In the Life of a Forest Elf
A peek into my cocreative work with nature: setting up a silver vibrational essence for the Gemini Full Moon; a brief word on self-applied kinesiology
In this issue of True Nature, I have decided to share a bit about my cocreative work with nature, specifically vibrational essence cocreation. So much of my studies and learning over the past twenty years go into my current work, however I bow and give a special thanks to Machelle Small Wright for her teachings and example of what a cocreative relationship with nature can look like.
Last night just before I was about to get into bed, I remembered that I had made plans to cocreate an essence with nature on this Gemini Full Moon. The full moon moment was at 3:16 am, so for me that meant I would set everything up, go to sleep, and bottle the essence in the morning.
I bundled up and gathered my materials, including the glass jar of wild spring water I had harvested the week after Samhain, a piece of selenite I always use to keep the field around the essence bowl clear of any other influences, a copper tensor ring that nature indicated I was to use in the cocreation, and a piece of silver - as this essence was to be a silver vibrational essence. I opened up a coning with nature, and all the living elements a part of this endeavor - including the deva of silver (archetypal energy, or blueprint pattern of silver), and headed out into the lunar lit forest.
The light of the full moon was shockingly bright. The snow covered ground amplified the reflection, and I had no trouble finding my way. It was certainly cold, a moderate wind was passing through the bare branches, and every few steps were punctuated by a very loud creak coming from one of the larger trees in my vicinity.
My first stop was the large guardian oak, where my glass essence bowl had been releasing a rose quartz essence to the land over the past few days. Last week I made a trip to the local crystal shop in the area - the nicest crystal shop I have been in to date, anywhere in these continental United States - and purchased two large pieces of raw rose quartz. Over a year ago, I had seen in my mind’s eye, a large piece of rose quartz at the foot of this guardian oak. Last Monday morning I was driving by Crystal Garden rock shop, and decided that if they were open I would stop for the rose quartz. When I pulled into the parking lot the sign said Closed, so I did an about-face, and the sign said Open. A few minutes later I walked out with an eight pound luminescent, mildly translucent, pink chunk of rose quartz for the tree, and a two pound traveling piece for us. I am constantly in the process of replacing our rose quartz, because I have a habit of offering these crystals back to the land. There are a lot of things I find satisfying in this wild world we live in, and burying or placing a huge piece of rose quartz in a forest is on the top of my list.
At heart I am a very whimsical forest elf, and these are a few of my practices.
Rose quartz was the first crystal I could physically feel when I held it. Before rose quartz, I honestly thought the idea that crystals held power or radiated energy was hogwash (to put it nicely!) When I first met Victor, he brought me to a crystal shop over the border in Illinois. The first thing he did was bring me to the rose quartz, put a large piece in my hand, and tell me to wait and feel. I was completely taken aback when I felt a subtle, soothing sensation pulse through my hand, up my arm, all the way to my heart.
Over the years, I have had many fun experiences introducing others to rose quartz - especially people like myself, who are initially skeptical. Feeling crystals is no different than feeling the energy of different plants, different places, or different ecosystems. The more we seek to sense on a deeper level, the greater the apertures of our sensory gating channels open, and the more complex our neural networks for these perceptions become.
Tuesday late afternoon I placed the rose quartz at the foot of the tree and went out into the woods to the medicine wheel spot with the smaller traveling piece. I have found that there are ways to amplify a crystal’s presence, and one of those ways is something I call an elemental activation. This is a process that awakens within my perception an awareness of the inherent, quantum identity of the elements comprising the crystal. It is a remembering process, above all, drawing upon the creative power of perception. It is also an awakening process. Just like plants respond to loving attention and communication, rocks do too. When I acknowledge their vibrancy and living intelligence, that focus draws their presence forth more clearly into this physical realm.
The elemental activation process requires little more than the request made for its accomplishment, and time spent witnessing the activation.
Ever since nature taught me this process, I have done it countless times over the years for many different reasons. Usually there is some manner of uncanny synchrony that occurs in the surrounding atmosphere. Bells, motors, wind, rain - all sorts of phenomena will occur within the parameters of the process; starting up when I call for its beginning, and ending simultaneously with its culmination. I love this. Regardless of what we can prove is happening, I acknowledge the synchronization, and in my mythology, receive these signs as communication from the larger, wild field of intelligence that my attention is quantumly creative.
