Lindsay Ashmore, Director of Art & Expressive Arts Therapies and Indigenous Community Outreach
We are in a time of transition of seasons, and with this comes an unsettling and revealing of what is needed next. The murmuring of spring can be sensed under the surface, with traces of change emerging above it. On my regular communing with the beloved land, a ravine located thirty minutes from my home in Amiskwacîwâskahikan, Edmonton, I regularly visit, paying my respects with tobacco and setting forth on a journey down the familiar pathway through the trees, always with deep reverence and presence, and sometimes with an inquiry in mind, or an openness to receive the wisdom of this place.
Although the location and pathway are the same, each visit and what is revealed is different and unique to the season we are both in. The reciprocity of my relationship with the land and the land with me deepens and expands with each visit. The mirroring back of my level of presence and the conversation that flows through sensation, feeling, intuition, and the imaginal realm comes alive with visits from the animal and more than human kin around. On my latest visit, the birds were very present, chattering up a storm and reflecting back a sense of playfulness in twos and threes, the chickadee and the nut hatch, each taking turns to land on my hand and sorting through the seeds offered, finding the very best ones to each's needs, and reflecting back to me the discernment that is needed in life along with the intuitive sense of knowing that must also be alive. In tandem, these capacities balance one another and allow us to sort, choose, and fly in the direction of the following right action in the season that we are in. I have shared a few images (below) to bring alive this reflection. I hope they inspire and guide you each in reflecting on what is murmuring just below the surface and playfully discerning what is your next step for the season ahead.
