Return to Nature: Hear the Voice of Gaia

Have you ever felt a strange pull toward a specific tree in a forest, or found yourself inexplicably drawn to a particular stone? That's no coincidence—it's the earth element calling to you, inviting you to remember an ancient conversation we've nearly forgotten.

In this soul-stirring exploration of the earth element, I guide you through accessible practices to rebuild your connection with the natural world. Our modern lives, saturated with digital distractions and constant connectivity to technology rather than nature, have severed our ancestral bond with the earth. Yet this foundation element remains essential for manifesting our dreams, creating stability, and experiencing true abundance in all forms.

Through detailed instruction, you'll learn to communicate with trees using your expanded energy field and receptive awareness. Unlike human conversation, tree wisdom comes through multiple channels—bodily sensations, mental images, emotional impressions, or simply knowing. I share my personal experiences communicating with trees since childhood and how these relationships become powerful allies on your spiritual journey.

The episode also covers crystal communication techniques. Unlike trees that project energy outward, rocks require you to bring your awareness inward, creating a shared consciousness. For beginners, rock divination offers a simple yet profound practice—finding symbols in stone patterns that provide guidance on life's challenges.

Creating your personalized earth practice doesn't require elaborate tools or extensive knowledge. It starts with selecting a sacred space, incorporating natural elements that resonate with your specific needs, and approaching the practice with reverence and intention. Whether you seek emotional stability, mental clarity, or physical healing, the earth element can be customized to address your unique journey.

Podcast References

Reiki Level 1 - Season 6 Episode 2 & 3

Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs

If you are local to the Seattle, WA area - Join me at my Medicine Rattle Making Workshop on November 16, 2025. Limited tickets available.

🎶Music Credit:
Intro - Light of the North by Kalya Scintilla

Outro -  Jungle Echos by Chakuna Machi Asa

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Rainbows Rising
• 6:06 Connecting with the Earth Element
• 13:19 The Lost Connection to Nature
• 27:28 Communicating with Trees
• 41:14 Crystal Communication Techniques
• 51:30 Creating Your Earth Practice
• 1:05:45 Personalized Earth Medicine

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

The Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Rainbows Rising, where we ascend together. I'm your host, rainbow Raja. I'm a shamanic bodywork therapist and life coach and I welcome you to the show. I welcome you to the channel. Thank you so much for tuning in and checking out the different skills you can learn to help you connect with the element of earth and bring about more abundance, more joy and more connectivity through your endeavors and the relationships that you foster in your life. This whole month, we're going to be talking about the earth element and the different shamanic practices globally that incorporate the earth element, and I'm going to be teaching you today how you can start to begin with the earth element. And I'm going to be teaching you today how you can start to begin with the earth element. We've talked about the earth element being this grounding force. It is the foundation of all five elements. Without the earth element, you cannot bring things from the spirit plane, from your air plane, your mental plane from cannot bring things into manifestation. So, being able to create a strong foundation in the earth plane with the earth element, being able to connect with your body, that's your physical sensations, that's your physical actions. So some easy ways to start to work gently with the earth element would be doing movement. That's different Dancing you can do, yoga, pilates, just intuitive stretching, which can be a somatic experience if you are breathing deeply into those stretches, into those releases, and you're just listening to what your body needs. And you're just listening to what your body needs and you're finding the edge of that stretch and you're asking your body and doing mindful stretching, listening to what needs to be stretched, because you'll feel the achiness, you'll feel that soreness, breathing into your body in that way, but bringing motion into it. That is what brings the most earth element into your space. And these are just really basic ways to start incorporating the earth element into your day-to-day ways to start incorporating the earth element into your day-to-day Physical activities force us to ground into our body. Massage is a good way to connect with the earth element because someone is palpating your physical body and attention To areas of tension, to areas that need More nurturing, areas that might be, might not be flowing well, and when you're able to bring attention to it, you're also able to do Some movement To loosen up those areas, the earth element.

Speaker 1: 5:10

When you do start to work with your body, when you do start to incorporate the earth element into your life through the practices we're going to cover in today's episode, you will start to see more abundance, as in the things that you want to see more of in your life, whether that's money, whether that's friendships, experiences, maybe. Like abundance isn't material 100% of the time. Sometimes you can have an abundance of certain experiences or emotions or people that you really enjoy being around. When I think of it as an excess of things that bring joy to my life, bring value to my life, I believe that the earth element also helps us with anchoring in our dreams, anchoring in our desires, anchoring in our desires, anchoring in the person we wish to be, giving us stability not just in our life, like financially speaking, but also emotionally. Bringing us stability on a spiritual level. Bringing us stability like mentally too, with that clarity and peace of mind, being able to focus on a task without distractions, without deterrence, being able to complete it in a timely manner, without feeling rushed, and really being able to enjoy the present moment of it of it.

