Inosculation

Rising up Together

I love this phenomenon in nature.

Inosculation happens in trees when branches or roots of different trees are in prolonged intimate contact, they often abrade each other, exposing their inner tissues, which may eventually fuse.

It's not so much one tree feeding another as the formation of a new hybrid organism.

The innate instinct is for one tree to simply support the tree beside it.

In A Course In Miracles it says that we think we have a lot of different problems, but we really only have one. Our perceived separation from our true Nature.

From the Great Creator. The Father, The Divine Mother.

From God.

Without any concrete or felt God concepts of our own, observing trees doing what they do seems as good a place as any start to begin to better understand the difference between our learned concepts of self and begin to recognize our own true nature IN nature.

The etymology of the word “alone” is Middle English from “all+one”. 

It’s essentially an acknowledgement of our connection to “source”.

We have trouble talking about God because there are no “right” words in any language to adequately describe it besides “ineffable”.

God or Source may be indescribable, but we palpably FEEL it when we’re aligned to it. THINGS flow magically.

We might say we’re on the path of Dharma, or the Tao. Jesus described it as something he was ONE with, Buddha described it as an understanding or awareness that ends all of our suffering. A Course In Miracles calls it a recognition or a realization not a change at all.

It’s innate in us. Nothing to earn to do. I call it our True Nature.

If the thought system we inherited insinuates that “alone” means lonely then we have a VERY different experience of ourselves and life.

The truth is that we’re an expression of the “ALLone”. 

We understandably have trouble describing connections we can’t see with our eyes. In the wild, this may be best represented by the largest living organism on earth.

The Aspen grove.

The one-tree aspen forest in Utah made up of over 47,000 trunks, and connected through one root system.

We are like these separate trunks connected by one energetic root system.

Loneliness, fear, anxiety, depression is the expressed feeling of not knowing or feeling it and seeing ourselves as separate from the ALLone.

It’s not possible for us to be separate from our source, only at the level of human perception.

Our unfortunate misinterpretation of the translation of Darwin’s theory of survival of the fit into the very different meaning “survival of the fittest” didn’t help. It put us all on a competitive path separating ourselves from nature and each other, more like armies of individual self proclaimed sovereign selves marching to the beat of our own egoic drummers colonizing the world.

A friend recently reminded me of how we drew imaginary lines on the earth. Have you ever noticed or wondered how many of the lines dividing nations in North Africa are perfectly straight? That’s because the European countries didn't care so much about the national and ethnic identities of the people living there, but rather the resources those people could provide, they ignored the natural borders such as rivers and mountains and forests and such, and instead opted for more linear borders.

We collectively decided to separate and discriminated against other tribes, races and species.

Inosculation in trees happens naturally between different species.

A tree is a part of nature. We are also nature.

But we live in a world that celebrates our individualism and our egos LOVE to compete and win. It feels so good, so can there really be anything wrong with it?

It sure didn’t feel that way watching the finale of Wrexam the other night when Scott and I were high-fiving on the couch.

I guess it depends on our perception or the story we tell ourselves but I can see how it’s been a problem in my own life to hold that belief. It’s caused fear, anxiety, comparison, shame and guilt. Strong Feelings of not being enough.

Jesus had a similar view. What did he even mean that to come in first is to come in last? When we are in our separate self’s worldview, this beautiful teaching flies right over our heads.

“The last will be first, and the first will be last”

Jesus (Matthew 20:16)

In what feels like a further clarification of that particular teaching, “A Course In Miracles” adds: “I CHOOSE the second place to gain the first”.

To me this has to do with what can happen when we are humbled by life and we deconstruct our ego for good. Our “Beasts” can do this for us.

Advanced metaphysics teaches that what we do to another we do to ourselves.

“If someone wants to sue you in court and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. If someone forces you to go with him one mile, go with him two miles. If a person asks you for something, give it to him.”

Matthew 5:40-44 (NCV)

Let’s just sit in this space today of possibly not knowing because we’re immesed in a litigious society that would consider what Jesus is saying as failure. What does this even mean?

