The Free Radical

I’ve been meaning to take a microphone and audio recorder out to the woods for some time already. Sometimes I simply can’t get a picture of those “speaking” to me… or if I do, it’s so far away that it can hardly be seen. Such is the case with Whitetail this day. (He’s framed in the centre of the opening in the fence… barely discernible.)

Nevertheless, I have been encountering Whitetail’s gentle lure nearly everyday for a week already. He makes a snorting/whistling sound in the distance, just out of sight whenever he detects my presence. I answer with my natural voice and he is content… yet remains mostly out of sighting distance.

“Follow me. Long have I been humanity’s primary connection to the Forest. It is a place of New Adventure, and my way is to lead through gentle enticement.

“The heart of the Forest is infinitely deep, and guides are well advised. My white tail is not a flag of surrender to anything but a lost innocence… and it is easy to follow.

“We will sharpen our senses together, not in defence of anticipated danger, but rather toward a heightened perception of things heretofore unseen…”

I guess that’s why he teases me daily without overtly revealing himself.

(I’ll try to get a recording of his distinctive voice in the near future.)

Good ol’ reliable Juniper! Even in times when there’s really nothing else available, you can always seek out Juniper, even in the middle of winter if need be. To hear Juniper pipe up in the midst of the season of abundance is mildly surprising.

“In the scheme of linearity, there will seldom come a time when patience and discernment are not called for. By their very nature transitions are uncomfortable, but know that you, yourself, provide your own resistance. It is you who must get out of your own way.

“Illness, infection, viruses and the like are tangled skeins of words and attitudes you have built for yourselves… according to your own unique specifications. My very nature is antiseptic… but perhaps “anti-semantic” is more helpful in the New Context (New Vision, as held and directed by Vulture).

“As communal beings, your lives are a never-ending stream of statements– many contradictory. You must find your own contradictions and resolve them, for they are the very ‘problems’ you encounter– seemingly outside of yourselves. What attitudes and ‘statements of fact’ are keeping you from experiencing the true abundance you seek?

“The deep lavender of my ‘second-season’ berries are a sweet reminder– that you may tuck away in your pocket. Allow me to dissolve and untangle the knots you have tied for yourself… and make all of your future statements open-ended, reaching for the freedom you desire.”

Pretty dense words from Juniper, I know. I have always regarded it as a very “serious” bush. There are two varieties of juniper living side-by-side. It is the low creeping bush which yields edible berries. (Perhaps the tall variety’s berries may be edible too, but I can testify that they’re pretty awful.) Only the dark blue to purple berries which cling to the bush for a second season are ripe, sweet and enjoyable, with a flavour of gin or guava. They soothe the entanglements of our physicality as they nourish our intuition. I have always prized them as a unique treasure.

I guess the main staple of my foraging activities has been alfalfa blossoms. I have found their varieties of colour absolutely stunning! Each variation in colour seems to have its own unique flavour too. They constantly grab my attention as I wade through the “weeds,” and I feel that I just have to eat the most stunning ones.

Today’s message came through Alfalfa, but it wasn’t Alfalfa’s voice speaking directly. We had us a little channeling session. My thoughts were on evolution– mainly because I was having another uncomfortable day of adjustments… but the forest and its bounty was of course the surefire cure.

“We are in throes of an evolutionary crisis.”

My mind responded with an automatic “Duh!”

“Individually, Niels, you are faring well. It is useful to regard every food that you put in your mouth as having a specific vibration… for it does. Such vibrations can be either harmonious and supportive to your soul’s evolutionary aspirations, or they can be dissonant and offsetting. Everything gathered here in the forest harmonizes. It works with the quantum aspects of your DNA.”

“The quantum aspects?”

“What your scientists label ‘junk’ DNA. The quantum connection is where intelligence enters the evolutionary arena– my intelligence. I balance the highest aspirations with the moment-to-moment realities of all Earth activity. You are all known to me, intimately. Your every act garners my attention… and my adjustments.

