The magical under-world journey of Thomas the Rhymer has been preserved in ballads and Scottish oral tradition for hundreds of years.

Everyone knows that seeds are magic. From Jack and the Beanstalk to the Biblical grain of mustard to marigolds in paper cups on a kindergarten windowsill, they provide a common and predictable miracle, a metaphor for potential, and a symbol of hope. They hold a sacred place in many religions, and humanists find them useful and evocative in expressions like 'seed money,' 'the germ of an idea,' 'finding fertile ground,' and so on. By working and playing with seeds, we touch the living future of the material world.

As I breathe and flourish as nature, I have evolved as a pattern hunter and explorer, working at the human’s intersection between the individual and the collective, focused on relationships, collaborations, and behavior change.

A Nature Evolutionary shares a timely article about working with fear and the help she received from her spiritual connection with the land.

Snags are where owls hold secret meetings and woodpeckers expertly stalk insects and a zillion microscopic worlds turn round. I sensed their underworldly importance as a keystone species of sorts, something dead but upright and life giving. Always leave a snag standing.

Come follow the adventures of the girl who must save an enchanted prince, through daring and cleverness and hardship, but also with the help of the ancients and the four great Winds.

Reflections from the Ancestors Connection and Healing Ritual from ONE member Rev. Tamara Grenier

Like most Druids, I have a deep kinship with the standing ones. They are my kin, my teachers, my friends and neighbors. They remind me how to breathe, to align, to connect, to give and to let go. As each one drops, my heart jumps in my chest. I pause, look, and give my thanks and blessings, again.

A drought has brought a famine to the Hopi people of Oraibi. When everyone abandons the village to travel in search of food, two children, brother and sister, are left behind. To console his sister, the boy fashions a toy hummingbird from a sunflower stalk. Then the magic unfolds.

Our blood calls us back to knowledge that is much, much older than time. Our blood is the memory of countless generations, all the way back to our common grandmothers of long ago.

All people in their indigenous practices, traditions or ceremonies, have rituals of connecting to nature to enforce the energy of sacredness. Through their prayer, chants, songs or mantras, they reconnect with the ancestral energies. Unfortunately, not all of us have had access or knowledge to these ancestral ways, and others have disconnected from these ways or have been taught that they were not significant. The teaching of In Toque Nahuaque, or being connected to one’s sacredness, begins simply with you choosing to create a sacred space and time for yourself.

We are offering a series of told stories for your enjoyment, healing, unwinding and leaning into the ancestral wisdom passed through tales, myths, and legends. In this story, “The Healing Leaves”, the great-hearted, but perhaps not-too-sensible hero, must overcome overwhelming obstacles to procure healing leaves.

The instinct to rush back to our “normal” lives is understandable, especially for those who are suffering the loss of their livelihoods, but do we really want to go back to the frenzied state of dis-ease we have been conditioned to feel is necessary for survival by our economy of extraction?

We are offering a series of told stories for your enjoyment, healing, unwinding and leaning into the ancestral wisdom passed through tales, myths, and legends. "Mountain Pears", a tale from Japan, tells the adventures of three brothers who undertake a quest for the mountain pears to help their beloved mother heal from a mysterious illness.

We are offering a series of told stories for your enjoyment, healing, unwinding and leaning into the ancestral wisdom passed through tales, myths, and legends. Our first story, "Xueda and Yinlin", a tale from the Xinjiang province of China, tells the adventures of two courageous young people who seek a cure for the mysterious illness which has stricken their village.

The miracle of the seed never ceases to amaze me. For many years, I grew my own food, and over time became a seed saver. Upon the arrival of Spring, I carefully buried each seed in the soil, covering it gently, to be gone from sight and to rest in the embrace of the earth. Then came the time of anticipation and patiently waiting. Inevitably, my mind formed around questions like- “Is it really going to happen again? Could it really be that a plant will come forth from what is contained in the tiny seed?”

For the last 30 years, Pam has run a program called “Sense of Wonder Creations” www.senseofwondercreations.org from her home on Martha’s Vineyard. Children from age 7-12 can attend week- long day camp sessions in the summer and art classes during the winter months in her studio. Often when children “graduate” from this program they return to become Leaders in Training, Junior, then Senior counselors. One way to characterize the camp programs might be to say that they blend creative arts with caring for the environment and appreciation of ethnic diversity.

The hearts of 21 women heard the voice of a mountain. A mountain, calling them to its slopes, calling them to drink of its pure spring waters, to commune with tree elders and ancient stones, to dream with its profound presence at night, and bask in its vibrant and healing energies during the day. Mount Shasta, where the Organization of Nature Evolutionaries led a group of journeyers in early October, set the stage for a 4-day retreat focused on co-creative partnership with Nature.

Eve Ensler spoke at the 2019 Bioneers Conference. Her reading of her “Apology to Mother Earth” was one of the most profound moments of the conference.

“I press my bruised body down on your grassy belly, breathing me in and out. I have missed you, Mother. I have been away so long. I am sorry. I am so sorry. 

I am made of dirt and grit and stars and river, skin, bone, leaf, whiskers and claws. I am a part of you, of this, nothing more or less. “