Nature Awareness
Nature is something I have gained more and more appreciation for in recent years. Especially having moved from the Hudson Valley in New York where my parents had a house with a big backyard and we were surrounded by apple orchards, to Baltimore where I now live in a small apartment with three other people and I have to drive out to a park if I want to be in nature, I have learned what I took for granted. When I was younger I did not go outside much nor did I have much desire to. But now I really enjoy being able to go out and appreciate the land. The forest is a place that I especially have a love for and feel a connection with. The Two Powers meditation has helped me a lot with this as well, aiding me to feel more connected to the Earth and the beauty around me. I can find the music in the rustling of the trees and chirping of insects. I can find majesty and art in the blooming flowers and movement of clouds in the sky. My love for plants has become so much stronger and I wish that I had a garden of my own, though for now I am sated with growing a few herbs on my balcony during the winter.
Oddly, during this summer I also acquired a job which has given me more appreciation for the Earth and how to take care of it. I now work at Lush Cosmetics which is a bath and body company out of the UK. I know this sounds strange, but this company is an activist company in many many different causes and continuously finds new ways to reduce its waste and make safer products for both the body and the environment. They use fresh ingredients in their products, and from here I have discovered an appreciation for herbalism which I hope to learn more about one day. But working here has also inspired me to be more mindful of my waste and to recycle what plastics I can.
More close to home for me though, the importance of nature awareness and the effects of my actions has come to light at Cedarlight Grove lately especially after our Samhain rite this past month. Activities that happened at the rite called us to take a closer look at the actions we were participating in during our rituals and our weekly meetings at the grove and pay more attention to how it affected the land in our sanctuary. For the rite, we were honoring The Dagda and The Morrigan and so for offerings many people brought entire bottles of wine and whiskey. I believe the count was just under 20 bottle total. And almost all of these bottles were poured on the ground, as we frequently do for libations. The next morning at our debriefing discussion, we began talking about how all of that alcohol effects the plants growing in our sanctuary and how, being on a very slight hill, the water drains into one corner of the yard where we have been trouble with plants dying. After making the connection, we realized that all the alcohol is poisoning the land and that we need to begin taking measures to fix and prevent this occurrence. As we were discussing this, we actually saw three omens in a row: a woodpecker land on our Sacred Tree, a very large hawk land, and then three crows flying directly overhead in formation.
From this event, we have now been devising new plans to prevent further poisoning of our land, including getting a cauldron for which to pour alcoholic libations in rather than the ground, encouraging people to use only a glass or shot of alcohol as offerings as the power is in the intention, not the amount. We are also starting to encourage a shift back to creative offerings of song and skill, as well as birdseed, grass seed, and mulch to help the plants grow. Our permanent worship space is something that the grove takes pride in, as do I personally, and we have taken up the call to be more aware of our use of the land.
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