduce the wolves.
They controlled the deer population and the trees grew. The birds came back, as did the other wildlife. With more trees, came beavers, who built dams and changed the course of the river. At this very moment, ranchers are once again trying to get rid of the wolves, which will start the cycle all over again. Maybe the rancher need to take time and meditate on nature.
Some of you meditate-that’s great! Meditating outside is super. Sometimes, when you are outside you may encounter an animal that you think might be trying to communicate with you. Ancient cultures saw animals for symbols reflective of their time. In the middle ages, owl hooting in the night meant someone was going to die, a bird in the house meant someone would die, seeing a black dog meant—I bet you know this one---someone was going to die. At that time, health care was almost non-existent and the way they treated people was to bleed them, it wasn’t too surprising that people did die. Nature has a lot more positive messages for us every day.
The late great author Ted Andrews was a true steward of nature and communicator. He brought the term animal messenger into wide spread use in his book, Animal Speak. He believed animals, which includes birds, marine animals, reptiles, insects, and bees, do contact us. Often, we can learn the message by knowing about the animal itself and to remember what we were ruminating on when we saw the animal.
When working on my own book, Communicating with Your Animal Messengers I was surprised to learn that some stories I’d heard about animal behaviors were just that-stories. The hyena whose bark is often likened to laughter is portrayed as a happy go lucky animal in The Lion King. The laughing bark is a response to danger and sometimes may be the last sound it makes. Totally different vibe than Whoopi Goldberg voicing the hyena.
To work with nature, we need to learn about nature and how we fit it. We can do this by observation, reading, and allowing the animals to teach us. Do you have animal messengers? Yes. Daily. They aren’t ringing the doorbell so you need to get outside.
Animals Messengers can arrive in many ways
1. Dreams. This is especially true if you keep dreaming of the same animal repeatedly.
2. Personal Contact. An animal approaches you. This is more important with wild animals. Domestic animals will often approach you to be fed. A wild animal usually avoids you.
3. Unusual animal behavior- A wild animal entering your home. I’ve had birds knock at my sliding glass door. Had a possum climb up on screen door. A humming bird that hovered consistently in front of a window. I had a blue dragonfly land on my shoulder and stay the entire time I watered the flowers.
4. Out of place animals-these are animals that show up in places they don’t normally exist. An example is a Golden Eagle in Indiana. We have Bald Eagles here, but a golden eagle is a western bird.
It can also be an animal like a bobcat in the city.
5. Eye contact. Animals generally avoid eye contact since it can be viewed as aggression.
6. Annoying contact-sometimes those bugs buzzing by your head may be communicating with you.
7. Animals can also be messengers of recently departed. The person’s spirit doesn’t possess the animal, but can guide it. After the death of my mother, the green hummingbird and blue dragonfly stayed with me for about six weeks. Both the hummingbird and dragon fly were possibly totem animals of my mother since she had dozens of ornamental pins of both, along with plaques and pictures.
8. Now some people believe that fairies use rabbits and birds to communicate with people. I guess it is up to the person to determine who or what is bringing the message.
9. Unlike the possum that climbed up my screen door, most animals don’t come knocking. You must get outside, go for a walk, visit a park, be aware
10. Often, you are the only person to see the animal. I was standing on a playground with other teachers, talking while the kids played. I recognize the distinctive call of a hawk and pointed them out in the sky to the other teachers. The other teachers couldn’t see them, even though I could with my limited vision. It could be that they weren’t meant to see them. The message was not for them.
11. Can mythological animals be animal messengers?
Many people would answer with an emphatic no! I think it depends on how you relate to the mythical animal. Do you have a fondness for dragons or unicorns? Maybe collect them. Then they do play an important part in your life. Now, you won’t stumble across a griffon in the neighborhood, but you might come across a statue. Most contact with mythological animals will be in dreams or meditation. Keep in mind, you can’t direct this. If you go in thinking you want to dream about a unicorn and do, then there’s a good chance it wasn’t a messenger. It would be better to go to sleep hoping for a message as opposed to a messenger.
There are so many ways to connect with nature and I know your handout will provide you with several. I’d like to do a meditation with you, in which an animal that is significant to you, will present itself and with a message. This mediation will be included in the paper I put online, so you can do it later on your own if you want. The meditation will take approximately ten minutes. If you don’t want to participate, you can sit quietly or leave now.
