The Plant Spirit Podcast with Sara Artemisia

Listening to Earth and Soul with Leah Rampy

• Sara Artemisia / Leah Rampy • Episode 63

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#63  –  Have you ever experienced connecting with an Anam Cara, or soul friend in Nature?

Join us for a wonderful conversation with writer and speaker Leah Rampy on the invitation to reconnect with the beauty, awe, and wonder of the world in these edge times that we now find ourselves in.

In this episode, Leah shares about the Celtic term Anam Cara which means soul friend, and how we can find this type of relationship with plants, trees, rivers, and places. She also offers insights on the power of listening and discernment in leadership, and how the global experience of climate chaos and biodiversity loss provides an opportunity to midwife something new and open to deeper states of connection with Nature.

After giving numerous presentations on the dangers of impending climate change, Leah Rampy became convinced that something was missing from the conversations. She then began a decades-long journey to understand what lies beneath our unwillingness to change our interactions with the natural world.

Leah Rampy is a writer, speaker, and retreat leader who weaves ecology, spirituality, personal stories, and practices to help people deepen their relationship to the natural world. She is the author of Earth & Soul: Reconnecting amid Climate Chaos and a frequent speaker on spiritual ecology and leadership in these uncertain times.

You can find Leah at: https://www.leahmoranrampy.com
fb: https://www.facebook.com/leahrampy.author/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/leahrampy/
Books: https://www.leahmoranrampy.com/books.html

For more info visit Sara's website at: https://www.multidimensionalnature.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/multidimensional.nature/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saraartemisia.ms/
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/plantspiritherbalism
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@saraartemisia
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@multidimensional.nature
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/multidimensionalnature/

Learn how to communicate with plant consciousness in the free workshop on How to Learn Plant Language: https://www.learnplantlanguage.com/

Sara Artemisia:

Welcome to the Plant Spirit Podcast on connecting with plant consciousness and the healing wisdom of Nature. This podcast is brought to you by the plants and my deep collaborative work with them as a Plant Spirit Wisdom Teacher, Flower Essence Practitioner, Financial Coach and Co-creator of Plant Spirit Designs. To learn how to communicate directly with plant consciousness, you can check out the free workshop at www.learnplantlanguage.com. For Nature inspired financial coaching, visit www.financialabundancecoach.com. And for herbally inspired clothing that is an ode to the plants and the people who love them, check out www.plantspiritdesigns.com. I'm your host, Sara Artemisia, and I'm excited to introduce our next guest to the show today. After giving numerous presentations on the dangers of impending climate change, Leah Rampy became convinced that something was missing from the conversations. She then began a decades-long journey to understand what lies beneath our unwillingness to change our interactions with the natural world. Leah Rampy is a writer, speaker and retreat leader who weaves ecology, spirituality, personal stories and practices to help people deepen their relationship to the natural world. She is the author of the

award winning Earth & Soul :

Reconnecting amid Climate Chaos, and is a frequent speaker on spiritual ecology and leadership in these uncertain times. So Leah, thank you so much for joining us today. Such an honor to have you here with us.

Leah Rampy:

Thank you, Sara. I'm very happy to be here.

Sara Artemisia:

So wonderful to connect and there's so much that you write about that I resonate with. And one thing in particular that really stood out to me was this concept, this ancient Celtic term of Anam Cara, which means "soul friend". And I was curious if you could share a bit about how you experienced this, this soul friendship with Nature, with the Earth, with trees, with plants, with rivers, because this is something that really speaks so deeply to me, and I would just love to hear about your experience with it.

Leah Rampy:

Yes, well, I love that question, and I love that term. It's a favorite of mine, although I would say that I felt connected to trees in particular as a small child through my growing up years, sometimes I sort of jokingly say I grew up in Kansas, and I probably love trees so much because there were so few of them, they were really prized to have that kind of shade and beauty, particularly if you grew up as I did much of your life in the country surrounded by wheat fields. So I think I've always had this real affinity for trees, and of course, as a young child, we have that sense of trees and plants being our friends, and we talk to them, and we can tell them secrets, and we feel like they share with us the secrets that they have. It was much, much later that I learned that term Anam Cara, that Celtic term for that kind of ongoing presence that we could be for each other. And of course, when I first heard about it, I was thinking about other humans being our deep connection and being our spiritual director, soul friend. And then after that, it was like, well, of course, it doesn't have to be just humans, because we're still in that kind of a conversation with the living beings around us. So I have special tree friends that I think listen in a way that maybe is even beyond the capacity of human friends to listen, because it's this wordless communion, really. And when we're going beyond words, I think there's such a depth of sharing. When we start putting words, we constrain somehow the breadth of knowledge and wisdom and the breadth of feeling even that we have. So in a way, there's this incredibly rich, rich opportunity to be in that kind of a connection with other living beings in this world. I'm grateful for that.

