Missing Witches - WF Granddaughter Crow - The Wisdom Of The Natural World

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00:00:49.100 September 30th

00:00:51.100 is orange shirt day

00:00:53.180 so I wanted to tell you

00:00:55.360 a tiny bit about that history. The inspiration for Orange Shirt Day came from residential school 0.67

00:01:02.180 survivor Phyllis Jack Webstat, who shared her story at a St. Joseph Mission Residential School

00:01:09.200 Commemoration Project and Reunion event held in British Columbia. Phyllis recounted her first

00:01:15.400 day of residential schooling at six years old, when she was stripped of her clothes,

00:01:20.740 including the new orange shirt her grandmother bought her, which was never returned. The orange

00:01:26.700 shirt now symbolizes how the residential school system took away the Indigenous identities of

00:01:33.520 its students. Of course, we understand now that the residential school system took from these

00:01:38.980 Indigenous children a lot more than their identities. And in many cases, too many cases,

00:01:46.300 it was not just their clothing that was stripped of them, but their lives.

00:01:55.640 On this day and every other, we ask our coven to consider how we can make reparations from our own

00:02:04.000 personal lives for the future of us all. Welcome back to the Missing Witches podcast and welcome

00:02:09.940 back also to our good friend granddaughter crow you listeners may remember her from our panel

00:02:16.640 discussion what is a shaman and because granddaughter crow you were such a part of

00:02:23.720 such a kind of a large panel for us we didn't really get as much into you and yourself and

00:02:30.920 your book which i'm holding in my hands right now the wisdom of the natural world i'm loving it

00:02:35.260 your history, your activism. So I wanted to invite you back to the show to talk about all

00:02:42.760 of that. And I know you want to grace our listeners with something before we officially

00:02:47.800 begin. So please, I hand it to you. Absolutely. Absolutely. So welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome

00:02:55.640 to listening to this podcast. Welcome to this space and this time, wherever you are. May I set

00:03:03.700 my ego aside. I'm going to draw a circle around this space and time. I'm going to set my ego to

00:03:09.200 the outside of that circle so I can be a clear conduit to bring to you what is most beneficial

00:03:15.520 to you. And as the divine reveals itself to you, may you enjoy and receive what it is that you

00:03:22.960 are looking for at this moment. Thank you. And thank you. Let us all set our egos outside of

00:03:34.960 this circle. That was wonderful. I have a lot of questions about circles for you, which I was

00:03:40.320 thinking about saving for later, but now let's begin. Sure. I mean, there's so much about circles

00:03:46.760 in your book, once again, The Wisdom of the Natural World, in many different forms. There's

00:03:51.580 the medicine wheel and also the listening circle. Now, when I saw the sort of subheading of listening

00:03:59.540 circle, it was not what I thought it was going to be. You know, we have a concept of the listening

00:04:06.840 circle being this, you know, like where we sit in respect and acknowledgement of other people

00:04:13.300 and their stories. But your version of the listening circle is so useful and different

00:04:20.660 than that. But I feel like they could go very much hand in hand.

00:04:24.680 Absolutely.

00:04:25.580 And they must, in a way. So can you tell our listeners about your version of a listening

00:04:30.700 circle?

00:04:31.960 Absolutely. I'd be honored to. So I made it up.

00:04:39.140 And we love that around these parts. Yeah.

00:04:41.700 Oh, absolutely. It just came to me. So if you could visualize that you have a circle and then

00:04:50.900 you have another circle surrounding that circle, which is a little bit larger. And then you have

00:04:54.840 another circle surrounding that circle, which is even larger. And in the center circle, that is

00:05:02.640 the people who, if you hear from them, you take action. And so that's like, make sure that you

00:05:12.480 are in your center of your circle. I want you to, if you are hungry, if you are tired, if you

00:05:20.360 need something, if you want something, if you, whatever it is, take action on what your body,

00:05:28.000 your mind, your emotions, your spirit is looking to do. Secondly, so then you have, you know,

00:05:36.180 if somebody calls you and says, oh, you know, I need you, you immediately drop what you're doing,

00:05:43.180 you dismiss yourself, you call in sick or whatever, and you take action. There should be just a few

00:05:49.320 people in this circle. The most essential, if you have everybody in this circle, you will

00:05:56.860 just spread yourself way too thin so then if you look at the second circle that's

00:06:03.200 surrounding this circle and you put other people in this one this is the circle that

00:06:09.220 when you hear from them when you listen to them you say a prayer for them you light a candle

00:06:17.160 you but it's not really action oriented you don't draw up everything that you need to do

00:06:22.980 you're like oh man that's really hard I'll hold you up in prayer or yay you you know and and you

00:06:30.040 kind of conduct your life in figuring out who is in what circle and then the final large circle

00:06:35.820 that encompasses all of these is basically like when you hear the news something that is almost

00:06:42.460 indirect but affects and you hear it and you can take action on those things maybe in the future

00:06:50.140 but it doesn't mean that you draw up everything that you're doing and then you kind of figure out

00:06:54.940 maybe you make a group and you address different issues and problems but it's kind of like giving

