We are Messengers and we have work to do

To be helpful, we must restore and regenerate wild systems and nature

Every day we are reminded that we touch and connect with intelligent life forms that include plants, trees, animals and even the landscape all of which we are only beginning to understand. We are in an age that I like to call “First Contact”, and here in the forest we seek to make contact and invest in the cosmic intelligence that surrounds us. An intelligence that we are opening ourselves up to – one that we are preparing for because it is intertwined with our future.

As wildcrafters some of us will be tasked with restoring and strengthening ecosystems as well as the ancestral memory held within species impacted by generations of influence from the Anthropocene – or human civilization. So many of our birds and animals and even insects have become dependent on human behavior and our urban encroachment into wildlands. Our ancient forests and in particular our great continuous forests, and the stories that they carry, have become depleted because of this human encroachment, which has caused wild species to remove themselves from their ancient role as stewards of the forest.

Where I live, those ancient stewardship roles in the forest still remain strong and I notice many of these wild beings gathering around Mother Trees, which are seed trees and a central life-force within the forest. Mother Trees insure that healthy seeds spread through the forest nation. Wind, birds and other animals are the main mechanisms involved in the dispersal of conifer seeds (conifers are evergreens). Wind bore seed dispersal involves two processes, namely; local neighborhood dispersal (LND) and long- distance dispersal (LDD). Long-distance dispersal distances range from 11.9–33.7 kilometres (7.4–20.9 mi) from the source.

Squirrels and chipmunks provide primary dispersal as they gather seeds from throughout a forest and then bring them to their food caches which are often located in Mother Trees. We call these beings messengers as they connect with plants and trees in their effort to expand the forest. These messengers collect seeds in such a way that they support genetic diversity as a forest expands and regenerates.

The bird family, Corvidae, which includes Ravens, Crows, Magpies and Jays are also primary distributors of these conifer seeds.

As messengers, these birds are known to cache up to 32,000 pine seeds and transport the seeds as far as 12–22 kilometres (7.5–13.7 mi) from the source. The birds store the seeds in the soil at depths of 2–3 centimetres (0.79–1.18 in) under conditions which favor germination.

What a fantastic natural process this is and one that is rich in sacred communication between all of the beings involved. We need to be part of this; we need to protect this sacred process in the wake of industrial extraction and mono-cultured forests.

The next time you take a walk in the forest, see if the Crows are gathering around a Mother Tree.

It will be a magical experience – and a reminder that we are also messengers.

If we are to be helpful, we must restore and regenerate wild systems and nature. Taking on this task requires, dedication, love and energy. If we simply plant trees based on oxygen or carbon quotas we will be deeply disappointed – the work that’s required is so much more than that.

In the region that the Wildcraft Forest resides, more freshwater from here feeds into the Pacific than from any other water drainage in the America’s, so it’s very important that we protect, regenerate and rewild this area. We believe that the forest and all of her species and guardians are sentient and it is our task to not only do the Earthwork required, but to create a long-term relationship with this place.

As wildcrafters we seek to shift human consciousness so that we will all regard plants, forests, water and the entire natural world as being “sentient”. Understanding the importance of sentience is central to making First Contact.

Sentience is part of the Great Mystery and when we walk and dwell within the forest we eventually discover that we are making First Contact with this mystery because it’s so new and unknown to us.

“Sentience” is the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience). In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations known in philosophy of mind as "qualia". In Eastern philosophy, sentience is the metaphysical quality carried by all beings and things – and it requires respect and care. The concept is central to the philosophy of animal rights and the “Rights of Nature”.

Humanity’s greatest challenge is to seek and come to understand that the Earth and all of her species are sentient. We live among equals, and to support this understanding we must invest social, political, financial and environmental resources so that we may practically deliver upon this understanding – our future will depend on it.

For an individual, connecting with nature on this level is a good first step. I often suggest that a different kind of meditation emerges in these wild spaces. Not one that encourages emptiness, but one that opens space which allows for an immense conversation to emerge as you become a conduit for ideas and intention generated by these wild spaces.

One becomes enlisted to serve the universe of life which creates a different kind of busyness in the mind and then the body – not one of chore – but one of joy, strengthened by love.

It is a process of solitude which I like to refer to as “soul-in-tune”; when one’s body becomes awake with ancient senses that have been dormant within us for so long. When souls awaken to all of this, the visual landscape becomes alive with signs and codes not seen before. We begin to feel the landscape through sounds and aromas that shift and change. There are feelings of chills and tingling that cause one to turn and take notice or to receive a sense of awe. There are tones presented to our hearing that bridge feelings between places, beings, plants and trees.