Speaker 1: 7:33

The earth element allows us to feel the interwoven connectivity of all beings that surround us, and our society has really lost that connection because we now have cell phones in our pockets. We have smartphones, like constantly in our face. We've got smart watches, wi-fi, which is in the air. You know, it's not just you know, not in the air that we breathe, necessarily, but the frequencies, the signals that we breathe necessarily, but the frequencies, the signals that they're putting out. We are constantly bombarded by digital interference and distractions. We aren't connecting to Earth the way our ancestors did. We're not even connecting to earth the way the generation before us did. In my lifetime alone, the drastic shift in the majority of mankind's attention to their surroundings and to nature versus how much time they're investing in screens is absolutely devastating.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Because when I was young, you could not bring your television with you in your pocket. You couldn't just search up whatever you wanted on the go. Whatever you wanted on the go. You couldn't call people if you were out and about or in your car. You had to find a pay phone. You had to go to a business and ask if they had a pay phone. But we had very few. People had cell phones and they were not anything like the phones we have today. They were purely for dialing a phone number and connecting with someone. They were not reliable and Wi-Fi didn't become a thing. Until the early 2000s we had dial-up that was all plugged into the network, that was all all corded. All of the signals were constricted in and contained and circumvented through our devices. They were not free range. We have now free range technology and the problem with that is, if we are too involved with technology we lose the connectivity of our neighbors not just humans, but our neighbors of the spirit and nature plane, the natural world.

Speaker 1: 11:11

I grew up with no siblings. I grew up with two parents who worked full-time jobs 40 to 60 hours a week and I played alone a lot. And when you're a young child of the 90s, playing alone, you're outside, climbing trees, talking to the birds in their native tongue, you're having entire conversations with the neighbor's cats and dogs and you learn how to connect with the animals we share this world with. I lived in a very small condominium complex. There were maybe three or four other kids in the entire neighborhood and most of them only came over to. You know they had some divorce situation. They were only there on the weekends. I was the only full-time kid in the entire complex full-time kid in the entire complex and it was okay for me because I got to go outside and I had some crows that were my friends. Be like hey guys, ah, ah. And they'd be like ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. I'd be like ah. And we'd just talk. Sometimes they'd talk to me about some really cool, shiny things they found at the park and sometimes they would just talk about how one of the other crows was talking some shit about another crow, and you know they're arguing.

Speaker 1: 13:09

So sometimes the conversations aren't enriching. It's a lot of gossip and drama sometimes in the animal kingdom, but if you're going into creating a relationship with nature, the cool thing is is nature will always respond. And if you set intentions and you form these relationships with the beings of the natural world, they become your allies and your, and they can help you with resources as well, more on an energetic level than a physical level. But they can be very, very helpful in guidance because they understand how the world works, kind of on the back end, in behind the scenes, energetically, how how the rhythms of life play out. The animal kingdom and and nature flows. It all follows this incredible rhythm, this natural rhythm. The animals pay close attention to these rhythms and even though humans have lost their connection to these rhythms, we still haphazardly follow them, and when you create these bonds with the animal kingdom, you cultivate these relationships. The animals can help you become more in tune with those rhythms and use them to your advantage with intention.

Speaker 1: 14:59

So how can you start to have these conversations without looking like a crazy lady or man outside in nature? I encourage you to go be crazy. We need more crazies in the world because all the people we all look up to, like Leonardo da Vinci and Einstein, they were all considered crazy in their time. What's wrong with being crazy if it just means that you're more in tune with different insights that maybe not everybody has become so so aware of just yet? Let the crazy out and we can start being a little crazy with connecting with nature. So some ways that you can start to connect with nature Is go out, pick a tree.

Speaker 1: 16:06

Don't just pick a random tree that's like the first tree you see and you're like there's a tree. You could, if you want to, but I highly recommend that you go for a walk. On this walk you pick up items on your path that are unique, interesting, eye-catching Whether it be a leaf or a rock or a twig or a weird seed pod or some interesting looking plant branch, collect a little bag, very small you know Ziploc freezer bag size of natural material. Go on this walk, pardon me and as you go on this walk, you're going to be picking up these items and you're going to be thinking about what information would you like to learn from a wise elder? What information would you like to learn from a wise elder? What do you really need guidance in your life about?

