Earth Song: Emerging Spring

Western Skunk Cabbage - photo
Western Skunk Cabbage – photo by Jane Valencia

Spring is awakening … in the tiny reddish buds on the Silver Birch, the bright faces of Daffodil and Dandelion, in the return of the Rufous Hummingbird with the first pink blossoms of Salmonberry, in the mysterious and murky spathes of the Skunk Cabbage in the wetlands.

Spring suffuses the air — lengthening  the days, and invoking the renewal of exuberant and anguished egg-laying by our hens. It infuses our vital force, and we too may feel a budding and greening, the surge of sap rising — pulled upward  by way, as with the trees, of the crown of ourselves. — drawing forth the minerals and waters from our saturated winter-fed subconscious, and nourishing our fancies and wishes, plans and motions with the sweet and potent brew of life.

Here in the Pacific Northwest the persistent rains, and soaked fields, forest, and pathways remind me that we humans are of the waters and the earth. Fluids move through us, a constant interchange of absorption and release of various aspects of earth and air. We are sparked and fueled by the fire of life, and awash with the streams, rivers, tides, and tranquil ponds that communicate within us our ocean nature. We possess greening, leafing selves, pulled upward even as we root downward and and outward in our daily quest for essential nourishment to sustain our spirit and selves.

Bright stars of thought and imagination, the deep inner mystery of our own genetic coding, and the unending, surrounding, and inner flowering breath of the Divine urge us to reach in ways that enliven the deepest threads of our being. The successive layers of our own wood nature — our progression and story through the years — sculpt our resilience and strengthen our resolve as we respond to the changes, stresses, and wonders that is life on our blue-green world and with one another.

If you are alive, you are always listening and responding. Your trillion cells listen and respond, as does your very soul. The earth song that shapes and shifts the world around and within us is a music that every aspect of us knows, and an improvisation and composition within which each of us has a voice.

Who are you when nature and you know no boundaries, when one flows into the other and you recognize yourself in the garden, and the forest within your heart? When the Divine is soil and the soil is music? What is the earth song you express into being just by being yourself rooting and growing, leafing and flowering nourished by the very soul of your nature?

I invite you to share your musings below.

Welcome to Spring!

Halloween Secrets + Books, Dragons, and Harp Upcoming Event

It was a dark and drenched night!

Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie hosts its annual Halloween celebration with a long line of candlelit jack o'lanterns, free harvest soup and salad, music, and amazing community.
Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie hosts its annual Halloween celebration with a long line of candlelit jack o’lanterns, free harvest soup and salad, music, and amazing community.

Rain has returned to our corner of the Pacific Northwest, as well as mischievous flurries of wind. Leaves spin from the trees, and my chickens look like soggy dust mops.

Still, the island was lively with kids of all ages delighting in the annual “uptown” (to use correct island lingo) Trick or Treating — some, like myself, in modified costume to more appropriately weather the Spirit World above emptying their bathtubs.

With which magical creature “skin” did you, your loved ones, and neighbors cloak upon yourselves? Whether fanciful or fearsome, the costume we choose reveals something about a “power” or gift we yearn to express or grow in ourselves, a fear with which we may be dancing, or some other very special flame of your soul.

I encourage you to step into your Magical Naturalist self, and explore the clues before you, visible in that Halloween costume choice. What “animal force” (true nature) power is revealed? Or … is the Trickster present here — and that costume is a bit like Coyote, Raven, or Fox — dancing a bit of mayhem, a joke, or mystery into the moment?

Read on for some Magical Naturalist tips for discovering the truly wondrous in this Threshold time of the year.

Upcoming Event

Books and Dragons for the Holidays! Harp too!

My daughter Amri and I will have a table at the Holly Daze Bazaar.
When: Saturday, November 21, 2015 – 10am to 4PM.
Where: McMurray Middle School cafeteria,
9329 Cemetery Rd SW, Vashon Island, WA
There, you’ll find:

  • a fair of Amri’s Dragons eager to fly home with you to perch on your shoulder or serve as the perfect gift for a dragon lover
  • a stack of contemporary fantasy novels ready to carry you or a loved one into the magic that is all around us.
  • I will offer live harp music and free micro harp lessons. We’ll also have news about my newest harp learning opportunities, which could provide a beautiful start for your New Year.