After I did the elemental activation, I asked the deva of the land (which is the overarching blueprint energy for this particular tract of land) and nature if there were anything else desired. To my surprise I got a yes, and after a quick bit of questioning I discovered the land was asking for a Battle Field Energy Release process - something I learned from the work of cocreative gardener Machelle Small Wright. I was surprised, because I hadn’t done this process in several years - the last time being when we were living in the house we rented for five years in the hills above the south end of Lake Geneva. The purpose of this process is to facilitate the release of any battle-field type patterning that is currently being held within the elements of a region. A battle can be any kind of strong conflict energy, not necessarily war - and I think we innately understand the effect that powerful conflict energy can have within a space, whether a human structure or a wild landscape. The idea with this process is very similar to the elemental activation, in the sense that there isn’t something I have to physically do - but rather make the request that any battle-field energies that are currently being held within the elements, be released back to the source field, onto their next evolution. Then I open my focus to knowing that the process is occurring, and I wait until I get a signal or an intuitive “hit” that the process is complete. After I did that, the land requested an essence release to stabilize the process - and when I tested through my black box to see which essence was the one for the job, lo and behold rose quartz essence was selected. I brought my essence bowl out to the tree, along with spring water, and my bottle of rose quartz essence. I tested for the number of drops, and then administered them to the bowl of water - setting it up for a slow release of the rose quartz pattern over the subsequent days.
Rose Quartz Essence is a quintessential vibrational essence - it helps to stabilize the electromagnetic field of the heart, and assists us in recognizing and returning to our natural, coherent patterns of love.
Over the years of working with different tracts of land in this manner, I have come to recognize the particular trees which are prominent confluence zones. These forms help to anchor and maintain the localized, organizing field of wild intelligence. Those who study forests have begun to recognize that neighboring trees will choose to keep an elder root structure alive, long after its trunk and canopy have been cut down. This act literally preserves the living field of intelligence that the root structure is radiating. My understanding is that these elders are cornerstones in a wild community. They provide a strong guiding structure for overall pattern that is coming into form, not only through the sharing of nutrients and chemical messengers, but through their radiant electromagnetic field. This field, like a radio station, contains infinite amounts of information, and is a much needed source of guidance for the entire community. These kinds of trees are the perfect allies for disseminating a vibrational essence throughout the entire locality - through the wood wide web beneath the soil, and by proximity to the other oscillating electromagnetic fields generated by every other tree, plant, shrub, rock, animal, fungi, and microorganism.
When I reached the guardian oak last night, I saw that there was a layer of snow on top of the bowl. I turned it upside down to brush the snow off, and a perfect ice cube of the leftover rose quartz infused water popped out onto the ground. I put the ice cube into the mossy crook where the bowl had been, and then headed deeper into the woods to the medicine wheel - to the wheel stone in the southern direction where nature had indicated this silver essence was to be set up. In the particular wheel I am working with here, the southern direction is home of the water element.
Every wheel or wisdom mandala has a unique configuration with regards to the directions and elements - I know wheels where the earth element is in the south, and ones where fire is in the south. Differences in wheel elements do not negate each other - just like different traditions recognize the chakras in different ways, with different locations, and different colors. One configuration does not make another wrong; it is all part of the quantum technology, and what really matters is the focus we bring.
In the wild mythology that guides my cocreative work, I see the particularities of an essence set-up as indicative of the overall influence and character of the final product. Silver is a lunar element, very much associated with water and the emotions. Meanwhile, the full moon influence in the mutable air sign of Gemini, lends a strong emphasis on connection and communication. These are the factors I know - then when the essence comes up via kinesiological testing, I learn more about the essence through the particularities of the situation. Whether a tract of land or a person’s whole body system is requesting an essence, I learn much about an essence through its function in the world.
When I reached the wheel, I was under the impression that I was going to have to dig for the southern stone - as earlier that day I had gone into the woods and found a blanket of snow covering everything. In the bright moonlight I found the northern stone still uncovered, turned 180 degrees, and stepped forward five feet beyond the fire pit, before crouching down. I brushed snow off of a few little leaf piles before I saw, clearly illuminated, the southern stone bare in the moonlight. I finished setting up the essence, which included testing for each step with nature - as I have found there is always a particular order that nature likes (and it is never the same twice). For this silver essence, I placed the bowl in front of the stone, orienting its tripod feet so that the triangle of the bowl’s foundation was pointed towards the center of the wheel; then I placed the small tensor ring in the bowl - which was interesting to me, since I’ve never done that before. The silver earring I was using for the essence went inside the tensor ring, the selenite crystal was placed outside the bowl, touching its eastern side - then I could finally add the water. Once everything was in place, I addressed all the elements and intelligences who were helping to make this essence happen - and confirmed that the essence would be grounded into form at 3:16 am, at the exact peak of the full moon. When I focused on the deva of silver I experienced full body chills - different from the chill I was feeling due to the winter weather. That felt resonance interests me - I usually interpret these sorts of chills as a sign of alignment and a very positive indicator of being in my flow. I have made a silver essence once before - with a dear friend several years ago, but that essence never played a large role in my apothecary. Only time and testing will tell how this new cocreation will be relevant - in any case, participating in the process itself gave me a full body yes.