1. Get comfortable, which means putting aside anything you might have in your lap down.
2. If there is room, you might put some space between you and the next person. If not, remember you have inner space.
3. Try to relax. We’re going to start with a body check.
4. Feet on the floor connecting with the earth. Wiggle your toes. Imagine them as roots reaching into the rich dirt. Move onto your calves. Tense them, release.
5. Make sure your hips are solidly in your seat. Take in a deep breath through your nose for a count of four. Hold for three seconds, then slowly release it to the count of six.
6. Continue to breath in this manner as you tense your shoulders and release. Ball your hands into fists, then release. Tighten your jaw as if angry then release, Roll your head gently side to side.
7. Finally, close your eyes knowing you are safe. You’re grounded, comfortable, and ready to meet your power animal.
The meditation is numbered for paragraphing purposes.
So, what where some of your power animals?
Nature is calling, but are we listening? Sometimes, it is hard to hear with the constant demands of our lives and the bombardment of electronic waves through our atmosphere, in our homes and even in our heads. We are natural beings, not components assembled in a sterile factory. When we lose touch with nature, with a huge part of the Western world has, we become short tempered, anxious, and suffer from a number of ailments including migraines—but most of all we become lost. Instead of listening to our spirit and our intuition we believe the lies and misconceptions of modern society that hold progress over nature. If the natural world somehow interferes with the consumption of limited natural resources, then nature must perish. As natural creatures, we can’t let that happen. We need nature so very, very much and nature needs us.
First, maybe I should tell you my qualifications. I’m a farmer’s daughter and grew up on a farm. I’m also a 30-year veteran Earth Science and Special Needs teacher. Horticulture is my passion and I have spent years working with plants and have dedicated the last six years of my life in creating gardens that feed both bees and butterflies. I have a real affinity for plants and I do talk to them. As a Special Needs teacher, I have witnessed on a daily basis the positive changes nature has made in my own and my students’ lives. I’ve written Communicating with Your Animal Messengers and am in the process writing Getting Back in Step with Nature.
First, I’ll explain our current state, deprivation. Second, I’ll give you some easy way to incorporate nature into your physical world. Third, I’ll show you how nature is part of who we are and is attempting to communicate with us and include a short meditation. I do have handouts that not only include tips for bringing more nature into our lives, it also includes a link to the talk if you want to reread it or share.
Let’s look at where many of us are right now. (Not all—because the very fact you’re at Spirit Fest and you’re here listening to me talk means you have a great interest in working with nature.)
Nature deprivation is when we choose to spend less time in nature and more time in front of an electronic screen. With society’s dependence on screen time, the rate of depression, anxiety, and migraines has risen. Loss of daily interaction with nature also results in loss of empathy and increases feelings of isolation, which results in higher rates of death according to a 2009 Dutch study. Not being in balance with nature can wreck your quality of life.
The University of Exeter Medical School in England studied the mental health of 10,000 residents. What they discovered was those who lived on farms or just near green spaces had less stress and mental illnesses than their non-green space counterparts. It didn’t matter if a person was rich or poor---if there was NATURE in your life, you were the better for it.
So how can you put more nature in your life?
The simplest way is to go outside, but sometimes, your outside is pavement and buildings. To truly benefit you need greenery and blue skies. Both colors are soothing, and produce less stress. Employees who are able to take a ten-minute walk in a nearby park at lunchtime come back refreshed, less stressed, and are more productive the rest of the day.
Regular strolls through nature is being referred to as nature bathing in many parts of the world and is prescribed as a remedy to many health woes as opposed to pills—the current Western standard. In Japan, nature bathing parks have been intentionally built for their citizens. These islands of peacefulness include trees, stretches of greens, ponds, and waterfalls, plus flowers. There are pathways for strolling and benches for meditation and reflection.
I know I feel less stressed when I take time to go for a walk in the woods, watch the birds at the feeder, or even watch the sunrise. We are natural creatures who have an inherent need to be outside and connect. We do not have solid-state processors—instead, we have a brain, a heart, and a spirit that needs to be nourished by being in contact with nature. In many ways, nature benefits from being in contact with us, too.
Technology even tries to mirror nature. There are plenty of National Geographic shows you can watch that include panoramic scenes. A few of you even have sound machines that mimic the sound of the ocean waves to fall asleep. This does have some benefit. A Swedish study found that just looking at nature photographs is more beneficial than staring at a blank wall or non-nature photos. Listening to nature sounds as a similar benefit, too.
