Animá Lifeways & Herbal School

Faery Tales and The Wonder of Daily Life

by Loba

Anima School & Retreat Center

Drought and extreme fire danger continues, worst in 130 years and you can feel it, even smell it, making us aware of the preciousness and fragility of everything on a whole deeper level. We’re further inspired to notice and treasure each glorious day, and every sight of a mountain covered with trees that have been so far been spared the West’s burning. There are still some nearby ridges with the remnants of the fire that happened here 6 years ago, a warning and a reminder that with how dry things are here, we are fortunate indeed.  Our lives are in many ways a faery tale the equal of any we have ever read, but all such tales include tragedies and challenges and scares that make the blessings shimmer even brighter!

A few weeks ago, Rhiannon had built this incredible play house by the river made of sticks, with a working gate, a barn, a kitchen, and all kinds of other things. Our friends that have been working on getting our new shed and water system area built, needed sand from her spot so we helped her move it to a more protected, plant-laden area.  Together we made a pantry for the new kitchen, a fire/cooking area, a sleeping balcony, a piano, a clothesline, a desk and even a throne, which was a gigantic cottonwood stump that Kiva hauled quite a ways, and even made her some steps leading up to the top of it.

So now that there’s a new house down at the river, Rhiannon and I have developed a little habit of bringing baskets of things to wash, and spending time at the house afterwards eating oranges or apples with the wild mint and clover that grows there. We hang some of the aprons up on the clothesline, mostly for the fun of getting to look at them- how pretty they are up against the cliff! We fuss with the food in the pantry, and then we take a little nap in the sand, often gazing up at the trees instead of closing our eyes. Today we got to watch a spider come out of the tunnel of its web, and shared a thermos of orange spice tea I’d snuck into the basket of clothes when she wasn’t looking. Oh the joy of the look on her face when I pulled it out!

We rinse the natural soap out over a sand bank and then dunk them a final time in the river, enjoying the feel of the water flowing through the cloth. She hung one of her favorite dresses up on a willow branch above the river, and looked at me almost apologetically and said something about how she couldn’t help but hang it up right there, it was just too perfect. I looked at how the red velvet dress was dripping rhythmically into the stream in the sunshine and said I could see what she meant, and it even looked and sounded kind of like a fountain. It got us talking about how everything in our little world down here in the canyon is so beautiful that even when we’re doing something simple like washing clothes or cooking supper it can seem like we’re in a faery tale, everything here is so old fashioned and enchanted and wild and lovely. And also full of surprises and challenges and sometimes difficult or impossible seeming tasks.

I love that so many of the faery tales we’ve been reading these days have found ways to wind into our life– inspiring us to try new hairstyles like some of the characters, wear scarves on our heads and even try cooking some new foods. Our favorite story these past few weeks has been of the Russian heroine Vasilisa, whose mother has died and left her with a gift– a tiny, alive doll that bestows the girl with love, understanding, good advice and lots of help- both practical and magical. When her evil stepmother casts a spell that prevents any light or fire to be lit, she sends Vasilisa into the forest to ask Baba Yaga, the fearsome witch, for a light. Of course Baba Yaga has several days of impossible tasks to ask of Vasilisa before she does indeed send her home with a light– a glowing skull that consumes her stepmother and mean stepsisters in its wake! And of course Vasilisa survives to become a weaver of uncanny skill and eventually to marry the Tzar, forever treasuring her dear little doll that helped her through all those tasks and trials.

Rhiannon has a set of the famous Russian nesting dolls my parents bought for her there that came unpainted, so she could choose the colors and paint them herself. She got so excited about the Vasilisa story that she gave them all a fresh coat of paint, and has been carrying them around with her everywhere. When we’re doing our kitchen chores these days, we’ve been pretending that the biggest doll is my helper, Vasilisa, the second doll is Rhiannon’s helper, Rose, and the littlest doll is our 5 year old friend Cassandra’s helper, even if Cassandra isn’t visiting and helping with chores that day. We’ll open up a cookbook and perch them on the open pages, pretending that they’re looking up recipes, or put them up on the window sill and pretend that they’re washing windows, or on the shelf above the sink to help us wash the dishes. It’s been truly amazing to see how much accepting the help of these little ones has made chore time so much more fun for both of us! A good reminder that there’s always a little extra help to be found, within ourselves, whenever things seem overwhelming– we just need to remember to make use of our own inspiration, be our own little doll, for ourselves!

