When we’re feeling out of sorts, turning to nature for comfort and solace is effective. Many of the loving, compassionate spirits who live in nature will joyfully share their wisdom and their healing energy with us.
A couple years ago I was walking in the state park near my home on a trail through the forest. A sense of sadness began to come over me. I left the trail and found my favorite sitting rock. As I sat, the heavy emotional weight continued to build, but I couldn’t identify the source.
Slowly, the breeze began to blow. At first just little puffs, then growing. All the while, my sadness kept building. The tree branches began to dance, eventually creaking against each other, talking to me, saying, “Let go, let go.” And I felt the wind as a presence, a living being. It too began talking to me, whispering, “Let go, let go.”
And on the wind came my maternal ancestors. They wanted me to acknowledge the legacy of sadness I carried. They wanted me to mourn for them, for myself, for us. And then they wanted me to set the burden of that grief aside and release it to the wind to be carried away.
So I did. I mourned and I waled. And through it all, the wind swirled around me, holding me, carrying the grief away. I waled for my ancestors who had carried that sadness for such a long time, for myself who had always felt it as mine, for all of us with unfulfilled dreams.
At the height of my mourning, the wind waled with me, and as my grief tapered off, so did the wind. As I came to a place of peace, so did the wind.
I left the forest that day much lighter, having shifted the ancestral energy. The spirit of the wind had been my teacher, my healer, my inspiration.
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As this story illustrates, we can work with elementals and nature spirits for our personal healing. How?
· Allow yourself to be intuitively drawn to a place in nature that holds healing for you.
· Introduce yourself to the nature spirits of the place. If it feels right, ask any of loving, compassionate elementals there to work with you.
· Slow down. Stop. Sit and wait. Be patient. Nature sometimes works at a different pace than we expect. Allow the experience to unfold.
· Tune in and follow any nudges or intuitive guidance you get. You may receive a message from the spirits as a word or phrase whispered in your ear, as an image or a scene in your mind’s eye, as a sensation in your body, or as a flash of knowing.
· Interact with the nature spirits. Follow their guidance if it feels right.
· When complete, give gratitude to the nature spirits, either through a sincere “thank you,” by gifting them with a song, or by leaving a pinch of tobacco or cornmeal as an offering.
Do you have an experience with a nature spirit you’d like to share?