Trees demonstrate this silently in every forest. If we’re being honest this makes ZERO sense to our human ego which has us convinced that more for you means less for me. To the ego it’s straightforward math.

God (or nature’s) view is quantum and multidimensional and harder for us to see at first glance but it’s ultimate and beautiful and where we’re all eventually headed if we don’t self destruct first.

How did we become the species of tree that are so focused only on ourselves?

The fact that our mobile phones have cameras that we can literally turn the lens back on us is a modern day version of Narcissus admiring his own reflection in a puddle.

We learn VERY young that it’s better for us to thicken our skin. Not to show emotion or be so sensitive. Interesting to note that it’s the fruit trees and the beech trees with the thinnest bark that have an easier time inosculating and saving themselves.

Our own grief and vulnerability can bind us together at our points of friction and bring us to this inner “spiritual evolution” that we’re being called to heal. It happens in 12 step meetings and community churches around the world.

To consciously raise or elevate our consciousness to find creative ways to keep our hope alive amidst a thousand more reasons to despair by stepping into love, abundance and regeneration.

I recently heard a prominent climate scientist that was a key player in the creation of the Paris Accord say herself that nature is calling to us to undergo a spiritual evolution.

Things have changed dramatically since I was born in 1970. My brother and I inherited a world that had 70% more species of life on it than the one my husband and I have left for our own children.

Since 1970 only 30% of the lifeforms that existed remain.

The World Wildlife Fund studied more than 5,200 species for its Living Planet Report, and found that out of the nearly 32,000 populations analyzed, there was an average decline of 69% since 1970.

Let’s stop here for a minute to really take this in.

Our ecosystem is free falling and it needs us to change.

To become aware. The kind of awareness or understanding when we have a spiritual awakening.

A number of stacks back I shared about the “Anthropocene” which is a term used to describe this current time during which humans have had a substantial impact on our planet. Whether or not we are in a new geological age, we are part of a complex, global system and the evidence of our impact on it has become clear.

Some people think of this human impact largely with regard to climate change - the warming of our atmosphere, air and oceans caused by using fossil fuels.

But the age of humans is about more than just climate change.

Today I heard an interview about another alarming new trend in our society. There is an increase in the suicide rate in elementary schools. In the United States they even have designated trauma rooms in school.

WHAT??? Why are our children feeling so traumatized?

70% of the parents polled reported feeling increasing financial stress. They are working longer hours and more than one job to simply get by. They are simply not able to keep up with inflation. Longer hours at the expense of the mental wellbeing of their children because they simply don’t have the time or the energy WITH their family to connect or bond. They can’t afford family vacations or college funds the way the average family used to with one parent working and one at home. Our corporate greed and growth economy is unsustainable and the overwhelming feeling of anxiety is leading to an unprecedented mental health crisis.

So to be clear, we’re not just saving exotic frogs or old growth forests, we’re saving each other and future generations.

My husband and I noticed a mother and her young daughter living out of their car in our small town. We saw them a couple of times near the park and I wondered if I could help them, but we never saw them again. I wonder where they are and if they’re okay.

A reader and friend of the Field mentioned the increase in teenagers experiencing homelessness in our community last week. It’s hard to imagine how it feels not to have a place to go home to at night.

The Field’s 2024 theme is Action & Contemplation.

With emphasis on the “&” symbol.

First we’ll ask what role we can play and then we’ll listen to our hearts and take inspired action once we have been inspired.

Inspiration. Inspirare. In SPIRIT.

We’ll tune inwards and be “divinely” guided.

Witnessing trees from different species saving one another is our amazing teacher today.

The origin of the word inosculate developed from a combination of the words in the 17th century “into” and the Latin word “osculare,” which means “to provide with an outlet.” Basically it all starts like most of us do with our loved ones… with a coincidental meeting. We brush up against each other and then a kiss.

The thinner tree was cut years ago and the big one has been holding and feeding it since then

This is our own true nature in action.

Helping a friend or a neighbour with no expectation of reciprocity.

Does looking at the photo above not seem to both defy logic AND feel surprisingly right to you on some deeper level?

