Coyote continued to follow the shallow creek for as long as he could, until it came to a waterfall. Although it was small, the cascade was still too high for him to jump, so he left the creek and continued along the bank, thinking himself to be safe now. He followed the creek to the bottom of the waterfall, taking care not to slip on the ice-covered rocks on the way down. Just as he reached the bottom he was about to enter the forest again when Coyote Woman stepped out from behind a boulder near the creek bed. All of the other members of the Fire Tribe stood behind her, some distance away.
She bared her teeth at him, saying, “You have stolen from me, and now you must pay the price!”
Coyote steeled himself for a battle, but as his hackles rose he remembered that Coyote Woman was a Trickster, just as he was. He could not defeat her by engaging in his usual arsenal of trickery. As he pondered this, he felt his consciousness expanding, burning like the fire in his tail. As the warm awareness spread throughout his body and his mind, he began to see things in a different way. He recognized that Coyote Woman had the same wants and needs that he had. As he thought of this it became clear that all creatures, whether of his tribe or of another, had the same basic goals. He looked at all the members of Coyote Woman’s tribe, standing behind her at the top of the hill. All wanted food. All wanted safety. All wanted a warm place to sleep. Most of all, all wanted to love and to be loved.
With this realization, Coyote smiled at Coyote Woman and took a step towards her.
At first she looked confused. She seemed to struggle to keep the angry look on her face, then something within her surrendered and she began instead to laugh. She flopped down into the snow at Coyote’s feet and rolled back and forth, giggling uncontrollably.
Unable to help himself, Coyote began to laugh as well. Laying there beside her, they both chuckled until they had to stop to catch their breath, while the Fire Tribe, puzzled, looked on.
When Coyote was able to breathe comfortably again, he asked her, “So you’re not really angry with me?”
Coyote Woman smiled at him and replied, “Of course not. Why would I be? The funny thing about fire is that it is like love…as long as you feed it, it continues to grow. The little flame you stole from me is insignificant compared to the source from which it came.”
Coyote pondered this in the light of the knowledge that nobody is truly separate from anyone else. By reaching out with his own spirit and touching the aspect of himself that was Coyote Woman, he was able to end the conflict and make peace between them. He was able to use his insight to become what was needed for the situation.
As he
smiled at Coyote Woman, the rest of the Fire Tribe looked upon them with love
in their hearts.
14.0 Rescue from Without – Nature as Nurture
As the end of the path draws nigh, we may find ourselves exhausted from the journey. The Magic Flight challenges us to use all of our resources to seek inspiration and magic from the natural world instead of from the trinkets and baubles of a modern post-industrialist existence. Once we have learned to stand naked and alone in the wilderness, content and at peace with the natural world, we are probably not in any hurry to return to the mundane 9 to 5 existence.
If this is the case, then the world may have to send for us. For a spiritual seeker, this rescue from without may come from a friend or a family member who needs the wisdom you have gained from your journey. Or it may just come from the need to share the wisdom you’ve gained as a method of gaining an even deeper understanding of what it means to truly trust your own inner voice.
For the shaman who has walked the Way of the Coyote, this rescue from without comes from the knowledge that he/she is truly not separate from anyone else. So by calling on Supernatural Aid, he/she becomes one with all that is, and is able to shape-shift into whatever is needed for the situation using the magical skills learned during the Magic Flight.
14.1 Nature and Nurturing Relationships
I met my wife online through an Internet Personals site back in 2000. On my Personals page, one of the questions asked on the Profile was, “What is your idea of the perfect date?” For my response, I wrote, “Going camping in the woods…that moonlit beach is getting too crowded!”
Of course, the reason I’d written this is that the majority of responses to the question consisted of, “A romantic walk on a moonlit beach.”
The fact that so many people want to take romantic moonlit strolls along the beach with a romantic partner tells me something: That nature has the power to induce romantic feelings.
Real physiological changes occur when we go outdoors. Our heart rates slow down. Our blood pressure drops. We become more focused and aware. Many similar changes occur when we fall in love. Love is a nurturing relationship. When we have similar physiological changes in nature and in love, does it mean that we love nature? Could it mean that nature has the power to nurture?
The moral of the story is that if your intention is to build stronger relationships, to connect with your family, or friends, or with nature, you’ll want to do more things that afford you the opportunity to build those connections. Nature is a powerful tool for helping both you and your partner to calm down, slow down, move out of doing mode into being mode, and to simply enjoy each other’s company. If you’re single, nature can still be a way to receive strong nurturing feelings similar to those of being in love.
Do you have pets? Do you find nurture from animals? Do you nurture and love your pets in return? Animals are a part of nature as well. We nurture them and they nurture us. In the next section we will explore how animals and natural environments can nurture us, and how we can nurture them. The exercises in this session will help us to connect with the nurturing aspects of our True Selves and with the nurturing power of nature. This healing power of nature will be our Rescue from Without, that helps us to reach the end of our Hero’s Journey.