As a veteran special needs teacher, nature has done tremendous things for my students and classroom. Many progressive teachers use natural sunlight in the room as opposed to fluorescent over head lights. Sunlight is more calming than the buzzing of fluorescent lightning, which can be destructive to concentration and energy zapping. The flickering of a fluorescent tube going bad can even trigger seizures. The colors in a classroom are important to—so I often wonder why they tend to paint the walls beige or battleship gray.
The most favorite color in the entire world is blue. Not too surprising since it is the color of our sky. Both interior designers and reputable mental health professionals will use this color when designing mental health facilities. The second most calming color is green—the color of grass, growth, and spring.
So far, you know you to make your home or office more beneficial that you need natural light, colors blue and green in the scheme, and photographs of nature. It’s great if you or your family are in the photo, too.
We can bring nature inside with cut flowers, live plants and herbs, and pets. Cut flowers makes us happy and more productive. Just the sight and scent of nearby flowers settles us and allows us to work harder. So many movies and travel brochures feature a person walking home with a bouquet of flowers and a loaf of bread. I sold most of my homes with fresh flowers and the scent of an apple pie. Most people have a positive response to fresh flowers.
Live plants suck up the carbon dioxide from the air while providing a calming presence. The best plants at taking carbon dioxide from the air is bamboo proving a lucky bamboo plant in your home is truly fortunate. This brings us to fresh herbs, which can be used in cooking. The scent can make us happier and more alert. If there is a positive memory associated with the herb, it can bring that with it, too. Maybe fresh basil reminds you of helping grandmother in the kitchen. Aromatherapy relies on the herbs, lavender and rosemary for relaxation.
Many of you probably have a salt lamp in your home because it is cool looking. Hopefully, there is one near your computer or router. If you have any type of electronics, then you are being constantly bombarded with electric magnetic rays, which increase stress levels, cause chronic fatigue, and decrease the body’s immune response, among other things. The salt light cleans the air and soaks up the excess protons the electronics put out. It balances the air. It also cleans the air of allergens. If kept in the bedroom, it helps you sleep.
Watching fish swim is another relaxing opportunity. It could be outside sitting by the koi pond or inside a building, too. The very act of watching the graceful creatures takes us out of our heads and our busy world for a few moments. Pets, no matter what they are, give us purpose in our lives. The Eden approach to nursing homes includes live plants, outside gardens, along with pets, and an attached child care facility. This allows the residents to part of a live, growing world and has proven very successful for all involved.
At this time of year, insects may be finding their way into your home. Many use chemical sprays to kill them. Some have our houses sprayed. A responsible pest control person may ask you to remove your pets and children for a couple of hours because what is toxic to bugs is toxic to us. We don’t roll over and kick our legs up in the air like the Raid commercial, but we take the toxin into our bodies and it plays havoc with our hormones, sometimes resulting in chronic diseases. Children who are exposed to pesticides have a much higher chance of developing cancers. There are pesticides embedded in genetically manufactured seeds. Monsanto is the major producer of them.
How did our grandparents deal with unwanted visitors of the six-legged kind? Many ways from fly paper to dishes of vinegar to catch gnats. Lemon juice wiped over counters discouraged ants. Cinnamon and peppermint has the same effect. Mint planted around a building discourage mice.
You’ve done all you can inside. It’s time to get outside and do some nature volunteerism. Most of us feel better in sunlight. In fact, SAD, seasonal affective disorder, occurs in the winter, making us blue due to the shorter days and less sunlight. For years, we’ve been warned that sunlight is the enemy while bathing our bodies in a toxic bath of chemicals via sunscreen. There are environmentally friendly sunscreens out there—a few including green tea as an active ingredient. A Japanese study found that twenty minute exposure to sunlight on a daily basis would reduce the incident of cancer (especially prostate and breast cancers.) Sometimes, just feeling the sun on our face after a long, rainy period makes us happy.
Those of you who have just spent the entire summer with out of school children realize the big difference between children who have spent most of the day in front of a screen and those who actually went outside and played. As a mother of three, I spent plenty of time at Boy Scout camp---usually fishing the non-swimmers out of the deep end, girls scout camp, hiking, and 4-H which sometimes involved wrangling escaping livestock projects. I saw the difference between kids who were engaged in active outdoor pursuits and a day spent playing video games, the outside children were happier and were kinder to their fellow campers. The same kids exposed to excessive screen time were argumentative, whiny, and complained about being bored despite having an expensive game and gaming system.
