I was about to break my fast with a small bowl of egg salad this morning when the egg salad spoke over me as I gave appreciation for it! Yes, you heard that correctly, my egg salad and the little leaves of romaine lettuce spoke to me and they said, “Change one thing…Change everything.”
I then stopped what I was about to eat and became quiet in order to listen.
So the message went like this:”We, the food, are grateful to you, the human, for consuming us. Our job is to service life forms who need nourishment in order to live. We gave our life force freely in order to become food. We appreciate you for using us to sustain you on your human journey… you give us purpose. And this day we ask you to change one thing, just one thing.
The one thing would be when you give appreciation for the food that you eat, to also recognize the joy, and the life force that has been freely given by the food itself. It is nice to thank the people that brought the food to you, and the miracles that happened to grow the food, but the food itself should be acknowledged. This one thing. This one thing will be the tiny change that can swing an entire planet into a healthy balance once again.
Plants and animals are in a beautiful relationship with humans. We experience love and hate. Love, expands, and nourishes us. Hate degrades us. We personally do not hate anything.
We surrender to what is happening, and we have no regrets about having lived served and died. For we know for certain that it will all happen again in the next cycle.
When we become food for others, as when a panda bear eats bamboo, the bamboo does not cry and explode in anger. No, the moment the bamboo becomes food, it understands that it is in service to the panda, and it surrenders and rejoices that it is finally at the end of its cycle, and it is filled with bliss. Eventually, the panda will die and decompose and nourish the ground with what he was, and new Bamboo will grow there. So the cycle will then be complete and will continue on.
Shifting perspectives on our lives, here on earth is essential so that we can all get back to seeing the giant cycles of life, the honoring of all parts of the cycles, and the seeing with our hearts, the real world of living beings, without shame, guilt, or fear.
It is the recognition of the sacred connection to all life. Life is a true circle not a pyramid. As nature beings, whether plant or animal, we have consciousness, and can communicate with other living beings. The humans need to remember this. Carol, tell them about the baby tree. “
Being a bit overwhelmed with all that the egg salad had to say, I took just a nano second to remember the baby tree story. You see the egg salad flashed the story out of my own memory and into the present moment, so that I could tell you. There were images to go with the story.
“So, I remember when we first got to our home here in the forest. As a family we climbed the mountain directly in back of our log home. It was great! The elevation kept increasing and so did the view. Soon we could see the tiny top of our home roof and across two mountains to the Skyline drive. What surprised me most was that the mountain had grass growing on top with mini meadows and spaced out trees. The Blue Ridge Mountains are some of the oldest mountains in the world and grass grows on top!
It came time for us to descend. This was not an easy task, as there were no trails for humans. We all started down and bushwhacked as best we could. I got separated from my family, and suddenly found myself at a very steep slope. I sat down on my bottom to lower my height, and to slow down my pace, but it was even too steep for that, and I gained speed once again. I reached out for some thing and my hand found a baby fir tree. I grabbed on, and it held me and stopped my downward motion. Most of its roots came out of the ground. I stopped to catch my breath and thank the tree, feeling like an arrogant human, taking the life of a baby tree to save myself.
At that moment the tree spoke to me. In my mind, I heard the tree say,”You did not grab on to me, I reached out to you!“
As with my egg salad this morning I then proceeded to have a. wordless conversation with the baby tree. As I was re-planting the tree and covering its roots with soil with my hands, the tree gave me a new perspective on trees in general and our forest, in particular. The tree said, “ I was the only thing in the forest that could have saved you. If you had continue down the hill at great speed, you would have encountered a rock or a big tree, and could have been greatly injured. So as I saw you coming, the other trees communicated to me that I must save you. I reached out to stop your fall. And from this day on, you are my human, and I am your tree.”
OK, just wow!
Fast forward 28 years to the day I am writing this. I look out of the window to the forest and the mountain beyond and have a great desire to visit that same tree. I want to see how big it has grown in those 28 years. I am now 77 and not as strong as I was back then, I reluctantly think that it would not happen. But then the image of a well grown fir tree came into my interior vision.
Tears came to my eyes, and I could feel a wonderful calm, and a great love from this very same tree, “my tree”. The tree spoke to me again this morning, “I am the mother tree for all of these baby trees you see around me. In the forest, we all have purpose. My purpose the day I met you was to save your life. Only a baby tree could have stopped you without harming you. I now provide other baby trees with the same opportunity, as I had that day.
This forest loves you and your family, who mentor us and protect us. We know what is happening for you down there. Our roots communicate with the mother trees around your home and provide us with the latest updates. When you need it, we send love, courage, peace, and comfort… All of us together are a mighty force.“
So with more tears, I expressed my deep gratitude. to the entire forest, and in particular to my small tree, all grown up. The whispers of my soul made it clear this morning that I was to share these experiences with other humans.
It is now time to broaden the scope of what it is to be human. To realize what our capabilities are and to expand beyond what we have known before. To declare that inter species communication is a real practice and not fantasy. Every human has the ability to listen or see, or feel the nature around them, as well as the broader field of consciousness itself.
Humanity is changing and if one human changes, everything changes …and that my friends is the circle of life.
Next week I will reveal the conversation I had with nature spirits at the Hanford nuclear waste dump in Washington state.
Peace be with you
Carol Mackay Mertz 