On a recent morning in yoga class I looked up and saw a tiny spider descending from the ceiling on its strand of web. As it came closer and closer to me I considered moving it as I was going to be rolling onto my stomach and didn’t want it landing on my back! Fortunately, it changed its mind and started its ascent back up to the ceiling and continued its journey across a tile and went its merry, spidery way!
I watched it and wondered about its landscape; how it dealt with obstacles and unexpected things it encountered. There was dampness and water droplets on the ceiling from the hot steam in the class, the sound of the music, and choices to be made whether to dangle down or use its web-making capabilities in other ways to help navigate its little world. I wondered if it changed its mind and climbed back up because it saw my huge face smiling at it!
I thought about our environment as humans, and how we encounter so many landscapes in our lifetime to navigate, on so many levels! Physically, for example, not just the environment of a yoga studio, but daily drives from place to place, travels near home or abroad, walks around the neighborhood. We get around!
This year I have had the honor of learning about the world of goats, milking and caring for them! I love visiting the goats, which are part of a Jewish co-op here in Boulder. Care of animals is important in their faith, and in past times, was considered therapy for the rabbis so they could get a healing after looking after so many people! I love that notion, as I have considered time spent with the goats part of my therapy!
We can get a healing from physical landscapes like a farm, traveling to the mountains, sitting by a stream, or just witnessing a bee at work in the garden or a bird in flight. Take a moment and have gratitude for all the landscapes you encounter in a day, in a week, in a year! Wow! We humans are lucky to be so adaptable and able to encounter so much! So many physical landscapes to play in, so little time!
How about the metaphysical landscapes we navigate? Those that are seemingly unseen; like the astral plane and our dream space? We can also navigate the energetic aspects of our spiritual anatomy; our chakras, aura, energy channels, the energy of an organ or our center of head! And, we are designed to navigate the landscape of our inner consciousness—our emotions, thoughts and even our experience of ourselves in stillness.
There are also our landscapes that we inhabit whilst in our creative expression. I feel like when I am writing, painting, dancing or enjoying music, that I am engaging another level of awareness, that uses different tools and has different considerations than driving my car or teaching a class!
This reflection really just fed my amazement at how multifaceted we are, and what an amazing design we humans are as physical and energetic beings that have so much power and potential!
Take another moment and pause and breathe, and validate all the landscapes you encounter daily, from the physical to the metaphysical, from the concrete to the abstract, from the logical to the mystical. Life is never boring when seen from multiple angles!
Here at Psychic Horizons Center we love helping people engage the full possibilities of their lives and experiences. So many people live from such a tiny percentage of their awareness and miss so much! I can’t even imagine being bored or not having enough to do. With all these landscapes to explore, physically and energetically, there is always something of interest, something new to be learned.
And sometimes, it may be that what is of most interest is quieting all the “doing” and enthusiasm down, so I can experience the benefits of stillness, and the amazing landscape it affords!
What you need to engage any landscape is YOU. The essence of who you are, the ability to touch, at will, into the depths of yourself and your wisdom. On a recent roadtrip with my nephew, we did a wonderul tour of parts of Colorado— from Denver to Crestone and the Great Sand Dunes, to Mesa Verde, Telluride, Black Canyon—visiting new spaces and landscapes that he had never seen before! Desert, prairie, ancient peoples, mountains, mining, hotsprings and gondolas. It was wonderful.
I loved watching him marvel at the new terrain, places he had only seen in photos. We hiked every day, and he commented on how open his mind felt and how much inspiration and new ideas he received while we wandered quietly in the dunes or through the aspen on a mountainside. The ability to navigate new places, around us and within us, results in expansiveness, if we allow it!
Twenty years ago, Mary Bell Nyman and I decided to create a spiritual healing center here in Boulder, and create a place where sensitive souls can learn to experience themselves, as honestly, gracefully and happily as possible, as a limitless spirit in a body. And what an awesome journey it has been! I am so grateful that I was brave and curious enough to embark on such an adventure. It has had its challenges, but overwhelmingly has been joyful, rewarding, and constant fuel for my creativity and love of life. Knowing how to navigate all the landscapes offered to us as spirits in bodies, and teaching it to others so they can go out and create the miracles in their own lives, is wonderful.
We so appreciate all the adventurers who have passed through our doors, and those whom we have not met yet! We are in gratitude to an amazing staff of people who have graced us with their help and expertise through the years as teachers, board members and office support.
Being a conscious spirit in a body, and being awake in your wisdom, amusement, compassion and creativity is what life is all about—learning to love and forgive, and treating others as we, ourselves, would like to be treated. It’s simple, but challenging! Thanks, little spider, for reminding me of all that!
Hope Hewetson is the Director of Psychic Horizons Center in Boulder, CO and originally wrote this for the October/November 2014 Newsletter. If you repost this message, or any portion thereof, please give credit to Rev. Hope Hewetson, www.psychichorizonscenter.org.
