by Sandra Ingerman: There are many levels to address when we pose the question of how to live an awakened life.
We must wake up to the shamanic teaching that everything that exists is alive and is connected to a web of life. We are connected to each other and all that is alive in nature. Who we are “beyond our skin” is divine light and we are a reflection of the divine. We are connected to the divine and we are reflections of the divine. This brings us to live fully from a place of unity consciousness and the understanding that every shift in consciousness we make ripples throughout the web of life.
We also must wake up the shamanic teaching that we are dreaming the world into being with each thought we send out and with the words we use. What we feed grows. As we wake up learn to have more discipline with the thoughts, words, attitudes, and beliefs we allow ourselves to focus on throughout the day. Words and thoughts are seeds and when we nurture them they grow into strong plants in both our inner and outer landscape.
For this essay I wanted to focus on the importance of enlivening our senses to assist us in waking up to the beauty that life has to offer.
We are so overwhelmed by sensory stimulation that is part of the world we live in. It is difficult to find the quiet space within where spirit, the helping spirits, and nature can inform us through ways of communication that are beyond words but more of a transmission that touches the depth of our soul. We cannot stay on the surface or understand on a rational level the mysteries of spirit.
When we take a walk in nature and speak to the spirit of the elements and to other nature beings the true wisdom comes through a transmission that is beyond rational understanding. This energetic transmission touches a knowing that we are born with which acts as fertilizer for our growth.
I recently read an essay that was written by Sparrow Hart titled “Of Dreams and Dragonflies.”
In the essay Sparrow Hart shares how he learned that dragonflies have two sets of eyes that have 16,000 lens. Sparrow Hart was reflecting on how dragonflies inhabit a universe we cannot conceive or fathom. What he wrote started a deep process of reflection for me.
As humans we have our internal and external senses. But in the Western world we cut ourselves off from using the depth of our senses.
I started to reflect on how in the modern world we have deadened our senses. We live and work in environments that are stale. Many people use scented candles and artificial fragrant sprays to cover up how the air smells.
We listen to music on our devices throughout the day. Many of us live surrounded by so much external noise that we cannot hear the beautiful bird songs or the sound that comes to us from the gentle breezes, strong winds, or the rain.
When was the last time you heard a tree sing? Trees do sing and if you really open your “invisible ears” you will hear them.
And many of us are disconnected from our bodies, and we don’t let ourselves fully touch all that is in our surroundings.
We mask the taste of our food with so many artificial flavorings and sweeteners we no longer can appreciate the fresh tastes that the earth gifts us with.
We often surround ourselves with so many material objects that we go on sensory overload and we cannot take in the beauty of the sights of the natural world.
A friend of mine was sharing with me how she was on a boat trip on a river in a rural part of Australia. The guide on the boat was trying to point out to all the tourists a tree in the distance with a snake on it. The people in the boat could not even see the tree that the guide was pointing to. As they got closer everyone could see the tree and the snake and was amazed at how the guide could see them so far away. Obviously the guide senses remained enlivened by living in the natural world. We have lost the ability to stretch our awareness.
This is all to say we are missing out on a lot that life has to offer. We cannot perceive the beauty in life and connect with nature with unless we truly use the senses we were gifted with.
We must fully enliven our senses once again to contact the beauty and power of the world around us. And then we can truly appreciate the beauty that lives in all things.
Also we have non-ordinary senses. We have the ability to tap into our shamanic, psychic, and intuitive knowing through using our inner senses. But here again I find that so many of us have stopped working with our own psychic senses.
Before an earthquake or other natural disasters occur animal behavior changes significantly. During the destructive tidal wave in Thailand animals had moved to higher ground and to safety before the tidal wave was apparent to humans.
I have a friend who had a boa constrictor and before an earthquake the snake started becoming agitated. The same behavior can be seen in birds, dogs, cats, and other animals. Most humans are not in touch with the psychic senses that inform us about changes occurring in the earth and in the environment.
As we live our daily lives we can open our non-ordinary senses to perceive a rich and magical world around us. We might hear a message in the wind as we walk to work. When our ordinary senses are not so overloaded we find ourselves in touch with inner knowings where we simply feel the truth of guidance or wisdom in our bones.
The nature beings with all their internal and external senses are great teachers for us in how to reconnect with the earth within us and the earth without. As we do this we find our perception changing about everything occurring in our lives. Life takes on a deeper meaning and we can begin to see the beauty that life has to offer and how precious it is to be in a body.
Many people don’t want to be connected with their bodies. For a variety of reasons maybe through past trauma or illness being in a body is a source of pain rather than a joyful experience. And many of us also disconnected from our bodies as we have disconnected from nature. For to really be in nature immediately connects us back to the beauty of being in a body.
It is time for us to honor our bodies and not reject or judge them. It is time for us to allow ourselves to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell all that nature offers us. And then we inhabit a universe that right now most of us can only imagine.
There are so many levels of awareness we can open to as we learn how to sharpen our perception.