Sara Artemisia:

Absolutely, and I know a huge part of your journey personally has been about how really recognizing the depth of intensity that we're currently in with the climate chaos and biodiversity loss, how that really has been a springboard for you and for so many to connect more deeply with Nature. And I'm curious how you see that really this global experience that we're in right now being a call to open to deeper states of connection with Nature.

Leah Rampy:

I think Sara, if we're not broken hearted, we're really not paying attention. So there is, is so much incredible loss that it's hard to stay attending to it. I understand, and I feel it too, that desire to look away from the loss that surrounds us when we think of clear cut forests or mountaintop removal or plastics in the ocean. I mean, we could go on and on about that. There's so many ways in which we have harmed and continue to harm ecosystem and species and the systems of the planet herself. So it's hard to hold it all, and I think it is an invitation to allow our hearts to break open, to really have that larger capacity to hold more, and by that, I think we hold loss, but it's also an invitation to hold more of the beauty and the awe and the wonder in this world. It's not an either or. I think it's so important that we develop that capacity to stay present to loss and to not dull our senses, because we don't really get the chance to just partially dull our senses. We can't just dull our senses to the things that are difficult and then open wide to beauty, we're going to have to open wide to all of it. And so this is hard. This is challenging. We need support. We need friendship. We need Adam Cara support from our human and our more than human friends, soul friends, to do that, but this seems to me like the journey that we are in right now, as we live in these incredibly challenging edge times.

Sara Artemisia:

Yeah, so much in what you just shared there, and I certainly feel that very deeply as well, how we're in this edge times, what feels like a birth canal portal right now, planetarily, and I'm curious how you see you describe this experience of dancing with grief and joy, how do you see that as really playing into this experience of how we navigate through this passage that we're in right now globally?

Leah Rampy:

Well, both really are important, and both are present all the time. I'm really appreciative of Trebbe Johnson and her work, where she invites people in her book Radical Joy For Hard Times, something like that. Trebbe Johnson, and she invites people to go into the places where there is tremendous loss, like a clear cut, for instance, and stay there until they can see the beauty within it. And then she also has, once a year, an invitation to people all around the world to create beauty within these spaces. And people will pick up stones or pieces of branches or twigs or leaves or whatever and create a bird on the ground or on a particular space within that lost area as a way, I think, both of kind of a memorial and a mourning, but also as a representation of a beauty and maybe kind of a Phoenix that will rise out of of the ashes as well. So I think this is what we're invited to do is hold both of these because it's real, and one of the things that I'm really clear about is that I'm done personally, with pretending that all will be just fine and that we could go back to living the way we've always lived. It's a concern I have that we coat over, paint over the loss in the tragedy as a way to invite people into the conversation. But I don't feel invited into a conversation that's not real. And I feel that this is a conversation. You mentioned the birth canal, and to me, that's where we are. We're on a threshold. We cannot go back to what was it is not there. We cannot remanufacture the ice that's melted. You know, we can't create the species we've lost, so we can't go back, and the picture of what is emerging is not yet clear. So we are like the women in those ancient times where this was where they gave birth, right in their small homes on that threshold, holding with each hand against the wall and giving birth on the threshold, and by them, supporting them, was the kneeling woman who was midwifing helping to midwife this birth. I suspect we have both of those roles to play, the birthing of something new, and the midwifing of what is wanting to happen, even if it's not entirely clear yet how that will fully manifest.

Sara Artemisia:

Yeah, that does seem really key of recognizing that we don't actually know how it's going to evolve and unfold, and how listening, deeply listening, which we were talking about earlier, is such a key, key part of this, and also this concept that you also write about, which is this Leadership For The Edge Times. What is required, really, do you see as being essential to be an effective leader in these times right now?

