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people Annette Hst refers to as earth phobic. A student of ours on a work- shop about land refused to go outside to connect with the weather because it was raining. Another who disliked being dirty found herself stuck in some mud being released after she apologized to the mud for treating it so badly for so long. Spirits can help and will help us to reconnect if they have our respect and care. It can come as a shock to people whose idea of spirits is that they all work for the greater good if the spirits they contact have a different and possibly more personal view of what the greater good might be. Bear in mind that when you go to look for a spirit teacher for example your intention is to find a spirit who wants to teach you. When you look for a plant to help with healing your in- tention will be something like to find a spirit who will help . . . But when you go to speak to a particular spirit a house spirit for example you cannot guarantee that they will want to help. Even if they do talk to you which is not always a given their agenda may well not be the same as yours. A friend of ours had moved into a new to him house a former miners cot- tage on the North Yorkshire Moors. He journeyed to meet the house spirit and to ask it to help him to make the garden beautiful. The house spirit was furious Beautiful he shouted Gardens are for growing food to support the family not for pretty flowers We suggested he con- tact the garden spirit. Doing so he was able to negotiate between them by agree- ing to grow both flowers and vegetables. All parties were pleased with this and until he moved away last year his garden was both beautiful and productive. By maintaining a balance by negotiation healing for all was found. Cleansing the Land During the 2001 hoof and mouth dis- ease epidemic in the U.K. the virus was all over the North Yorkshire Moors where we were living at the time. We asked our spirit teachers what we should do to help. My partner Christine was told to do and did extractions of the virus from the air for several weeks after that. And I was given a teaching. I was told that the virus is able to take hold because hu- mans even those involved in the produc- tion of food are disconnected from the land and the animals. Not so long ago fires would have been lit at festivals and the animals led through the smoke. This worked not because there is anything me- dicinal about the smoke but because it was part of a very old bargain with the spirits. When this was done the animals were safe from epidemics. It is similar to the agree- ments that we have with our spirits when we smudge our tools in order to clean them. The cleaning is not a physical func- tion of the smoke it is a spiritual action of the spirits. Then I was told to Take a smudge bundle. Light it. Then holding the inten- tion that cleansing smoke will fill the valley tie it to the hedge at the end of the garden. I said The bundle will go out in the rain. My teacher replied Only in your reality. In the spirit world which is after all what counts here it will continue to burn. Replace it once a week. I did this. And whenever I journeyed for the next several weeks there the bundle was glowing gently and the smoke was filling the valley. We do not do as a people the things that our ancestors did as a matter of course to maintain our own health and the health of the land. Rituals which were once commonplace are no longer adhered to regarded perhaps as superstitious nonsense. These practices were contracts drawn up long ago between us and the spirits of the land in order to maintain the health and the balance of both. Now we have broken the contracts without even realizing that we have done so. Why then should the spirits continue to keep their part of the bargain The valleys sur- rounding us were infected with hoof and mouth. There was not one case within our valley. Receiving Healing from Nature Spirits Maintaining balance in our lives is a constant issue. Over the last few years Christine has needed the help of nature spirits more than usual. She developed a small benign brain tumor which has af- fected her balance in a very marked way. She has now had the tumor surgically re- moved but her balance is not good. She walks with two sticks frequently falls and is often in pain. We asked why the tumor had developed. Her teacher explained that Christine had set up a contract to develop a non-life-threatening but de- bilitating condition in order to learn how to be without balance in ordinary reality. Following the operation we asked the Spirits of Nature to help heal the surgical wounds. The spirits said Her head is too full too busy. Her brain needs help to heal. Bring her to the quiet places the peaceful places. Let her sit on the moor and listen to the curlews. Let her watch the wind in the trees and the moon rising over the sea. Let her feel the rain and the sun the earth beneath her and the breeze around her. We go regularly to the North Yorkshire Moors near our home to the woods and to the sea cliffs and beaches and Christine sits quietly asking for help. Sometimes she is told to drink from a stream or to eat a leaf ways for the healing from the spirits to enter her. Sometimes she puts her feet into the sea allowing the discomfort to flow from her. But often she just sits for an hour or so and comes home more at peace. The spirits in our garden have offered to help alleviate her pain. When she needs to she puts bare hands and feet onto the soil. The spirits of the plants and the earth in the garden take what they can of her pain deep into the soil. At other times she lies down on the earth and allows the pain to drain directly out from the affected side of her head into the earth. www.shamansociety.org 23