– Heartwood Path Waypoint 1.19 –

Spiritual Practice

Undertake Practices That Lead To A Sense Of The Whole
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Spiritual practice begins in awareness –– a self-sensing of objective reality –– and leads to consciousness –– the “very substratum of all existence” (Paul, 2004, p. 214). Awareness pin-points an object, bringing it into one’s perception. Consciousness
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“is complete and inclusive; it is a sense of the whole . . . Spiritual practice (ought to) always be undertaken on behalf of the whole. That is why the systemic development of consciousness is essential to spirituality” (Paul, 2004, pp. 214-215).

Doing spiritual practices in the midst of everyday life is too full of distractions. That is one reason why we will be asking you to find an attractive natural being and, even better, an attractive natural being surrounded by an attractive landscape or seascape, free of unsettling artificial distractions. This finding will reveal that your deepest roots are in nature. 

Connecting with your natural roots satisfies essential needs.  Fulfilling these needs are reason enough to search for and connect with a natural being and its nourishing realm, as you will be directed to do over and over again along the Heartwood Path. “Whether you’re aware of it or not,” writes Charles Cook, “you still have a vital need for regular, meaningful contact with this nourishing realm” (2001, p. vii).

Do not miss an opportunity to actually visit a natural being as you conduct Heartwood Path activities. Do not try to save time by being an armchair course participant.  And do not try to avoid the tribulations of being exposed to nature. 

Remember that the tragedy of your life will not be about what makes you pass out.  The big mishap of your life will be about what you pass up. Don’t let nature be among these.

“ . . . it’s difficult to stay stressed out or maintain a negative mood while quietly focusing or meditating on nature  . . . troubles shrink to more manageable sizes while you are away, and you can later view them ‘through fresh eyes’ from a more balanced perspective affected by your experiences in nature . . . (Cook, 2001, pp. viii-xv).

For these reasons and more, the Heartwood Path will help you develop a meaningful and lasting personal relationship with nearby natural beings and their natural surroundings.
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“When you begin weaving more of nature into your everyday existence . . .your sense of life may open up to encompass the much richer, more complex, more communal, and more timeless universe that you’re actually part of . . . What we have to gain from our efforts is no less than the preservation of life on this remarkable planet” (Cook, 2001, pp.255-258).

​Armed with these motives, the following activity offers some tips you can use for tracking down an attractive natural being.

To Your Activity Partner...

​HumaNatureConnect Activity
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If this is not a day when you prefer to spend time in nature without an agenda, do the following activity:
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Start-up Protocol
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• Read The Text — Use your literary sense, your mind sense, and your reason sense to read your way towards happiness and sustainability but also go outdoors to the back yard or to the back woods, where the higher levels of negative ions in the air will improve your mood and wellbeing.
• Attention Restoration — With a pen and journal in hand, go to a natural area that is attractive, has a variety of plants and animals, and is tranquil enough to leave room for reflection. 
• Attractive Natural Being — Once you are in a natural area (the wilder, the better), look around to find a natural being that is attractive to you and remain near that being until the end of the activity.​
• Consent — Once you find an aspect of nature that is attractive to you continuously for at least ten seconds, think of your continued attraction as your consent to have a connection experience that will help you function optimally and establish in your mind a more helpful egalitarian relationship with the natural being.
• Appreciation And Gratefulness — After gaining consent to enter into a connection experience with the natural being, appreciate it with your inhalations and give it gratitude with your exhalations.
• Use Your Natural Senses — Beyond seeing, hearing, and the three other commonly recognized senses, use as many of the fifty-four Natural Senses as you see fit and document the ones that you use in your journal.
• HumaNatureConnect Activity — Wander without an agenda in a natural place or do the prescribed HumaNatureConnect Activity.