Leah Rampy:

Well, I think you've mentioned that really key word, which is listening. And for me, that part of that listening is is discerning. It's discerning. So I'm going to back up a little step and say that this is the soul part to me, of the Earth and Soul in the title of book, the essence of who we are is how I define soul, that truest self, probably for most of us, layered over and layered over and layered over by stories and culture and teachings that we've had in our lifetime. And yet there is this true essence of who we are, and that journey to remember and reclaim our truest self as we are connected to this larger whole, this interwoven fabric of Earth helps us understand the gifts that we have to offer in these times when we understand our gifts that's still though insufficient, because we don't exactly know where and when those gifts are are to come into play and when we're to offer them. So that is a part of the process of discernment, which, to me, means we are listening deeply, watching for what is already emerging and what is inviting us to join in, to join with and this is the opposite right of me thinking it out and saying, oh my goodness, you know that I would say, these woods, these woods are in horrible condition. And so you know how I could fix that? I could go in, and I can find some native plants that I could put in there, and maybe there's a few trees I went to plant here. So that human centric kind of view that is so prevalent in much of our western culture that says we are here to think it out, problem solve and go fix it is pretty much the opposite of what we're talking about. When we're talking about this discernment that says there is amazing viability, life, intelligence in this world around us, and that what I'm being invited to do is listen deeply, to understand where my gifts are invited, welcomed, and what steps I might take just for now. The tricky thing about discernment is, I don't think we're always given the full picture either, you know. So it's not as if we always know that the end result is going to be x sometimes all we know is, I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to take these two steps, you know, or just this one step, and I don't know where it's going to lead, even though I really want to, I really want to know what it's going to look like, but all I know is that I'm invited into this step. I think it's not all there is, but I think that discernment is such a key gift for our leadership in these edge times. We can't keep going with this idea that we draw only on our own intelligence, our own experience, and then based on that, we're going to know enough how to address the challenges before us. That is kind of an old way of leading, right. To say that I lead because I have a particular expertise, or because I've just been given a role, and I'm going to step into that role. To me, there's a much richer, deeper, more powerful, I'm going to say, more powerful leadership, not power from the individual, but power through, what's given through the person, what can work through me? But that's just the opposite of me, holding myself in a position of power that invites me to be very humble, to know I don't know, and to be willing to offer myself as a vehicle for what is already opening up in the world

Sara Artemisia:

Thank you for sharing that, and absolutely it around us. requires a different lens, a different framework of listening, than maybe that we're used to, maybe than what we've been taught, reminds me a lot of what you shared here about how the roles of navigator and captain on this journey belong to heart and soul only when we rely upon and collaborate with wisdom greater than our own will we be able to respond in life, giving ways to the predicaments our world is facing, and then coupling that with what you were just talking about, of connecting with this greater wisdom that is inherently embedded into the very fabric of Nature, of the web of life. How does this play into our next steps planetarily? Because I feel like it's so key.

Leah Rampy:

Joanna Macy has these, these four little sentences that I've heard her say many times this wonderful, wise elder that she is, "it's all alive, it's all connected, it's all intelligent, it's all relatives". And I think we just stuck with those four little sentences that are so incredibly powerful, if we could wrap our heart and mind around those. Wow. So you're asking probably more than I know about how we go forward with this, except I would just add a couple of points, and I'm I'd love to hear your thoughts too, because I know this is something you think about. So I'm really vacillate between being frustrated and wanting to throw something across the room and sort of being delighted every time I hear somebody talk about how we might devise some mechanism that can pull carbon out of the air and store it into the ground. And isn't it just funny. I know that our audience can't see your face, but. Yeah, it's just like, oh my goodness, have you thought of a tree? And of course, far longer than humans have graced this Earth, trees have been doing this work and the whole ways in which they support Earth systems, whether it has to do with wind, purifying the air with their aerosols, the rain, helping to seed the clouds and pulling rain. We think that we have a rain forest because there's a lot of rain there. We're still trying to learn to think that it rains there because of the forest. It's just so much that we have to learn and unlearn, so many assumptions that have narrowed our vision. Now I want to be clear when I say this that I'm really speaking about the Western culture, because I always want to acknowledge and honor that there are Indigenous and Earth based cultures and many individuals who are doing really the kind of work that you're doing, to invite people into understanding plant intelligence that are really working to change this paradigm, that we are wiser than the old Descartes, that humans are the closest to God, right, and everything else is further down that pyramid. So I think it takes attention to heart connections, those deep ways of knowing that are beyond our mind. Then I think our minds come into play because they have to let go of some of those paradigms that have held us captive to other ring, Earth, plants, animals, people, unlike us. So that other ring, it's breaking our hearts and it's tearing us apart. So I think it is a journey of heart and soul, and then I think the mind has to come along too, because we need new we need new ways of thinking after we engage these new ways of being, and it's there. It is there. Like our heart and soul know this. We know how to connect deeply to others. By our heart, I mean our heart has a level of compassion and wisdom that is far greater than we ever give it credit for. Yet when we stop and think we know instances where our heart knows what's going on, even when our mind didn't understand. So if we can sink into heart and soul, our senses have so much to teach us. You know, we haven't even begun. I know that that has to be prominent for you as you're as you're thinking about your plant connections, because we want to identify a plant that might be offering healing to us. You know, we're taking that in through our touch, our smell. It's just such wisdom that we've been in, endowed with, that we've covered over. So that's a little long and and meandering response there. And I don't know if I actually got to your question, but I thought that maybe you wanted to add something into that, too.

