Most of us probably find ourselves talking to nature, but we don't usually receive back an answer, or at least we don't think we do. We say, "Wow, aren't you a beauty" to a sunset or a butterfly. We think, "Ah life is good" as we recline against a warm boulder on a sunny beach. Maybe it is not that we don't receive an answer so much as we don't know how to recognize the response when it comes. As I wrote this sentence, just as I placed the period at its end, a Pilliated woodpecker drummed a loud tattoo outside on a nearby tree. The sound was so dramatic and unexpected that I jumped into attention, just as if someone nearby had shouted, NO KIDDING! in agreement. Of course the key to talking to nature is having certainty that my thought or action--and my attention being drawn to nature--is connected. The more I attend to this connection--the more direct experience of talking to nature do I have. This dance between unclear communication and direction experience is at the heart of the Journey Oracle card for the tree month Elder. Although the dates for this Celtic tree month are November 24 to December 22nd, as I look out my window I see a little elderberry bush just beginning to swell its buds--the tips of which are a green so fragile that the tone seems to hover like a mist more than be a color. I wonder how Elderberry and Elder tree are family. I think I'll go outside and ask.