14.2 Non-Verbal Communication
Ecospirituality is all about connection. The Rescue from Without is also about connection. It is about connecting with something larger than ourselves. For the purposes of ecospirituality, that something is the natural world. This means that the Rescue from Without involves learning to connect with nature so that we may tap into its nurturing power and be “rescued” or healed.
People often find it easier to connect with their pets than with other people, because pets are generally non-judgmental and accepting. They have few expectations of their human friends outside of food, shelter, and love. For this reason, when you are practicing your connection skills, it is often easier to practice with animals than with humans.
Nurturing is an aspect of connection. Connecting with nature, animals, others, and with ourselves is a very nurturing act. Some equate connection with love, and love is the most nurturing emotion. The first step in tapping into this two-way stream of nurturing and connecting is through communication.
Do you talk to your pets? Do they seem to understand you at times? Can your pets make their wants and needs known to you? Pets can’t speak English. So how do you know what they want?
The answer is that pets communicate to us through the use of their body language. A dog wagging his tail means that the dog is happy. On the other hand, a cat wagging her tail means that someone is probably about to get scratched! We’ve learned what these signs mean by living with our pets and by paying attention to what their bodies are telling us. The more we pay attention to these non-verbal cues, the more we come to understand our pets.
As much as 70% of communication between human beings is non-verbal in nature. With pets, 100% of how they communicate with us is non-verbal. So if you can learn how to read what your pets are telling you, you have learned the art of nonverbal communication.
The vast majority of therapy and counseling done in the world today is what is called “talk therapy.” In this type of therapy, therapists and their patients work on problems and find solutions by talking about them. There is, however, a vast body of experiential awareness that is non-verbal in nature. Because of this, some therapists believe that the ultimate therapy would be one in which you would not have to talk at all. Have you ever been emotionally moved by a beautiful piece of instrumental music, or by a sunset, or by a walk in the woods, or by an affectionate nuzzle from a favorite pet? If so, you’ve experienced non-verbal therapy.
When exploring the world of animal-assisted ecospirituality, especially when connecting with animals, don’t focus so much on using words to describe what you are experiencing. Approach it from being mode rather than from doing mode. Just enjoy the experience. As you do the exercises in this session, explore what it might be like to live in a non-verbal world. Ecospirituality is more about experiences than about talking. It’s more of a way of directly being in the world than about verbal communication. Communication with nature is easy once you get past the idea of words.
14.3 Animal as Nurture
Therapists have a saying: “The map is not the territory.” One meaning of this phrase is that the greatest psychotherapist in the world can never know all the subtle nuances of her patient’s thoughts and feelings. You are your own best expert on what you are feeling or thinking at any given moment. By closely examining your True Self, and learning to trust that knowledge, you journey towards the person you wish to be.
Another meaning of the saying, “The map is not the territory,” is that the way we perceive others is not the true way others actually are. Each of us carries within ourselves our own representations of the people we meet. This is also true of the animals in our lives. We see them through our own personal lenses, assigning to them attributes and feelings that come from deep inside us. Think back to the story you created in My Own Animal Legend. Which animals were nurturing you on your journey? What qualities did they possess? The qualities you saw are projections of your own feelings and thoughts about these animals. In a way, they are the nurturing qualities you possess within yourself.
If you have pets, you’re probably aware that they help you get in touch with your own inner nurturing qualities. Many animals instinctively respond to your own nurturing by nurturing in return. My cats know when I’ve had a bad day, and they come to me to offer comfort and affection in the same way that I offer my comfort and affection to them. I’ve learned a lot about myself from the way my animals respond to me, and the way I respond to them.
Even if you don’t have pets, you can still take advantage of the nurturing qualities of animals by getting in touch with your own feelings about what nurturing animals represent to you. Symbolically, these thoughts and feelings represent our own primal urges.
Think about the totem animal you selected when you began your journey on the Way of the Coyote. What qualities does this animal possess that are nurturing? What qualities does it possess that aren’t nurturing? How can you use these qualities in your journey to your True Self?
14.4 Your Animal True Self
In her book, Drawing Down the Moon, Margot Adler tells of an experience she had with catching fish bare-handed. She was having very little success, until a shamanistic friend asked her to think of animals who are natural fishermen. Adler immediately thought of a bear. Her friend then advised her to “become the bear.” She then pictured in her mind how bears caught fish. When she adopted the pose and the technique that bears use to catch fish, she began catching them bare-handed at a rapid rate.
