Your Earth Based Spirituality - Tuning Into Your Life-Force, Joy and Vitality!
In a moment, I’ll share a tip for supporting your Earth-Based Spirituality and tuning into your life-force energy, joy and vitality. Yet first, a few related musings…
Here in Northern New England, the June solstice is the time when sunlight is abundant, and we spend our long-lit hours enjoying the rest of the natural world, deepening our connection to our Earth-Based spirituality.
Having been raised by a father who loved the outdoors, I was fortunate to have learned some of the lessons that he learned from the indigenous guide who taught him the ways of wildlife, woods and waters.
I learned to walk in such a way that the animals paid little mind to my observations. “Little toe, Big toe, Heel,” he told me, “… and never in a straight line.” As a child I asked him why and he said, “Straight lines are how people move.
The animals know the difference and will stay away.”
Along with that, he taught me to stop after three or so steps to listen keenly, to look by just moving my eyes, to notice the breeze on my skin, and to use my sense of smell. 
While he never explicitly taught me this, I found myself falling in love with the world around me. A sense of being held and seen by those that I couldn’t yet see, lingered long after climbing into the car at dusk to travel home. Unbeknownst to Dad, he was teaching me a form of Earth Based Spirituality.
As I grew, I continued deepening my sensory awareness, and allowing myself to be enraptured by the antics of animals, the grace of the birds, the calls of the owl at evening and so much more. Though my days, I had many encounters with wild creatures who felt comfortable with my presence – experiences that filled me with so much joy that tears ran from my eyes.
Along with these more ordinary reality encounters, my senses of the “others” who were palpably present and yet unseen, grew. A school friend suggested I was experiencing faeries, but I felt something bigger, more like wise elders or watchful guardians. I longed to be able to see them with my eyes, but it was a body awareness that became my way of perceiving them.
The ones I felt at the ocean were similar, but not the same as those of the woods. The rivers and lakes had others still, and the mountains I visited had their own beings. I felt them watching, and always gave them a silent, loving greeting.
Having Norwegian grandparents, I had read the folktales of Norway when I was in grade school. As my experiences with the watcher/guardians grew, I thought that perhaps what I was feeling was some kind of supernatural beings like the ones I had read about in those stories.
Of course, time passed, and some of my interest was eclipsed by moving through my schooling and only burbled up when out in the wild places again.
Fast forward a few decades, when I learned shamanic journeying. It was rather like being handed the master keys to a vast library of wisdom that my curiosity reveled in! Imagine being able to transcend ordinary space-time to visit with my long dead, Great and Great, great grandmothers, to sail beyond our little blue planet into the stars, and to experience imagery that confounded description!
Eventually, I did journeys to ask about what I had felt in the wild places. The spirit teachers I met told me that the ones I felt were very like the ones I first met in folktales.
I asked, “Would they mind if I used those names for them? The Rå, the Landvættir, and Trolls? The teacher smiled at me and said, “You may ask them yourself.”
In meeting them, I realized that their names were how humans spoke of them, and that they understood my desire to get to know them better. They said they were here in great abundance when humans were few. They were stewards, and in those days functioned to keep the natural world strong. Then, they said, “it is very different now,” and the heartache they felt surged through my body!
They continued, “There are fewer who allow nature to teach them to live in harmony, to not take trees, plants or creatures, without offering more than is taken. Most have even forgotten that they are part of nature and cannot live without clean water, vast woodlands, or all the other interwoven parts that make The Whole.” I listened with every fiber of my being to what they communicated.
Through more journeys, I learned that they stand between our world and the rest of nature. Like guardians, but also as guides for knowing the natural world–of which we are all a part–more deeply and profoundly.
What I learned then, and understand more deeply as time continued to pass, is our reconnection to them and the places they caretake make us more human and humane. We develop a deeper experience of our place in the natural world. This opens our heart to a depth that has been elusive for too many millennia. Through this process we are healed of pains unspoken, our wisdom grows, our hearts become more loving, and each of us becomes even more grateful for our lives.
TIP
Go outside and tune into Earth-based spirituality. Take time to walk slowly, taking a few steps, then stopping to open your eyes, ears, and heart. Repeat over and over until you have slipped the Cloak of Over-Domestication that the culture gave you. Let each leaf rustle, playful crow, water ripple and fragrant aroma allow the real you, the wonder-filled, glorious one that still lives in your bones, to emerge and bring its gift of vitality for you. That “you” is not only in alignment with Nature, but with your soul, your life-force, and your deepest joy!
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Blessings and love,
Evelyn Rysdyk.
