The Lament Tree, the tree before Yggrassil – The Natural World Talk Part 2 (Part 1)
Some people call it ‘Yggdrasil – The Tree of Life’, we prefer to call it ‘The Tree of Knowledge’.
The Tree of Knowledge or The Natural World, what does it do for us? It’s our teacher. The Natural World is a teacher for the human.
Remember we said that the animal spirit guides walk with you and they are your friend and they give you support and they give you guidance and they can work with you.
The Natural World is different in the fact that it is separate as it can’t walk with us, it’s separate from us in that way, but it’s like it’s the teacher.
If you just look at weather patterns. If you are living in the wilderness for example, not in a safe house, or even if you do, the better you know the weather patterns, the better you know what cloud formation means, what that colour of the sky means, what that wind means, what that smell in the air means, the more you know all that, the better you know that the more you will be able to survive.
So, it’s teaching.
The Natural World teaches us about our environment and about how we, as humans, can live in it. Let’s face it, humans are not adapted, not very well adapted for the environment we live in, the skin on our hands can pierce like that, we don’t have any fur on our bodies to keep us warm, we don’t have the big teeth or the claws, we can’t fly, we can’t swim underwater for long, so there are many deficiencies about the human-being in that way.
The thing that makes us adaptable, the only thing, is our mind. Our spirit mind, our brain-mind, whatever you want and that means it needs to be fed constantly with information. It must constantly be taught; it must constantly acquire knowledge and that’s what the Natural World does for the human. Well, that’s how the Shamanic Tradition looks at the Natural World.
And then further from that, we said we talked about the weather and when you look at water and then look at rocks, mountains, trees, what have you and when you look at all of those different things they have something that defines them, they have a characteristic that is a defining thing.
Rocks:
When you look at rocks and we are not talking about little stones, because rocks and stones are different. We are talking rocks as in boulder rocks and when you look at a rock it looks like it is dead, immanent. But if you really look at that rock, the rock is heavy, the rock is strong the rock can cause some problems if it rolls down and hits something, but there is this energy about the rock that is strong.
There is a silence about the rock, there is a stillness about the rock. So, we have stillness, we have silence, we have strength.
This is telling us something. It’s telling us that there are times in your existence where you need to be still and silent to be strong. Because still and silent, allow the resources to gather, it allows you to see what’s going on. Allows your consciousness to become what is happening, and that gives you strength.
You know there are lots of people out there, they like to talk, talk, talk all the time. (We can’t talk because we like to talk) But all the time they talk, talk, talk at you, at you, at you all the time and constantly busy, busy, busy. Constantly doing things, busy, busy, busy.
They always have something to say. There is always somebody who is keen to have an argument or a fight and those people often look strong because they are moving all the time and they are active and they always have the big words and they are dominant and all of that and then the quiet person who sits over in the corner who doesn’t say very much who gets on with their life, they look weak because they are not out there forcing their point or their agenda.
But the rock tells us that there is strength in stillness and silence and when you look at the rock and you see the denseness of it, or the density of it, that is such a strong thing you can see that for some humans it’s important that they take note of what the rock is saying to them.
There are times to be still and silent because then you can have a different kind of strength without forcing your point, forcing your issue, making people do what you want to do etc. This is giving them a different way of being.
So, you see the rock here, is teaching.
Trees:
Well we have spoken about the tree, but what can the tree teach us apart from sharing with it and it disseminates and passes that information around and we get a message back.
Well, disseminate is the word. The tree shows us that there is a different way to disseminate knowledge. There is the majestic tree with the long trunk and with many branches and leaves out there and then their root system is very deep and large.
The tree disseminates through the root system and it also disseminates through the branches and the leaves as they sway that information it moves out, as birds nest in their canopy, those birds take energy from that tree to another place, the fruits of the tree, the nuts of the trees, they fall and are eaten.
So, that tree is saying to us there are many ways to disseminate knowledge, in other words, there are many ways to live the same life.
There are people who have to have things done their way, it’s not they have to do it their way, everybody has to do it their way. There are people who try to force their will on other people for whatever reason.
The tree says to us that there are many ways to live the same life and there are many ways to disseminate knowledge in that way.