Tracking Down An Attractive Natural Being
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For this activity, do the following: Find an attractive non-human partner for this activity. Use what you learn here for future activities, as well. Clear your mind. Forget time while looking for a natural being. Linger where you feel comfortable. Let go of worries. Be quiet while in nature. Do not try, just be. Forget identifying or naming the things you encounter. If you choose to write about them, describe them without naming them. Look for uniqueness, without analyzing. Follow your heart into the wild. Do not worry what others may think. Like myself as a child, immerse yourself. Jump into the swamp, stand chest deep in murky water, look at the snake eye to eye, and lye down with the turtle. Or climb the tree, secure yourself in a safe spot, and meditate. To find animals: look where they would find food, water, cover. Search in areas where the terrain or vegetation changes.  Consider the seasons and the time of day. To see nature: look at unfamiliar places, adopt the point of view of various animals, look wide but also up close, frame your viewing as a photographer would do. To hear nature: open your ears and close your eyes, cup your ears with your hands, and listen in concentric rings away from you. To smell nature: get down on all fours, pick up and view things while holding them close to your nose, close your eyes. To taste nature: sample the paw-paws, catch and grill some fish, and pick blackberries. To experience nature, combine all of the activities mentioned above.

​​​​Follow-up Protocol
Natural Systems Reflection Process
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     For best results, write down your impressions of this activity in your journal using as many of the following components as you see fit, afterwards, share your interpretations with others.
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Journal Components
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• Date — Write down the date of your outdoor nature-communing experience.
• Activity — Write down the waypoint title and number each time each you do an activity.
• Location — Write down the location of your outdoor nature-communing experience.
• Natural Being Indicator — Draw a picture or write down in your journal a nameless way to remember your chosen attractive Natural Being; for example, call it your “____  ____ Connection Experience.”
• The Natural Senses Used — Write down all of the Natural Senses you used for this activity.
• General Description — Write a general description of how you did the activity and what happened.
• Freeform — Write, in freeform, what you found attractive about your natural being.
• Three Qualities — Write down three qualities you found attractive about your natural being.
• Three Learnings — Write down three things you learned from this activity.
• Self-esteem & Trust — Write down how, if at all, this activity changed your self-esteem or trustfulness of NNIAAL (Namelessness, Now, Intelligence, Alive, Attraction, and Love).
• Changes To Self — Write down what aspects of your Self, if any, were changed by this activity.
• Honor Yourself — Praise yourself and your commitment to making another stop along the Heartwood Path good for yourself and the world.
• I’m A Person Who. . . — Write down three different so-called “G/G Statements” using the following format: “This connection experience tells me that I am a person who__________.”
• Feelings If Activity Taken — Write down a sentence about how you would feel if you lost your ability to experience this connection.
• Nature Compared To Self — Create a sentence that reads: “I love this (insert words that identify the attractive natural being) because it is (insert words that refer to the qualities you like about the natural being); then, create a parallel sentence that reads: “I love (insert the word “myself”) because I am (insert the same qualities as before).”​
• Integral Immersion — Improve your journal writing by addressing what is, what could be, and what ought to be.
• Love Letter — Write a letter of gratitude to and from a natural being.
• Two-word Summary — Write down two words that summarize your response to this activity.​

The Heartwood Path Exchange:
Swap Your Ideas, Impressions, Photos, And News With Others
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• Comment — Post your impressions and photos in the Comments section of this waypoint—the place for on-going discussion regarding this waypoint.
• Join — Engage with others in a Heartwood Path course or salon.
• Create — Start your own Heartwood Path salon that meets regularly online, by phone, or in person.
• Talk — Share your impressions with trusted family members and friends.
• Network — Post your impressions and photos on our EartHeart Networking Forum.
• Post — To see what conversations you can ignite, upload on social media your photos and impressions about anything pertaining to your journey down the Heartwood Path.
• Connect — Follow our account on Instagram, Like our Page on Facebook, Subscribe to our Channel on YouTube, and use hashtags such as “#heartwoodpath”, “#eartHeart”, and “#waypoint(insert course)(insert waypoint number) i.e.“#waypointkosmos5”).​

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Your input is vital. Enjoy sharing!

