ONE Articles
LICHEN / THE ART OF BEING MANY
Born of many, living as one,
She dissolves the myth of separation.
She is a union of worlds;
algae, fungi, bacteria,
three kingdoms living as one.
Lichen thrives where others cannot
in the cracks, the ruins, the hard places;
stone, bone, bark, ruins
turning desolation into possibility.
Teaching resilience without conquest,
belonging without possession.
Between two particles of soil,
small invisible relations
rise and fall, feast, party and toil -
complex cultures, cities, nations...
Slow dancing in the world's embrace,
entwined with what we hold most dear -
when all is gone without a trace,
the soil will know that we were here
The earth forever calls us home, and the "ground" of any true culture lies in the soil. It's that in-between common world of civilization and wild nature, that place where relationship is formed. It's where our human hands and feet marry mineral and plant, there in the world of microbes and insects, sun and rain.
This story, “The Girl Who Loved the North Wind” came to me through the wonderful book Body Eloquence by story-teller-teacher-author-healer Nancy Mellon. This special book not only affirms the healing, life-giving power of stories and story-telling, it also offers specific stories for particular body organs and systems. “The Girl Wo Loved the North Wind” is given as a medicine story for the Lungs.
A young woman receives her father’s dying blessing, but is violently chased from home by her greedy brother. Maimed and wandering one-handed in the forest, she is temporarily rescued by a Prince. But fate and her brother send her into exile in the wild again. And then, the Snake magic begins!
When the princess, Rose, uncovers the secret of her lost brothers, she embarks on a journey to find them, vowing to undo their enchantment. Her quest relies upon the help of wise elders, the length of the summer Solstice days, the guidance of dreams, the potency of nettles, and her own innocence, persistence, and skill in handwork.
The magical under-world journey of Thomas the Rhymer has been preserved in ballads and Scottish oral tradition for hundreds of years.
Come follow the adventures of the girl who must save an enchanted prince, through daring and cleverness and hardship, but also with the help of the ancients and the four great Winds.
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. In this story, “The Healing Leaves”, the great-hearted, but perhaps not-too-sensible hero, must overcome overwhelming obstacles to procure healing leaves.
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.
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.
The miracle of the seed never ceases to amaze me. For many years, I grew my own food, and over time became a seed saver. Upon the arrival of Spring, I carefully buried each seed in the soil, covering it gently, to be gone from sight and to rest in the embrace of the earth. Then came the time of anticipation and patiently waiting. Inevitably, my mind formed around questions like- “Is it really going to happen again? Could it really be that a plant will come forth from what is contained in the tiny seed?”
For the last 30 years, Pam has run a program called “Sense of Wonder Creations” www.senseofwondercreations.org from her home on Martha’s Vineyard. Children from age 7-12 can attend week- long day camp sessions in the summer and art classes during the winter months in her studio. Often when children “graduate” from this program they return to become Leaders in Training, Junior, then Senior counselors. One way to characterize the camp programs might be to say that they blend creative arts with caring for the environment and appreciation of ethnic diversity.
In all their shapes, sizes, colors, the seeds have granted us sustenance, flavors, art, craft, and most importantly story and song. The life-giving mystery in a handful of seeds has inspired the many stories and songs that create the sacred dance between people and plants. These seeds share insight on the alchemy of transformation of sunlight to food, one kernel into many.
For hundreds and hundreds of year the Abenaki People lived on both sides of the Connecticut River in what are now called Vermont and New Hampshire in the United States around the villages called Haverhill and Newbury. By the time European settlers arrived in these areas, the Abenakis had been growing sweet corn on the oxbows of the river for centuries. It was very different from the sweet corn of today. Abenaki corn grew only about three feet high and produced one ear per stock, that ear being about four inches long and containing 8 to 12 rows of kernels.
One long-ago September at age nine, I created a science project for school---a large and neatly labeled seed chart composed on poster board with scotch tape. How thrilling it was to discover each beautiful and highly varied specimen, as Earth bejeweled her autumn cloak with seeds of hope for the year to come!
