Land of the Singing Clams

Recently I travelled to Cortes Island which is located in the Strait of Georgia across from Campbell River, Vancouver Island and Quadra Island, BC. When I got off the ferry I had some extra time before checking into my retreat, so I chose to go explore Manson’s Landing.

I noticed a young woman wandering around an almost empty cove perhaps picking up Oysters and placing them in her bucket. This reassured me that I too could go out there with my camera and find some treasures of my own!  So I wandered out onto the wet sand tiptoeing around and over various shells and jellyfish.

The sunlight made the water and dry sand sparkle. The air and ocean was still and quiet except the only sound I could hear was tiny high pitch squeals that seem to surround me. This was new to my ears. Whether I wandered into the clear water or on the wet sand and squatted to curiously peer at things, this squeaky chorus remained the same. There was an abundance of empty clamshells, which were contrasted by live Oysters. I wondered if the sound came from the million tiny holes in the wet sands.

At times I had to step cautiously to avoid the glimmering rubbery jellyfish patiently waiting for the waters to return.  I wished to walk out to a small rocky island that was surrounded by a channel of water.  However, I looked back to dry shore and sensed the tide was coming back in and that I needed to retreat or I’d be wading in waters creeping up to my knees or thighs. It was not the best time to get stranded with the camera.  I have little experience with the timing of tides.  I noticed the water current creep up and it floated empty clamshell boats, air bubbles and curled pieces of bark etc. All the tiny discoveries were exciting photograph. I wondered if this could be called the land of the singing clams?

Beside myself there was only another young family relaxing on the beach. It struck me that the children did not appear bored as they sat together in the sandy grass.  This was such a tranquil and clean island beach.  It was serenity! It made me wish that all children of the world could experience moments such as this out in nature. Especially for children that face economic and urban barriers to playing in nature based unstructured natural environments free from the electronic stimulation that tends to be the norm these days.

During my brief time on Cortes Island, I did learn more about some of the interesting community projects and lifestyle choices.  Someone mentioned knowing a 3 year old who knows over 25 plants and their important medicinal uses.  I thought  this was interesting as many preschoolers that I have known over the past had memorized the names of Dinosaurs! 

As well someone mentioned that children from the inner city of Seattle come to camp on the island and have been led barefoot on a walk through the forest up to Easter Bluff lookout. Wow! What a great experience that would be to walk on forest moss and rocky steps in barefeet! 

There is even a small independent parent participating school located on the Linnaea Farm Land Trust. One of its primary goals is to create appreciation, respect and responsibility for the natural world. One of their assets is a ‘Farm Life’ class as the school is located on a working organic farm!

As well I did witness that young children can sit in one spot entertaining themselves for an extended period of time while the adults relax in solitude comfortably right beside them. Perhaps if we could choose to turn off our cell phones and IPods more often, we even might hear more natural and magical sounds like Singing Clams!

How might childhood be different if young children were influenced to attach and identify themselves with natural elements from earth, air, water and fire? To Learn how to create and combine them in innovative ways that enhanced their pretend play?

How might childhood be different for young children if they were not influenced to attach and identify themselves with commercials, products and brands? Instead perhaps they could learn that happiness does not primarily come from purchases that promise to entertain them or make them cool or attractive. Perhaps we could also teach them not to believe that they need these items just because media tries to persuade them with these consumer beliefs.

What might be different is their connection to nature. Young children may suffer less from over-stimulation, anxiety, and boredom.

http://www.linnaeafarm.org/

http://www.evergreen.ca/en/

http://www.childnature.ca/

http://www.commercialexploitation.org/events/consumingkids.html 

(documentaryon commercial exploitation of children)
http://www.raffinews.com/download/audio/sustainability.mp3 

(music)

Over The Moon With Gratitude and Composting my Dreams

• What would it be like if you chose to live your life as you may have  dreamed about for several years?
• What stops you right now from living that way? 
• If you could let go of something that no longer serves you, would that be easy or difficult? 
• If it is not realistic to actually be fully within your dreams and you had to break it down into small pieces, what would be the first step?  
• And the second step?

Writing down all the things you have dreamed about is a great way to start noticing what excites your creativity.  Perhaps your ideas just do not seem practical, or professional, or they are so far out people would think you are from another planet!

Writing them down or drawing them out is a good way to get the creative juices flowing. Listen to the silliness, the seriousness and feel for when they seem to come from a deep place within your chest.  The ideas from your head must be anchored with the weight of your heart.  You'll feel it when you put it down on paper this way.

