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Hey everyone, I'd like to add an invitation to share raven and crow stories here. Or stories about other birds too. When people speak of "saving the planet," do they include the birds? Can we do it without them?

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"A new belief can only enter when the lodging is hospitable."

Very true. Loved this story.

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We hear you...this is exciting...go Charles, fly high...the message is being received loud and clear...just as flocks of birds fly in a chevron (changing the leader as a fresh vibration is required to contribute) all are harmonically in tune with the group pattern of nature. They reflect the truth of who we really are:)...and no we cannot do it without the birds...we are the birds! Jilly

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What human spirit is not uplifted by birds soaring high? Traditions around the world believe birds symbolize the ascension of the human spirit. In my own tribal tradition eagles carry our prayers to the spirit world. Ravens are often seen as either tricksters and/or birds of war; for very good reasons. That same raven who can help us heal, can also cleverly hunt and kill and patiently wait for us to kill each other. Just as with everything in the old shamanic traditions, birds represent both dark and light. Many intelligent and revered birds are scavengers that pick clean the rotting bones of the old and fertilize the ground for new growth. In modern times we tend to romanticize the amazing miracle of a hawk in flight. And it is amazing. However I doubt that the rabbit shivering on the ground under the hawk's shadow feels the same way about that hawk as we do. The stories we tell ourselves about our world arise from individual and collective human centric perceptions. They do not necessarily reflect universal reality.

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Thanks for another substack that challenges and invites fresh thinking and ways of being/doing so much needed in our world today. In response to your invitation, I share another of my poems "Touching Worlds" which was inspired by the visit of various birds of the air to our home garden a few years ago, including sunbirds, pigeons, hadedas, guinea fowl, Egyptian geese and an owl.

Touching worlds

I am most delighted,

Your gracious presence

In my garden just now,

Filling this space with me,

Drawing my beating heart to yours,

Connecting our often fragile worlds,

In this hallowed moment.

As you touch my world,

Effervescent with bird-song

And bird-flutter,

The world of connection,

Between you and me,

The world as it should be,

Magically restored.

You are at home, here

Among the trees and grassy green,

Nourished in this solace,

As I am too, together

We draw in common breath,

Held in this moment,

In Creator’s soft embrace.

I would our worlds,

Intertwined remained, touched

For more than just this moment,

Remaining one,

In rhythmic, rapturous grace,

Our songs in unison, together,

Clarion call for Universal peace.

© Roger Arendse 20120921.

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This is nothing "miraculous," it just brings me great joy.

There has been an owl in our neighborhood for quite awhile. I very much enjoy listening to "him" hoot. I have even gotten him to answer me when I have hooted to him. He has been gone for over a year. I have missed him very much. I heard him hooting this morning very early. 🤗

I know this could be an entirely different owl. I am a realist, but I much prefer to believe it's "my" buddy, the owl, that's come back. I'll take my joy where I can find it.

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I had an experience when I was young and was introduced to LSD and had an ego death type experience at that point in my life. I remember walking home one day and thinking about something and as an important thought occurred to me a whole bunch of crows sitting on a power line started squeaking at me. It seemed like it was a reaction to the thoughts I was thinking or a sign about something.... or maybe i just ate too much acid? 🙃

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Or maybe just the right amount!

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From my experiences with birds, they definitely could have picked something up from you.

I had on me several items (moldavite, shungite, and a few others) while in the backyard and a bunch of songbirds gathered on the fences and trees and would come up really close to me, sometimes fly over my head for a bit before going back to rest on a tree or fence. Later that day a deer ran down the street. My mom was out in the front yard, I was busy indoors so I didn't get to be out with her at that time. So she was the one who saw the deer. I think the deer also sensed the energy that the birds did also, and was looking to get closer to where the energy was coming from. Ravens or crows would also fly low overhead sometimes when I have certain crystals on me while I'm outside.

Also when I play music quietly to myself some songbirds would show up and seemed to be listening to. They were at a distance though that I would think they couldn't hear the music. So it made me wonder if they sensed it somehow else.

