11: Flowing With Life - Natural Hot Spring
Reading time: 11 minutes
If you read Part One, "Digging Through the Rubble," thank you! I truly appreciate you and your comments. My backstory may have been difficult to read; it was the most challenging to write. Still, bringing the past into the light is the only way to embody the awareness to heal and change.
Please join me in reading Part Two, "Mother Earth and Me," where I immersed myself in the natural world while creating vibrational essences. During this time, I encountered nature spirits, ancestors, and star beings, which revealed a deep connection between humans and the unseen benevolent forces of the natural world that exist beyond our everyday awareness. Nature provided the love, support, and guidance I needed to reframe the past and recover my future. I'm thrilled to share my experience, portraying how an intimate relationship with the natural world is available to all of us!
PLEASE START HERE to access chapters in chronological order.
“If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.” ~ Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems
DURING MY BRIEF stay in Alaska, surrounded by pristine mountains, lakes, glaciers, and plants, an undeveloped part of my intuition awakened. I started assisting others interested in incorporating essences into their lives and began compiling the necessary case studies to obtain my practitioner certification. Inspired by what I learned from the essence of smoke, wind, and whitebark pine, I spent more time in the forests and meadows of Montana, where I deeply connected with the heightened intelligence of nature.
December 21, 2012
FIELD NOTES: Elk Bend, Idaho, Salmon-Challis National Forest
I woke up feeling off-center and wobbly, as if I needed to find my sea legs. I focused on one thing at a time, and after an hour of trying to maneuver in what seemed like shifting sands, I took some time to sit quietly, meditate and breathe, and align with the life-giving energy of Mother Earth.
The last six months encompassed a painful and challenging process of letting go. Not only another failed relationship, but I also lost my home and the financial resources I worked my entire life to protect. When I feared I might lose everything else in my life, the smoke, wind, and whitebark pine essence reminded me to accept the changes and trust that the universe was conspiring in my favor, even when I couldn't see it.
I was at my peak of physical strength, skiing steeper slopes and deeper snow. Fifteen-mile day hikes in the mountains were typical, and I was beginning to learn how to row white water on the wild and scenic Salmon River. Amid my joy, seemingly out of nowhere, in the middle of ski patrol training in the spring, I began experiencing severe pain in my hands, arms, feet, and legs. Just a few hours of gardening caused me to curl up in the fetal position in bed, but the pain and discomfort kept me from sleeping.
A general practitioner told me I was getting older and suggested I start taking vitamin D3. Knowing something else was wrong, I visited a naturopathic doctor. She diagnosed me with rheumatoid arthritis, and I began an anti-inflammatory diet and a wide range of supplements. I couldn’t wear ski boots or hike because of the pain in my feet and legs, but I still turned to the mountains for support. I felt safe there, and often, I drove as far into the mountains as my old Subaru would carry me.
Today was the winter solstice and the end of the Mayan Calendar. According to the Mayans, it was the end of the longest life cycle ever known to humans. Some predicted that the earth’s poles would shift, while others prophesied all life on Earth would end. But for me, the winter solstice marked a new year. It was a time to celebrate the return of longer days, release what no longer served my well-being, and embrace new beginnings.
My friend Vicky and I drove to our favorite hot spring to create an essence. The 120-mile drive from Hamilton, Montana, to Elk Bend, Idaho, was stunning. The sky cleared as we reached the Idaho side of Lost Trail Pass, and we soaked up sunny warmth through the car windows. Vicky confided that deciding to come along hadn’t been difficult, but she felt sad about disappointing her husband. Redtail was holding a ceremonial sweat lodge that day and wanted her to be there with him, but Vicky felt compelled to go to the hot spring with me to support wellbeing and renewal in her way.
Following our bliss, we drove along the frozen Salmon River, stopping to take pictures and soak up the breathtaking beauty of the water flowing beneath and through ice jams. We imagined what it must have been like before the Lewis and Clark Expedition, when the Lemhi Shoshone, Sacagawea’s people, lived in this valley. Eventually, the river became known as The River of No Return because traders could maneuver downstream but couldn’t paddle back up the rushing and treacherous rapids.
We were both excited as we pulled into the trailhead. The temperature was in the low 20s, and the air was fresh and crisp. Snow and ice glazed the trail, so we donned our rubber and wire Yaktrax for traction. With packs on our backs and trekking poles in hand, we set off up the trail under a brilliant blue sky. It was just under two miles to the hot spring, and it usually took under an hour to get up the canyon to the pools and falls. The last part of the trail was steep, and I had to stop several times because of pain and weakness in my hips and legs. For the first time in almost twenty years of visiting this spring, I wasn’t sure I would make it up the last bit of the trail. My hips screamed, my feet were numb, my shoulder muscles seized, and my hands could barely hold onto the poles that were steadying my step. Vicky went ahead and found us a spot, and I took the last slow steps in my own time.
As I slowly approached the healing water, I connected with the energy and spirit of the land. I gave prayerful, silent thanks to our Native ancestors who once lived here. Their latent presence was almost palpable. I sensed a synergy between the earth's molten center and the sun's heat and envisioned the waters running beneath the surface warmed by the liquified rock.