Recognizing the growing global threat to the diversity, integrity and sanctity of seeds, we would like to honor a few of the organizations which have taken significant steps to protect seeds and to preserve our rights to save seeds.
We give thanks for the brilliance of the tiny Beings who carry the code of new Life. We give thanks for the immense rich diversity and adaptability of seeds, for their responsiveness to weather and land
Photos of past Damanhur, Italy trip from Jen.
As I drifted in and out of sleep in the early morning hours a steady tinkling entered my consciousness followed by a memory of moist leaves, bare feet and water rushing. I slowly entered the waking world and heard the undeniable sound of dripping outside my bedroom window – RAIN – ah, the blessed sound of water falling from the sky.
This is a true story of two friends: Prajna (Island Sister) lives in Kauai, Hawaii, and Hilary (Mountain Sister) lives in Flagstaff, Arizona. This story took place in April, 2018 and is a present-day synchronistic example of how women are being invited to relate to the waters and the weather during this time of climate change.
The fate of our rivers around the globe today is hugely influenced by the field of civil and environmental engineering. Engineers, along with municipal officials, architects and landscape architects, are responsible for designing the human world we live in, from the buildings we live in to parks, bridges, highways and neighborhoods.
Life offers a plethora of opportunities to help others and to "leave the world a better place." When I found myself run ragged embracing so many good causes, I had to stop, look at which challenges I was effective at, and which efforts give back life and love. (Some call this picking your battles.) From these I wrote my "mission statement." After that, before adopting a new challenge, I permit myself to ask if it fits my mission. The statement? Long ago I heard the maxim, "In the end, we will save only what we love, and we will love only what we have been taught to love."
For centuries regarded as a Goddess, the River Ganges was granted “legal personhood”. Here is a brief story of her legend, and the urgent need which led to her “personhood.”
Jen Frey, of Brigid's Way and the ONE visioning council, recounts a sacred journey down the Tiputini River in the Amazon region of Ecuador, guided by Rocio Alarcon. We are introduced to the concept of Sacred water Pugyos, and get a glimpse of the power and mystery of this region.
We offer gratitude to the Rivers of Life. The rivers which have carved the lands and fed all the creatures, which have washed and nourished and shaped the people. We are thankful for the life-giving waters, the moving waters, the shining waters. For waterfalls, eddies, currents, for ever-changing patterns, for leaping fish, otters, invertebrates.
Elyse Pomeranz describes her ways of communicating with trees through heart-perception, imagination and art.
Though even ceremonies of desire are waning from our culture, still, we can go further and become acquainted with the practice of ceremony which seeks no-benefit at all. We can draw forth again, from our ancestors and wisdom cultures, the simple and profound rituals offering gratitude for all that we receive from other realms. Primarily, specifically, especially, from the vast ecology of the natural world that sustains life on Earth.
Jen Costa, of Elder Moon School of Herbal medicine, leads us through the process of making medicine from the bark of healing trees.
When I first moved to Champlain Valley Cohousing in Charlotte Vermont, I was shown a large oak tree out in the forest land owned by the community. We walked through the thick forest of young trees and underbrush that had grown around a tree they called the Mother Oak, shading her from the sun and taking nutrients from the soil. I was stunned by her majestic presence
In this dawning of a New Year, greeted by the luminous full moon, who drew so close to Earth and opened our hearts with her beauty, ONE wishes you awakening, blessings and resolve in 2018.
Druidry is an ancient and evolving spiritual path that originated in the British Isles. Druids align with the spirit of the earth below, the moon and stars above and the elements around and within us. Trees are our teachers and Nature is our church. We gather in groves as well as circles of standing stones to do our magic.
A few days before our harvest of Christmas trees, I make an offering. I offer prayers of gratitude and thanksgiving to each and every tree and to the Spirit of the Land. ... I found one of the elders that was tagged to be cut and gave my offering of beads standing in front of this most gracious being.