I recently took a few steps to towards something I wish I had more energy, time and money for.  What I discovered were opportunities and possibilities.  Now I still have some serious parts of my life that do not allow me to just follow my bliss. However, these small steps I experienced renewed my hope and creativity to create some more smaller steps that I can follow towards the bigger dream of what I wish I could do.

I have actively entered my dream as if I am on a journey.  I'll have to lean on my creativity and honour my insatiable curiosity. I know well enough to keep my eyes open and be on the lookout for signs confirming that I am going in the right directions. As well, I forever will be grateful for the teachers, friends and allies whose paths have crossed mine.

So I encourage you to dream big and let the ideas flow. Sometimes it is appropriate to share your dreams with other people too. Or sometimes it is best to keep them in a special container within your heart. You will know when is the best time to share, as your confidence will allow you to do so.

Recently I spent some time with a wonderful group of people all gathered together to share in the wisdom and leadership of a global woman known as Starhawk. We shared our visions and built our confidence to take meaningful action in our lives and all for the wellbeing of the planet.

As well, I bought a book by Starhawk and the first thing I read was a Compost Blessing. (So here was another sign for me, that I am not from another planet.)

COMPOST BLESSING
"We offer gratitude to the great cycles of birth, growth, death, decay and regeneration.  We are grateful to all the beings who have made the great transformation, leaving the remains of their bodies here. We are grateful to all the hungry mouths that consume the dead.  Blessings on the termite, the beetle, the ant, the spider, the worm. Blessings on the fungi and the bacteria, those that need the air and those that avoid it. Blessings on all the life in this pile that will transform decay to fertility, death to life. May I always remember that the cycle of life is a miracle. May I continue to feel a sense of wonder and joy in the presence of death and life. May I remember that waste is food, and may my eyes be open to opportunities to close the circle and create abundance and life."

page 168,  THE EARTH PATH - Grounding your spirit in the rhythms of nature
by Starhawk, 2004.

For many years now I have had a strong spiritual experience when I go to empty my household compost into the outdoor compost bin when it is dark outside.  It began to happen one summer as the full moon lit up my backyard and I could see all my pumpkins and their vines and leaves in the dark.  Perhaps I was  sensing plants growing to the pull of the moons magnetic force. Perhaps it was the subtle heat I felt coming from the compost.  Somehow it all felt connected under that moon as I stood there.  I could walk back into my home with a sense of peace feeling more connected to something larger than just what was going on in the smallness of my house.

If you are interested, Starhawk even has a few ideas for compost rituals in her book mentioned above!  Or visit her website for more information and training opportunities at www.starhawk.org

Or feel free to try or adapt my compost ritual :

This past year I learned of a Peruvian ritual to express or celebrate Gratitude.  In fact little kits are sold at markets or stores to prepare these Gratitude bundles. Apparently they burn these bundles or bury them in the earth while saying prayers to Pachamama.

My concern was for the possible toxic substances burned or buried as the objects used have moved away from the old organic to more modern processed foods or industry produced products. Therefore I adapted the ritual in my own way to use a coffee filter or Rhubarb leaf as the wrapping for the contents inside the bundle.  For inside the bundle I prefer to use offerings such as; flower seeds, seed pods, leaves, shells, pebbles, hair etc.  Anything that can naturally break down and decompose.

The activity of filling the Gratitude bundle is one of mindfullness, as each offering represents something or the events, or people that you are grateful for.  Leave enough room so that you can fold over the edges of your filter paper or leaf to hold the contents snug inside. Tie the Gratitude bundle up with some twine.
Then say a prayer or a few words and place your gratitude bundle in a hole in your compost bin. Perhaps you will even try this during a full moon too!

Well..having written this..I see it is time to celebrate some Gratitude for all that I have recently experienced and all the new friends and allies that I have met.  The moon is already into its new cycle, a time to visualize my goals and take new action for the cycle ahead!

The Full Moon  October 3rd, 2009.  Photo taken over the ocean at Campbell River, BC, Vancouver Island, Canada.