Sara Artemisia:

Yeah, well, it brings up a couple of things, and thank you for sharing that. The first is at the end, there you were talking about how you know, first the heart and the soul come and then the mind comes later. And there was this framework of understanding that I just absolutely love so succinctly shared to me by one of my teachers, Marco Pagochnick who shared about how the heart is the primary organ of perception, and so in the westernized culture, it's just that we have reversed the order. We have put the brain first. We tell the brain go first. Heart follows the brain when in. In actuality, how, how the biofield of the human body is created is like, it's the heart is the organ of perception first, and then it's the brain's job to come in second and say, Okay, I see you heart, I see what you're perceiving. How do we now figure out how to execute that in physical reality? It's so helpful to understand. It's not even like there's something quote, unquote wrong. It's just that we need to reorient our perception about how we are understanding and perceiving reality, basically, and that that will help to solve a lot of things, to just put it in the right perspective and the right orientation, really. So there's that, and then secondarily, what you're sharing about the senses absolutely, absolutely the sense is just incredible gateways of perception that we have available to us so many more than we give ourselves credit for, I think, on a daily basis. And it reminds me of how you were sharing about how on your Iona pilgrimages, how you offer this Ancient Celtic practice of tuning the five stringed harp. So I was curious if you could just share a could just share a little bit about that as well.

Leah Rampy:

Sure, sure. Well, this is a morning practice that we would do every morning on Iona and often on other pilgrimages. And that would just be to come into a sense of presence with the loving world around us by one at a time, identifying each sentence each sense, and allowing that sense to expand in the way that it's meant to to connect so simply closing your eyes and allowing whatever you hear to come to you, and staying with your hearing, staying in that place when it doesn't have to be that we try to exclude, oh, I can't do it because, you know, they're humans talking in the background that too is coming into our senses. What else? What else? What's there? And so one one sense at a time, tuning that harp one at a time, each plucking that sense until it is in tune with the world around us, I find that it takes real attention for me to tune my my sense of smell that that's not particularly well defined in me, and so I have to stop and invite the other senses to quiet down in order to allow that to come to me. So I suspect we probably each have ones that are more attuned than others, and most of us have sharpened our sense of seeing. So sometimes we practice gazing, instead of seeing, letting that come to you, instead of reaching out to pull it in, bring it in, name it softly gazing so that whatever is there is is coming to us.

Sara Artemisia:

I love the I call that listening with the Such a good practice. eyes.

Leah Rampy:

Yeah.

Sara Artemisia:

Such a good practice.

Leah Rampy:

Yeah. I wanted to add in your comment about the mind wanting. I'm going to say wants to run ahead of the heart. So I think that is some of the scientific findings that the heart is out, actually out there several seconds ahead of the mind, bringing in the information before the mind has a chance to act. But then I think of the mind as being kind of bossy. It starts voicing over the heart. It's the the extrovert wanting to talk before the introvert is, you know, is ready. And in part, because the heart often doesn't use words, it's easy for the head to layer over, but in the contemplative practice, it's often to talk about mind and heart. And that, to me, that as kind of a beautiful phrase, because when I say bringing your mind to heart, I think about, first of all, the heart being first and then let the mind come there. But also the fact that the heart is a larger space that's a large enough space to also hold the mind. So I just wanted to add that into that conversation about mind and heart.

Sara Artemisia:

Well, thank you for sharing that. And yeah, so wonderful to connect today and hear more about your journey and your work and so tell us. How can people find out more about you and your work and your book?

Leah Rampy:

Thank you. Well, first of all, thank you for inviting me into this conversation. I'm really, really impressed with the work you're doing, and I love it, and I feel that the world is so much better off for it. So thank you, Sara, for all that, all that you do. My website is leahrampy.com and it has links to where the book can be purchased, but also to the retreats that I offer and a newsletter, and I can be found on Instagram and Facebook, and those links are all on that website, so I'm really happy to be in conversations. I wrote this book because this conversation felt to me so important for these edge times, and whether the conversations with me, or whether it is with encouraging others to be in conversation with others, reading the book, or with the trees around them, I feel that there's some way in which this conversation is being invited, so I appreciate the opportunity to be talking with you.

Sara Artemisia:

Thanks so much, and thanks so much for listening and joining us today on the Plant Spirit Podcast. I hope you enjoyed it, and please follow to subscribe. Leave a review and look forward to seeing you on the next episode. You.