~Learning to See with Owl Eyes~

Our eyes are trained to see the world in parts and pieces; we don’t usually see in wholes or systems.  We see what is in front of us but usually fail to see with “wide vision”; with an awareness of what takes place at the edges of our vision and consciousness.  This makes it hard to truly absorb the natural world as a part of it and not just as a visitor or disturbance.  Many indigenous cultures have a very different sensory relationship with the natural world and naturally utilize the power of “owl eyes” and “fox walking”.  Try this exercise to retrain your eyes to see the natural world around you in a more immersive and aware manner:
*Find a favorite spot to sit in comfortably for twenty minutes (ideally for ten days in a row to really begin to retrain your senses) the spot could be a rock in the woods, a bench in your backyard, a sandy dune on the beach…
*Sit comfortably and find a main focal point in front of you, focus your eyes on it, put your hands up by the sides of your face, continue to focus on your chosen tree, object, etc…, wiggle your fingertips and slowly pull them to the side away from your face
*Continue to focus ahead while simultaneously seeing your fingers wiggling at the edges of your vision
*When your vision softens and you can see both ahead and to the sides of you put your hands down, when your vision softens yet is enhanced and perceptive of the radius of your surrounding this is wide vision or owl eye mode
*Maintain owl eye vision, sitting still for twenty minutes, observe with all of your senses what is going on all around you, you may be quite surprised by how different this feels from your normal visual mode.  You will notice small stirrings, textures and goings on that you normally do not see.  Your other sense should be enhanced as well, you are connected; ecological consciousness blossoms…
*After about twenty minutes the ecosystem around you will have begun to reach what is called “baseline”; this is the point at which the ecosystem and it’s inhabitants surrounding you have begun to forget about your human presence and go back to the state they were in before your arrival.  This is when you can notice the songbirds go back to singing loudly and creatures wander around a little more freely.  To really see the natural environment around you it is necessary to reach the baseline state.  The beautiful images of bears and cougars you see on tv are done by naturalists an photographers who have been sitting still with owl eyes in the baseline ecosystem state for perhaps days or weeks to capture just the right footage. 

In future issues of the Dirt I will discuss how to practice the “fox walk” in order to heighten your ecological sensory consciousness even further.  Until then make sure to journal your findings and interpretations of what you find when in owl eye mode.  Compare this to what you might notice normally in box vision mode.  You will notice you get better at it each day and by the end can probably make owl eyes your normal visual approach to the world.

Happy Summer Solstice Everyone!!!
From Zeratha and everyone at The Dirt and SRSF!
www.thedirt.org

Hells Canyon

Caravan souls weep with the stillness
of concrete notions
ill tempered buzzards
in this temple of devotions

Melting haystacks and sage brush
tickling scrubby jaundiced clefts
Divisions of martyred Western ambitions
this horse is riding, darkened and bereft

Vast forsaken overbearing wilderness
of a 1,000 lost places and faces
There is an innocence here
sun-baked and hidden
like that last cool apple
that has fallen from the tree
beckoning the promise of the sun-ra desert heat

Crumpled hats-beige-uncompromising
intolerant silver shadow hidden badge thrust
the litter of ivory aching yellow glory red pride bones

Last collisions-wham and bam
moonshine Nez Perce archaic apex
energy of the land, the life
come before

Sweet violet, glorious copper uprising
proud, brave, enduring
scrubby, lean, aromatic
dramatic
Poised, blessed, witnessing.

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i147/zerabaka/firerose.jpg 

1) In your view, what is the definition of God?
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a pretty good representation....God is energy, creativity, life and evolution.  God and Goddess are one--they are love and light and breath and vibration

 2) What’s the worst misconception people have about God?
That we are separate from God, that you can fight wars and win over God(s)

3) How can we replace that misconception with truth?
Elevating to the next level...shifting up...non-violent communication...multicultural systems education and literacy 

4) How do you access God?
Breathing, painting, dancing, energetic exchanges, sitting in the woods or by a river, automatic writing or drawing, praying, really good hugs

5) If you could obtain any piece of information from God, what would it be?
Hmmm, this seems so Cartesian and dissected. I would rather access my higher self and find the Akashic records from there...

Oaks Bottom

In this moss loving den of refuge

I could lay fallow for a while.

 
Nestled in any one of your multitudinous nooks and crannies

or the cubby holes within your carved out grandfather trees

I would love the damp yearning of evolution found there

If…

It weren’t for my clumsy human skin.

 
Your swanky dank delicious mud roving paths

invite me to sink into your wetness

the fecund glory of early spring

that is echoed in your makeup of pthalo greens

and umbert browns

 
You have been bold.

Shifting, creaking and breathing in your expansive treed frames of reference

you have ignored what we ask of you

and have gone on in shades

of

slate blue lichen

neon green moss

tan whirl of grass

and emergent planetary green

 
In drifting epiphytes of surrendered grace

I could find myself echoing

the budding, rustling and persistent mold

of stubborn layers of enlightenment

I could find myself melting

into the moldy hidden growth

that smells so sweet and silent

I could find myself in joy

through the chirping, snuffing, popping and hopping

of your fertile wonder

I could find myself truly in

the decision of the wind

to blow through only one strand of grass amongst thousands

I could find myself wrapped in

your fuzzy branches

supported by fungi pads of

creation, I could find myself

 

Wild Wumoon

This rawness

            it flows from goddess caves

unbidden and exuberantly green

            tendrils of all that I am alive!

ALIVE

            When I am in this moist, burgeoning

            Subterranean brown earthy birth

And without and within

I am the ebb and tide of thermodynamic urges

 

I have a jaguar soul

Nightshade hole

            full of the throes and penetration

of this I am

            and I am green,

glowing, throwing

this heavy dewed violet monkey flower

            it is power

this LIFE

            it is where I am

where GOD and GODDESS unite

                        I find myself there