Come Alive

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

A quote by Howard Thurman

I read the above this morning and headed out to my garden. It’s a very warm late September day, maybe the last one that will allow me to be out here comfortably in shorts and tee. I “should” be resting given the bug I’m, on day five, working out of my lungs and body. But the warmth, light breeze and my cat’s contentment in being out with me keep me from retreating in. I was transplanting to fill in some spaces in the part of the rock wall I built this summer. I hadn’t gotten any plants in the last twenty feet or so. So I take pieces of plants, hopefully willing to resettle at this late date, from the earlier rock wall I built a couple of years ago. This bare section has a particularly steep angle with more rock on rock and less dirt in between for plants to grow, than the other part of the wall with a gentler angle.

As I placed a small piece of a vine-like plant into a crevice I hear “Are you sure I can make it here?”

And with full confidence an answer appeared as clearly as the question posed “Yes, you will make it here. You see not every plant is capable of growing in such tight conditions. You have the strength and wisdom to reach past those two rocks and send out shoots to nourish yourself. You would have to be a very special little plant to get picked for the job. Not every plant is up for this. Besides you have no idea how many others will be impressed and helped by your resolve and fortitude. What you will achieve with what you were given will far outseed all expectations.”

“Well alright, if you say so.” “But honestly two rocks? And you want me to be productive and impress too!”

“You have no idea how many others you will affect. It will be hard to see, most of the time, from your vantage point. But I promise you will survive and live long enough to do what you are planted for. You have to trust life.”

“Honestly, it looks like a pretty dim situation. Those are two tough looking rocks; I don’t see much give there, no less any room for me. Are you sure?”

“Sure as can be. And you’ll be surprised by what you can do and what comes along the way.”

“Okay then, I’ll do my best. But you better give me some support.”

“You got it.”

And so a conversation between the little plant and Being of all Plants took place as the little one snuggled in-between two rocks to settle into a life of much fruitfulness, beauty and kindness. Not always easily but with much grace and laughter. But most importantly the little plant found what made her come alive and that is what the world needs.

Mary

My Adventures with Datura, Part 3

I innocently walk through the garden, surveying the wild and cultured plants in their various states of pregnancy. The moonflower-datura has become majestic in stature. Her large white trumpets, fragrant as any rose, attract the bees to rub and drink. Those blooms last only one day before falling limp from the effort, moving inward to seed.

By removing her withered flowers before they seed, I can urge on further tries with further blooms. I decide to deadhead. I smell her sweetness as I gently, lovingly pluck away dying flowers and leaves. Some of her juice moistens my skin.

Then I notice a tingling in my hands, a nervous activation. There’s an expanding feeling, feeling my aura as well as my flesh and bones. The sensation creeps up my arms, slowly, minute by minute. Everything begins to look brighter, glowing with her moonlight even though it’s daytime, while flowing along in a mild dream of plant magic.

Yes Datura, you got under my skin and into my consciousness. Now I handle you with gloves unless I want a mild touch of lunacy for awhile. Thank you for your ever present possibilities.

--Terra Rafael

MoonBlood

I walked from one corner to the next ~ 4 corners that established the boundaries of my small piece of heaven on earth. I never dreamed that I would get the house, but I had a son to finish raising and my soon-to-be-ex-husband ~ had a dog. Actually now that I think about it, that is about what he had when we got married. The refinance to get his name off the paper work had been ridiculously easy and now in the middle of the night I was marking my territory.

The moon was full and sparkled down upon me as I stopped at each corner. I raised the jar to the moon and prayed my thankfulness. I asked for wisdom and grace to carry on, I asked for courage to face the future. I proclaimed by sincere thankfulness for the masters, teachers and angels that had guided me to this moment. I poured a small amount of liquid with each prayer. When I finished the four corners I walked to the ornamental windmill standing in what I conceived to be the center of my home site. I finished my prayers as I spilled the rest of the blood tea into the heart of this land. I floated into the house to finish my ceremony with a song in the glow of candlelight. I surged with the promise of moon and the power of earth. I felt at once both the softness of a single blade of grass and the strength of the giant cottonwood. I was rock solid with courage and determination filled with a gooey center of mushy love. I was woman!!

For the few days preceding my ceremony I had been collecting my menstrual blood into a Mason jar. At the same time I made a strong infusion of rose petals and lavender flowers to add to my brew. The power of a woman’s blood combined with the inner and outer aspects of love symbolized by the plants that I cherished.

