What I've Learned from Nature Constellations

Nature Constellations are my favorites. We gather and represent parts of the Knowing Field of Nature. It's always a surprise, and almost always a delight.

My first big surprise from nature constellations came one afternoon when I was leading a constellations day at my former office in Huntsville, AL. We had about forty minutes before we were going to break for lunch, so some sort of process was called for in the group.

As I cast about in my mind what we could constellate, I thought of a recent haywariskay (Andean offering) I had made to a lovely freshwater spring on the mountain a few days before. I'd made my prayers and had hiked to a spring in a prayerful way, and I had made my offering. Something was off, however, and it didn't feel as if the offering 'took'. So, we set it up. We set up representatives for the spring, for the tree which overhangs the water, for the rocks, and for the offering I had made. After a moment for the reps to settle and receive information from the Knowing Field, I noticed that the Spring was looking glumly at the cushion I had placed to represent the offering I had made.

"And how is this for you?" I asked the Spring. "It's ok," said the Spring.

I asked whether I could have done something different or given more. "No," said the Spring. "The people who live here now don't talk to us the way the people who lived here before used to." The rep for the tree nodded in agreement.

I was stunned. I asked the Spring how they would like to be talked to. "Well, not ignored or talked about, that's for sure."

This jived with what my teacher had been saying for years: Nature likes to be talked to, and she especially likes to be sung to.

Interestingly, in another Nature constellation group with completely different participants, this same phrase arose: "the people who live here now don't talk to us like the people who used to live here." Again, I was stunned. The same verbatim response from Nature emerging from the mouth of a person who was nowhere near the first time I'd heard it.

For me, that has been a golden lesson that I have remembered with crystal clarity ever since.