The conversation will ignite the animated spark of life that lives breathing within us.
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Sitting in the medicine spot, you will become aware of the multi-level verbal and non-verbal language of nature that weaves a dense three dimensional web around you and within you.
This is the conversation of nature, reacting to and acting upon countless tiny cues from the environment.
The animals are not, and can never be, aloof and separate from this web, i.e. being the ‘passive observers’ of life. Doing so would render them lifeless and utterly vulnerable to predators, as well as missing out on countless opportunities for food, shelter, and procreation.
Thus, when in the medicine spot we do not merely sit and become the observer, looking in on the ‘action’ from some aloof elevated seat of enlightenment. Rather, it is about accepting the animated spark of life that lives breathing within us and therefore becoming participative with the nature of which we are.
- In this way, we start to interact with our very humanity, inhabiting our bodies, becoming fully and deeply alive within the animate landscape of which we are an integral part.
- In this state of awareness, we can begin to see and feel the ripples of information that pass along the natural highways of information.
All around are the sounds of the birds; songs, companion notes and calls. Then at the far edge of our perception, the birds go silent and like a wave, this silence progresses towards us, a ripple in the natural energy field. The birds one by one begin to make shapes in the landscape moving either up or down along the breaking edge of this wave of awareness.
This tells me that a predator is approaching, if it is the hawk or the eagle the birds will fly down into the scrub, on the other hand if it is the fox or weasel they will fly up to just above head height. Each action a carefully measured response to the threat, or of course to the opportunity.
There is a background steady state that is present when no predators or other disturbances are around. This is when the birds in particular are in a relaxed yet poised awareness. The other animals know this so they relax too, you see they are also tuned into the language of the birds.
The medicine spot is thus the place where we can simply be and participate in a greater and more vital conversation.
Photos: The forest above the mountain. Courtesy of the author.