I thanked the goddess for bringing into my life the teachers and circumstances that had opened up this small town Christian girl to the ongoing lessons of a much broader universe. I had never done anything like this before. I wouldn’t have had a clue about performing this kind of ceremony if it hadn’t been for the thirteen month study of plant spirit medicine under the tutelage of a modern day shaman. My life would never be same after my introduction to journey work and an ever expanding awe of the spiritual universe. I was like a sponge.

That experience was followed by a wondrous year I spent at herb school. I walked away from that year long program with 4 notebooks full of facts and hand-outs on the medicinal properties of plants, plus I had been introduced to earth centered ritual celebrating the feminine. The women I met would become dear friends and mentors. I sat in class and listened to women discussing the power of being female. I was shocked and dismayed. I was shocked because I could not believe any one could enjoy nearly bleeding to death every month and dismayed because I had lived so long, suffering through the dreaded curse, totally unaware of the power that these women described.

I only had a few years to explore this new monthly “moon blood”, and then it was over, as dramatically as it started. But this is now; and I am woman!!

* annette

My adventures with plants - Datura

Part One, Datura -
I’m curious about the Datura. This powerful plant seduces me. In the alley, next to Lucille’s Cajun restaurant, Datura has been growing for years. This viney stem has large leaves and gigantic white trumpet blossoms that open and close each day. She attracts me like a bee. She takes over the physical and energetic landscape. I hear her whispering, ”Come closer.” I feel her drawing me near. Whenever I approach her, be it in a friend’s Boulder garden or next to a wooden fence in a clearing of the Belizean rain forest, I am captivated. Does this happen to everyone?

Datura can be a medicine inhaled for asthma. World wide this plant has been used for spiritual seeking. I know Datura can be poisonous- eating a mouthful of the leaves can kill. Still I made a flower essence of the Belizean blossom. When I took the essence that night, I tranced an amazing tryst with the stars. But that’s another story.

This summer, I plan to plant Datura in my new garden plot to see what more she has to share with me. The master gardener told me to harden her off before I plant her, wait until the danger of frost has passed, “ make sure her roots are well planted and stand back.” I envision a tangled bed of Datura and squashes to feed my wildness in the middle of my safe suburban neighborhood. Maybe I need a little danger to feel at home.

Part Two- Datura

While studying spiritual healing in the Rainforest of Belize the teeming life of the jungle has awakened me. I am permeated by the plants, body and soul. The divine smell of orange blossoms perfumes each breath.

Tonight the dogs were howling; there is the sound of a coconut dropping on the earth outside of my thatched roof hut. The bugs seem more intense tonight. Earlier I saw a wild tarantula in the yard and an exotic stick bug. The bugs in my hut now seem attracted to me. Maybe it’s because I’m ovulating – dripping fertile mucus. I light a candle to try attract them away to the candlelight.

And tonight I drank water that a Datura flower had steep in all day in the sunlight. The Datura grows wildly and strongly here. His large white trumpet flower calls to me. Yes, I am feeling a bit psychedelic. The candle goes out.

Just now I am filling with light and that’s another reason the bugs are attracted to me tonight. Is the light from the Datura? Or is it because tonight I have a date with Orion?

Orion-the Constellation of a Large Powerful Male presence. Orion, the one that the Maya people call Turtle of Rebirth. Orion- who I have gazed up at in wonder for so many years. I wanted to name my first born son after him – but the father refused. Orion will be my lover tonight. We made our date at a meditation earlier this week when he showed up as a Spirit Helper for me.

I’ve said my prayers, relit the candle, and pinned my protection amulet on my person to protect my physical body while I trance. I settle into my tryst with Orion.

I grow into the awareness that I am light- expansive pure light. Orion comes to me in his constellar form, his sword-phallus unsheathed. We make love as only light can- as hot as sunlight, slippery as moon light – mingling photons with photons, waves upon waves in the timeless time of the eternal moment that lives in love. His phallus of photons enters into my waves of womb until together the waves and photons release into Oneness. We merge deeply, conceiving the personhoods of thousands of star zygotes.

I mother our starlets in my light womb with the pulsing of my life blood until they are ripe. Then I birth them, freeing them into the emptiness of space where they can shine freely in all directions, filling the darkness with their light, calling calling other humans to know too their stellar selves.

By Terra