Playing outdoors helps us to become problem solvers. It could be little things such as how to cross a stream without getting wet or how to get as muddy as possible. The scenarios most video games prompt us to do from fighting aliens to building empires we’ll never do, but we do need to know simple things such as identifying poison ivy, how to build a fire, and how to act around wildlife.
Many parents keep their children inside because they believe the world is a more dangerous place than when they grew up. It is more dangerous in certain parts of the world engaged in war and certain inner-city neighborhoods. Generally, it is safer because of improved health standards, better tracking and imprisonment of those who would hurt children, and general education. How many of you waded in the creek, climbed trees, spotted or even handled snakes?
Yet, you’re still here. When I was five or six, my father showed me the different snakes on our farm and explained, which ones helped us by keeping the rat population down and which ones I needed to give space. Indiana only has about four poisonous snakes and two of them lived on our farm. Even though I was allowed to roam our 100+ acres, I was never bitten.
By living on a farm with chickens, ducks, cows, horses, dogs, cats, frogs, and the occasional mouse or two, I was exposed to all types of bacteria and germs. By being exposed at an early age to a variety of harmless germs, my immune system was strengthened. Not only did I not get sick, I had less allergies. There weren’t any hand sanitizers outside of soap and surprisingly, I hardly missed a day of school much to my regret. Studies have found that the more a child is outside in nature, they are strengthening their ability to resist sickness. When your parents or grandparents forced you to go outside and play, they were actually doing you a favor.
Spending time observing nature makes us a little in awe of it. It also teaches us that it is not the dog eat dog world we’ve been taught it is. Most species avoid fights whenever possible—not so with humans. It makes me wonder if animals were forced to watch endless hours of television or play video games would their behavior change? My dog who spent seventeen years with me---never watched television. He never even responded to a dog bark on a show. He often turned his back to it proving in some ways he was much smarter than me. What mattered to him was his people and what they might do. He had no interest in non-existent folks in a pretend story. Dogs live in the now.
My dog didn’t depend on Google for answers. He depended on past experiences. Not so with children of today, who often do not know their own telephone number. Our need for immediate answers via the Internet—answers that are often wrong and biased is short changing the thought process. According to Richard Carr, the author of Is Google Making Us Stupider?, our dependence on the search engines makes us less willing to engage in reading lengthy or difficult text. Instead, we want things dumb down for us in put in a bullet list of ten. We also do not want to remember anything! Many of us grew memorizing scripture, poems, state capitols, the preamble to the constitution, times tables, and phone numbers. This skill developed new neural pathways that help with slowing down mental decay often associated with aging. Consider if we are becoming smarter due to our dependence on the Internet are the opposite.
Nature not only has so much to teach us, but delivers messages to us daily---on just about everything.
Communicating with Nature
I will admit to talking to plants, but endless studies have shown plants respond positively to encouraging talk. Everything in nature is alive and responsive. Even water. Dr. Masaru Emoto was best known for his work with frozen water crystals. He would often have students and scientist repeat only one word or a phrase to a water crystal. He found positive words such as love, peace, even thank you made beautiful crystals similar to snowflakes. Ugly words such as hate, evil or you disgust me made distorted crystals. He went onto play music to the crystals. They preferred classical music, but enjoyed the Beatles classics such as Yesterday over Elvis Presley’s Heart Break hotel. One of his most surprising results came from his work with rice in water.
This experiment had three separate containers of rice in water. People were asked to tell the first container that they loved it. The second container received the message I Hate you! The third container was ignored—totally. Which one do you think did the worst?
The ignored one. The loved one sprouted healthy rice plants. The hated plant produced weak, colorless leaves. The third container’s rice never sprouted anything---in fact, the rice rotted. This begs the question are we loving nature, hating nature, or just ignoring it?
So, how do you not ignore nature. Go outside. Be appreciative. If it feels to over the top to thank a sunflower for its hard work and beauty, spend time observing and appreciating it. Care for it. Some use Genesis 1:28 to explain their need to exploit nature even to the trophy hunting Lions and Rhinos. Doing so is not smart because we all have a place in the circle of life. Take out one species and it changes.
