There is joy in fulfilling to the fullest whatever rung on the hierarchical ladder I occupy. I don’t exactly know what place that is, but I know a couple of things: it is always a good idea to turn the question over to higher guidance, and the growth edge is in knowing when to step into the challenge of leading and when to relax into following. And sometimes my challenge is to be conscious that in letting others help me I allow them to fulfill their own roles. I remember Barbara’s gnome companions or “little ones” saying: “You’ve been working in the garden all day and you haven’t remembered to ask for our help once.” I am trying to make it a practice to ask for help all the time—as a little layer of consciousness in the back of my brain.
One example of an enlightened hierarchy, to my mind, is the governance structure of my home county in Western Kansas. It holds community forums in which individuals express their ideas and desires; then elected supervisors do the work of implementing the will of the people. Issues get passed up to the supervisors and then, when a new question comes up or something gets muddled, the supervisors hand it down to the community again. Handing up and handing down—with plenty of room for conversation and growth—seems a good model for working with the elemental and angelic worlds too.
One reason I’m continuing on this topic of hierarchy is to tell a California fire story that nicely illustrates levels of responsibility and consciousness within the elemental realm—and how our clarity and wisdom can affect which level we connect with. Tumbling Creek Farm, a local mushroom farm and host to nature spirit celebrations and also to gatherings of interested “nature communicators”, was in the pathway of a recent fire. At one of the gatherings, Marlene described her experience. “When the Lowell fire came through our area, we thought we were safe because it had turned up the neighboring canyon instead of ours. However, the next day we got word that the wind had shifted and we might need to evacuate. I immediately contacted a couple of people I know and asked them to help me create a ‘wall’ to turn the wind back onto the fire. It felt very effective and as though we had nothing to worry about. A short time later, one of the people I had contacted texted me and said that the fire spirit wanted to hear from me. When I connected with the fire spirit it informed me that it wanted a gift. I could feel that it was hurt because I had contacted Wind instead of Fire. It felt as though Fire was almost human in an egoic way. I offered it mugwort and was told emphatically, ‘No!’ I suggested then that I write Fire’s name on every mushroom bag that we produced the next day. I could sense Fire’s pleasure in having his name known to the mushroom space and whoever else visited the mushrooms. It felt as though Fire smiled.”
Another person at the meeting questioned whether Marlene had, indeed, contacted the highest manifestation of Fire Spirit, asking for “the highest and best outcome for the highest and best good.” And others noted that by asking for the fire to be directed elsewhere, other farms might have been endangered. Marlene had had the same thought at the time, realizing that she had been trying to protect their property rather than looking at the bigger picture of the fire’s purpose. She had prayed, then, for quieting at the center of the fire, and as she came to a place of nonattachment to outcome, she clarified with the Fire Spirit this expanded understanding. In the second connection, the spirit “was coming from a different source and was giving me much wiser insight than the fire being I spoke with first. It was not egoic but rather emanated love. I know that Nature cares about what we are doing and wants to work and live with us. If fire becomes an important part in that honoring, I know it will be because of Nature’s insight. I am feeling more and more inspired and humbled by the wisdom of Nature.”
Barbara’s awareness of different levels within the gnome hierarchy often comes from the Council of Gnomes. Nature spirits come to council to learn, to be trained to work with humans, even to be corrected on errant behavior. She writes of glimpsing an “observation room that is glassed off so that ignorant, discordant energies can learn by watching the Light at work.” Mano says, “There are many orders of gnomes and earth spirits that interact with humans” (see the March 2, 2014 blog, “Gnome Support Team”). “We are your council,” they say. “Sometimes other gnomes arrive to see what is going on; sometimes others are called in. Rama is always here. He is the creator and instigator of the Council that works with you.” And Mano assures her, “I have always been present because I have access to your aura. I am on call as needed and requested. I am not stuck in your aura; my work is larger, planetary, even galactic at times.”
Barbara says that her “personal experiential teaching about hierarchy came In 1960’s” when she was in her spiritual wake-up process. “I was not aware of Mano and Rama at that time, but they were definitely aware of me, and guiding me. To help me keep perspective on my spiritual awakening, perhaps even to keep me humble, they showed me a ladder with people climbing to higher consciousness. They showed me that there was someone above me reaching their hand down to help me up the next step. Then they showed me that there was someone behind me on the ladder that I was reaching down to give a hand as they climbed up the next step.”
“Years later,” she continues, “they helped me recognize their hierarchical support, or guidance, during my daily life. They told me to be aware of my ‘deep involuntary breaths’. This is their way of confirming a thought or idea, their way of saying ‘this is true, pay attention’. I receive great, great comfort knowing that I am never alone, that my wisdom teachers are always aware of my process.”
Ogilvie Crombie, or Roc (who collaborated in the early Findhorn work), in The Gentleman and the Faun, says: “Humanity may start to believe in [the elementals], but it must never feel it is their superior and that they are its servants. Nor are they superior to humanity. Whatever collaboration comes about must be absolutely not one sided, but in complete balance between the two. Humanity is inclined to think, ‘I am the lord of the earth, and what I want to do I will do. If I want to cut the forest down I shall do it, and I don’t care what harm it does to the animals, or to the elementals, and I don’t believe in them in any case.’ Humanity has got to come to the point where it has respect for the animal kingdom, for the elemental kingdoms, for the devic kingdoms, because the whole lot should be able to live in peace and harmony, with complete cooperation.”