Speaker 1: 17:37

Just contemplate it as you walk, when you find a tree that seems to stand out among all the other trees maybe it's got a couple of extra notches in its trunk, maybe it's got some like really like twisty, gnarly branches and you're like, ooh, this is a spooky tree. I like the spooky tree. Whatever it is about this particular tree, first, I want you to go up and place your hand on the bark of the tree, take a nice deep breath and close your eyes and as you breathe out, I want you to imagine expanding your essence and just reaching out to the tree with your essence, with your energy, just gently reaching out with your energy, just gently reaching out with your energy, like just to let him know that you're there. The tree doesn't have eyes. This is your hello.

Speaker 1: 18:52

Once you've connected with the tree. You've expanded yourself out and once again, we do that with intention and we do that with our breath. A good breathing pattern to do is that nice, deep breath in through your nose and out through your skin, imagining that you're breathing your breath out through your pores, out through your skin, all over you, through your skin, all over you, through your mouth, and you want to put a little tiny bit of resistance as you are breathing out. For some reason that allows the breath, this expansion, which also triggers our energy field, to expand as well. So you're breathing in and as you breathe out, you're giving just a little bit of resistance with your tongue, by lifting your tongue up, or you can do it with your lips, just tightening, tightening your lips to give a little resistance as you breathe out, and as you are doing that, you'll start to feel kind of a pressure as you move out. With that pressure, you are saying hello to the tree.

Speaker 1: 20:34

You're letting the tree know that you are friendly, that your intention is to connect with the tree, to say hello, hello, tree, I'm Rainbow. Nice to meet you. Oh, it is such a lovely day. Thank you, tree, for asking. Oh, sorry, that's the next step. I want you to mentally, telepathically, think anything at the tree A welcome, a question, just a joke, a comment. Be yourself, no formalities needed. Just be yourself and do a little light talk like how's the weather today, tree? What's it feel like for you? Seen any nice birds lately?

Speaker 1: 21:21

And instead of responding to yourself, just listen to the sensations in your body, listen to the first impressions and I say impressions because this doesn't always come in as a mental thing. Like people, when they want to talk to animals or they want to talk to their spirit guides or they want to talk to any beings outside of themselves, they think they have to physically hear it with their ears. That is not the case. There are so many different ways to receive the receptivity of energy. You can hear it in your mind's eye. You can see images. You can see colors. You can get scenes in your mind, colors. You can get scenes in your mind. You can get feelings in your body. You might feel pressure, you might feel temperature, you might feel emotions and you might just get inner knowings. You might not know specifically what the tree is saying. You'll just get a knowing of the concept, of its response. You might just get a knowing of how the tree would like to communicate with you. Tree would like to communicate with you and as you're having these exchanges with the tree, I want you to always ask, through your heart space, and if it's been a long time since you've communicated with your heart, since you've communicated through your heart space, through the energy of your heart space, I want you to, before you do this tree practice, practice in front of the mirror with communicating certain statements to yourself, certain statements to yourself.

Speaker 1: 23:51

First, you say it just with your mouth I like sushi, I like sushi, right. Then you want to communicate it through your eyes and you want to look into your eyes. I and you want to try and get the statement, the truth of the statement, the feeling of the statement through your eyes, so you are able to actually look into your own eyes and see the emotion, the truth. I like sushi, I like sushi, and I can see the light change in my own eyes. I can see the corners of my eyes move up in joy and excitement about the sushi. Then you're going to move on to your heart and you're going to speak from your heart. You got to mean it. I like sushi, I like sushi, and you speak with the emotion and the truth of your heart. I'm only using I like sushi, because it was the first statement I could come up with, so you can use that for anything.

Speaker 1: 25:23

But start to notice the differences of speaking just with your mouth versus speaking with your eyes, which is more of a projection method. And then the last is speaking with your heart, which is your inner truth, and you can feel the differences. And if you do that practice and check the different feelings, you do it with several different statements, several different days you'll start to be able to discern when you're speaking just off the cuff or just with your eyes or just with your heart. It'll help you be able to differentiate when you're being authentic versus when you're putting on a show or when you're not connected at all. And those are the three stages is connected projection and completely emotionally, not connected with what you're saying. You're just saying it because it's coming from your mind, out of your mouth, right? So now that you have connected with the tree, you brought your energy into the tree. You've thought a couple of little tester, intro, conversational pieces. You're like hey, tree, how are you doing today? How's the weather? How's that bird doing up there how's that bird doing up there? And the tree.