Thank you for your instruction to stand strong, to be exposed and seen in all your irregularities. My strength is to be like you in these ways.
Poem by Rachel Baird on the subject of evolving out of a duality consciousness, and the spreading of unity consciousness-our natural state.
We offer gratitude to the Life-giving Trees. You whose green breath sustains our breath. You who have created the atmosphere in which organic beings can thrive. Thank you, trees for the music you make with the wind, for the way you gentle the rain into the earth, for your sheltering, protection and inspiration.
I spent my childhood summers in the north woods of Maine, where the tall white pines whispered with every breeze. My family nestled in tents with other camping families amidst these fragrant evergreens and called it home for the season. The woodlands held secrets, wild blueberries, warm sunlight, and pines~ sticky with resin that we chewed as a kind of wild gum.
Our sanctuary garden is at Derrynagittah in the west of Ireland, 29 acres of magical land deOur sanctuary garden is at Derrynagittah in the west of Ireland, 29 acres of magical land dedicated to the sacred. I moved here with my family in 1995, coming with the intention of working with Nature to co-create a place of beauty, a sanctuary where the plant world would be honoured and where people could come for healing, to learn about plants and the spirit that resides within all beings.
At Zen temples, in medieval monasteries, and in modern day retreat centers, gardens have played a key role in spiritual practice. Uplifting, calming, healing places where humans and natural forces work in harmony to create beauty--these sanctuaries invite meditation and prayer. Recently I attended a retreat at an "Eco-Sufi Village" and wandered into an herb garden that carried me right into that spirit of sanctuary.
A garden becomes a sanctuary for deep listening and a place that animates the creative life force within you. The power of intention ignites this sacred communication between you and nature, allowing you to connect with the creative potential that is possible within this divine union.
In Bay City, Michigan, a small and very special section of the Saginaw River has become an inner-city wildlife sanctuary. Within a stretch of four city blocks along Arbor Street, in the center of Bay City, the natural habitat is encouraged and existing sea walls are being, or have been removed, creating an inner-city sanctuary for wildlife.
All living beings and elements have multiple dimensions—physical, emotional and spiritual. Likewise, the Amazon region holds all these dimensions and possibly more, within its animate entities like plants and animals and inanimate ones like minerals.
Botanical sanctuaries not only save our precious native plants from unconscious predation they provide healing at a source level by feeding our essential nature so that both plants and people are held in life-giving balance.
Sanctuary gardens bring people closer to Nature. They are a safe place where the outside cares of the world do not intrude. They can be a vegetable or flower garden, a special tree or even a single blossom. They are a healing refuge for our bodies, mind and spirit. People need gardens to re-member and bring balance into their lives.
We offer Gratitude for sanctuary gardens, dedicated to the sacred, where there is safety for all beings. For those cultivated places where humans consciously co-create with Nature to bring beauty, healing, inspiration, peace, nourishment and remembrance.
by Timothy P McLaughlin
I waited and waited a great while
before I knew enough
about listening
to hear the bright ones
speak,
and only faintly at first,
so I wasn’t sure if anything
had happened at all.
We have made the walk from water to earth many times as humans, yes? I think about how we came from the ocean as a species. We grow in a fluid inside our mother’s wombs similar in makeup to the ocean before we ever take our first breath. And we walk the Medicine Wheel each and every year from the water of the west in autumn to the earth of north in winter, until our very last breath.
By Rachel Baird
I am writing from the Holy Isle
Just off the eastern shore of Lamlash,
Isle of Arran, Scotland.
During Green Tara prayer hour
I let the waves of chant wash over me and quickly moved into a lucid dream.