Another experience I had, was the following morning after having eaten amanita muscaria mushroom and three geese showed up and rested on the roof of my family's house and the house right next door. They stayed there for a while.

I already knew intellectually about animals being sensitive and tending to have better access to abilities of seeing beyond regular eyesight and so on. And about how connected beings are to each other no matter the distance and time. But having personal experiences really helps bring it more into my consciousness, the recognition of this truth, and changes my experience of life.

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Or maybe crows just crowing! They are very vocal birds - with a long memory!

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I love this piece, Charles. There is zero doubt about these magical, healing interactions.It all works, and is all possible. As is said in India, Sab Kuch Milega - Everything is possible (loose translation).

Interestingly, the day you published it, I had posted a collage on my own Substack that included a Raven as the power center of the piece. Here it is:

https://erinreese.substack.com/p/a-secret-message-from-psyche

I love ravens, crows, magpies, jays, and all from the family Corvidae. They have a tremendous brain size.

Crow is also the Medicine Card I pulled for 2023. Crow represents higher LAW. Speaking truth, no matter what.

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A birdie movie recommendation ~true story

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6317656/

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Looks good. Gonna watch THAT! Thanks for the recommendation.

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A powerful and inspiring movie indeed.

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The birds have been messengers, guides, and indicators of what’s to come throughout the world’s ancient and indigenous cultures. Ecologically they are indicators of problems in the system because of their sensitivity to the many poisons we use. Thanks for sharing the story and your reflections on it.

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My thoughts on saving the planet are relatively simple.

The hubris of man to even think that he may either save or destroy, for that matter, the planet has possibly shown a lack of wisdom on the perceived problem.

Or just a poor choice of terms. 🤔

Granted I'm in no way naïve enough to think we haven't done irreparable harm on our home but even if we destroy our life here the planet will live on for quite some time.

I do however view the planet much like the human body. It's ability to heal thyself is nothing short of a miracle. I believe our mother earth has gone through the transformation a number of times. That ability is in all of life, I believe, as God intended.

Well back to the question on birds. Absolutely and as important if not of more important is the bees. For good reason.

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The magic/relationship/consciousness/connection/knowledge/motivation of the raven to Kate is a wonder. And I often wonder if the birds ‘know’ us humans more than we know ourselves. How do they perceive us, what is vision/sight of ‘how’ we look to them? How does birdsong affect our being/heart space/brain. I love the little juncos I feed on my balcony. Do they hope close to my window to say hello and thank you? They are precious to my being these days along with the worms I keep in my contained compost. These are my “pets” that I feed and they feed me, still of earth and nature, yet integral to my life. I hope I will find some answers here, perhaps from native Americans and their knowledge and other folks with inter species experiences. Thank you Charles for sharing this to help us choose the bigger miraculous orientation to life and possibility.

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Rather than saving the planet, we need to begin to really allow the planet save us. We are the ones in serious trouble

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well, I've had to _eat crow_ many many times in my life, especially lately....

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I just want to hug you, Charles. Words don't express how wonderful it is of you to have written this story.

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let's make that a group hug

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Even better!!!

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author

Aw thanks Tessa! I've been appreciating your writing as well.

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Thank you, Charles!!

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Throwing my virtual arms around all of us. Charles has a way with words that is powerfully healing. 💗💗💗

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Tessa, I was thinking of you when I read this. You and Charles are moving in parallel lines. I loved this story, Charles. One of the best ever.

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Thank you Tereza!! And yes, this story made my morning. Charles, you really did something important there. Thank you!

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My feelings exactly. Charles, you are a treasure, thank you for filling my heart with wonder and hope.

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Amazing. I have a friend who did the same thing. A paste on her head drew and drew the tumour out until it dried up and fell off. She had to do it again and again twice more in different places over a couple of years. It was a long and painful process but she quietly administered her medicine and trusted it. It happened. This kind of healing is derided or quietly ignored by mainstreamers and when it doesn't work, savaged. Yet when chemotherapy and radiotherapy fail , which they often do - and more than that, hasten death in agonising circumstances - there is no open questioning of the treatment. Mainstream 'Science' cannot be held to account.