I started this Substack a year ago next week because I wanted to provide an outlet of sorts or extend a lifeline to help anyone struggling with what it means to be a human being in the world today that are spiritual and practically grounded in modern science.

To help others find words to articulate or describe a God of their own understanding, not the one they were handed by their inherited religions, but one even bigger than we can imagine.

To have a shift or personal experience with that source.

I also wanted to share in the excitement that despite the narrative of the news and how things seem there has never been a more exciting time in History to be alive.

The thinking of the world tells us that we are defined by how we look, what we have, that we are our ancestral trauma, our narratives and our suffering define us but I’ve discovered that the OPPOSITE to be true.

We’re here to create and serve the wellbeing of the whole and in that process our personal needs will be met.

We have most if not EVERYTHING we need at our fingertips and inside of us along with the ancient wisdom teachings, science and technology, the Artificial and Spiritual Intelligence and the global resources to solve the polycrisis we are collectively facing.

I’d like to make the profound wisdom teachings MORE accessible to everyone in an everyday vernacular. To use a common language like nature to help us better understand ourselves so we can re-create what Charles Eseinstein has called “the more beautiful world we all know is possible”.

To shift from fear to love.

Some of you reading are at or nearing the age of retirement. If you’re open to it, I hope you’ll consider this official encourgement to get REFIRED in new ways.

All of us can use our experiences and wisdom to serve in our communities in a way that energizes and lights us up. Even spending an hour or two with teenagers at a youth centre, helping at a food bank or donating blood.

A global MOVEMENT has begun and I’d like to bring it into all of your homes this year. Sometimes we’re not sure how, but when we ask, the opportunities always find us.

I remember hearing the story of Dorothy Day as a young girl in 1906 watching adults respond in the middle of the San Fransisco earthquake. Families that had lost everything staying to help and moving around her knowing exactly what to do to help others. To step up and take initiative and be of service to care for strangers. She recalls wondering to herself… “Why can’t we live this way all the time?”.

“Loving thy neighbour is not just good for the neighbour, it is essential to our souls.”

Dorothy Day

You may have heard or seen the word “Polycrisis” in the news lately.

It is most often used to describes the interplay between the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, in Gaza and the energy, cost-of-living and climate crises. The word first cropped up in the 1970’s and it went dormant for decades but made a comeback throughout panel discussions at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos. Experts evaluating the short- and long-term challenges facing the planet for the Forum’s Global Risks Report 2023, found the risk of polycrises is growing - “where disparate crises interact such that the overall impact far exceeds the sum of each part”.

The crisis is here now and we are the adults on the scene.

The problem is that most of us are so caught up in our own self destructive webs of egoic desire or some antiquated version of fight, flight or freeze from the overwhelm of the task at hand. We’re spending our life force trying to either avoid ourselves entirely or sort ourselves out first… none of us feel ready or qualified to help the planet or each other.

I include myself in this. Honestly, I think a part of me feels like this is all too much.

When I read about the state of the world I feel the discomfort and unease.

I regret whoever started that clever airplane analogy telling us that we need to put on our own masks first before we help another because it’s caused us to become a new kind of selfish. We’re telling ourselves that we need to put up walls and “boundaries” to care for ourselves first and that is just about the worst advice for our own psychological wellbeing that we could ever get. It’s more about fear and control than love.

With all the compassion in my heart I want to acknowledge that the truth is we ALL human and we have a childhood we have trauma.

Some of our parents may have neglected us while others were too controlling, or abusive projecting their financial or relational stress onto us.

They are people and people make mistakes.

We lie, we behave in selfish ways, be unfaithful, get separated, divorced, and we struggle with addiction. A perfect family does not exist.

Our parents never set out to hurt us but they did what they could from where they were and it’s up to us to forgive them. It’s hard to do from an ego, we believe that the incidents define us and we hold on to them energetically and they continue to harm us until we do.

Today is about learning that it’s okay to be a hot mess. We’re all in some way, but it’s time for us to rise up anyways.

MOVE WITH the adversity and learn how to do better along the way.

Stop defending our limitations and show up for life.