I dream of the whale:
Out in the dark waters
We are capsized by forgetting,
She swims to me
And puts my hand in her mouth,
Begs further exploration -
I feel the brittle curve inside her sinew
Like playing a harp
Or building a wattle,
Then choose to climb this baleen fence,
I grew up just blocks from the Ocean in San Francisco where I walked the beach nearly every day and was lulled to sleep at night by the sound of fog horns. Sometimes, when in the water – I could feel these wave pulses of energy moving through my body and sometimes, at the shore, I could feel life forms moving far off inside the ocean. I knew they could feel me as well and were communicating.
My mother was holding me looking at the waves when suddenly a huge wave broke over us. The shock and sound of the wet spray gave me a baptism I never forgot. I grew up on two islands, one urban,the other rural, and at a very young age I was diving into the waves and buoyed up on their crests, or watching reckless teenagers jump into the East River trafficked by tugs and cargo ships headed out to sea.
We offer gratitude to Ocean, the one great Ocean of the world, whom we call by so many names. Grandmother Ocean, thank you for Life! For the lives of our most ancient ancestors whom you cradled and fed, For the lives of all who came after, who stayed in your waters or ventured on land. For the lives of all the plants whom you water through the clouds, and for the tiny phytoplankton who give us breath. We thank you Ocean, for the lives of all our relatives.
By Laura Williams
We all have a longing for the wild but we are trained by our industrial consumer society to consider ourselves separate from Nature. We are taught from the beginning of our lives that we, humans, are both dominant over and in danger from the wild.
By MR Baird
I have descended out of the Northwest
Back into civilization
Sounds of cars and jets,
Weed eaters now hurt my head,
I don’t belong here anymore
Now that I think of him,
That stag,
By Lauren Valle
To My Enlightened Self
Silent self, self made of stone
Self that witnessed the birth of the ocean and
bathed in the torrents of mucus and blood
Self that melts the boundaries between her own beauty
and the beauty of the world
By Timothy P. McLaughlin
As is usual, as is basic as bread, each week
I heed the call to abandon this whirring machinery,
to gather my essentials and head for the hills.
Like any of us who live from the unsullied energy
of hidden places, I follow the trim-cut paths
with a familiar pleasure, easing along their smooth,
sure way through the mountain’s innards.
By Rachel Berry
Wildcrafting, as we practice and promote it, is making a commitment to deepen your connection to the natural landscape and take responsibility for its regeneration. It is learning about the plants around you, how they reproduce, where they live, and what they need to thrive.
By Emerson Gale
On March 10th I spoke with Sally J. Mark, “Sal” about how to share the truth of plant sentience. Initially, I wanted to interview her to learn about the Music of the Plants devices from Damanhur,www.musicoftheplants.com for which she has been facilitating workshops around the country.
By Timothy P McLaughlin
Here, in the wild, where there’s almost no chance
of another human stopping through,
where there’s no hopping round
patterns of perception or acceptance,
By Rachel Corby
There is something that has been happening to me throughout my adult life. That something is an increasing feeling of aliveness and wonder. Although it existed strongly within me for every moment of my childhood it had begun to weaken in my teenage years, leaving me bereft, alienated, lonely, confused and depressed.
By Kate Gilday
I pause before stepping into the forest, halting to listen, to take in the beauty before me, and breathe in the fragrance of the evergreens welcoming us with outstretched branches. In these few moments, before entering this wild place I ask permission to step onto and off the path ahead, to wander among the trees and through the streams we will encounter.
By Timothy P. McLaughlin
In the effort to become more like water,
I’ve taken to walking the dried arroyos of New Mexico.
Gliding along their twisting, sandy trails,
following the water’s worn tracks round trees and brush
and endless rock,
We offer gratitude to the Wild. For the rare and sacred places on earth where true wilderness reigns. Forthose edge places on the borders of our gardens and our consciousness where the wild interlaces with the tame, awakening us with inspiration. For the indomitable Wild that creeps or flies or pushes up through the pavement even into our cities, reminding us of Lif
By April Thanhauser
Come home!
Where are you hiding?
Behind the ferns?
On some stony peak I didn’t climb?
Are you in the fish’s mouth, the night glint in my cat’s eye?