We’ve also been cooking up some of the feasts that Vasilisa cooks up for the ravenous Baba Yaga in the story, so that she won’t be eaten herself! The other day we made pierogis, and borscht, and stuffed morels, fish with cream and onions, and buckwheat blinis, and dressed up like Russian girls… Baba Yaga was very pleased!

So remember, next time you read a faery tale, they’re not just for getting a little respite from the demands of reality, they can also remind us of our capacity to be the heroes and heroines of our own stories. They can help us to rebuild that which has been broken or ruined, and see magic in a dress hanging over a river, or the spiderweb in the corner of a kitchen window. They can even help us get the house clean, and feed us, and remind us that we are always blessed by every wondrous day!

Now, if only we could get one of our little doll helpers to make some rain happen…

love, Loba

(Loba is host to guests coming to the enchanted Anima Center in New Mexico for wilderness retreats, and is also accepting applications from women for Homesteading Apprenticeships there.  For information and applications for either, write her at Mail(at)AnimaCenter(dot)org – and please post and forward this freely)

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Aware Relationship

By Jesse Wolf Hardin
www.AnimaCenter.org

The degree of deep, healthy relationship with anybody – or with any thing, for that matter – directly correlates to our degree of awareness: the extent to which we truly notice and understand the larger world beyond the boundaries of our skin.  Not only our responsibilities but relationships, rewards and delights come alive… for those of us most aware of life.

To begin with, the more aspects, characteristics and revealing stories that we know about someone, the more we may find to appreciate about them.  Some of the finest of qualities are not obvious but subtle, underplayed or concealed.  Likewise, the more aware that we are of their complexities, fears and motivations, even the past incidents and other factors that helped form their character and determine behavior, the better we can understand, estimate and appropriately respond to any traits of theirs that we might find unpleasant or unacceptable.  The problem is that in the vast majority of modern civilized relationships, exchanges and interactions are often either narrow in scope or superficial in content, all too many times insincere or contrived, with minimal conscious awareness involved in the relating.

This is partly a reflection of a natural human desire to comfort each other with interchange, irrespective of meaning, engendering the “small talk” that can help us feel part of a group and less alone.  When acquaintances ask us how we are doing, they’re usually looking for a stock reply that’s as positive as it is brief, rather than a discomforting sharing of how we really feel, what’s been hurting or troubling us, the challenges we face or dreams we’ve yet to fulfill.  In addition to not wanting to make others uneasy, we humans also want to be liked, which is yet another reason why we may not only narrowly limit and carefully censor any topics of conversation, but also “put on our best face” in any direct interactions.

And yet, the most healthy, let alone deeply meaningful relationships, are predicated on our having a broad awareness and substantial understanding of what is real.  To the extent that we relate to the edited self that someone projects or the illusion and “positive spin” that we project on them, the interactions are unreal as well, the content of any communication insubstantial or untrustworthy, and the value of any commitments become suspect.  With sufficient determination, practice and skill, we can ensure that at least on party in any relationship is working to see through illusion and pretense, to weigh the value of content and speak or act deliberately, with the potential results, benefits and consequences in mind: ourselves.  From that point, we can influence the course and therefore the ramifications of conversation and relationship, the power of friendships, the effectiveness of partnerships and alliances, and the substance, meaningfulness and even longevity of love affairs and marriages.

The work starts not so much with heightened awareness of others, or even of context, environs or possible outcomes, but with advanced conscious awareness of our own personal feelings, perspective, needs, motivations, presentation and communication.  How often do we associate with others, converse without them, work with them, maybe even live with them, without being consistently conscious of our emotional needs and moods, of our immediate hopes and greater aims, why we are investing time in certain involvements, social arrangements or even subjects of conversation?  Or without being conscious of our body language, facial expressions, and the effects that these things have on the composure and impressions of others.