The truth of our being is that we are capacious and can hold two realities at once. We can hold the light and the darkness together. The pain and the healing. Grief and joy. We can endure the pain side by side.

Like these trees are showing us. We don’t need to do it ourselves.

The reality of life is that things become more painful right before something new is born. Ask anyone that has delivered a baby or a new creative venture into the world.

We learn by failing but trying again in a new way. Working with the obstacles in our way. I have failed too. In fact, I planned for this to be 9 minutes long but there is so much to say? haha I’ll try do better next week.

Next month we’ll name and claim this new reality with a vision so bright that we don’t need to see our path just the first step and we’ll be guided the rest of the way. Having no idea how to get there is the point of having a dream. If we know how to get there, then it’s not a dream at all, it’s just a goal or a plan.

It’s not big enough.

This year is about imagining NEW possibilities.…

You’re maybe wondering how we’re going to do this.

Solve the polycrisis.

The truth is I don’t know. No one really does. In the same way that JFK didn’t know how to get a man on the moon in 10 years. He claimed it before there was such a thing as NASA or the metals invented to travel through space and we can do the same.

I’m going to commit to a six year dream that I’ll share with you in January and I have NO clue how it will happen, but I will demonstrate so you can see how being divinely aligned is the ONLY way for us to exist from this day forward.

In December I will also be giving you a compass to help you find your own way to higher ground in your life.

We’ll also feel more alive, have more fun adventures, more resources and freedom to do what we love. We will FEEL good. Feel our feelings. Manage our pain, grief, emotions and fear in better ways than we have done in the past. We will not need to burn out because we’ll be in tuned running on a different kind of renewable fuel.

A divine renewable life force. When I’m connected to it I feel like I’m never tired and when i’m not I get burned out and feel tired.

Together we will dream and then muster up the courage to go out on a limb and do things that we never imagined possible.

That even defies logic.

This year is an invitation for you to COMMIT.

Commit to something so big that you’re not sure how you could ever imagine doing it and I will be right by your side to help guide you.

The only requirement for this “pick” is that it’s in service to something bigger. Not just your own wellbeing. That will of course be one of many positive effects of your quest but not the main goal.

This is one of my ALL time favourite quotes and something you may want to keep handy….

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

―W.H. Murray

Last week James Clear reminded us that we need to rise to this challenge on an identity or spiritual level for this change to take root in a permanent way.

The higher benevolent intelligence or primary organizing principle that created us and the earth is what we will be aligning with for answers now.

Past all of our ideas of right and wrong, beyond our constructed human belief systems and what we’ve created in fear and lack to something bigger than us.

We will strengthen our attitudinal muscles to able ourselves and our communities to evolve a much higher sense of awareness, consciousness, action than we have ever before.

We don’t need to acquire any belief one particular belief system to do this.

Drilling down in one spiritual lineage certainly be helpful but the ultimate answers we’re seeking can also be found in our relationship with nature because we ARE nature.

We were wildlings before we decided we were civilized.

We can find ourselves in nature when we begin to LOOK for the signs. They are all around.

We divorced ourselves from nature but we’re coming around again from a much higher understanding.

We can thank the indigenous cultures for that.

Mind science has exploded in a way to show that what the myths and the knowledge of our ancient spiritual traditions have been confirming all along. It’s about our identity and what we believe about ourselves that impacts the physical world and each other.

There is something precious that appears to happen to us when the worst happens. We have the same demands and busy lives but we somehow must manage to show UP for one another. Floods, hurricanes, droughts and fires. It’s in our human nature like the trees to rise up and help support one another.

We care during catastrophes and disasters better than at any other time.

It’s time now for us to get quiet, dig deep and allow our roots to seek out those nearest us to direct those of us that temporarily have more to those of us that temporarily have less.

It feels like a strange paradox that transformational change often comes to us naturally from our loss and our grief. That by avoiding, numbing or medicating our “Beasts” we innocently perpetuate our problems. But when we accept and love them and are humble for vulnerable about them, everyone is transformed.