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Many of you may be familiar or practicing self care herbalists, or as a livelihood. Years ago now I discovered Matthew Wood, one of many amazing herbalists practicing now. Matthew has written several books that cover the historical practice of herbal medicine back to Roman times on through today, with documentation and source materials. I’m sure he would have some stories along these lines. It’s a rich history and as Charles urges us onward to a more beautiful world, we can source the past to these mostly forgotten treasures to renew them again.

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Thanks Annie for telling us about Matthew Wood. I am so glad there are people who are the keepers of such important knowledge. I will look him up.

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author

Good point!

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I have tried this “therapy” several times. It’s not that radical, it’s older than the western medicine we are programmed so loyally to follow. It takes bravery to be autonomous.

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A similar therapy uses albi powder, made from white taro. I know a holsitic vet who has used it to remove tumors from hundreds of cats, dogs, and horse.

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There’s so many alternatives Charles, it’s our willingness to step outside of our conditioned programming to infinite possibilities. Thank you🙏🦋

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Animals always held powerful knowledge. I hope we can learn from them one day. Beautiful writing Charles. May all our hearts open to the miracles of life 💗

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Thank you Charles. Needed this. Story #2 for the win. Not even close. And I’m a recovering secular materialist! How far I have come to enter my toddlerhood. 🙏

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Sometimes experiences find us, if we're willing to be lost enough in the surrender of the unknown. Despair is a known variable, and so are probabilities that a medical treatment will work. Whereas hope, even though it's a faint emotion, carries a grace that maybe, just maybe, the fairies will hear if we whisper our heart's grieving loud enough.

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Beautiful! Couldn't have said it better, or even as well. Thanks for articulating my feeling...

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Thanks so much Yasmine, that's kind of you to say. Loved this piece! Now I just need to find a raven, or let it find me...

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... maybe it will be a snail? Maybe a spider. Or a word in a book? Whoever shows up, I hope it'll be beautiful and just what you needed.

And thanks for your response, it made me happy.

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I love this story! For a lot of reasons. One is that, my daughter-in-law actually did use that exact formulation (under the guidance of an experienced herbalist) for the reasons given and it worked. Blood root is a very powerful herb, not to be used lightly. So that’s one thing. But the main reason I love it is the discussion of miracles. And once you’ve experienced what is termed a “miracle”, it totally does change your perspective - if you let it - on everything. It opens us to the reality of living within a living Earth. We may not rationally “understand” all that entails, but we can feel it, intuit it, give it credence in our lives and thus it will change us.

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My father showed me blood root on our farm in northern Illinois around 1960. He told me when he was young, which would have been around 1930, he could meet a man at the train station who would buy blood root he gathered.

The feature documentary film "Hoxsey: How Healing Becomes a Crime" was made by Kenny Ausubel. Blood root is a primary agent in Hoxsey's cancer treatment which was building a great reputation for success in Hoxsey's first clinic in Taylorville, Illinois around 1930.

I first heard of Charles Eisenstein maybe 12 years ago when a friend returned from Bioneers, which was founded by Kenny Ausubel.

"Just give me one thing that I can hold onto." -- John Prine

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Thanks for this little bit of family history. It offers a window to a time when medicine still lay in the hands of the people.

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My, the strange times we live in. I reread my own comment and it sounded like it came from ChatGPT or something like it—one of those artificial intelligence thingys that create text to harass people. I hope to assure readers I am human. Also, rather than be too subtle, I will spell things out.

I know close to nothing about magic or mages. I did read an explanation of magic a short while ago that described the universe as a vast web of connections, linked and intertwined throughout. Some connections are thick and strong, others thin and weak. The connections are there whether you know it are not. By the time the connections get down to you or your dog they are pretty weak.

So, when I see “Blood Root”. I think about what I know about it. Hence, the story in my first comment. My dad tells me about blood root. I find out about the Hoxley Treatment that uses blood root when I look up Bioneers 50 years later. It seems to explain my dad’s story. Then, I remember that I heard about Charles Eisenstein from the same conversation about Bioneers, 12 years ago. Now, in 2023, Charles is writing an essay with “Blood Root” in the title.

