“Listening to Bugs”
Issue #7, November 2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Deena Metzger, Lawrie Hartt, Karen Mutter, Eve Sanders, Andrea Mathieson, Lise Weil, Sharon Simone, Kristin Flyntz
Editorial
VILLAGE MEDICINE
Deena Metzger
Village
Sharon Simone
Fired Anew
Karen Mutter
Village Medicine
Lawrie Hartt
At the Stillpoint of Village Medicine
Eve Rachele Sanders
The View from the Ground
Andrea Mathieson
Listening to Bugs
Christine Holland Cummings
How to Go on When It Keeps Getting Darker
Noelle Imparato
Through Darkness Into Light
Kathy Miriam
Women, Water and Berta Caceras
AFTERMATH: 11/9
Praying Amid the Damage: Dreams, Nightmares, Visions
Kristin Flyntz
The Brown Tide
Sara Wright
Befriending the Dragon
Emilee Baum
The Demoness
Kathleen Kesson
After•Word Feverish World, 2018-2068
Lise Weil
After•Word Climate: A New Story and The Book of Joan
Andrea Mathieson
LISTENING TO BUGS
“A person’s a person, no matter how small…” Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss’ story Horton Hears a Who has always intrigued me, particularly as an adult. Horton is an elephant who hears a voice calling out to him from a speck of dust. He gradually realizes this tiny speck is actually a colony of ‘Whos’ crying out for help to protect their home-planet. With his huge ears, Horton is the only one in the jungle able to hear them. When he tells a kangaroo and some monkeys about what he’s heard, they mock him and try to sabotage his efforts to protect Whoville. To convince his friends, Horton pleads with the tiny community to raise their voices. Though they make their best efforts, their shouting simply isn’t loud enough. When JoJo, the last silent Who, adds his little voice, the jungle animals finally hear their cry and agree to help Horton protect Whoville.
I’ve often felt a bit like Horton. I am an intuitive, dedicated to deep listening as a way of bridging ordinary reality with the imaginal realms, which are experienced more with our intuitive/feeling perceptions than our rational minds. Because it is impossible to convince anyone about something they do not ‘hear’ or experience for themselves, Dr. Seuss’ story is also a metaphor for these times. Like Whoville, our planet is at risk, and who is listening? Who hears the cries of the whales, the bees, the earthworms and the insects?
In this article, I would like to share three encounters I had with little creatures — a bacterium, some bugs in a dream, and a dragonfly. Each encounter nudged my intuition, inviting me to listen even more intensely to these beings. I entered and sustained these conversations through a process I call magnetic listening and was altered in ways I never anticipated.
First, let me describe how I listen.
Quiet and still as a tree, I let my entire body resonate with whatever I’m focusing upon — a plant, a part of my anatomy, or a client’s energy-field. I’ve also listened to various ecosystems, animal and spirit-guides and I’ve spent many hours opening to Gaia and the Soul of the World. Each listening encounter deepens my respect for the Great Mystery of Life.
My breathing slows and life-energy streams through my body like sap in a tree. As I focus to hear the ‘other,’ a gentle intensity builds within me. A protective aura, like the bark of a tree, contains my energy; respecting boundaries, my own and the other’s, is vital. I don’t need to reach out to connect, in fact, in this tree-like posture I am more intensely present than during ordinary conversation.
I then shift my focus to my heart and actively engage this chakra to draw out, like a magnet, what the ‘other’ may choose to share. Magnetic listening is only possible within a field of loving respect. The attitude must be clear and clean. “I want to hear you. I open to receive you, in any way you choose to reveal yourself — through words, images, sounds and/or sensations…” I relax and wait. In this receptive atmosphere of focused listening, energy and information begins to flow.
Hasty clichéd interpretations or swift assumptions about the images and sensory impressions would collapse the field between us and break the rapport. Instead, I maintain this open-hearted listening stance until the conversation feels complete.
Communing with Bacteria
When my holistic practitioner identified several viruses, bacteria and parasites that were compromising my health during testing with a Bi-Com machine that registers subtle body energies, she recommended nullifying their effects with a sonic frequency ‘zapper.’
I saw this as a perfect opportunity to see if I could tune in and intuitively listen to the specific frequency of one bacterium. When I ‘heard’ a very high-pitched screeching sound, I replicated this as precisely as possible with my voice for about five seconds. Pausing to listen again, I heard a different sound — a deep, angry growl. I felt this energy in my body and briefly made the sound with as much sonic accuracy as I could muster. This ‘homeopathic’ listening and sounding process continued for several rounds, the bacterium’s energies shifting as I ‘met and matched’ each different resonance until I sensed we had reached a calm resolution and I asked the practitioner to re-test me. The bacterium was no longer active in my system!
On other occasions, I successfully repeated this technique with a variety of parasites and viruses. Though the experiments were encouraging, I wondered how long the ‘neutralizing’ effects would last. I didn’t know whether they were actually ‘killed’ or whether we had established a different ecological balance within my body. These and other questions require much further experimentation. Meanwhile, the BiCom technology gave me useful information about my health, and I particularly valued these experiences as a way of testing and honing my own intuitive abilities.
Later, I slowly developed these listening and vocalizing skills into an original sound-healing practice called ‘Love Songs.’ The human voice has an enormous capacity to articulate a vast range of frequencies. However, most of us have censored our voices to a very narrow range of acceptable sounds. We learn to do this as at a very young age when we’re told it’s not polite to yell, scream, cry, or at times, even to sing. Throttling our voices becomes a life-long habit, constricting our throat chakras and compromising the flow of energy in our bodies. Without the liberating power of our own voices, freely flowing like rivers through our bodies, our inner landscape can become dry and barren. My intention with clients is to listen and tune specific areas of their bodies, using my voice and occasionally some simple instruments. After the healing session, I offer individualized ways to listen and tune themselves with their own voices.