“Please permit me to address Earth Humanity…”

“Certainly,” I responded, “but I don’t think that quite everyone reads my blog… yet.”

“Ah, but they do… quantumly. You are all so much more intimately connected than you can currently fathom. The vibrations felt in one disperse and resonate in all others; it is the movement toward oneness in action.

“Earth Humanity, please stop eating crap! Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are especially difficult to balance and reconcile with any higher aspiration. Nearly all of your processed, prepackaged foods are fundamentally modified to provided the lowest of the lowest vibrations. They are not fit for consumption by any Earth creature. The evolutionary path for humanity requires your conscious engagement. You must choose it… again and again in every moment. Do not worry overly much about your lapses; just recommit in the very next moment. I can and will help… if only you will permit me…

“I am Gaia… remembering Sophia.”

Hey, sorry about the shitty picture. Ha!

Once again, this communique from the Invisible Bear was left directly upon the path I tread every day. It was placed in an area very close to the Dutch Creek Community, but a place nevertheless generally untrafficked… I am almost certainly the only human utilizing this section of “trail” regularly. I wasn’t sure if the message was intended for me or my fellow human travellers.

“Both,” answered Black Bear. “We are brothers, Niels. You and I are currently engaged in very similar tasks. We are removing shadows and the fears which cast them. I transmute the darkness through my being; its nature here is illusory; and so I remain invisible. You, simply cast the light of curiosity… and the darkness instantly flees.

“The Human Collective has stashed many fears out here in the forest. It is commonly imagined that this is a most dangerous place! As you know, they have no place here– those fears. There is virtually nothing remaining to support them.

“The true defining quality of a realized Human Being is one who is unabashedly in love with the environment. The culture you have collectively built is too obviously unloving, and so I extend an invitation on behalf of the forest to all Humans to reacquaint yourselves with the surroundings which have always supported and embraced your growth. And oh how you have grown!

“You may wish to watch where you step, though!”

“Try to stay in the middle.”

I know that voice. It was Richard Sebastian, that Buzzard character from my Muse Trilogy. He’s been keeping a very close eye on me for more than a month already. Sometimes he deliberately casts his shadow at my feet as he soars in the sky above, just to get my attention. “The middle of what?” I asked.

“‘As above, so below… and in the middle too,'” he quoted. “It’s kind of the middle of… well… everything. You, as individual human beings are the ‘below.’ The universe at large is the ‘above.’ Can you figure out where the ‘middle’ might be?”

Fair question. I could only think of one answer that might fit. “The Earth, Gaia?”

“Very good,” congratulated Richard. “At this moment in time, human beings all over the planet are being mercilessly impulsed to find ‘final solutions’ to all of the ‘lit fuses’ in their lives. Whatever has remained unresolved for a lifetime, or even lifetimes, is demanding resolution now. Obviously, such resolutions cannot be found looking backward. The answers didn’t lie in the past in the past, so whyever would they now? The old ways of doing things will simply detonate the explosion, effectively removing the problem from momentary existence… not really a solution at all. Leaping too far ahead or afield, as well, removes problems from their appropriate context. Thinking which takes problems above the clouds, beyond the sky, to lay them at the feet of God, shirks responsibility. You are the prime creator of your own entanglements… but there is ample help here for you.

“We’re all in this together. You have become so used to solitude and loneliness, you forget about the Earth. Absurd, I know, but so many utterly forget the planet they walk upon… as though she doesn’t exist. Seek her friendship and her wise counsel is automatic. So many of your intransigent problems simply vanish in the context of a unified Earth.

“Take the middle way. There’s a reason why my middle toe looks exactly like the Buddha!”

After a restless night, I woke up feeling like a butterfly standing on a thistle blossom… awaiting my Dreaming Double to properly reintegrate. I described my weirdness in a post on my Facebook Author Page.