Speaker 1: 27:10

If you pause and you open yourself up to receiving feedback, and that feedback will come in as different sensory impressions. You want to be open to the different variety that you might experience and everyone will be different and when you first start this, it will come in quiet. If you trust the first impression, I swear it is always correct. But you have to show your body, you have to show the tree, you have to show your own spirit team. You have to show your own subconscious that you are willing to trust yourself despite not truly knowing if what you're experiencing is really happening or not. And when it comes down to it, when you're first learning a skill, you're not going to always get it completely, 100% accurate on the first try, second try, all the way up to the 10th or 20th time. But you will get a gist and that gist is usually on point. So it's not an exact science.

Speaker 1: 28:37

When you are first developing these skills and I don't want you to get discouraged if you're sitting there talking to the tree and you're getting getting like very, very little feedback and it's like you know you're like hi tree, how are you? And you wait and all you feel or hear is fine, just fine. Well, tree, I'm glad you're doing good. I had some questions for you. Can we talk today? No, okay, sorry, sorry, I bugged you On to the next tree, right? You just have to trust what comes up. You don't second guess it. If you're, if you're connecting with the tree and you're like, okay, and the tree is like, oh man, the city is so loud and I just wish I was living in the country and, boy, when I was a seed you, are you going to sit there and question it? Are you going to listen to its story? You don't question if somebody who's talking to you on the street is real or not. So let's try our best to trust what we're getting from the tree.

Speaker 1: 30:00

And you know what's great about this practice is, once you are able to connect with a tree, the reason I use tree as the first thing to connect with is because trees are very uh. They have an entire network of of communication between all the different plants in the entire region, and it goes on for miles, and they're all communicating through their root systems and through the leaves and they are, they have multiple ways of communicating, so they're an easy first, first being to connect with, and they have so much wisdom and so much information to share with us and they can help attune your energy and your consciousness to that interconnectivity with your environment, to that interconnectivity with your environment. So starting with a tree is a really good way to become already interconnected with your environment, with your surroundings, so that you can then branch out to starting to communicate with the birds, starting to communicate with the wolves, starting to communicate with the birds, starting to communicate with the wolves, starting to communicate with the crickets, starting to communicate with the raccoons. Whoever you happen to be seeing the elk, you want to go howl with the elk. That's great. Do that First connect with the tree.

Speaker 1: 31:49

So now that you've connected with the tree and you've had some nice conversations, don't forget to say thank you and goodbye. You've had some nice conversations. You can start to move up the chain of command. You can apply that skill to having conversations with rocks. If somehow this podcast gets lumped in with the possum lady, I will feel great honor. If you don't know who Possum Lady is, go check her out on YouTube and look up the Possum Lady. She's hilarious.

Speaker 1: 32:30

But the point is, you can start communicating with your rocks the same way you would with a tree. The rocks, though, are less telepathic, and so trees have a tendency of projecting their energy, whereas rocks emanate energy. So trees can really immerse you in the wisdom, in the information, in visions, the wisdom and the information in visions, whereas crystals and rocks, they almost whisper directly into your hands and you have to decipher the feedback. So you would hold the crystal in your hands and as you are doing your breathing breathing in through your nose and then breathing out, with that little bit of resistance as well, as you know, you're expanding your, your field. Then there's a pause where you listen with like your, your hand, sensory, with your skin. You listen with your skin and you'll get feedback like little tiny vibrations or pulses, and usually you breathe that up into your body and you close your eyes and you allow your mind to be open and you communicate with your mind more than you do like speaking out loud to it, but you can't speak out loud if you so desire. Sometimes that's easier, but you just want to almost bring your breath and your awareness into the rock and become one with the rock. Whereas the tree kind of reaches out to you, you have to kind of bring yourself into the rock and into the crystal, and that one's a little slower of a process and it takes a little bit more skill level to do that.