When you look now, especially now or even when it was my time, there was this movement that children do learn differently, so they need to acquire knowledge in the way that suits them. Some of them needed to be rooted and they need to have that very strong base, they need to be sitting in a chair and really focusing on their work.
Others need to be out and about with movement and gathering information as it comes past, and sending that information off. Others need to be, like the bird in the tree, they come here and they have and they really know that and then they go to somewhere else and they pass that knowledge on and they really know that something else because they build their nest there this time. So there is all these different ways to learn, to acquire knowledge and to live.
That’s what the tree is telling us. That’s what the tree is teaching us.
Mountains:
Mountains are also majestic, there is something about a mountain that it has this place where it is there, it is taking up space, but it is not taking up space because it has gone up, perhaps it is covered with trees, perhaps it is just rock, grass whatever, but it has this immenseness about it and it has a quietness about it and it has a purpose about it.
Even though the mountain is there, it has like it is brimming with purpose. There is something about a mountain that has a purpose here.
It also says to the human, one of the many things it teaches humans is perseverance. To climb a mountain takes perseverance, you know it might be hard to get to the top, it might be easy, but to get to the top you have to work, you have to work to get there, but another thing a mountain teaches a human is preparation. It’s preparation.
If you decided to climb a mountain late in the afternoon and you have not taken into account the time of year, is it summer or winter, is it dark or getting late. You haven’t taken into account the weather, you haven’t taken into account that you need to have good shoes, warm clothes, water, some way of communicating with people, you taken none of that into account and you just go! Well you might find yourself in great difficulty and not only that, you will put other people into great difficulty because they will feel the need to come and rescue you.
So, you are not just putting yourself into difficulty, but other people.
So, the Mountain teaches about preparation, but it also teaches about thinking of others. Thinking ahead. That is what it teaches – preparation and thinking ahead.
So, you can see that there is many things in the Natural World that have particular characteristics that defines them but those particular characteristics that define them teach us as humans and in the Shamanic tradition it is very important that you are respectful enough to look at these things and really find out what is the characteristic of this particular thing, and honour that, and take it on board.
Water:
Water is meant to move. Everybody knows that water will stagnate in a pond if there is no movement, in a way it rots, it allows algae and plants to rot as there is no movement. So, water needs to move. It needs to move.
The human body even in ancient times, ancient, ancient times, the humans were aware that the human needed water and that it excreted water and they knew that water was a part of the human body. Now if water, if the characteristic of water is that it needs to move to stay alive, it needs to move to be productive, it needs to move to be pure, it needs to move to do its job: that also says the human needs to move.
The human cannot be staying in one spot, the human cannot be sedentary, it cannot be immobile, the human has to move like the water because the human is made up of a lot of water. If the human has the water in the body and it doesn’t move it becomes stagnant. It can be diseased, it can cause disease, it can cause bacteria to grow so the human needs to move and water teaches us that.
So The water is a very good one. If you persist in sitting down, watching television, sitting at the computer, at your work station and if you do not move the water in your body becomes stagnant.
Now humans have a very good system where they actually get rid of waste, they get rid of it, but that is a process that is different to what we are talking about because a lot of the water that you taking into your body has to absorb to keep parts of the body going, there is water in there, but if that water is not activated, not flushed out, it’s not replenished, if it is not moved, then it will become stagnant and as we saw in the pond it is just there, it gets warm. It’s there for bacteria to grow, algae to grow, leaves to fall into and rot, it is exactly the same.
So, we see the water, see the characteristics it needs to define it actually needs movement, it also needs movement to move the oxygen around, same in the human body. If you don’t move your body around then the oxygen in your body becomes, it only goes to certain places and when it gets to the other places it gets stale.
So water – movement. The body needs movement and that’s what water teaches us.
So, the Natural World in The Shamanic Tradition, we use it as a teacher.
To teach us about, not just about itself, not just about how we can survive in it, but it also teaches about ourselves, our existence. When you think about it, we are all the same element, we all made up of the same thing.
Now how can you incorporate the Natural World into your life as an everyday thing. What we have just said is more of a long-term in-depth process.
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