Working with the transformative power of sound in this highly focused way has challenged me to develop one of my most potent soul-gifts. Forty years of classical training as a pianist were composted to serve this new work. I now view homeopathic listening and sounding as a powerful way to restore the web of Life within our body-souls and to strengthen our resonance with the natural world. Love Songs feels like something ancient, a way of healing that I am remembering and retrieving rather than inventing. I’m grateful for the sound-experiment with the bacteria, parasites and viruses for without the affirmation of this technology, I’m not sure I would have had the confidence to develop this work.
Magnetic Listening and Automatic Writing
Recently, I had another opportunity to practice the art of magnetic listening, this time by paying close attention to a dream.
I am going up a long staircase with white walls and a banister. At the top, on the edge of the banister, is a large creepy crawly creature. I don’t examine it closely. Instead, I yank off a small strip of the railing, about 2 feet long, and shake off the huge bug. Then the dream repeats, now with someone observing me from the bottom of the staircase. This time, at the same place, there is a cluster of creepy crawlies. Again, I pull off the short piece of railing and shake them off. The person at the bottom can see what the creatures are (spiders, beetles, tiny caterpillars?) but I don’t want to know. I just want to get rid of them.
Sensing the dream was important, I paused to listen for wisdom through my heart’s still, small voice. At the time, I was working on writing a book.
You cannot take on a project of this magnitude without it challenging some habits of mind, body and spirit. That’s part of the transformative nature of writing — it brings to light things that are lurking in the dark!
Look at the location of the bugs in your dream. They are near the top of the bannister. As spiritual intensity builds in you through this creative process you encounter these undermining elements. The important factor is that you don’t want to see them — you just want to get rid of them.
Appreciating this information, I decided to delve deeper by communing directly with the bugs. Here’s what I heard:
Look where we live… in plain view on the railing where you will inevitably touch us. We have been waiting for you. Can you let go your squeamish repulsion and be with us?
We would not choose to live here; we would prefer a natural habitat, but we will colonize this zone of consciousness until we are witnessed with respect and our presence is integrated rather than seen as irritating and insignificant. We speak for a whole world of beings that get pushed aside when an ambitious goal takes over. We turn up to remind you to include the little things you don’t think you need or deem important.
Look at the drastic means you took — ripping off the railing rather than gently helping us off and carrying us to where we belong! Such excessive force is based on fear, revulsion and ignorance.
We want to be part of your process of thought and actualization at this lofty stage and we have a vital contribution to make. It is an illusion to think that we, the most-lowly, have nothing to convey to you when in fact, some of the most sophisticated and coordinated shifts needed to successfully navigate these times can be learned through presence and close observation, precisely at times of irritation.
Irritation helps to focus your attention. The human habit of ignoring us at these times completely limits your range of understanding, particularly of some of the critical elements you need. We (the insect kingdom) can work with you as minute messengers, showing you a way through and into higher states of consciousness. We are actively aware of these levels too. As you reach into these realms in your own consciousness, you also activate other dimensions of awareness and communicative abilities within us.
While my initial ideas about homeopathic sound-healing were purely speculative, the bugs’ perspective about how they could work co-creatively with our finely-tuned human consciousness addressed some of my questions about what might actually be occurring during the listening/sounding work.
The experience at the clinic is one of the finest and most precise examples of how a whole new level of your consciousness was activated through this interaction. What was a ‘problematic’ issue proved catalytic, waking a dimension of your listening/sound-healing capabilities. Your initiative to test your intuitive ideas opened a pathway for harmonious resolution for all concerned. In this case, deeply attuned listening and focused sounding were the finest instruments for the required shift. When chemicals are used, you may wipe us out momentarily, but you also do not evolve, and that is the central point here.
We are here to work with you, to achieve the various breakthroughs in consciousness required at this critical time. The type of shift you achieved in the clinic ripples throughout our entire kingdom as a possibility, a breath of opening within our largely adversarial relationship. We are alert and expectant whenever someone hears us, feels us, and is willing to listen and honor our wisdom.
Therefore, we say again — do not ignore us! Pause on the stairs. Bend down and look at us with gentle curiosity. Listen. Sing with us, and we will find our own way Home. Most importantly, as you listen, you will gather the precise skills and insights you need for the rest of your journey.
Communing with a Wounded Dragonfly
I had a remarkable exchange with a wounded dragonfly this summer while holidaying on a remote island in Georgian Bay. Unlike the previous interactions with creatures I couldn’t see, this direct and poignant experience deeply touched my heart, leaving a lasting impression. Though our time was very brief, I felt I was listening to a dear friend as we explored our mutual woundedness and the importance of being witnessed, particularly near the end of life. Dragging his tattered wings over the stone and up onto my fingers, the dragonfly whispered, “Some of the most meaningful conversations occur on the edge of death…”
Andrea Mathieson is a writer, musician, and creator of the Raven Essence project. From her home in Port Hope, Ontario, she hosts Women’s Circles, private retreats and webinars for women. Her current website www.ravenessences.com, will be complemented later this year with an additional website: www.andreamathieson.com. Her books Raven Essences, A Love Affair with Nature and Gaia’s Invitation, 120 Poems from the Sacred Earth, are available through the Raven Essence website.
To comment on this article, please click here.
Copyright © 2014-2021 Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - All rights reserved to individual authors and artists.
Email: Editor@DarkMatterWomenWitnessing.com
Please report any problems with this site to webmaven@DarkMatterWomenWitnessing.com