“Your days are reassuring
stretching slightly longer
like our spines as we expand
within the walls that hold us
swallowing yearning seeds
germinating in dusk magenta wisps like henna-stain
across the sky”

We all have innate sensory abilities that link us directly to the natural world. I recently taught a two-session Zoom class on plant communication. There were twenty-two students in the class from all parts of I’ll the world, all with different types and levels of sensitivities and experience. In the class, I gave a wide variety of ways to open up to nature and the plant world to receive information, messages, and lessons.

Our blood calls us back to knowledge that is much, much older than time. Our blood is the memory of countless generations, all the way back to our common grandmothers of long ago.

The instinct to rush back to our “normal” lives is understandable, especially for those who are suffering the loss of their livelihoods, but do we really want to go back to the frenzied state of dis-ease we have been conditioned to feel is necessary for survival by our economy of extraction?

We are offering a series of told stories for your enjoyment, healing, unwinding and leaning into the ancestral wisdom passed through tales, myths, and legends. "Mountain Pears", a tale from Japan, tells the adventures of three brothers who undertake a quest for the mountain pears to help their beloved mother heal from a mysterious illness.

"Everything is clearer than you've ever seen it"--April thoughts during times of pandemic

We are offering a series of told stories for your enjoyment, healing, unwinding and leaning into the ancestral wisdom passed through tales, myths, and legends. Our first story, "Xueda and Yinlin", a tale from the Xinjiang province of China, tells the adventures of two courageous young people who seek a cure for the mysterious illness which has stricken their village.

We invite you to embrace the power of plants for personal and planetary transformation, healing, and conscious evolutionary growth. If you are ready to step into the rhythm of a sustaining practice and deepen your connection with nature’s intelligence in a supportive community, we invite you to join us each month here in Northern California for our 2020 Plant Wisdom Healing Circle.

This year was the 30th Anniversary of the Bioneers' Conference and O.N.E. was excited to be a part of the celebration of “Growing Transformative Solutions”. According to their website, “Bioneers is inspiring and realizing a shift to live on Earth in ways that honor the web of life, each other and future generations.” This year’s conference gathered innovators, visionaries, and trailblazers who are shifting our consciousness and changing the world, including O.N.E.’s very own, Pam Montgomery.

The hearts of 21 women heard the voice of a mountain. A mountain, calling them to its slopes, calling them to drink of its pure spring waters, to commune with tree elders and ancient stones, to dream with its profound presence at night, and bask in its vibrant and healing energies during the day. Mount Shasta, where the Organization of Nature Evolutionaries led a group of journeyers in early October, set the stage for a 4-day retreat focused on co-creative partnership with Nature.

Eve Ensler spoke at the 2019 Bioneers Conference. Her reading of her “Apology to Mother Earth” was one of the most profound moments of the conference.

“I press my bruised body down on your grassy belly, breathing me in and out. I have missed you, Mother. I have been away so long. I am sorry. I am so sorry. 

I am made of dirt and grit and stars and river, skin, bone, leaf, whiskers and claws. I am a part of you, of this, nothing more or less. “

“Samhain”, from Mara Freeman: “The early Celts honored this time as the start of the Celtic New Year, for it was understood that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed below the ground.

 The intention I hold in my heart is for my offerings of art and healing to breathe new life into people’s relationships with plants, and inspire others to see the green ones not only as the origin of the oxygen that keeps us alive, but also an ever-present, benevolent source of love and connection that supports our spirits’ thriving. 

The more you pay attention to your dreams, the more you will remember and the more you will feel connected to and an integral part of the dream of the Earth.

A Forest Therapy walk is more than a hike. It is more than time spent in nature, moving quickly along a trail. It is a walk with nature, connecting to trees and plants, reflecting with water, holding a stone that’s tumbled through eons of time to be held by you at this moment in time.

When it comes to food and eating, you are the Sacred Earth Activist and your actions are deeply connected to all that is. Can your food actions really impact climate change - does what you do really matter? It can seem an overwhelming question.

Given the scale and intensity of the issues we face, can an individual’s meditation and other pathways of cultivating fresh and creative perception really make a difference in our world? Is it true that, as the Persian poet Jalālu’d-dīn Rūmī exclaims, “The clear bead at the center changes everything”?

‘Humankind is far removed from nature both within and without and has become an exile from the ideal state of life” ~Hazrat Inayat Khan

Along with the stresses in my daily life has been a concurrent period of lasting epiphany, starting with the coalescing of several important reads and conversations, and peaking after several days trying to assist on behalf of the agency I direct with the Mendocino Complex Fires in northern California. I watched fire fighters and many others, some with homes in jeopardy, working in difficult conditions for days on end to save lives and property.