Spirits

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September 1, 2008

The Power Of Eland

Posted by Amyra under Spirits, Visions
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Recently, I’ve been getting strong visions of an eland.  I am brought back to the first time I saw one in Kenya last December.  While driving around a friend’s plot of land, I noticed an eland from afar, and was strangely touched by the way it seemed to be looking straight at me.  Although it stood too far for me to see, I felt the strange power in its eyes - sweet, gentle, kind but imbued with a grounded strength and the wisdom of an old soul. 

Something in that encounter captured my soul, as if the magnificent and almost mythological creature had something to communicate to me.  Yet it had remained unexplored until now when I’m called to listen intently to it.  In my dreams, it shows itself - an elegant, self-assured being with words of wisdom to impart.  Its eyes speak volumes and depths, such that no verbal sounds are necessary.  In my waking moments, I see the eland in my mind, again looking straight at me. 

The eland seems to have a humorous take on life.  Its face looks as if it’s about to break into a smile, as if it’s saying, “Why do you take life so seriously?”  I think this is what gives the eland such a clear energy - the ability to detach from the harshness of life and see the greater connectedness in everything.  This gives me a warm feeling and makes me trust the eland for what it has to relay to me.     

In getting closer to the eland spirit, I’ve felt its strange powers.  In my vision, it presented me with a gift in the form of a golden egg which it regurgitated after ingesting a rock of clear crystal picked from the roof of a natural tunnel.  Upon receiving the gift, I felt a huge healing in my heart and felt connected to the souls of the people whom the eland looks after and guides.  My sense of abandonment was soothed with the realisation that the spirits take on the work to care for those who are connected to them - that our work to care for another is shared and supported by the natural kingdom. 

Someone once told me that the eland has a unique sweet smell.  In one of my visions, I entered the body of the eland and buried myself among its flesh.  I could feel the warmth of its living flesh pressed on every surface of my body.  Suddenly, I became over-powered by a sweet aroma which entered my senses of smell as well as taste.  I realised that the power of the eland is transferred (at least partially) through the sweet scent it emits. What an other-worldly sensation to embody the eland.      

I took a shot of the eland in Kenya but had lost my camera during the trip.  I woke up this morning from a strong dream about the eland and felt guided to post about it.  When I thought about posting a picture along with it, I went straight to my computer and found the photo.  Rather mysterious as I’ve been using a new computer for only several weeks.  Check out the power of the eland below. 

 

April 28, 2008

Environmental Expression

Posted by Amyra under Environment, Spirits
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For the past ten years or so, on most nights, whenever I shut my eyes to go to sleep, I would get a vision of plants - a forest, a tree or a potted plant.  I would get a zoom-in as the leaves come into sharp focus, before the whole vision fades out, leaving me as perplexed and as clueless about its significance as the night before. 

I’d never really thought of myself as the ‘environmental type’, yet the nightly visions pointed to a certain role I am to play in the environment.  I’m still unsure as to what that is but since moving my base to a natural setting I feel more and more connected to the elemental spirits. 

Now that I think about it, as a child I loved being in nature.  My favourite pastimes were activities that immersed me in the world of nature.  I loved going deep into bougainvillae shrubs and feeling right at home in a world painted by the colours, lights, textures and scents of nature.  I loved dragonflies, they seemed to be gentle mythical creatures that graced our garden with their ethereal presence.  I found great joy in collecting plant specimens from the garden and then pretending to make potions out of them.  I remember using a small blade and slicing up tiny roots - an activity I performed with great focus and mindfulness - and scattering petals onto the fish pond.  Such simple pleasures which put me in a carefree, serene space. 

Somehow, that had all been forgotten when I grew up and got caught up in city living.  I now know that what was missing in my spiritual practice is a strong connection to the environment.  The link between spirituality and environmentalism is something which I’m just beginning to understand. 

In recent weeks, I’ve been guided to connect more to the spirits of nature.  Where I am, there’s a powerful spiritual presence among the land on which the centre is built.  The local staff who come from this area have a deep respect and reverence to the spirits who guard and protect this land.  Through a Buddhist monk from the area, we were told that there’s some karmic energies that are being worked off, with the kind of work that we do, which has been recognised by the deities as spiritually meaningful (alleviating suffering for the clients who do the programme with us).  The spirits are reassuring us that we’re doing good and as such we’re being supported. 

 

 

Today, we had a Buddhist ceremony at our premise to formally seek the blessings of the spirits for the work that we’re doing in the centre.  It was a beautiful ritual consisting of nine monks chanting and infusing protective powers into an idol of Buddha which now sits in our reception area.  During the ceremony, I was deeply-moved, humbled and in reverence as I was being reminded of my ‘spiritual mandate’.  A great moment of my ego dissolving, leaving me feeling cleansed and pure.  Very powerful. 

I received a strong message that we never really own a piece of land, even if we do so on paper - that we are merely guardians of the land.  This extended to a feeling of deepening into the realms of the elemental energies that form the basic structure of our environment.  In that realm, I felt my consciousness merge with the greater whole and a sense of perfection in all that exists.