A good example of this is how the re-introduction of wolves changed the course of a river. Wolves disappeared from Yellowstone Park due to nearby ranchers deliberately killing them. The park trapped the wolves and moved them to Canada. The deer population grew up checked and food was scare. The deer ate all the grass and started on the young trees and any branches they could reach. Most of the birds left because there was no place for them. The squirrels went with them. The rabbit numbers died out since they could not compete with the deer. Since there were very few rabbits or squirrels, the foxes moved on. Naturalists convinced the park to reintroduce the wolves.
They controlled the deer population and the trees grew. The birds came back, as did the other wildlife. With more trees, came beavers, who built dams and changed the course of the river. At this very moment, ranchers are once again trying to get rid of the wolves, which will start the cycle all over again. Maybe the rancher need to take time and meditate on nature.
Some of you meditate-that’s great! Meditating outside is super. Sometimes, when you are outside you may encounter an animal that you think might be trying to communicate with you. Ancient cultures saw animals for symbols reflective of their time. In the middle ages, owl hooting in the night meant someone was going to die, a bird in the house meant someone would die, seeing a black dog meant—I bet you know this one---someone was going to die. At that time, health care was almost non-existent and the way they treated people was to bleed them, it wasn’t too surprising that people did die. Nature has a lot more positive messages for us every day.
The late great author Ted Andrews was a true steward of nature and communicator. He brought the term animal messenger into wide spread use in his book, Animal Speak. He believed animals, which includes birds, marine animals, reptiles, insects, and bees, do contact us. Often, we can learn the message by knowing about the animal itself and to remember what we were ruminating on when we saw the animal.
When working on my own book, Communicating with Your Animal Messengers I was surprised to learn that some stories I’d heard about animal behaviors were just that-stories. The hyena whose bark is often likened to laughter is portrayed as a happy go lucky animal in The Lion King. The laughing bark is a response to danger and sometimes may be the last sound it makes. Totally different vibe than Whoopi Goldberg voicing the hyena.
To work with nature, we need to learn about nature and how we fit it. We can do this by observation, reading, and allowing the animals to teach us. Do you have animal messengers? Yes. Daily. They aren’t ringing the doorbell so you need to get outside.
Animals Messengers can arrive in many ways
1. Dreams. This is especially true if you keep dreaming of the same animal repeatedly.
2. Personal Contact. An animal approaches you. This is more important with wild animals. Domestic animals will often approach you to be fed. A wild animal usually avoids you.
3. Unusual animal behavior- A wild animal entering your home. I’ve had birds knock at my sliding glass door. Had a possum climb up on screen door. A humming bird that hovered consistently in front of a window. I had a blue dragonfly land on my shoulder and stay the entire time I watered the flowers.
4. Out of place animals-these are animals that show up in places they don’t normally exist. An example is a Golden Eagle in Indiana. We have Bald Eagles here, but a golden eagle is a western bird.
It can also be an animal like a bobcat in the city.
5. Eye contact. Animals generally avoid eye contact since it can be viewed as aggression.
6. Annoying contact-sometimes those bugs buzzing by your head may be communicating with you.
7. Animals can also be messengers of recently departed. The person’s spirit doesn’t possess the animal, but can guide it. After the death of my mother, the green hummingbird and blue dragonfly stayed with me for about six weeks. Both the hummingbird and dragon fly were possibly totem animals of my mother since she had dozens of ornamental pins of both, along with plaques and pictures.
8. Now some people believe that fairies use rabbits and birds to communicate with people. I guess it is up to the person to determine who or what is bringing the message.
9. Unlike the possum that climbed up my screen door, most animals don’t come knocking. You must get outside, go for a walk, visit a park, be aware
10. Often, you are the only person to see the animal. I was standing on a playground with other teachers, talking while the kids played. I recognize the distinctive call of a hawk and pointed them out in the sky to the other teachers. The other teachers couldn’t see them, even though I could with my limited vision. It could be that they weren’t meant to see them. The message was not for them.
11. Can mythological animals be animal messengers?
Many people would answer with an emphatic no! I think it depends on how you relate to the mythical animal. Do you have a fondness for dragons or unicorns? Maybe collect them. Then they do play an important part in your life. Now, you won’t stumble across a griffon in the neighborhood, but you might come across a statue. Most contact with mythological animals will be in dreams or meditation. Keep in mind, you can’t direct this. If you go in thinking you want to dream about a unicorn and do, then there’s a good chance it wasn’t a messenger. It would be better to go to sleep hoping for a message as opposed to a messenger.