From mythology and legend, we all familiar with people who transform themselves into animals. There’s the werewolf, and Dracula’s ability to transform into a bat. There are legends about witches like Baba Yaga and the Skinwalkers of the Navajo who had the power to shapeshift. Unfortunately, we took those legends literally. What if they weren’t about an actual physical transformation, but a transformation of the mind? If you could mentally transform yourself into an animal of your choosing, what would that look like? What would be different about the way you carried yourself? About the way you thought about things? About the way you felt about the world and yourself? What could you do in such a frame of mind that you couldn’t do as yourself?
Of course, I’m not talking about barking like a dog at your next business meeting! But what if you could embody the courage of a lion the next time you ask for a raise? What if you could take on the gentleness of a lamb at your next romantic encounter? What if you could be as wise as an owl the next time you needed a solution to a problem?
Think about your totem animal from the My Animal Totem exercise. What characteristics of your totem animal could help you to affirm and live in your True Self if you pictured yourself becoming that animal? Could you draw on the power and energy from your totem animal to help you to succeed in transforming yourself into the person you were meant to be? If so, how might the archetypal energy of your spirit animal help you to attain the Rescue from Without?
14.5 An Attitude of Gratitude
Have you ever been thanked for doing something nice for someone? How did you feel afterwards? Did it make you more likely to want to help again in the future? Did it help the person who thanked you by making them more aware and more grateful to you in return for the gesture?
Imagine that you approached life with a sense of entitlement. Suppose you expected life to hand you everything on a silver platter. How long do you imagine it would be, with such an attitude, before you began to take things for granted? How long do you imagine it would be before you started demanding things?
Now imagine you approached life with a sense of gratitude. Suppose you were grateful for the air that you breathe, the food that you eat, the clothes that you wear, and the people in your life. Would it be possible to take things for granted with such an attitude of gratitude? Would it be possible to demand or expect things with such an attitude?
In ecospirituality we teach students to approach life with an attitude of gratitude. Being thankful to others, to nature, or to your own concept of the divine changes the way you think and feel. Even if you have no concept of a higher power or of the divine, being grateful to the Universe for providing for you changes the way you approach things. It changes your thinking.
Nature nurtures us by providing for us. Everything you eat, the air you breathe, the water you drink, the clothes you wear, everything you see, hear, touch, taste or smell is a product of nature. How often do you thank nature for this bounty? If you learned to be more grateful to nature, is it possible that nature might be more willing to help you with your Rescue from Without?
One way to express gratitude is to commit a nurturing act in a spirit of thanksgiving.
Most, if not all, aboriginal peoples around the world provided offerings of one form or another to nature. These offerings could consist of bits of food, or libations (liquid refreshments poured out on the ground), or of colored ribbons, or of any form they chose with which to honor the spirit of nature.
Many Native American tribes offered pinches of sacred tobacco as a sacrifice when gathering healing herbs or plants. The Celtic peoples of Europe often tossed valuable silver vessels or finely crafted tools and weapons into sacred rivers and other bodies of water. This is where we get our tradition of tossing coins into wishing wells. These were called “sacrifices” because it was the custom to only give their best to honor the spirits of nature.
One way to establish a two-way nurturing relationship with nature is to make such offerings. In order to receive nurture from nature, we must be willing to offer our own nurturing in return. This is only natural. Would you stay in a relationship that was not nurturing you? Likewise, we have no reason to expect nurture from nature if we are not willing to give it ourselves.
A first step in establishing this nurturing relationship is to always remember to ask nature for permission before engaging in any outdoor activity, and to thank nature when the activity is over.
How do you know that nature has granted permission? The answer to this question is sort of like trying to explain what it’s like to be in love, to a person who has never been in love. The best answer you can give is, “You’ll know it when it happens.”
One way to know that nature has granted permission is to notice, after asking, what you may feel attracted to. Does something in the environment call for your attention? After asking permission, do you feel at peace, or uneasy? Open your heart and your senses, and be willing to accept the answers you receive.
If you don’t feel that nature has given you permission, then find another place, or postpone your activity until another day.
If you do feel that nature has consented, then thank her by offering something. A libation of ale, or wine, or other refreshment may be poured on the ground, or you may leave a bit of bread or cheese or other food item. When I do workshops, we sometimes cover pine cones in peanut butter, and then roll them in birdseed.
Whatever offering you choose, present it in a thankful manner. You may wish to express your thanks out loud, or you may simply remain silent and respectful while placing your offering. Whatever manner you choose to express your thankfulness, the act will change your perceptions about the natural world and your place in it. This act eases the spirit and gives you a sense of peace and gratitude for all that nature has provided.
When you have committed this nurturing act, you have opened the way for a reciprocal exchange of nurturing from nature to you, and back again.
To take the first step in establishing the cycle of nurture, complete the Attitude of Gratitude exercise on the worksheet below.