Speaker 1: 35:02

Another way to connect with the rocks, because you can ask them what their healing properties are. You can ask them how can I use you in my life? What is the best way to utilize you? How would you like to be incorporated into my life? What ways do you like to be played with the most? Whatever that case may be right, you want to make sure that you are able to connect with them in that organic way, and the easiest way to do that is with Reiki. That's where I was going with that and I did teach Reiki One, uh, several seasons ago. So if you haven't seen that, go check it out. Um, I will leave the specific episode, uh, where I teach Reiki One in the description, where I teach Reiki One in the description, and I encourage you to go check that out, because Reiki is an energy modality where you can heal yourself, but it also gives you the capability of using energy to decipher the energy of the plants or the rocks or the animals that you're working with, and it makes communicating with them a lot easier.

Speaker 1: 36:33

But even if you don't know Reiki, you can still communicate with your rocks just by listening and and almost you kind of have to insert yourself into the rock's place and share the rock space with it. You kind of have to become one with the rock and telepathically communicate that way. That sounds very strange. Communicate that way? That sounds very strange. But if you sit with it and you give yourself 10 minutes just to gently palpate that concept with your mind and with your sensory senses, I promise you'll start to understand what I'm talking about. But you have to sit Sometimes. You have to do it in order to feel those sensations and understand what I am referring to. So once again, the breathing pattern is in through your nose, out through your mouth, with a little bit of resistance. You should feel a pressure outside of your body and an expanse and as that's happening, you have to bring your awareness and, almost like, zoom into the rock and be a part of the rock in your hands. Introduce yourself Hi, I'm Rainbow. It's good to see you.

Speaker 1: 38:19

Picture Jasper it's saying that it's been a while since I've talked to it. I'm so sorry that it's been a while since we've talked. It says hello. It realized that I was presenting it. It says hello to all of you. I was presenting it. It says hello to all of you. Picture Jasper also wants to help by helping me remember that Picture Jasper is a really good crystal for unlocking ancient earth wisdom. Thank you, crystal Jasper, for your wonderful knowledge. Crystal Jasper is one of the primary earth healers. They attune you to the earth frequency and help you unlock ancient earth wisdom and receive knowledge from the earthly plane. And picture Jasper would like to ask the viewers to pick up some picture jasper. I don't sell it, so this is literally just picture jasper recommending that when you go and sit with your tree, that you bring some picture jasper and it will open up the channel a lot easier. I love, I love co-creating this episode with you. Picture Jasper. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 1: 40:09

This is our featured guest, picture Jasper. Yeah, you're very funny, so you could see. This is how I go about communicating with my crystals, also the Thank you. The shape of the crystal will also affect how the energy is relayed to you. So picture Jasper is kind of a spiral obelisk, whereas this is some honey calcite. Honey calcite goes in all directions, so it's not a focused stream of energy. Quickly, you know, and like selenite, this is a desert rose, and desert rose is a type of selenite, and so if I were to sit and communicate with the selenite desert rose, it wouldn't be as loud necessarily as this particular piece of picture, jasper. So that's how you connect with your crystals. And if you're someone who maybe doesn't like so much talking, maybe you don't trust talking to nature as much, because you grew up worried that that hearing voices in your head was a bad idea I understand. I relate. I definitely don't like being seen as crazy either.

Speaker 1: 42:15

So another skill that you can use is crystal or stone divination. Now, this is a super simple skill that even the kiddos can try out there. All you need to do is, when you're out and about taking a walk, you pick up a rock, you ask a question let's see how is this podcast episode going so far. Let's look. And then what you do is you turn the rock or the crystal until you notice a structure or an outline or a shape that pulls your attention towards it. It can be on any side of the rock. You just start slowly turning it until you see something that pulls your attention. So for me I don't know if you guys can tell, but with this it has a lot of dimension to it. So this is like three dimensional. I got it specifically for scrying. You can get a normal quartz for scrying as well, but I highly recommend trying.

Speaker 1: 43:39

Just when you're on a walk, pick up a random rock, any random rock on your walk. You ask a question, just a question about your day, about your life, about you know. Something super simple and easy. Like you know, I asked about the podcast and what I saw was I saw like a little star person. It was like a nice bright head with these little points that were coming out of the top. I saw it as like a crown on a head and then two arms out and two legs out, with like streams behind, like down below their legs. And so I interpret that. Because when I tap into that symbol in my own mind and I ask what does this symbol mean to me, I see someone radiating, shining their brightest, standing in their power. So for me, that's where I'm at. I'm doing my best to present myself in my most authentic version and to not worry what the viewers think and just be as as helpful as I possibly can and give you guys the best content that I can possibly muster. Uh, so that's that's where I am coming from.