There are so many ways to connect with nature and I know your handout will provide you with several. I’d like to do a meditation with you, in which an animal that is significant to you, will present itself and with a message. This mediation will be included in the paper I put online, so you can do it later on your own if you want. The meditation will take approximately ten minutes. If you don’t want to participate, you can sit quietly or leave now.
1. Get comfortable, which means putting aside anything you might have in your lap down.
2. If there is room, you might put some space between you and the next person. If not, remember you have inner space.
3. Try to relax. We’re going to start with a body check.
4. Feet on the floor connecting with the earth. Wiggle your toes. Imagine them as roots reaching into the rich dirt. Move onto your calves. Tense them, release.
5. Make sure your hips are solidly in your seat. Take in a deep breath through your nose for a count of four. Hold for three seconds, then slowly release it to the count of six.
6. Continue to breath in this manner as you tense your shoulders and release. Ball your hands into fists, then release. Tighten your jaw as if angry then release, Roll your head gently side to side.
7. Finally, close your eyes knowing you are safe. You’re grounded, comfortable, and ready to meet your power animal.
The meditation is numbered for paragraphing purposes.
- Like the ancient ones, the power animals come from deep within Mother Nature’s consciousness and are part of her. (Keep breathing, belly breaths.) We believe that power animals are our deepest memories. We all share DNA with all the animals alive on earth. A lion has the same DNA in we do for many systems. We can in our memories see out of the lion's eyes. We are them. They call to us deeply, loudly.
- Power animals are easier to contact than ancient ones. Their voices are louder. They are easier to see. They will come and speak to you when you need them. The animals are helpers. Like ancient ones they are guides. They tell you what you need to know. They give you their immense energy. No shaman would ever go into sacred space without their animal helper. You’re getting ready to find your animal helper.
- Ready to travel? Let’s go. There’s a path at your feet it could be dusty.
- Feel your feet touch the earth,
- smell the fresh air,
- feel the warm breeze on your face.
- Walk down the path. It goes downhill slightly.
- The ground is hard and has small stones in the soil. It is solid and secure. Feel the ground and the grass that is on each side of the path.
- Walk down the path. It crosses a wooden bridge over a rushing stream. The bridge has stout railings. You can hear your feet echo on the bridge like a drumbeat as you walk across. If you need to drop something in the water that you want to get rid of you can do that now. This is a wonderful place to drop your emotional baggage in the water, preconceptions, anything you toted around too long that does not serve you. It’s peaceful here. Serene, but this isn’t your time to stop so you continue.
- The path now goes upwards slightly and comes over a rise. Below you is a large meadow. In the center of the meadow is a grassy circle. Go to the circle and Sit inside it and wait.
- Now ask for your power animal to come to you. They are like spirit animals coming out of forest. Let the animal appear and come up to you. It can come from a distance or appear from nowhere. The animal that appears to you is your power animal helper. It is your shaman's animal. Let the animal come towards you. Let them begin to speak and move. (pause four minutes)
- You can stay in the meadow as long as you like to and feel connected to the earth. Your power animal is part of the earth. It has tendrils that reach deep into the earth, the sky, and you, and connect it all together. If you feel comfortable, you can invite your animal to come to you, touch you, even come into your body. You can merge with them and see out of their eyes. (pause two minutes)
- Now stand up and leave the meadow. The path goes out of the far side and you can walk down the path further. It leads to the edge of an ancient forest of old growth trees. Stand at the edge of the forest by a great ancient tree. Find a tree that speaks to you and tells you to come to it. Now put your hand on the tree touch its rough bark. Feel its warmth, it life. Now imagine that when you put your hand on the tree, you spiral deep into the spiral of your own being. You spiral deep inside yourself, into your heart. And inside your body, your heart opens with wings. A spirit eye opens within you and sees this experience. It witnesses you as becoming the shaman.
- Walk back to the meadow, then to the bridge, then to where you are now. Bring your spirit animal. Bring the connectedness with you. Now move your feet. Look around you. You are now on The Path of the Feather. You can see and hear power animals and ancient ones. You can hear her voice telling you how to heal the earth.
So, what where some of your power animals?
