Brother Phillip

REMINDER from Mano:

Nature loves you. Over and over, I request that you speak to the trees and plants in your garden. Today I add the adventure of inviting you listen for the nature spirit of that plant to speak to you.

REMARKS from Barbara:

My friend’s young daughter explained to her mother how she could hear plants speak to her this way: “They put their thoughts in my mind and I think it.”

REMEMBERING Mary Jane:

Drinking tea as Mary Jane and I sat by the Redwood Tree at the entrance to the Amphitheater. Our silence was filled with the living energy of the Mother Redwood Tree.

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Brother Phillip

Blog #135

In my first waking up to the spiritual dimension of life I attended a meditation group. They invited guests to share their spiritual gifts. Their code of conduct was:

There is nothing so strange
As how the strange seems ordinary
Once you get used to it

Brother Phillip was the gardener at the local Vedanta Society. When he heard that Jim and I were going on a camping trip through the coastal Redwoods, he told me, “Barbara, in each campground find the largest redwood tree. Put your hands on the trunk and ask it, ‘How old are you?’”

With sincere innocence and total trust, I did as Brother Phillip directed. Thoughts floated into my mind as each tree responded to my question. Each tree gave me a different answer. I don’t remember the exact answers. Each answer was different and each made complete sense.

We entered a campground along the coast but completely out of the redwood forest. The largest and what looked like the oldest tree in camp was a Chestnut Tree. I put my hands on its trunk and asked, “How old are you?” Thoughts formed in my mind: 

My life is young but my age is old
And that is a Riddle few have been told.

I later found that the Chestnut Tree is one of the oldest on the planet.

My last adventure of that trip was camping at the foot of Mount Shasta. There were very few trees around the campground. I went to the largest of a group of small trees at the edge of the campground.

I put my hand around the trunk of the little tree and asked, “How old are you?” The response that flowed through my mind was, “You are standing on my foot.” I looked down and sure enough I was standing on its root.

This adventure of speaking to the trees on that vacation was a setup from Mano who was using this experience to open me to ask and hear a tree’s response. Mano has told me that long before we met, he always watched over my life to see when he could guide my experience so when I moved to the Mountain years later I would accept his presence without question and follow his guidance as my teacher with total trust.

His early guidance was to walk to the Amphitheater each day and speak to the plants with a heartful greeting as I walked on the path. A year later he told me that by speaking to the plants, the nature spirits are now ready for their next step of service which is to come and live in my house with me. It was time for them to learn how to serve a human directly.

Sometimes they help me find things I have misplaced. They help me find the hole in my ear for pierced earrings. They often guide spiders to stay out of sight to save their lives. There was a daddy longlegs spider that lived in the ceiling of my shower. It was always far away even though it was in sight. I began to like its presence. I would look for the spider and one day I saw many tiny babies about the size of my little finger nail. 

My last daddy longlegs spider experience was so amazing. Early one morning I was meditating in the living room. I felt a presence enter the room and opened my eyes to see what was there.  I saw the daddy longlegs spider enter the room from the direction of the bathroom. After the first spider there was a second, then a third, and on to 12 spiders. They walked in line passing in front of me then turning to walk behind my chair and return to the bathroom. I have named that a farewell tribute because I never saw any daddy longlegs spiders in my house, or shower, again.

Mano tells me how important it is to interact with the spirit of plant, animal, bug, and tree. When I open my heart with an exchange of love, everyone is blessed and each love vibration radiates out into the atmosphere spreading love far and wide.

He just added, with a twinkle in his eye, “All things are possible, only Believe.” 

This is the point of my telling the story of Brother Philip suggesting I ask the Redwood Trees a question and listen for an answer. Mano was giving me a variety of experiences as background, to form a base of experience to build my life, and prepare me for later experiences in which he would guide me to interact with nature and nature spirits.