Speaker 1: 45:22

So when you pick up your rock, you will twist it around. You will look for something that stands out. Right now I don't know if I can this weird little, that little mark right there at the top, that's what stood out when I look at it, I move it around, I twist it around, I see a man on a surfboard. It's going swimmingly, the episode's going well. So you look for images in the smudges, in the shapes, in the indentations of the rock and you interpret first thing off the top of your head, right, first impressions Always go with those first impressions.

Speaker 1: 46:16

You interpret what that symbol means to you. You don't go look up the symbol. You interpret it based on the emotion that you first get when you see the symbol. You contemplate what would this symbol mean if I were to see it in real life? Like, for example, I just saw a guy on a surfboard right and he's riding a big wave. So maybe I'm riding a big wave right now and I have a really big chance of totally crashing and burning, or I could totally nail it and get a you know, ride the wave and feel exhilarated from riding the wave and be really proud of my hard effort, from riding the wave and be really proud of my hard effort. Even if I wipe out, I'm still going to be proud of my hard effort.

Speaker 1: 47:17

But what I did was I looked at the symbolism of a surfer and what that means in relation to what I asked, and I interpreted the metaphorical implication based on your psyche, because really, when we're doing divination, it is spirit, spirit guides and your higher self sending you images, digestible images that you can decipher, to give you extra information about, to become your own inner sage. And so that can be a really fun trick because you can do you know rock divination with your friends or with your mother or your father. You can do it with your kids. It can help you with meditation practices, it can just kind of help you wind down from a challenging argument with your significant other. It can be a really useful tool just for quick insight, instead of going to chat GPT it's not going to tell you a bunch of accurate, factual information about things that that rock won't know about but in regards to life advice or to like, hey, what you know, what did this.

Speaker 1: 49:01

My boss said this to me. What did that mean? Pick up rock. Look at it. Oh, my boss said this to me. What did that mean? Pick up rock, look at it. Oh, my boss said this to me. What did it mean? Let's see A basket. I see a basket. Well, maybe he's just a basket case. Let me think. What else could a basket mean? Maybe he's carrying too much. Maybe he's carrying too much. Maybe I seemed scattered today and he was trying to collect my energy and get me focused on the task at hand. And it doesn't matter what your interpretation is, because it's your life and you are honing a skill.

Speaker 1: 49:52

So don't be too hard on yourself when you are first starting out interpreting these signs, these symbols. You want to give yourself some grace because over time this will become a honed craft. You'll be able to really understand the messages much quicker. The only reason I'm good at it is I've been doing it since I was a kid. So don't be discouraged at the beginning. You must have patience with yourself. You must train diligently and have faith in that first impression. So we covered tree wisdom. We covered rock divination. We covered how to communicate with your rocks.

Speaker 1: 50:48

The thing is is once you learn how to have dialogue with the conscious universe, when you can really start to speak out to your environment and say hey, environment, give me a sign. I'm really feeling confused, I'm feeling very lost. You know, I'm really excited about this thing. You know, give me encouragement, show me the way. You know what do I do? If you teach yourself that you are willing to trust in the information that is coming in, the information is going to come more frequently and the information will come more clearly with repetition. Okay.

Speaker 1: 51:49

So if you want to make your own custom earth practice maybe you want to make an earth altar, maybe you want to make an earth, you know little sanctuary, so that you can start to bring more of that stability, some more foundation, more interconnectivity in your family unit, more cohesive collaboration. With your work you can create a little environment that is going to attune your space and attune you to the earth element. So this is how you can start to create your own custom earth practice. So earth is associated with the north, at least that's in my Celtic belief or in my Native. When I studied Native American practices, it was the North for me as well. So if you are going to make an altar, or if you are going to have a space or you're going to meditate in space, the direction of north for those belief systems, you can face north and call in the north, call in that north wind, and that can be a good way to start that off. Now, if you have a specific belief system or culture that you are currently practicing or that you are interested in practicing, you can always look up what that culture, what direction that culture refers their earth element to. Another thing is if you're like I don't have any culture and I'm just trying this stuff out, go outside, find a tree and just face the tree, face the mountain, face the mountain. If you have a big rock in your yard, go sit in front of the big old rock. You got a garden. Face the garden, make a little fairy garden. That's still working with the earth element.