This paradise of cascading warm wetness is one of the most magical places I have been. The sand and rock-bottomed pools are crystal clear, constantly refreshed by a steady flow of hot water. Approaching the springs from the top, I noticed someone had beat us to the top pools, but Vicky found a pool just below them to call our own. I quickly peeled off the layers of winter gear and immersed my aching body in the warm wetness. The views were as magnificent as the water. The dusting of snow on the golden grasses and the reds and yellows of the stone canyon was a beautiful contrast to the bright blue sky.
Nestled in the womb of the earth mother, it was like floating in her protective and supportive amniotic fluid. I filled the essence bowl with cold spring water we collected on the drive and released the bowl to float unencumbered in the warm and healing waters, supported and held like a developing fetus.
I closed my eyes and floated on my back in the warmth. Having my ears below the water's surface amplified the sound of my breath. I rose with each inhale, inspired and weightless as if floating into the heavens would be natural. With each exhale, I sank to the bottom of the shallow pool, heavy and grounded to the earth. In the stillness, I became aware of another aspect of breathing. Between the in-breath and the out-breath, there was a space without movement. This in-between space was like a clean and blank slate full of potential.
The earth speaks through symbols, metaphors, and messages, and I reflected on how this between space of the cyclic breathing process related to my life. I revisited times when I felt uplifted, filled with purpose and power as if anything were possible, in contrast to the sinking times of darkness and heaviness when there was no upward movement. As with the smoke, wind, and whitebark pine, I was learning that moments of no activity, when nothing is happening, are a part of life’s natural cycles. I’ve always tried to escape that nothingness as quickly as possible, but today, I understood it was unavoidable and even magical. The heavy, sinking moments of the exhale provided a space for release, while the in-between moments were pure potential, and the inhale fueled the empowered movement upward—the ebb and flow of life.
Life is filled with cycles and rhythms, from seasons, tides, and trips around the sun to the beat of our hearts and the rise and fall of our breath. Quantum theory hypothesizes that our tangled universe has no beginning and no end. Some say that perhaps it simply breaths—inhales and exhales of time beyond measure, ongoing cycles of experience expanding our consciousness into something immeasurable.
Still floating in the warm water, I opened my eyes to see the dried skeletal remains of last summer’s yarrow. From this upside-down perspective, they reached toward the sky, reminding me of the force of gravity at work. An unseen force that we rarely consider makes life possible. All we need to survive and thrive comes from the earth, and there is wisdom in all aspects of nature. All we need to do is pay attention, ask, and listen.
The bowl floated around the pool at the whim of the currents before it ended up wedged between some rocks where the water was rushing over into the pool below. The bowl was following the path of least resistance—going with the flow.
I contemplated my relationship with resistance and flow. Sometimes, pushing through and past my comfort zone has been crucial to my growth and expansion, though it’s not always easy. There are also times when my inner resistance has created periods of inaction, of going nowhere, another in-between place. The hot spring showed me that utilizing the in-between place to step back and view our resistance from an accepting perspective will lead us back to the more feminine and natural flow of life and the direction we need to take.
I moved the bowl away from the ledge, wanting it to float freely in the pool, but it moved back to where the current was strongest. I struggled to leave it be, to let the current guide and hold it. I realized I was being asked to let my life be, stop fighting the current, and accept where it takes me.
Vicky and I decided to move up to a higher pool, closer to the source of hot water. I floated the bowl to a safe place between two rocks in the full sun. We left the bowl there as we went above. I let it be.
As we reclined in the upper pool, looking west toward the setting sun, the light reflected off the rising steam, creating a rainbow. This reflection and refraction created the illusion of two suns in the sky, one behind the other, the mythical Mayan galactic alignment. I closed my eyes and reflected on how our eyes rely on the bending of light and how light slows down when it meets water. The spirit of water connects our physical self to the spiritual while sustaining life on the planet. I floated in the womb of the earth, allowing everything I needed to infuse into the cells of my body.
Natural Hot Spring
Essence qualities: (alignment) The natural hot spring environment essence is pure creative life force energy. It helps to realign our values and goals with the universe's natural laws. It reveals the still point between breaths, where we connect with spirit and soul and the physical and non-physical. The protective and supportive embrace of this essence encourages us to be present with the natural cycles of our lives, the ebb and flow, and the expanding and contracting of energy. It encourages contentment with what is and patient awareness of life's natural gestation periods.
Indications: placing too much value on the material aspects of life; disconnected from inner wisdom; resisting the natural rhythm of life instead of allowing; isolated from the interconnectedness of all that is; impatient and discontent; worried about the future; taking actions that are not aligned with our values.
Affirmations: I AM divinely guided within the flow of life. I AM responsible for the effort, not the outcome. I AM transforming negative thinking into positive beliefs. I AM living my values with the support of nature.
NEXT: Chapter 12: The Art of Awakening - Bear Grass
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I remember well that magical day! 🧜♀️