If you live on or near Vashon, do drop by!

Magical Naturalist Skills: What Kids and the Kid In You Know

FoxTales No. 1 - written and illustrated by Jane Valencia
FoxTales No. 1 – written and illustrated by Jane Valencia. Shell and Leaves step out of the book Because Of The Red Fox into their own comic!

If you’re out with a child — especially with a young child — and you remove the shackle of clock time (so you’re wandering, no agenda, no pressing time commitment), the world around you reveals its true extraordinary state. Children will be drawn to all manner of things in the landscape, and will overlay their own bundle of stories and lore — whether it’s characters and lore drawn from books, movies, or anything else they like, or situations they’re puzzling to understand deep within. It’s like that for us grownups too, but we sometimes have to work hard to extract ourselves from our mental chatter to notice the wondrous around us.

In any case, a wander — especially outdoors (but it can be anywhere really), where you disengage from the press of time and commitment is an occasion for discovering that magic is everywhere, and that this magic is a mirror of our deepest natures. We are given enticing glimpses of our soul landscape, as well as the soul landscapes of the kids or other folk we are with.

The kid in you might point out that the magic you glimpse in what you notice in your surroundings is actually a clue to one of your “super-powers”. You could also say that the magic you notice reflects a glimpse of your gifts, your unique way of perceiving the world,  a facet of your soul’s purpose revealed, or the jewel of your heart. Choose your language.

Tiny World - photo by Jane Valencia
Tiny World – photo by Jane Valencia

Okay, so you have a “soul’s journey” aspect to your wanders. The other aspect is that in a true wander where you open your senses,and let go into the weave of the world, you enter an amazing conversation. You’re not just noticing things (rocks, plants, human-made things) that reflect an aspect of a nature, these things actually speak to your nature.

Suspend your disbelief if disbelief is starting to shout out to you right now. I invite you to engage in this possibility: that the world is alive with its own myriad intelligence (which can be very different from our human style). What if, when you notice something with curiosity, openness, appreciation, and wonder that it notices you?

Lupine Lens - photo by Jane Valencia
Lupine Lens – photo by Jane Valencia

Even before that moment of noticing: what if you set forth in a state of wonder, curiosity and open senses. Could it be that if you do so, the beings of the world wake up to you? “Alert! Alert! Here’s an awake, open-hearted, curious human!

What if, when something in your nature resonates particularly with the unique nature of another being, that that other being calls out specifically to you? “Hey! We have something in common! We’re in tune in a certain way.

What if this being is calling out, inviting you to notice, inviting you into a conversation with it? “You’re pretty interesting. I like what I see you in how you see me. Do you want to play?”

Dragon Tree
Dragon Tree – photo by Jane Valencia

That’s how plants work in offering their best medicine, in my opinion. And I think if you are reading this post this far, you probably recall times when a mountain has called to you, or a cloud, a lake or sea, a mischievous breeze — or particular human-crafted things: a book, a doll or toy, a harp, a home, a _______ [you fill in the blank].

The thing to keep in mind if you are new to this thought, or don’t play in this sandbox very often, is — if you bring the shell, plant, rock, doll, toy home — to continue the conversation. And listen to when its time to let the thing go. When you’re conversation is done, return the being to the earth, or pass it on to another human who will take time to  get to know it.

I’ll stop here today, but I want to emphatically state: The world is alive.

Here’s part of a poem I love by a 19th century Welsh bard, that underscores this idea for me:

In lovely harmony the wood has put on its green mantle,
and summer is on its throne, playing its string-music; the willow, whose harp hung silent when it was withered in winter, now gives forth its melody — Hush! Listen! The world is alive.
Thomas Telynog Evans (1840-1865)

This is what being a magical naturalist is: to open your heart, to walk in wonder, and to view the world with what Annie in Because Of The Red Fox calls “Magic Eyes”.

Go out on a wander! What do you experience when you step into the world with “magic eyes” and an open, wondering heart? Please share your flights of fancy or other thoughts about wanders, the aliveness of the world for you, and more in the comment box below!

Dragon Fire - photo by Jane Valencia
Dragon Fire – photo by Jane Valencia