Living in Long Beach is a blessing. We live three blocks from Mama Ocean, and just a few blocks away from Belmont Shore, a small beach community full of restaurants and various colorful shops. While Long Beach satisfies all my urban yearnings, it doesn’t fulfill my body and soul’s yearning for untamed nature. I don’t just want to hug trees, I need to hug trees. They feed my spirit and remind me of my connection to every living thing. I love them in all shapes and sizes, from my little Plum tree to the great Redwoods. Trees talk to me, and they talk especially loud up in the mountains.

Shakti Tribe took our third retreat group up to Idyllwild Mountains two weekends ago. More transformation happened in three days than many people experience in a lifetime. We trance danced blind-folded, did Prema Shakti Yoga, screamed, laughed, loved. We bonded deeply with one another, worked with our dreams, did sacred breath work, ate amazing Vegetarian food, sang together – and YES, we journeyed into nature together – down to the water, into the trees. It had been quite some time since I had last communed with bark, stone, butterflies and singing streams. I knew it would be a nourishing experience, but I wasn’t expecting the opening I would receive.

Walking in silence awakens the portals, awakens the doors of perception. There are many dimensions that share this physical reality. As we all began our silent dissent into the wild and magical forest realm I began to feel the earth vibrate alive beneath me, spinning my inner prayer wheels. The silence was filled with the thick energy of wonder and beingness.

When I walk in the woods I look for signs and symbols that speak to what is unfolding within me. It’s like a 3-D tarot card reading. I felt called to find a nature spiral, but inwardly heard that first I needed to give a gift to the earth. I scanned my body. What do I have to give? Does she want my necklace, my rings? No, she wants me to share my essence. That is the truest gift I have to give. She wants my voice. I began singing a half-finished song, “Om Ma”, a song honoring the earth and her wisdom. As I sang I felt my body becoming lighter and lighter. I became a forest fairy in com-union with earth, wind, fire and air. Then the sound of the water called to me. I hopped lightly, playfully onto the rocks that rose out of the stream, and began looking down at my feet seeing if a rock held the sacred spiral symbol.”Where is it?” I called out loud. Then an inner voice whispered “tree” and at my feet I saw a chunk of bark. I picked it up and looked intently, searching for a spiral. “Let it go.. your need to control the outcome” my inner voice said and that was when I saw a clear symbol jump forward. The image of the Eye of Horus was etched organically into the lower right corner of the chunk of tree. It wasn’t the symbol I was searching for but the symbol that was searching for me. My heart squeezed and my eyes filled with tears. This wasn’t just any symbol, it specifically spoke of an individual who I love deeply, who has played a major role in my life, and who I am now in the process of letting go — letting go of the form of expression we have shared. Finding this symbol in nature forced my conscious mind to feel and face the stuck energy that has sought release.

I picked up the bark and began to walk back to our lodge. I didn’t get far before I saw an unusual tree – that at her base was one, and not far from the base split herself into two trees. Two become one. One become two. I sensed that walking through the trees would catalyze a release of the stuck energy I had been holding. Out of respect for the tree, I asked if I may walk through her one becoming two. I listened for a response, and got a very strong no, almost militant in energy. I humbly apologized and then felt the energy shift. The tree changed her mind – you may pass through me, she said softly. I was touched and walked gingerly up to her, touching her trunk first, then hugging her. Standing between the one tree becoming two, big tears came and then a waterfall of emotions followed; my heart swelled with love and the grief of letting go. Specifically, spirit was asking me to release my attachment to expressing that love in its familiar form. Love cannot be contained by form. The realization that it was time to say goodbye to the relationship I grown to depend upon rang in my consciousness. I sobbed out loud and began to accept this realization. The tree sang her symbol of one becoming two and of two becoming one..shiva shakti into my cells, into my conscious and unconscious mind. “Shiva, Shakti lives within you Larisa. Two becomes one within you.” The voice gave me God-bumps. Wow, this was big. Life is big. Love is big. I was being loved awake. Evolution is inevitable.

Thank you Mother Nature. The gifts you gave me that day were transformational and life-affirming.

Nourished by our tribe and energetically aligned by Nature I returned to my life in Long Beach, renewed and transformed.

Question: How can YOU shift your consciousness from ordinary awareness into potent transformational awareness even more in this moment?

Coaching Tips:

1. Take a silent walk in nature, focusing your awareness on the wisdom of the trees, oceans, mountains, etc in a receptive, open state.
2. Breathe deeply. This will regulate the space between your heart beats, boosting your immune system and will heighten your overall feelings of well being.
3. Watch and listen closely to the messages nature is sending you. Follow them. You will be given an energetic answer/solution to the questions/challenges that rest in your heart. You will be shown exactly what you need in that moment to bring your soul back into alignment with your personality.
   
   

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Larisa Stow is the lead singer/songwriter of Larisa Stow & Shakti Tribe at www.shaktitribe.com and is a Transformational Life Coach specializing in extreme thought makeovers and personality-soul alignment. If you are ready to raise your vibration, you can visit www.larisastowcoaching.com to learn more about one on one coaching and playshops.