Speaker 1: 54:16

The thing is, is you, when you are intentionally choosing a spot, a direction, kind of an environment, that you are setting yourself up for sacred work? You are opening up a portal? You are beginning a type of ritual where you are showing spirit, that you have reverence for it. When I say spirit, I mean in general, whatever practice you're doing, whatever element you're honoring, whatever deity you're working with, whatever whatever it is, by being intentional with each and every step, you are showing yourself your higher self and whatever ally spirits that you're working with, you're showing them that you have reverence, that you are being intentional, that everything that you are doing is not done half-assed. You are actually devoting yourself to a specific action with intention, and then those spirits, or the element itself, is going to be more responsive, because you are showing respect, you are showing an interest in collaborating, you're showing an interest in connecting with such focus. So make sure that when you are setting up the space in which you're going to do your little ritual, your earth honoring piece, that you are picking somewhere that feels sacred to you. Even if you have to make up the table yourself, you have to get out a compass and figure out which direction is north, whether it's inside, whether it's outside, whether it's outside, whether you have to go find the tree and you have to, kind of, you know, put out a I don't know plank under the tree so that your stuff can sit there nice and comfy.

Speaker 1: 56:26

Take the time. You don't need a lot of things, but picking the space is really important, so take your time with that. Some things that you might want to adorn your space with. Every herb, every plant and every rock, they all have spiritual meaning and many times these spiritual meanings across the cultures are very similar. From time to time you might find something that has, you know, a pretty, a pretty different usage from culture to culture, but a lot of times, because the plant itself or the crystal itself has a certain frequency, people can sense that, especially more intuitive based medicine, like people are going to be able to sense. What does this rock do for me, and you can sense that about the rock and you can sense that about the herb.

Speaker 1: 57:50

Sage is for clearing, it's for kind of lightening up the space. It helps, uh, it helps usher out more dense energies. It encourages spirits to um exit spaces. Um, it is a very high vibrational plant and when you use it it doesn't get rid of um extremely persistent beings that are negative, beings that are negative, but it does make it very uncomfortable for them because it causes them some physical pain or discomfort. So that's why we use it. Um, some other things you can use Percussion instruments, drums, rattles.

Speaker 1: 58:55

Percussion instruments are very grounded, they're very solid. They are usually associated with the earth element, the tone C, c tone and the tone C C tone. So, getting a singing bowl, that's a C tone, that is also earth element. So we have herbs, rattle, drum, any kind of percussion type of instrument. You've got your crystals and working my way back to that very first practice where I was like pick up objects on a walk.

Speaker 1: 59:50

Well, those objects that I told you guys, in the zippy bag. You know, if you're taking a nice walk, an intentional walk, and you're picking up leaves or twigs or rocks or whatever, you're wandering about picking things up and you put them in the Ziploc bag. When you find your tree, you can set them up in a beautiful mandala, or you can take them home and put them on your altar or in your garden in a beautiful mandala. Use them as a mandala, use them as a maze, make a living spiral where you can walk into the spiral and actually walk the path to the center, where you can sit and meditate. Um spirals um are associated with the earth element because it shows the cycles of life. Um mazes, I believe, are associated with the earth element as well, because life is unpredictable, because because earth has so many different um dimensions and uh, paths and places to go and things to do and people to see, and then doing a crystal grid or some sort of mandala-like grid where you're creating a living map or a living web of these energies and you are having reverence for them and you are creating something new out of them. So you can use those found objects to make a beautiful altar presentation. You can also use them to make art as part of your ritual. You can glue them to a piece of paper or you can use the leaves and some acrylic paint or some you know whatever chalk or whatever. You decide to choose and use a different medium. And you know, use the prints. Take the leaf and stamp little prints on a piece of paper. Make a mandala out of that, make a mandala out of that.

Speaker 1: 1:02:52

I find that being creative with how you want to connect earth to you, connect earth to your gifts, connect earth to your passions, to your path, to your ambitions, and you make it your own. Earth will respond more positively the more personalized that you make it. So really, figure out like what? What is personal to me? Where do I really want to see earth flow more in my life? 10 years ago, I focused earth element on bringing me emotional stability. I had some really big rollercoaster emotions because I had had a lot of PTSD from abuse in my teens and when I first had my first daughter I was starting to heal all of the trauma that I had been through in my early teens to late teens. And when I started to work with the earth element, it started to bring in this emotional stability, this ability to master my internal terrain. So with that I would have probably incorporated a lot of poetry or art elements. Um, where I am creating things.