Connecting To Nature Within The Ecological Age

                                                    

Bill has left a new comment on the post "A Journey Through Presence" from Feb 2009 :

I have been a life long naturalist- in the oldest and most holistic sense, and I feel most connected these days when I am splitting wood or hunting wild mushrooms. I've made a career of natural science and conservation, and now after 35 years of managing, protecting, studying, writing, and teaching about nature; I've begun to think a lot about the meaning of separation. I would like you to ponder this-doesn't a true communion with nature require foraging of some sort? If we are born of nature and part of it, and everything in nature both feeds and is fed by everything else, then why should we be different? Doesn't it make sense that gathering, even including respectful hunting, making things of natural materials, and perhaps even modifying the landscape that you live in in a sustainable way is essential to real communion? Naturalists often abhor or discourage gathering, and I understand the implications of overharvesting, but it seems to me that one needs to make a shelter and eat the fruits of the forest and the fishes of the stream, learn to identify and harvest wild mushrooms and herbs, and come to understand which is which and why they occur where they do to be fully immersed and connected. No one understands nature in more depth than a traditional hunter/gatherer. Just "experiencing" or "pondering" nature in an intellectual sense, or leaving only footprints and taking only photographs without participating directly in the flow of life seems to me to a form of separation in and of itself. I'd like to hear your feelings about this, and sorry for the long post.                                                                            
 Posted by Bill to Quiet Nature at September 28, 2009 1:48 PM

Sherry has responded  to Bill's comment on the Post, "A Journey Through Presence"from Feb 2009:
Thanks Bill for your thoughtful comments and questions. I agree in that, connecting with nature deepens when we are engaging more than one sensory function. Such as smell, vision, hearing, touching on and on.When I am outdoors engaged in my Photography, it is very much like foraging, gathering, and hunting for me. The experience of time is altered as I am fully engaged in what I am noticing or focusing on. It may be my footsteps delicately avoiding a wild flower, mindful breathing to steady the camera, smelling the Sage as the wind blows, and peripheral vision noticing an approaching Eagle, the changing hues of colors as the sun moves.
There are many people disconnected from nature in society, whether that is emotionally, unconsciously, ethically, or even just playfully. As environmental degradation continues, it could be important to encourage people to pause, observe, and notice what they sense within the natural world. Even if that is water at the beach, a plant in a hospital room, or a Bee on a plant.
By consciously becoming aware, experiencing the brief stillness, and experiencing sensory input, we tend to choose or seek out more in the natural world. Rather than caught in focusing on our worries, our technology etc., we may move beyond staring out a window, to stepping outside for air, or sitting on the grass to stare up into a tree.
If people are so fortunate, they may cross paths with someone like you. Someone who can mentor, teach, and share an experience of further depth to connect within nature! Thanks again for your important comment and questions!                          
  Posted by Sherry to Quiet Nature at September 28, 2009 8:41 PM

Following is a quote from Thomas Berry, one of the leading environmental thinkers in North America.

"The ecological age fosters the deep awareness of the sacred presence within each reality of the universe. There is an awe and reverence due to the stars in the heavens, the sun, and all heavenly bodies; to the seas and the continents; to all living forms of trees and flowers; to the myriad expressions of life in the sea; to the animals of the forests and the birds of the air. To wantonly destroy a living species is to silence forever a divine voice. Our primary need for the various life forms of the planet is a psychic, rather than a physical, need. The ecological age seeks to establish and maintain this subjective identity, this authenticity at the heart of every being. If this is so of the prehuman phase of life, it is surely true of the human also."

                                Pg 46 ~ ‘The Dream of the Earth’, by Thomas Berry 1988

An Interconnected Life

"

During a Shamanism workshop this past winter, we had a meditative mask making session. While the mask was created on my face and it hardened, I focused on the encasement and the sound of the rain dripping in a nature sound recording. I became a tree in a wet dark forest. I continued to merge with this consciousness the next morning. I intuitively knew I was to cover the plaster mask with the peeled bark I discovered on the forest floor. I had accepted this gift of bark and left an offering last Fall. This September, I returned to this place in the forest and blessed the mask, tree and forest. I brought the mask home with me as the plaster base is not organic.


One of Joanna Macy's Theoretical Foundations in 'The Work That Reconnects' is:


 "2.Our true nature is far more ancient and encompassing than the separate self defined by habit and society.We are as intrinsic to our living world as the rivers and trees, woven of the same intricate flows of matter/energy and mind. Having evolved us into self-reflexive consciousness, the world can now know itself through us, behold its own majesty, tell its own stories- and also respond to its own suffering. "

pg 59  'Coming Back to Life ~ Practices to Reconnect our Lives, Our World by Joanna Macy-Molly Young Brown 1998