Reminder from Mano: Be aware of the seasons and live vibrantly with gratitude for Mother Nature’s bounty, the generosity and beauty of each season. Savor the flavor of cherries in spring, watermelon in summer, apples in autumn. Enjoy the first bulbs of spring, the leaves that turn in the fall, the winter storm, and summer vacation. For all of your conscious relating with us, we give you the gift of a grateful heart.
For several years Steven Odell lived on Barbara’s land, and one of his fine contributions was to build a tea garden and hold tea ceremony, Chinese style, for many different people. A couple of friends and I shared this ceremony with Steven and Barbara one Sunday morning and then spent most of our drive back to Nevada City remembering the stories we’d heard and shared—including stories of the puehr forests in China and the elementals that helped tend these great and ancient tea forests. Steven has now moved away, but tea has filtered its way into the land. Barbara has a subscription to “Global Tea Hut” which brings a beautiful magazine and sampling of tea each month, and at her birthday party the ceremonial cup of tea her friends Phoenix and Cyndi presented to her moved her to tears.
As my trust in the elemental and angelic world swells through practice and more consistent attention, another of Steven’s interests shows up to help out. In his introduction to Barbara’s nearly completed book, Living with the Spirits of the Land: A Council of Gnomes Project, Steven introduces (to me, anyway) cryptozoology, an off-shoot scientific discipline that studies “beings unseen by common means.” We’ve devoted the blog to Steven’s essay, as the first of several previews to the book.
BELIEF IN THE UNSEEN AS THERAPY FOR THE WORLD
by Steven Odell
It is everywhere apparent that we as the human species must radically change the way we live in order to come into greater harmony with ourselves and the natural world. How do we do this when the odds seem so stacked? Where must we go to actualize change within ourselves in the face of so much calling out for it? What guidance might we find when we seek answers to the challenging questions of our time? The greatest potential for illumination might arise from the most unlikely place, a small, off-shoot scientific discipline called cryptozoology. Conventional definitions call it “the study of extinct, endangered or mythical creatures,” or closer but still not quite right as “the study of beings as yet unproven by science.” The definition, however, that really drives home the point of cryptozoology might be “the study of beings unseen by common means.” It is the first discipline to take oral history of the unexplained into account as a form of truth.
In believing the unfathomable of another’s experience we serve as a bridge for that person’s experience to become real, tangible, and grounded in a greater shared reality of what’s possible. This is the gift of allowing cryptozoology to be what it could truly become—a scientific discipline that experiences unseen beings through oral account and catalogs the potentiality for the existence of these beings and their realms as truth. A willingness to believe is the key to it all.
They are and have always been here all around us as our intimate allies: the elves, fairies, gnomes, devas, elementals, and angels. They need us to believe in them, in ourselves, in order for them to participate in any of the guidance for which we have been asking. Theirs is a participatory art. Our eyes, our hearts, and our minds are the portals through which all of the unseen can converge and emerge from that participation. If you listen carefully enough, their voices are calling.
It is in this nature of belief as a bridge for the unseen to cross through us into our world that we may begin to access the empathy in our hearts and witness the stories in this Council of Gnomes Project by Barbara Thomas. It is through Barbara’s willingness to work with these gnomes and share their knowledge that we are fortunate enough to have their help in remembering how to become the heaven-on-earth stewards we were always born to be.
Thank you
Most of us have never seen bacteria, but they exist — in mind-boggling numbers — and have huge impact, no?
Thank you, always a delight to receive these posts.
Barbara has said in an earlier blog that a gnome told her that the way he looked to her (what he was wearing) was intended to help communicate to her the nature of the message he brought. This implies to me that, in the presence of a sensed/felt personality and a sensed/felt message directed to oneself, and in the absence of a physical visual image, one’s mind creates a visual expression of what one is sensing, which would include cultural elements that have a corresponding significance. So different cultures and traditions could picture the same type of unseen beings differently. The key to cryptozoology recognizing them as actually the same or different would be their function and behavior. That is how we categorize other people when we meet them – people we haven’t seen before: what do they do and say, and what is unique about how they do and say it?
I’m grateful for this gentle introduction to Cryptozoology. I look forward to further sharings from Steven Odell. I wonder if Barbara has fellowshipped with other human beings whose experiences are similar to hers.
Looking forward to her book!
With joy,
Marsha
Hello Barbara and Mary Jane!
I can’t wait for the book to come out!!!😊
Happy Fall to both of you,
Liz
Auburn CA