THIS NEW SERIES OF BLOGS WILL BE ON THE ELEMENTS
The Ancestors
If we want to connect intimately with the elements we have to look to our primal roots and the hunter-gatherers - my experience has been with the San Bushmen of the Kalahari. This is how we began and indigenous wisdom can direct us back to what we used to know. However, we may have to leave our cognitive brains and the hypnosis of science behind us. In order to hunt and gather and survive in austere environments our ancestors had to go beyond the five senses and tap into their intuitive powers. They would glean information from dreams, trance states, divining techniques, and in the Americas, also mind altering plants which could expand consciousness. This enabled them to connect with the elements in ways we cannot imagine.
The Ancestors differentiate between the
Four Beings of Nature.
Still (rocks, stones, mountains, planets)
Growing (plants and trees)
Wild
and Talking or Human
Plant growth requires water and healthy soil and were essential to the San for body, mind and spirit.
Body; tools, shelter, food, medicine.
Mind; the harmony that comes from Gaia in her pristine state, balancing the challenging polarities of wilderness and connecting with the magic of Nature's "soft fascinations;"
scenes, sunsets/sunrises, moon sets/moon rises, aromas/scents, the mantra of the bush, the sounds of the wind and running water and the daily, monthly and yearly cycles.
The San Bushmen were "meditated" by the power of wild places and entrained to Her rhythms. This was their "scripture" and it lended an extraordinary mind set to people who had no written language. Everything was passed on orally, and in song and dance.
Whenever I visited them over the years I was always struck by their equanimity, lack of judgment of others, unconditional positive regard for each other, unconditional love for children as well as being able to live purely in the moment. Their environment demanded they attend to their needs and what the elements could provide. They also had uncanny psychic skills which clearly went beyond intellect alone.
Nature also provided relatively safe mind-altering entheogens (sacred plants used in ritual) for Native Americans - south and north - which helped them heal and informed them about non local, space time phenomena.
The wild beings provided meat which took second place to a plant based diet but was most desirable, especially fat which gave more energy gram for gram. Bee honey was a special treat.
The hunter gather cannot make fire, use a digging stick, craft a bow and arrow, or build a shelter without the Growing beings ability to provide the tools. These Sprouting beings also provided medicines and sacred plants.
This nature-bound primal being was able to communicate with all Four Beings and their elements in a unique way in line with the Ancestors teachings.
The Ancestors
The San Bushmen are amazing mimics of the animals around them. I have seen them imitate an ostrich or giraffe and after a while it seemed that by dancing ostrich or giraffe they almost became the animal which is also key to the magic of shape shifting. Although he had tuberculosis and was ill when I visited there was a lion shaman whom I was told could shape shift into a lion. The San are now forgetting many of these skills as they lose their habitat, as are other indigenous peoples. Shape shifting was never foreign to the Druids, Native Americans and other Aboriginal peoples. To do this one had to identify with that Being's vibration.
I am sure the San would agree with the Ancestors in so far as...
The Ancestors
and the Zohar...
Each of the Four Beings of Nature are animated by the
"Four Winds;"
(breath, spirit, prana, chi, Moya or life force)
of the Creator, Each, however, has a different vibration. The hunter-gatherers needed to identify with these vibrations to survive using only the elements and these Beings.
The Zohar says;
"A river arose out of Eden forming Four Rivers and Four Winds..."
The Four sacred rivers coming out of Eden were thought to be the Tigris, Euphrates, Nile and Ganges. Each was animated by
Four Winds or the Breath of the Divine,
each to its own particular Being with its own vibration and own nature. This Wind Spirit was in the waters or the consciousness or life force of these rivers - difficult to understand but so is the Creation story.
Click on the link to highlight then play ... more of the mystery described in the Zohar and the Ancestors.
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