"I see you."

 

Holy Land

“Every place has a vibration; every place has a particular frequency. Those who are aware of this can work with those energies and frequencies and do prayer and ceremony that come from and are in direct communication with those places.”

Glenn Aparicio Parry (Original Politics: Making America Sacred Again; interview with Dr. David R. Kopacz, MD, reprinted in Parabola, Fall 2022, “This Vibrating Land,” p. 97)

          Glenn Aparicio Parry is currently president of the think tank Circle for Original Thinking and was founder and past president of the SEED Institute and winner of the Nautilus Award for his book Original Thinking: Revisioning of Time, Humanity and Nature (North Atlantic Press, 2015) His focus is to help people regain their connection with the earth. In the interview with Dr. Kopacz, in Parabola, he spoke about praying to the earth and to the creatures of the earth—specifically, earth worms. That may sound crazy to you, but any gardener will tell you that earthworms are a critical component of soil health. Once when I visited an oasis in the southern Arizona desert, the founder of Ceilo en la Tierra (Heaven on Earth) had built a kiva for the sole purpose of growing earthworms. As a result, she had wonderful, raised gardens with shade screens for blocking out some of the afternoon sun.

          Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me that as we’ve moved progressively into cities and away from the land, we have lost much of our native wisdom about how to survive without modern conveniences. If you were to suddenly find yourself in survival mode, if all the daily comforts were taken away, could you sustain yourself? Think about that. The basic necessities include food, clothing, shelter, water. If you couldn’t run to the grocery store down the street, could you feed yourself? Could you build a simple shelter that would protect you from the elements? We city dwellers would be at a distinct disadvantage without these skills that just a couple of generations ago, everyone had because they were necessary.

          Learning that everything has a vibration—everything on earth—and taking the time to tune into the different frequencies, is one way of communicating with our living planet. Just the simple act of touching a tree and saying, “I see you” is an act of prayer. Same with all the creatures that you encounter in your environment—look at them, see them, and speak to them. Understand that we are not the only sentient beings here.

          Glenn Aparicio Parry says that when we communicate with the natural world, we are connecting with it at the vibrational level. When we don’t, we and the natural world become disconnected. He says, “when people are completely unaware and completely looking at the land as dead, just a playing board, a chess board or something where they are playing out their battles,” the land remembers, and the vibration of that indifference and violence remains. When this happens, not only are humans diminished, but the land is too, and both are in need of healing.

          I was glad to read this bit of wisdom because I have felt differences in the vibrational quality of the landscape before. If you’ve ever visited a Civil War battleground, you probably know it too. Appomattox Courthouse and Shiloh were the two places where that energy was strongest to me. They have a deep, penetrating silence about them, a low vibration that produces the same in you. You know that you are on sacred ground. People speak in hushed voices as though still honoring the fallen.

          Today, go outside and touch the earth. Speak to a tree, or a squirrel or the birds on your feeder. Just say, “I see you,” and don’t be surprised if they acknowledge you in some way. Everybody, and everything in creation is holy. You’ll feel it if you try.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane