Shape Shifting

Years ago, when I was a child, I used to like to sneak onto the golf course that was near my home after the course had closed and no more golfers were around.  My friends and I would roll down the hills and frolic in the sprinklers.  Often I would go alone, just to spend some time amongst the trees, the grasses and the open sky overhead.  It was wonderful and I enjoyed it deeply.

To get onto the golf course, we had to scramble under the chain link fence that bordered the course on one side.  We had dug a hole using some sticks and it was just large enough for us to slip through.  Since we didn't want our entrance to be discovered by the greens keepers, we located it underneath a large shrub that was growing along the fence.  This bush had it's boughs on both sides of the fence, hiding our hole from view.  Each time, after we used it, we scattered some fallen leaves and a few sticks over it to disguise it.  It worked like a charm.  And it actually was charmed.

That little spot helped me to discover something quite fascinating.  I had long known as a child that I could hide quite easily if I was deep inside of a little stand of shrubs.  But what I hadn't known was that I could actually nearly disappear if I shifted my attention right into the shrub.  This came about when I was a little older.  I had taken some classes in plant physiology in college.  I became familiar with the inner workings of the cambial layer, or the vascular system, which is like the arteries and veins of the plant. 

In an overly simplified description, the cambium moves water from the roots up to the leaves.  There, the water interacts with sunlight and carbon from CO2 in a process known as photosynthesis to create sugars.  Then the cambial layer transports those sugars down from the leaves to the roots for storage and as food for the plant.  

Sometimes late at night, when I was needing some time to be alone out in the beauties of nature, I would go to my secret little entrance under the fence and slip on through, so that I could be with the trees and the open sky full of stars overhead.  Usually, my little hidey hole would need some freshening up, as my childhood friends and I had all moved away from home.   I would find a stick and clean and re-dig it a little so I could slip under again.  

This was almost like a shamanic experience, entering through a largely unknown doorway.  Occasionally folks, out for an evening stroll would walk by, some of them with their dogs.  My shrub wasn't very densely foliated and from the right angle, you could see under it quite easily from the street which was immediately adjacent to my little entrance.  Since I didn't want to be discovered in my clandestine activities, I needed to become invisible.  So, instead of focusing on the people and the dog which would always reveal my presence to them, I learned how to slip inside the body of the plant, casting my full attention into the cambial layer and streaming with my mind and the water up into the leaves, which were resting from all of their daytime activities.  I would slide back down to the roots and feel the moisture deep in the soil and get busy exchanging nutrients there.  People could come and go, a mere three or four feet from me, and no one, not even the dogs would know I was there.

Years later when I learned of the concept of shape shifting, I realized that I was already familiar with the principles and had experienced a beginners version of what is needed to move into that best of all possible means of camouflage by using just my attention and the focus of my mind.

This coming weekend, on Saturday, in Morro Bay, at the Ruby Dragon, I will be teaching a day-long class on plant communication.  With permission from the plants, we will be doing a similar exercise to the one I have described here, traveling in our awareness into the internal environment of the plant's bodies in order to commune with them and receive communications from them.  I'm hoping that you will be free to join us.  To sign up call the Ruby Dragon at (805) 772-1100.  Blessings to you and see you there.


© Josephine Laing, 2015