When I walked back to the house, just before I reached the sliding back door I noticed there was a cat sitting in front of the glass door looking inside. It was hard for me to mentally comprehend this at first, since my mom does not have a cat, but it looked so natural sitting there - as if waiting to be let in. It scattered away when I made some clicking noises to get its attention - and that was that.
Late this morning I went out into the forest to collect the essence, assuming the water would be frozen solid. I was correct, the essence water was a solid block of ice - however it had the most interesting patterns. In the cylindrical zone just above the silver earring within the tensor ring, there were beautiful spheres - what I am guessing are frozen bubbles. Surrounding that zone, the ice took on a completely different pattern, a cloudy ring that reminded me of a spore print from a mushroom. On the eastern side of the bowl, next to where I had placed the selenite crystal, the water had formed into a bulbous ice cloud. I brought the icy bowl inside, and placed it on the mantle in our room. (Even though my parents built this house after I had moved out on my own, they designed a room with me in mind - complete with a full wall length, built-in altar for my devotions.) When the essence has melted, I will bottle this water with organic heirloom apple brandy as a preservative. That will become the mother essence. From that preparation, I will test for the number of drops to add to another bottle filled with unprogrammed water and brandy, for dosing. Whether or not this essence goes straight into my black box, and hence into the sphere of my public work, is up to nature. It is not uncommon for certain essences to be stored away until months or even years later, when the time is now ripe for their sharing. This isn’t something I have decided on my own, but have taken direction on from my cocreative partners. One of the reasons I love this work so much, is that I am continually guided again and again beyond the realm of my intellectual reasoning.
…
A conversation about my work with nature would not be complete without some information shared regarding my methods of communication and interacting with wild fields of intelligence. While I do receive many ideas and inspirations via my intuition, I have long practiced muscle-testing, what I call self-applied kinesiology, as my primary means of verifying the information I receive.
Many people are familiar with muscle-testing, also called manual muscle testing, or energy testing. The practice originates from the field of chiropractic medicine, in a form called applied kinesiology.
In 2012, I had the great pleasure of being mentored by a chiropractic doctor who practiced Clinical Kinesiology, a further development of the applied kinesiology practice. Under her tutelage, I learned the basics of clinical kinesiology including the two person technique for testing. She introduced me to the work of Machelle Small Wright, and I taught myself the one-person technique elucidated in Wright’s books. Over a period of twelve years and running, I have cultivated my ability to use this technique to not only communicate with nature, but to access information from points of consciousness within my whole body system. Through this simple, yet profound tool, I have been able to heal my body, support others in their healing, learn directly from nature, discover the limits of my own beliefs and expand my mind, access and confirm my deeper knowing.
In my expansion and healing journey, self-applied kinesiology has been indispensable.
Kinesiological testing relies upon our electrical system in tandem with our nervous system to give us present moment physical feedback. This feedback indicates coherency or incoherency within our system in response to input. That input could be the introduction of a physical substance (food, herb, etc.), a concept (I am well; I am experiencing resistance; my body wants support; I have had enough water today), or a focus (Bringing my focus to my whole body system/a specific field of nature intelligence, requesting a connection, verifying that connection, engaging in dialogue.)
Physical feedback is received as a strong/yes or weak/no response demonstrated by a part of the body that has been pre-established as the passive circuit. For my own practice, I create a passive circuit with the thumb and forefinger of my left (non-dominant) hand. The thumb and pointer finger of my right hand become the test fingers. I use my test fingers as levers to attempt a break in the circuit. A coherent circuit sticks together with a strong magnetic force of attraction. An incoherent circuit breaks apart without any resistance. The physical technique takes time to master and the secondary component, the internal focus - how we wield the tool, is a lifelong practice. I think it is just like learning to play a musical instrument, where basic proficiency opens up an entire universe of possibilities - and the only way through is to spend time in the process.
I consider self-applied kinesiology to be an art as well as a practice, one that opens up the doorway to self-health empowerment, connection with nature, and mastery of the quantum-mind-body-life continuum. If you are curious to understand more about the basics of this technique, the book Power Vs. Force by David Hawkins M.D. is an excellent place to start.
…
I have sat down with nature, and selected the Mullein flower essence from my collection for the Winter Solstice Essence Drop for paid subscribers. Next week I will be sharing the December Thought Bath, and a little more information about that particular flower essence.
Love,
Emma