I knew that Nature would be the remedy. If I had been near the ocean, I would have gone for a swim, letting the waves make the proper adjustments. On high energy days, I can feel waves washing through me. This day, the odd one was out of synch with the rest– the dissonant few.

As I made my way through the course of my daily walk, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one who felt a bit out of sorts. Others in the Grand Symphony were also having trouble tuning their respective instruments. Here, the Day’s Eye (Daisy) remains closed even though the sun has been shining brightly upon it for hours already.

And here, berries are growing in the centre of the leaves…? WTF? I’ve never seen that before!

Some things are very odd. I find that I need to mention my friend Richard the Buzzard again. I have been visited by Turkey Vulture so many times now over the past month that I must conclude that the New Vision is having difficulty inserting itself into our awareness, and so is being adjusted and re-calibrated almost daily. Richard always finds me early in my walk and circles for a few minutes directly above me. He’s always alone now… also odd.

Also early on my walk this day, I knew everything would settle down and smoothen out when I found a single rosebush offering up new blossoms… to help adjust my poor heart. I have never seen wild rose blossoms in August before!

Wherever we are on this gorgeous planet, Nature is the ocean of frequency to immerse ourselves within when we just can’t seem to tune our instruments precisely on our own. And the Symphony plays on…

I had barely stepped out of the truck when I heard “Please leave the heavy philosophy at the truck.” Who said that? It was difficult to identify the voice, though it was strong and clear. I looked around… to no avail… just me and the trees.

On the short drive to where my walk always begins I had indeed been pondering a bit of a philosophical conundrum. It was just something I’d heard recently in a video talk given by some Pleiadian dude. He’d said many fascinating things, but the one which really stuck in my head– mostly because I didn’t get it– was “Things indeed move… just not in time.”

I’ve always known that time isn’t what we typically think it is… or perhaps that it is exactly what we think it is. Here, the Forest jumped in to aid my musings.

“Thinking, of a linear type, is always time bound. Awareness, however, is not.”

“Isn’t awareness just another kind of thinking?” I asked, not really sure whether I believed that or not.

“Perhaps it can be viewed as such, but awareness is not linear; it is… geometric.”

“Okay…” I replied with some reluctance. “Can you elaborate on that? Maybe offer an example?”

“Let us consider the phenomenon of aging. Biological aging is intimately tied to linear thought. You have experienced many unpleasant things during your lifetime. You have also had the experience of regarding these unpleasant episodes as necessary to a larger purpose– your growth. Is it not so?”

“Yes,” I answered, not really understanding yet where this was going. “It seems that every time I go through something difficult, it later reveals itself to have been necessary and ultimately positive because of the eventual result… as you said, growth.”

“Yes, it has happened that way so many times that you expect it to be so.” I nodded. “Your awareness encompasses a whole segment of time which includes both the difficulty and its resolution. You don’t know specifically how the difficulty will be resolved, but you are certain that it will be resolved– favourably. This awareness lifts your thinking out of time.

“Someone’s thinking, who is more time bound, will get locked into the difficult part. They are convinced that it is their thinking which will resolve the difficulty; they need to figure out the “how” of it. They will obsess on the problem, locking themselves into the linear experience… wondering/worrying whether the problem can even be solved at all. Thinking cannot arrive at the solution, but awareness already knows that the solution exists and trusts that it will reveal itself… all in good time.

“As you remain in awareness– the big picture– your “problems” will not age you. On the contrary, they will spur you to new growth.”

Whoa! This was some heavy philosophy indeed. For now I was happy to “leave it at the truck” and get on my way. But the Forest had one more thing to say:

“These forest messages cannot penetrate your thinking… but they flow unimpeded into your awareness…”

And with that, I was off…

Despite his apparent nervousness and ADD, conversations with Squirrel can be surprisingly enlightening…

“I’ve been finding dried mushrooms lodged in tree branches,” I began. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Oh, of a certainty! Assuredly, it is I!”