What we teach in Anima, is that every moment is a decisive moment – and most of the things that we both do and don’t do are conscious decisions.  One of the defining traits for not only Anima  practitioners but the more adept of shamans, artists and activists, medicine women and healers, is highly developed awareness.  The most impressive of our other abilities can only serve us or our purpose well when we are totally aware, of the full extent of our abilities as well as any possible limitations, of the present situation and context, of the intentions of others… and of the intentional as well as unintended effects of our own actions.  It is then that we are not only most response-able, but most able to take in the rewards of sensation and meaning, depth and delight.

The practitioner combines this heightened presence with purposeful action and considered response, in order to help shape events and thus consciously co-create our world.   Only the intensely aware can make the best choices…. and for the Anima practitioner, at least, every single act – no matter how large or small – is a conscious choice.

The recommended ideal order for completing Anima lifeways courses, is to start with the Practitioner’s Journey (orientation, language and exploration), Presence (so we can be wholly here for all that follows), Awakeness (embodiment and heightening our bodily senses), and then Awareness (learning to be ever more intensely conscious of things beyond the range of our senses).  The information in courses like Sense of Place, the Foundations of Western Herbalism and Mission & Purpose, is best fathomed and most effectively applied when we are maximally, not nominally, aware.

There is likely no one who couldn’t benefit from an intense, ongoing awareness practice, utilizing the insights and examples afforded us by the nature world, and perhaps the tools for awareness that some schools and traditions provide.  And relationships, of any kind, can be made more real, substantial, purposeful and usually satisfying, by doing the moment to moment work of being aware and going deep.  By paying more attention the them, ourselves and our world… anytime we’re not asleep.

To close, I will leave you with the gift of some simple Anima awareness exercises to try:

• Attention is a gift we give to ourselves, whenever we pay close attention to the people and things around us.  When walking down the sidewalk, notice what grass or plants grow to either side, the designs where the cement has cracked, the dandelions that poke their heads up through them, the sounds of not only singing birds but vehicles driving by even if you find it unpleasant.  The anchoring touch of a mother when we feel unmoored, the signature scent of the neck of a lover.

• Look closely at all people and things, arrangements and associations, alliances and agreements… while keeping in mind that people and things, interactions and relationships are never solely as they appear.

• Notice and explore how friends and spouse look, dress, and carry themselves one hour to the next, the communicative furrowing of a brow and telltale flushing of the skin, the slow changes that come with age and the form and gestures of beauty that are ageless.  Notice how they act and respond, what contributes to their pleasure and fulfillment or increases their dissatisfaction, when their spirits are either neglected or fed, when they are keeping something to themselves as well as what they may be trying to tell us.

• What do their body postures communicate, and do they tell a different story than the person’s facial expressions?  Based on their clothes, hair and posture, what do they want us to think about them, and what do they think about themselves?  Are their energies focused inward uncertainly, or do they project their energies?  If they are projecting their energy and will, what is it that they are trying to effect, direct, change or create?  Try to identify the source of fear in the room and in each person you relate to, as well as the sources of giftings and love.

• Notice what is hard about every worthwhile relationship, and deliberately get stronger from it.  Notice what takes skill, and learn from it.  Notice the benefits of commitments, and consciously commit to the healthful and helpful, whole and right.

• Notice what makes you feel either comfortable or uncomfortable in your relationships, while keeping in mind the ways in which comfort can sometimes be the greater disadvantage.

• Notice the effect you have on the people you are in relationship with.  What impact does your attitude or example, your attention or neglect, your ideas and acts have on the people you come into contact with, are they better informed, affirmed, inspired or enabled?  How are the ways that you live and act impacting your many various relationships, in the moment and after the fact?

• Which friends, lovers, ideas, conversations, activities, types of entertainment, or personal habits seem to obstruct your intentions, lessening or preventing the desired results?  Which enable or further your intentions, and how?

• Notice not just what it is about the people in your life that disturbs you, but also that which pleasures or calms, inspires action, stirs the heart or soothes the spirit.

• At the end of each day, try to remember the details of everything that happened in your process of relating, and write the details down in an awareness journal.  Record not only what you noticed, but how you responded… and what effects or results you inevitably brought about.

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(Turn to the Anima wesite Home Study page for information on the complete Anima Awareness course:

www.AnimaCenter.org/courses)

(do post and share this freely)

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