All of this represents a conversation nature is having with you– in real time. It is a tangible relationship in progress and it climaxes into a crescendo that can only be described as an “idea”. These ideas that one receives in the forest are unique to each of us. They are the result of being engaged in a relationship with nature. All of this speaks to each of us, but using a language that we would need to decipher – and this becomes part of the work.

In Eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical quality carried by all things and it requires respect and care. In Buddhism, sentient beings are beings which are composed of the five aggregates, or skandhas – these are matter, sensation, perception, mental formation and consciousness. Each of these skandhas represents a power, so when we as individuals and a society come to understand that the Earth herself is sentient to the fifth power, then everything that humanity knows will change, and a great shift in consciousness will emerge.

Today civilization is without nature. There’s a profound mismatch between the genes we carry and the bodies and brains that we are now building in this world that we find ourselves in. We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, socially isolated, fast-food-laden, sleep-deprived frenzied pace of this modern life – yet here we are.

One of the most important parts of our evolutionary pathway was our ability to communicate with the natural world around us – but that gift has largely been forgotten. So when we are making First Contact with the natural world we have in fact been here before – we are simply rediscovering an ancient part of ourselves.

This is why to exercise a conversation with nature is so comforting – it is a connection to ones soul.

One’s ancient soul.

Explore with us: www.wildcraftforest.com

Making a deeper connection with nature

We are blessed to be able to share these teachings with the world.

We know that it will not be scientific, political or economic drivers that will cause us to restore and regenerate planet Earth. It will be a spiritual driver. Only will an increase in consciousness cause us to rediscover our original humanity. Once we experience this dimension of love these spiritual drivers will override all elements of politics and economics. We will then utilize science for what it was originally intended to be – a vehicle for understanding how this love and all that is connected to it actually works – so that we as humans can be more helpful to every being and every place.

At the Wildcraft Forest School we are attempting to introduce people to the natural world so that they experience it in a very different way. If we are “one” with a forest, and we exchange life-force with it – this becomes a form of reciprocity. We will be healthier and the forest will be healthier.

Together we will have an agreement to regenerate planet Earth and by doing so meaning and purpose will be instilled within the process of our lives.

This calm connecting of “being” in the forest, turns into tangible results. Physicist Fritjof Capra described the process…“During (these) periods of relaxation after periods of concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight.”

Here’s a short excerpt from an interview with Dorothy Maclean one of the founders of the Findhorn Community in Scotland.

Peter Caddy, Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean unintentionally founded the Findhorn community in 1962. When they first came to north-east Scotland in 1957 to manage the Cluny Hill Hotel in Forres, they had all been on a disciplined spiritual path for many years. Eileen received guidance from an inner source she called ‘the still, small voice within’ and Peter ran the hotel in line with this guidance and his own intuition.

Feeding six people on unemployment benefits was difficult, so Peter decided to grow vegetables. The land in the caravan park where they lived was sandy and dry but he persevered.

In her meditation to support the challenges connected to gardening, Dorothy discovered she was able to intuitively contact the overlighting intelligence of plants – which she called angels, and then devas – who gave her instructions on how to make the most of their fledgling garden.

She and Peter translated this guidance into action, with amazing results. In the barren sandy soil of the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park they grew huge plants, herbs and flowers, most famously the now-legendary 40-pound cabbages. Word spread, horticultural experts came and were stunned, and this garden at Findhorn became famous.

Eventually the Findhorn Foundation was born and became a Scottish charitable trust registered in 1972, formed by the spiritual community at the Findhorn Ecovillage, one of the largest intentional communities in Britain. It has been home to thousands of residents from more than 40 countries.

Nature is alive, intelligent and sentient and it seeks to connect with us.

The results are real.

Perhaps you would like to join us as we set up a Sanctuary Design Camp in order to help do this work. A Sanctuary Forest represents a location where stewardship is taking place which seeks to protect, expand or rewild the natural biodiversity of a place. A Sanctuary Forest is also seen as a spiritual centre where the stewards of the place have created a sentient relationship with all of the biotic beings located there. A Sanctuary Forest can be located on private or public land and is largely placed there by the sheer will, of those individuals willing to steward that place. A Sanctuary Forest is created upon certain pillars that include stewardship, science, sentience, spirit, semiotics and sanctuary.

Learn more: http://www.wildcraftforest.com/School/Camps/5-SanctuaryForestDesignCertification.html