Heartwood Path Axioms: 
Key Assertions From Waypoint 1.19

1.19.1.
Spiritual practice begins in awareness –– a self-sensing of objective reality –– and leads to consciousness –– the “very substratum of all existence.” 

1.19.2.
Connecting with your natural roots satisfies essential needs.

1.19.3.
Remember that the tragedy of your life will not be about what makes you pass out but it will be about what you pass up.

Dreaming Time Activity

For best results, write down your impressions of each night’s dreams in your journal, a vital part of your EartHeart Chronicles. Make your Dream Tending elaborate (so you get the most out of it) but do not make it cumbersome (as this could prevent you from continuing). Use as many of the following components as you see fit. Afterwards, where appropriate, share your Dream Tending with others.
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Before Dreaming Protocol​​

• Dream Prep — Prepare yourself for productive dreaming by decluttering your mind before sleeping. ​
• Journal Ready — Prepare to record your dream impressions by placing your journal so that you can make initial recordings in it without changing your dreamtime sleeping position.

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Dreaming Protocol​

• Remember This — Look to your dreams to tell you what you need to remember.​
• Open To Dream — Be receptive, fluid, interactive, and grounded as you dream.
• Wake-Back-To-Bed — Wake up after six hours of sleep, staying awake for twenty minutes, then go back to sleep.
• Shape-shifters — Watch characters that change in your dream to see into the possibilities of your own transformation.

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Nocturnal Pilgrimage 1.19

Sleep. Dream.  Look for guidance in your dreams. Your connection experiences in your waking life may leave you with bits and pieces of signs and symbols in your dreams. 
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After Dreaming Protocol​

• First Off — Recall your dream by staying in your sleeping position as you make your first attempt to remember your dream.
• Book Of Dreams — Create an entry in your dream journal using the following linguistic tools: 1) talking in the present tense, 2) using verbs ending in “ing,” 3) removing articles such as “an” or “the,” and 4) using capital letters when naming the Dream Characters—which can be any notable people, places, or things that show up in your dream.
• Title — Give your dream a memorable title. 
• Date — Write down the date of your dream. 
• Description — Write down a short, general summary of your dream.
• Mood — Write down how the dream affected your mood upon waking.
• Life Event Affecting Dream — Write down any events in your life that may have influenced your dream.
• Setting — Describe the location of your dream.
• Statement Of Problem — Write down the complication, challenge, predicament, situation, obstacle, plight, quandary, or misadventure presented in your dream. 
• Culmination Or Response To The Problem — Describe what you or another Dream Character did in your dream to respond to the problem presented in the dream.
• Conclusion — Describe how your dream ended.
• Beings Revealed — Write down how your dream seemed to be, if at all, linked in some way to your chosen attractive natural beings.
• Freud’s Approach —  Associate the actions of your Dream Characters with latent, infantile, repressed, or sexual drives.
• Jung’s Approach — Amplify your Dream Characters into Archetypes that are global in scale, symbolic, pervasive, positive, and helpful.
• Hillman’s Approach — Recognize your Dream Characters as animated, living beings by honoring their presence, place, and body.
• Right Information — Ask yourself the two main questions for Dream Tending: “Who is visiting now?” And “What is happening here?”
• The Richest Treasures — Do not force narrow interpretations upon the natural being impressions that reappear in your dream by condensing them into limited signs when it is more fruitful to simply engage with them as living beings that reside in your dream, possibly with infinite symbolic value.
• Privacy — Store your dream journal in a safe place and, where appropriate, share your dream with others.​​​

Prepare yourself for receiving guidance, information, and healing from your chosen attractive natural beings by moving to the next waypoint: “Now What.”

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With this combination package you can read the material at home or in nature. If you choose, you can leave your mobile device behind and bring the printed Heartwood Path Kosmos book with you into nature as you complete your daily outdoor activities.

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