Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Spirits of Nature

Someone on FaceBook posted that they were writing some black magickal fiction short story, and it reminded me of Frabato the Magician, by Franz Bardon. An excellent story, though it reads like a Simon Iff story. I don't know why that minimalistic story telling style became so popular, but it's effective enough.

I was reading through it and came across the phrase, "the beings of nature are especially fond of the people who likewise feel close to nature." It immediately got me thinking of my youth, when I would go into the mountains of Colorado and hike trails and make friends with the local genii loci, without knowing that's what they were called.

I've always felt connected to nature. From the time I was a child, making mud soup in a five gallon bucket in my backyard, nature has spoken to me, called to me. I wandered in rural fields and sparse forests all my life, hiked trails and climbed granite walls, and more recently frolicked with the undines of the sea as they crashed against the shore. I had friends whose physical bodies were trees, colonies of insects, and streams that passed through counties and states I'd never visited. As I observed nature's processes, I'd hear a running narrative that sounded like a documentary, explaining what was going on and what it meant, how it all worked together in the ecosystem.

I never did anything to conjure these spirits, they were just sort of always there, at the periphery of my awareness. They still are. On the way home the other day, I was feeling stressed out and preoccupied with work on my commute home. I was at one of the last intersections before I reached my house, on a busy road lined with lots of trees to cut the traffic noise down for the residents with homes close to the road. I glanced up at the leaves on the trees, and a face formed, a great big laughing face. The spirits of the trees were getting my attention, sharing the joy they felt as the sun fell down on them and they swayed in their stationary dance in the wind.

I don't know how many other people have that kind of connection to nature. I like to feel special, so I pretend there aren't that many, but I suspect everyone has moments when they feel intimately connected to our spiritual brothers and sisters who incarnate in forms other than human. Our distant cousins who are as much a manifestation of the breath of God as we humans are.

Still, as Bardon says, I think the spirits of nature are especially fond of me, and people like me who take time to participate in that feeling of closeness to them. They are beautiful, and they seem to think we are too.

This evening I'm heading up to one of the highest waterfalls in our state. It's cut a stream through the granite hills (I've lived in Colorado, so I can't call them mountains) and there's a pool beneath the falls that is just deep enough to swim in. The falling water creates a cloud of negative ions that make people feel better. Crashing waves create the negative ions too, and you get a similar feeling of subdued awe and relaxed one-ness with the Earth on the beach. The falls are on a national park, and it's frequently filled with gatherings of teens, but the presence of the spirits of nature there are so thick, and the negative ions so calming that they behave themselves, carrying on conversations in hushed tones, playing diving games (there's a spot just deep enough to accommodate divers) and just having good old fashioned fun, without the cussing, fussing, and general angst they have everywhere else. While I'm there, I'll store up the negative ions in my bloodstream, and create a snapshot in my memory that I can return to in times of stress.

Before I leave, I'll collect some of the physical water, and make an offering to the spirits of place. I'll take the time to recognize and commune with them, as they have with me so many times before.

5 comments:

  1. "Still, as Bardon says, I think the spirits of nature are especially fond of me, and people like me who take time to participate in that feeling of closeness to them. "

    Actually when I was in MD a couple weeks ago the local nature spirits all told me that they wish you would stop staring at them. Its kind of creepy.

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  2. I personally love nature but I'm more considerate towards animals and even insects than with plants. I would often take the time to save an ant drowning in a cup of water. I also would like not to kill snakes; though people, from my neck of the woods, would immediately bring out their blunt weapons(anything they can bash an animal with...) Guilty with biting someone or not, it's bam. Poor thing.

    So I hope God remembers that I wanted to be a little like Dr. Doolitle, if Francis of Assisi can talk animalspeak why not me!? That gift has been long overdue.

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  3. How do you see them? Is it like a vivid daydream or an objective vision similar to what you see with your physical eyes?

    Your writing reminds me of Ted Andrews by the way. Thanks for the article

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  4. Jason, I need to add "Creep out the local Genii Loci" to my resume.

    John, that's just silly, in my opinion. Animals and plants and rocks are all manifestations of God and the Spiritus Mundi. Playing favorites with one set of entities because they happen to be able to fart out an asshole instead of their skin doesn't seem fair to me. ;)

    Archeus, I get impressions that are clearer in my imagination than they are in the eyeballs, if that makes sense. It's like scrying in a crystal, your eyes see physical reflections of light, but your mind receives the communication. It's an overlay, seeing the spiritual world moving in the material world.

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  5. I think that deeper awareness of nature, and spirits connected to it are one of signature "signs" that one has the innate gift of the magus. I also have many fond memories from childhood on up through my troubled teen years and into the present of conversations with the tree spirits sheltering cemeteries and down by the creeks where both wood and water spirits met and embraced. I would (and still do) go for comfort into the woods or a cemetery's grove at the pre-dawn or dusk hours. I often find Lilith as well in such places and some of my best memories of the comfort and knowledge provided were in those places. Greeting the guardians of the cemetery, a respectful nod to the dead sanctified in their graves - slumbering yet watchful. The riotous behavior of the restless un-sanctified ones slyly ignored (with a smile fighting to come to my lips) as they cavorted around me and played pranks upon each other. All this even before I knew formal initiation. I see it as the very greatest responsibility to seek out those initiations and knowledge so that the gifts that came with birth are not wasted nor perish unused. I suppose that why I felt such a draw to the True Grimoire...

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Thanks for your comments, your opinions are valued, even if I disagree with them. Please feel free to criticize my ideas and arguments, question my observations, and push back if you disagree.