Seems like a tiny trickle of a connection. Or just coincidence.

Today? I’m ready for anyone to hit me with all the best magic they've got.

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Thank you for the documentary recommendation and Prine quote :), going to look for that one.

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To believe in this living is just a miracle to go. Next song line edited up.

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I choose story (2) for these two reasons:

(1) Animals, most usually dogs, have been known to pinpoint where cancer resides in a person’s body; and

(2) The majority of pharmaceuticals have their basis in herbal medicine.

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Exactly! Dogs and Gambian Pouch rats are used to detect many things from cancer to explosives and TB ...

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So, beautiful, reminds me of the story in the Bible where ravens daily brought food to the prophet Elijah while he was hidden for years in the wilderness. I can recount so many marvelous tales in my life of synchronicities, unusual phenomena, healings, answered prayers. Jesus said, "The wind (pneuma in Greek, also translated spirit) blows where it wishes" Science is useful for repeatable matter/energy phenomena that can be corralled at will, but there is a fuzzy, wild, free, nonrepeatable aspect of reality that your raven healed friend met which the methods of science finds difficult, even perhaps impossible to pin down.

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Love this: "there is a fuzzy, wild, free, non-repeatable aspect of reality"

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In the (soon to prevail again) story of Oneness, caring for the plants and the animals is caring for ourselves.

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I know at least one other person who has healed herself of cancer (multiple times) using the escharotic (black) salve. I've also seen the polaroids of the tumor's time-lapse exit from her body.

Authoritarian medicine and officialdom like to entertain the straw man of some irrational faith in alternative cures, a desperate hope that drives people away from science. For many of us, it is the knowing of personal experience or witnessing such healings and knowing they can happen again that liberates us from fear of disease, pain, or death.

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Gross! And cool!

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Two Comments: 1) This story also speaks to "another way of knowing", an acknowledgement that meaningful information comes to us in many ways, not just through rational, logical, linear thought processes. 2) That many people disregard this information due to having been born into a mind set of "Separation". So yes, I am signing up for another way of being in the world.

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Thank you, David. Your words are the core of my messaging in my outreach regarding spectrum individuals, (they geared more to our non-separatist intelligences, ADD: Attention Differently Directed, not Attention Deficit Disorder; this true for all spectrum individuals).

Also this is why we must reinvent public education, basing it on an individual's intuitions, insights, out-of-the box thinking, and passions, (some of our nonlinear intelligences), they then using our rational, logical, linear thought processes to shape their connective inspirations into true contributions to better our world.

Maybe I can find you on the internet. 😊

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The Steiner school educational model used to address and nurture the multifacted child. I knew some who benefitted greatly. It left them open to Spirit as they experienced it. Now there is some controversy about recent forces infiltrating that philosophy, urging it toward secular wokeness..

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Remarkable synchronicity here. Just last night I was in a deep conversation with a new friend about the remarkable capabilities of corvids. They're far smarter than we credit. I suspect they're a lot more than mere clever beasts.

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author

They probably think WE are pretty clueless though.

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I'm quite convinced they follow us around for entertainment more than food.

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John. I just subscribed to your substack and see you read Lots of other contributors. Might I suggest Gavin’s Newsletter. He writes abundantly about the worlds within worlds on Earth extensively. Miracles abound

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I'll check it out. And thanks for subscribing!

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yes exactly!

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i would meet with a group of people for 10 days, in the forest and we would do these plant dietas, as herbalists, the group intention being to listen to and learn more from the plants and often we would be gifted songs which we would sing together everyday, for an hour or more. in the morning, in circle.

hah. we had to hold so many different versions of a story in our head. so many different people and all of us with our baggage and gifts, likes and dislikes and different stories about why and what we were singing to and for.

slowly and intractably we would all end up holding the one story together, the incredible love that the plants had for us and the gifts they gave. if felt miraculous. and was so many tears.

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