Asking Permission - Plant Meditation

What I tell you now is my truth and it may not be your truth, however I would like to ask you to keep an open mind, I ask you to trust and that you to take what you feel comfortable with and what you are not comfortable with just set it to one side, as with your beliefs, I ask that you also set these to one side for the purpose of reading this post, afterwards you can pick them up again.

Once while working with addicts, I ran a plant meditation session for which I was running late, so I ran into the garden to pick as many different plants as I could from Plantain through to Dandelion etc. Now normally I would ask the plant for permission to pick it, as I believe all things are individuals, for example no one tree is exactly the same just as with human beings, on this day I forgot to ask for permission.

After the guided part of the session was complete I asked each individual to share (if they wished) their experiences they had with the plant given to them.

As it happened on this occasion the first person to speak was immediately to my left (the feminine side) the first words spoken were “my plant is not happy that it has been killed” the next person in turn also said “yes my plant is p*%@#d off that it was pulled from the earth, surprise, surprise this theme continued for the next three people in turn, by which time I was getting the message.

“Stop I have a confession to make” I said.

I informed the group of the importance of asking permission before thinking or doing something, it is like if I came into your house or space without asking you, you would be very unhappy. I believe the plants were letting me know through the participants that I had not asked for their permission and instead of being annoyed with myself as I would have done in the past, I took this lesson and used it as a way of illustrating to the group how events can happen on an energetic level.

The sceptics present on that day found it hard to deny that five people in succession would be stating the same thing, and as such this raised many questions for them, which they attempted to seek the answers for what had happened from me. I encouraged them to process this for themselves before reaching out to others to give them the answers, which of course was only my truth; it was and is important that each person seeks their own truth.

The Young Man's Anger and the Chaffinch

I would like to share with you an experience I had while working with a young man in Spain while dealing with his anger issues.

Having completed a successful ‘Meet a Tree’ game which in it’s self is another story, a Chaffinch landed in the middle of the track about ten meters from us. The young man I was with looked at me and asked “Can I stalk it” my answer was of course yes.

He started to stalk the Chaffinch along the trail (see picture below). However, it only allowed him to get within twenty meters before flying off down the track and alighting in the middle of it again. He looked at me and again set off down the track to stalk the Chaffinch (a male), again the finch allowed him to only get within twenty meters before flying off down the track, only to land in the middle of it again.

Again he looked at me with a questioning kind of expression on his face. I said to him do you think something needs to change in order for you to get closer to it? He replied “maybe I need to change how I feel about this situation” I nodded in his direction and off he set again. This time I could see that his energy in fact his whole being had changed and guess what.

The Chaffinch this time let him get to within five meters before flying away altogether.

He looked surprised by what had taken place. I asked him “why do you think the bird let you get closer this time”? His answer was “because I changed how I felt about the situation”. I responded with “do you think that when you feel angry in the future and you are able to change how you FEEL your family and work colleagues will let you get to within five meters off them”?

His face said it all…

In this short version of what took place, is one reason why I love working with nature, she is a great and powerful teacher and all we have to do is be open to seeing the answers she is showing us about ourselves.

Our Modern Day Warriors

Someone once said to me that they could not understand how I could work in the care industry and was once was a soldier. The two do not add up. Since I left the Army in 1996 this has been a common question; "How could you kill and then take care of people?" I was once even called a murderer.

This still goes on today and many would not have had me down as a soldier, if I do not mention it to them. Why do I still talk about it? Well it's been 22 years of my working life were I have gained untold life experiences and skills, now I am in this world, the world of the civilian were I am gaining new life experiences and skills.

I explain to people for me personally the two worlds do work together, my reason for saying this is very clear. I believed and still do believe that as a soldier I was first a defender of those who were not able to defend themselves, regardless of their background, and secondly I had the ability to be aggressive, and not be the aggressor first, as the majority of civilians I come into contact with believe.

My one common thread through all of these experiences has been Nature.

So what’s going on today, are men and women being seen in a similar light, nothing seems to have changed. Many people identify with the warriors from native cultures like the Indians from the USA and dismiss our soldiers of today... However, I believe they ARE OUR Modern Day Warriors and should be acknowledged as such. Put the politics to one side for the moment and look at the human being who is doing a job that many would run away from. In fact I once met a guy who was doing a study on the homeless in London and he discovered that 22% of the homeless were ex-forces, is that not a crime in it's self not just in economic terms but in human terms (this also goes for the other 78% of the homeless).

Can I recommend a great BBC Drama called Warriors, it shows the British Soldier in the light of a human BEING and not a 'they killed Johnny the dirty rats' type soldier. I take my hat of to Ross Kemp for getting in there with the guys in Afghanistan, what better way of showing what our men and women are about and what they are made of.

I trained some soldiers recently in tracking and they too discovered the power of nature, through some of the nature awareness exercises I use as part of the course, as one man put it "I feel I have been given something deeply profound". In a small way I trust that I am supporting them on a practical level.

Do they NOT deserve our SUPPORT, instead of some of the abuse that is aimed at them? You decide.

Blindfold Tag Game

Hi Folks

I trust that you are all well and looking forward to the New Year, I have been very busy of late and not had a great deal of time to write on here, I hope this will change in the coming year. I thought I would share with you a game I played with a group of young boys in a residential school I once worked in.

The game requires one person to be blindfolded and I would normally start this off as it serves several functions.

1. I get to pay and practise my own skills instead of teaching all the time.
2. The boys get to see how the game will work for them when it is their turn to be blindfolded.
3. It presents them with a chance of out witting me which they love to do, its great fun for them. 4. Over a period of time they learn to slow down and to tune in to their environment if they do not want to be caught.
5. It teaches them to be silent without you having to drum it into them, not that you or I would do that.

OK, first you need to find yourself a suitable location, I used a woodland with a slope on it and with a track running through the woods. I then sat on the edge of the track looking across it towards the wooded slope. I then place two members of staff one either side of me, they were my observers.

The observers job was to get the boys who were caught by me to return to the start point some 20 - 30 metres away from the track, you will need to judge what the best distance is for your group and for the environment that you are in.

The aim for the boys was to move down the slope and to stalk up on me without me sensing where they where and to touch me on the foot, this meant that they had achieved their goal. I also put in out of bounds areas so that they did not wander of too far or even out of sight from the staff. The staff were not aloud to give their positions away to me.

My role was to sit blindfolded in peripheral vision and when I sensed where someone was I would point in that direction, the staff member either side of me would decide if I had caught someone or not. At first this was easy to do as the boys would be making lots of noise because they were eager to tag me, but they soon realised that they were getting caught a lot, as a result of this they were forced to slow down, thus allowing me also to slow down and get in tune with my senses.

After an hour of this a few began to succeed in tagging me, moving up behind me, approaching from the side even a direct approach from the front. And on the way back to school it was all they talked about, how they were able to get up close and tag me and the ones who did not manage it would do it in the future because they would have learnt from their mistakes and from observing the boys who did tag me.

I believe that they were successful because they tapped into the hunter inside every man and this memory allowed them to move and be in such a way that it does not require them to sit and learn from behind a desk, all it needed was for them to get in touch with themselves in nature and the rest came naturally.

This is a great game, you can have hours of fun, modify the rules of the game as you go along but importantly for them their confidence grew, and grew and for me, well I got to play as well...