Life can be hard but it’s also beautiful. The elements may be harsh and push us to one side like this wind-swept pine…

Like these trees, we’re here to ground down to get our balance and then stretch upwards and expand together. Extend ourselves to do what we can in whatever direction is offering us an opportunity to grow.

No intellectual or theological notion on earth can fully satisfy our spiritual yearning for the mystery of life. We need to experience this love ourselves through Seva or service. Seva is a Sanskrit word meaning selfless service, and perhaps considered the most important part of any spiritual practice. It lies at the heart of the path of karma yoga—selfless action—and asks us to serve others with no expectation of outcome.

This picture looks how I feel about all of this. I’m often surprised and delighted by the helpful coincidences that show up for me when I decide to be of service to others and I’m filled with wonder for who and what we really are.

We are bound together by our common experience of joy and of loss.

We can easily lose ourselves in our inward situations, but it’s also an opportunity to find ourselves in the loss of control. In accepting what is.

I’m not sure it can even be put into words and maybe trying seems to get us into trouble in our thinking minds that need to compare, measure and quantify. But it’s impossible to measure a higher intelligence, or how tall love is, or how much peace weighs and yet those three entities are more real in my experience and palpable and relevant to me than the chair I’m sitting on.

This November series on how change really happens has been a primer for all of us to see that we are ALL perfectly poised as we are for what comes next.

“Hope is a verb with its shirtsleeves rolled up.”

―David Orr

We have everything we need to change in perfect time.

Abundance is our natural state of being.

THERE IS NO LIMIT on the wind and the sun, only on our 20th century scarcity mindset. We are coming into a time of ubiquitous energy. Inexpensive, accessible and clean energy. Gas and oil have been amazing for half of the world, but we no longer need them. We have much better technologies and clean energy to power the whole world. In the same way we’ve used force and ego or solar plexus and masculine energies and it’s time to surrender into a more feminine receiving mode.

The trees understand that they will be provided for and they can commit to helping another and the nutrients they need for their own wellbeing from the soil will come.

The trees have faith. Faith is another word for trust.

Thank goodness the ridiculous imagined barrier between spirituality and “physical reality” has finally been erased by modern science.

We are about to take a new imaginal AND practical pivot and experience a radical regeneration.

You have a unique style and way of being productive, a way of seeing the world and that is what makes you beautiful and powerful. The world needs you liberated to fully express yourself not for your own benefit, but in service to a transformed world.

There are no excuses.

Amazing people in our time - ordinary people with brutal childhoods filled with sexual trauma like Oprah became a voice for a transformed world.

Malala was a young girl who was shot in the face for wanting to go to school. She used the tragedy to fight globally for education for women and has been awarded a Nobel prize.

THIS power is in all of us and 2024 is about tapping into a power that is from you as an individual, rather it comes THROUGH you as any great creator, artist or scientist will tell you.

Biblically we’re told anything is possible and I’m not sure we really believe it but this tree understands. We can hold on for dear life and to the fact that we are not needing to do this on our own, we can align to a greater power and grow in the most uncommon and brutal circumstances with less effort than the way we are currently living.

We also don’t need to conform or the approval of others, we can do our own thing no matter what the season.

I’m not sure my own family and friends understood my own pivot to become an ordained minister in my 50’s. Why on earth would I do that?

The word minister means to serve. That’s why.

We are all “alone” with all that is in the most powerful way.

When we begin to trust life we will begin to have the deep realization that we are powerful beyond measure. We will be guided to find a way through the most impossible seeming circumstances, just like these trees. To grow and thrive any way we can.

We have been living in an “every tree for itself” kind of way for too long.

I was telling the kids one day on a car ride that the real meaning of the word goodbye actually means “God be with ye”. They didn’t believe me. I don’t blame them, we’ve really done a good job of separating ourselves from source this century by separating science and spirit, but that is all about to change.

Of course, they understood the Star Wars version of goodbye. “May the Force be with you”. Same, same….but different.

Just like us.

With love,

Rev Nona

ps. Yay! I managed to shorten this week’s by 10 minutes but it’s still twice as long as intended. I’ll try to do better next week.

A few more pics to inspire you. Oh the possibilities!!