Speaker 1: 1:04:26

I remember one of the first things that I did was um, I had a big, beautiful eucalyptus tree in my backyard that I would sit under and I would just close my eyes and put my back against the tree and I would listen to the leaves. I would listen to eucalyptus trees make this like, very like, like very interesting tree sound and I would listen to the leaves and at first it just was very calming to listen to. But over time I would listen to the leaves and at first it just was very calming to listen to, but over time I started to hear the whispers of the tree and one day when I was sitting beneath the tree, it dropped a branch, like a little bit over there, and I went and I picked it up and I ripped off all the extra little branches and I ended up carving a wand out of that tree limb. And from that point on I started to really incorporate more earth medicine into my life. And that was really just me responding to this exchange with this tree. And it all started with me just sitting beneath the tree and listening to the wisdom that this tree was bringing into my life Um, teaching me how to breathe, teaching me how to quiet my mind, teaching me how to be okay in the present moment, knowing that, even though there's a billion things vying for my attention, I can sit here, I have time to sit here, the world's not going to burn if I sit and enjoy this moment with this tree. I could probably sit here for an hour and the world wouldn't burn. So find what really resonates for you.

Speaker 1: 1:06:26

If you're someone who has a lot of racing thoughts you jump from subject to subject you have a really hard time being able to complete tasks. You might be looking for more mental stability, mental focus and clarity, grounding your thoughts into actions, and you you know, carving a wand would really be good for that. Be good for that. Maybe you're someone whose body really aches and hurts and instead of necessarily wanting stability or anything like you just want your pain managed. You just want your pain to be alleviated. You want to be able to create and foster a healthy body that is not restricted, that is not causing you discomfort, and a good way to work with that would be to support that particular ailment.

Speaker 1: 1:07:27

So a good beginner's book that I would recommend is there. I'll actually just put in the description it's Cunningham's Magical Herbs, that one I use a lot. Maybe I'll drop another reference below, but that's the one I mostly use. And, like I said before, if you're not getting information about a certain plant through a search, you can always sit with the plant and do the practice the very first practice that we talked about with how to connect with the tree. You do that with the plant and even if it's a dried herb yes, the dried herbs are a lot harder to connect with the plant itself yes, the dried herbs are a lot harder to connect with the plant itself. But you can hold the plant and you can ask it yes or no. Can you help me with this? You can also go into a meditation. Hey, higher self, higher self, what herb or crystal is going to help with my back pain? Hmm, carnelian, okay, I don't. I don't know much about carnelian, but okay, carnelian. Turmeric, nettle Seeing a turnip for some reason, mushrooms, okay. So these are the things that are coming up.

Speaker 1: 1:09:44

I would either acquire them or I'd pick a couple and you put them in a little a little bag, it can be. It's usually better if it's like a leather bag or some sort of more permanent bag. Um, another thing is is I, I T I'm teaching a workshop on how to make a medicine rattle. So instead of a bag, you can make it into an enclosed necklace, or you could cast it into resin, you could sew it into a pillow. There's a lot of different ways that you can take those medicines and put them into a sealed object and with that medicine bag, you'd want to carry it on you until your aches and pains have alleviated. So that can really help is, if you're having issues with pain management, use a medicine bag. So that was our episode today.

Speaker 1: 1:11:02

I really appreciate you guys joining me.

Speaker 1: 1:11:06

I hope that you were inspired by some of these practices, were inspired by some of these practices and I hope that now that we've gone through what you can do to connect with Earth, that you start to play around with connecting with the Earth.

Speaker 1: 1:11:26

I know that these can sound a little silly, but if you take the time and remember what it's like to play and to have curiosity and to not worry what other people are thinking of you and what you're doing, you will find that the connections that you cultivate are so enriching and vibrant, even if they're not human, and they bring a lot of value to your life and they will help make life more playful and fun, the way that it was when you were younger, before you became jaded and phone obsessed, before you became jaded and phone obsessed.

Speaker 1: 1:12:18

So I encourage you to return back to nature and to start to cultivate that connection with the earth again. And if you're interested in learning more about these practices or you'd like to book a session and ask me specific questions about what you're dealing with and how I might be able to help you you know where to find me Go ahead and reach out on my website. I'd be more than happy to support you, and I believe you can also ask me questions through the podcast directly. I believe there's a texting link so you can always reach out through the show there. I'm just so excited to have you all join me for this show and I'm so grateful to each and every one of you. I hope you enjoy ascending together as you put these practices into action. Have a great week. See you next week. Bye, I am why.