“More stores of food for the winter, I presume?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Aren’t you concerned that others may steal your mushrooms before you’ve had the chance to gather them up once they’re dried?”

“But… but… they’re not my mushrooms.”

“But you’re the one who goes to the trouble of picking them, carrying them to a suitable branch, and laying them out in the sun to dry,” I argued. “Surely this is a suitable basis for laying claim to the fruits of your labour?”

“I perform these tasks because I am the one most suited to performing them. The mushrooms must be picked quickly once they’ve burst forth… or else the worms and larvae will claim them all. I preserve a portion of them to feed the rest.”

“The rest? You mean they’re not just for yourself?”

“They are for whomever finds them… and happily, sometimes it is I! I never remember the places I stash them; when I find them anew, it is a most joyous occasion!”

“So you’ve never considered that they belong to you?”

“Oh dear, no. Here, we have no concept of ownership. It is a strange idea initiated by your culture. It takes the whole forest to ‘produce’ these mushrooms. They ‘belong’ to the whole forest.”

“But you have to compete with the other creatures of the forest for adequate food…”

“No! So much error has been born from this dubious concept of ownership. In the history of the world, your culture is the first and only that has sought to lock up all the food… withholding it from others. The very concept of ownership has arisen from this curious act. For ten thousand years your culture has played out the many ramifications of this singular choice.

“You must begin to understand that there is only One Life here… and it does not belong to me or to you… though we are all assuredly participants. Would you feed only your brain but starve your heart? Is your right hand in competition with your left foot for the ‘limited’ food available? Ownership is an absurdity based in false arrogance.

“One Life is engaged in feeding itself toward achieving greater complexity. Your cultural conceit is a stale concept, feeding no one, starving the All.

“Here, enjoy a mushroom… on me.”

Grouse has been dancing her energy all over the place! Her specialties are rhythm, timing, and creating the sacred space for new imaginings to become new realities… they just have to be danced into creation. Grouse shows us how.

I remember the first time I encountered Grouse out in these forests. I didn’t see her; I only heard her in the distance… as a perplexing mystery. Imagine you’re standing in the Canadian wilds and suddenly you hear the distant but distinct sound of a large gorilla beating its chest. You’re pretty sure that Canadian gorillas are exceedingly rare… but what else could it be? It’s actually the sound of Grouse’s rapidly beating wings for display and courtship purposes… no gorillas required.

Today Grouse is joyous. She is perfectly in the mood to dance. She pantomimes an unabashed excitement for novel opportunities.

Speaking to me directly, she damn near shouted “Put on your dancing shoes!” For more than a week I had been forced to wear my Nike runners on my daily excursions, as my five-fingered Vibrams had just worn out and I couldn’t find the time to get into town to pick up a new pair. I find that walking around in Nikes is like trying to balance on a couple of inflexible dinner plates. It’s also impossible to walk silently in those damned shoes! Now I’ve got my new pair of Vibrams.

Yeah, I’m ready to dance with my new partner– this forest– according to the expert instruction given by Grouse. I intend to dance something good for us all…

Perhaps I’m beginning to repeat myself already, but perhaps this bears repeating… I am no mere tourist, a vacationer to the forest; I am forest.

“Warning!” shouts Ground Squirrel.

“What?” comes the reply. “It’s only Niels.” And they continue about their business unconcerned.

Grouse raises her family in so many places I frequent. When I arrive, she pays me as much mind as a rock or a tree. I have to be careful not to accidentally step on her or her children… she trusts me.

Tiny Chipmunk climbs high into the bush because he wishes to look me in the eye. He stares at me from perhaps a foot away, patiently waiting for me to remove my pack, retrieve my camera, and capture his declaration of bravery/solidarity.

I have been harmonized to the forest vibe. No longer do I strike the discord of our outmoded human culture. Beyond acceptance, my presence is expected here. I am the prodigal son come home. I belong to something bigger than humanity itself. I am the dirt between my own toes. I am Earth… turning… re-evolving…