Working with Nature Handout
By Carole Stamm w/a Rayna Noire (www.raynaoire.weebly.com)
Environment Book List
This is from www.Indianagarden.com
Indiana Natives that Encourage Bees
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ATTRACTING BIRDS TO YOUR YARD
http://www.thisland.illinois.edu/57ways/57ways_8.html
How Nature Helps You
http://www.cedartreehealing.org/blog/2014/11/24/why-do-we-feel-so-good-in-nature-why-does-nature-heal-the-top-10-reasons
How Nature helps your Mental Health
http://www.gogreen.org/blog/10-ways-nature-benefits-your-mental-health
By Carole Stamm w/a Rayna Noire (www.raynaoire.weebly.com)
Environment Book List
- Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
- Earth in the Balance by Al Gore
- The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
- The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
- *** The Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv
- The Nature Principle by Richard Louv
- The Sea by Rachel Carson
- Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert
- Our Stolen Future by Theo Colborn
- The Monarchs are Missing: A Butterfly Mystery by Rebecca E. Hirsch (children’s book)
- In Nature’s Honor: Myths and Rituals that Celebrate the Earth by Patricia Montley
- 100 Plants to Feed Bees by The Xerces Society
- Nature Speak by Ted Andrews
- In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall
- Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey
- The Hidden Messages in Water by Masaru Emoto
- Communicating with Your Animal Messengers by Rayna Noire
- Use natural light whenever possible.
- Open windows as opposed to air conditioning. Lower thermostat in the winter.
- Spend 20 minutes outside and focus on nature.
- Utilize salt lamps in home, especially near computers and in bedroom to negate EM exposure and help with sleep.
- Use the colors blue and green in decorating, along with nature photos.
- Focus on reusing and reducing.
- When recycling always clean out food bottles, jars, etc. Not only do dirty jars not get recycled they contaminate everything in the recycling bin.
- Wipe down cabinets with lemon juice or water to discourage ants in your home as opposed to toxic spray.
- Bring in flowering plants or cut flowers to improve creativity.
- Watch the stars come out preferably in a low light pollution area.
- Take a walk in the woods.
- Learn to recognize bird calls.
- Raise your own organic vegetables
- Plant onions and garlic with root vegetables as a natural deterrent.
- Put a bird feeder and bird bath in yard. Keep it clean and filled.
- Take time to watch the sunset and/or sunrise.
- Stay outside after dark to listen to the evening chorus.
- Make a compost bin. Remember to use it on your gardens and beds in the fall.
- Plant a bee and butterfly garden.
- Learn more about the animals around you. (Preferably reliable sources as opposed to children’s movies.)
- Take photos of the nature you see to discuss it later.
- Visit a raptor rescue organization, feline sanctuary, or other animal rehabilitation organization.
- Bring live plants inside to improve air quality, especially bamboo.
- Playing nature sounds is not only calming, but improves creativity.
- Take a bag with you whenever you walk to pick up trash. (We currently have a trash island 3x the size of France in the ocean. Our waterways empty into the Ohio, which empties into the Mississippi, then empties into the ocean. The trash you pick up saves our waterways and the ocean.)
- Take toxins, paint, used oil, pesticides to the solid waste disposal. Each county has one.
This is from www.Indianagarden.com
Indiana Natives that Encourage Bees
- Asters looks good in the flower garden and provide pollen and nectar. Bloom September to frost.
- Black-eyed Susans bloom in June and July.
- Brown-eyed Susans bloom in late July and August.
- Candytufts share their blooms in May and provide nectar.
- Cosmos provide pollen in August and September.
- Creeping Phlox looks great in a rock garden and gives the bees nectar through May and June.
- Grape Hyacinth gives nectar and pollen. Blooms in April.
- Lavender produces nectar from June through September
- Purple Coneflowers produce nectar July and August.
- Salvia blooms in May & June giving the bees nectar.
- Sunflowers bloom from June to September providing both nectar and pollen.
- Zinnia plants give us color from August to October and provide nectar.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ATTRACTING BIRDS TO YOUR YARD
http://www.thisland.illinois.edu/57ways/57ways_8.html
How Nature Helps You
http://www.cedartreehealing.org/blog/2014/11/24/why-do-we-feel-so-good-in-nature-why-does-nature-heal-the-top-10-reasons
How Nature helps your Mental Health
http://www.gogreen.org/blog/10-ways-nature-benefits-your-mental-health