00:07:00.180 yourself who is in my inner circle who is in the second circle who is in the third circle and if

00:07:08.040 nothing else put yourself in that middle circle and maybe your children or your cat but that's

00:07:15.920 kind of a way to navigate through the world when you have such a huge empathic heart that wants to

00:07:23.660 act and react to everything that's going on in the world it's like let's take a moment and give

00:07:29.220 them tears and then not tears like outside of your eye but like a tear like t-i-d-r and and so

00:07:37.320 that it kind of helps you to navigate when you have such a big heart and when you listen a lot

00:07:41.360 yeah and when i was reading it your your um your explanation was sort of focused on one's

00:07:48.260 personal life you know your closest friends and then the people you know further and further out

00:07:52.960 of that core circle but definitely you know in 2021 um empathetic people like you say sensitive

00:08:00.620 people um we can apply this to our activism as well i think like you say when you look out into

00:08:07.120 the world and there are people suffering in literally every direction you look even in the

00:08:11.780 mirror oftentimes um and so i think it's okay you want to help everyone obviously you know

00:08:18.320 but i think it's okay to have like you know maybe your your innermost circle is you know um not just

00:08:24.800 even the environment but like specifically you know one place and then you know your second

00:08:29.940 circle is maybe reproductive rights or and so on and so on and it is okay to say i'm going to focus

00:08:36.120 on this yes absolutely in fact it makes us more efficient and effective and i want to do everything

00:08:47.700 that i can to help marginalized groups to help um you know bring the ancestors stories keep them

00:08:56.420 alive and through storytelling and direct support and for the purpose of truth meaning that it was

00:09:06.940 once said that history is written by the victor and more often than not the victor is not the

00:09:15.680 marginalized group and so if we can tell the stories of said marginalized groups we keep

00:09:24.840 our history more true and we keep it honest and we keep it alive and we learn from it and we grow

00:09:34.540 from it and we all kind of come together and realize that as many differences as we have

00:09:41.280 there's more similarities there are more similarities and there are differences so

00:09:47.460 can you share with our listeners a bit of your personal history in making that real and true

00:09:54.080 for us? Absolutely. I think that one could, if there was a book that says The Life of Granddaughter

00:10:02.220 Crow, it would say keeping the ancestor's voice alive. So my history is that I'm living in

00:10:11.600 North Glen, Colorado. It's right outside of Denver. And I've been living here for 25 years.

00:10:16.520 I love my home, and my husband, and my cats. But where I came from, my father is full-blood

00:10:26.520 Navajo Indian from the Navajo Nations, which is positioned in what we call the Four Corners

00:10:32.640 region, which is Colorado, Utah, Phoenix, or Arizona, and New Mexico. And my clan comes from

00:10:43.200 the New Mexico side, on the upper corner of that. And so my father was born on the res. And then he

00:10:51.720 went to seminary school, where he met my mother, and she is full blood Dutch, right? So cowboys and 1.00

00:10:59.040 Indians all up in here. And my mother is Dutch Dutch, like she has the lightest skin that you 0.95

00:11:07.380 would ever see can't go out in the sun blonde hair you know hazel eyes and my

00:11:14.260 father is a full Navajo like English is his second language and so they met in

00:11:23.040 seminary school and they became missionaries to go back down to the

00:11:27.480 Navajo Nation and what they ended out doing was bringing more of a

00:11:33.940 christianized thought process which i'm not going to speak of whether i agree or disagree i believe

00:11:40.000 that the divine is big enough to speak to us in different forms uh depending on where we are

00:11:45.920 so basically i come i come from a place i'll say this i was native before being native was cool

00:11:54.380 that's how i like to decide i was native american before being native american was

00:12:00.520 cool. Now people love that. Oh, granddaughter, Carl, you're Native American. My grandmother is

00:12:06.320 part Cherokee. I can't tell you how many times I hear that. Maybe all of their grandmothers are

00:12:11.240 part Cherokee. That's my little insight. In fact, it was funny because I went to a powwow and there

00:12:16.680 was a shirt that said, my grandmother is part English. I just can't prove it. That's what a

00:12:23.800 native would kind of you know so nevertheless when i look at my story i need to back up before

00:12:32.420 my life here in the third dimension came my father um he was born in like 1932 somewhere in there

00:12:43.200 this was around the time where the uh uh the people i'll just say the people some people that 0.88

00:12:51.940 what I'll call them as Biligana, the ones that are white skin, came in and took my father when

00:12:59.480 he was eight or nine years old from the Hogan, which is a traditional Navajo dwelling, him and 0.96

00:13:06.040 his sisters and brother, and took him to a boarding school, which to them in a weird way, 0.97

00:13:14.120 I think these Biligana had this idea that they're helping. And I think, and that's really scary. And 0.95

00:13:21.760 I have to look at that because I'm Dutch, right?

00:13:24.040 And a lot of these boarding schools down here on the Navajo res were run by the Dutch people.

00:13:30.300 And so he was taken, his hair was cut.

00:13:34.300 He was denied his language, a.k.a. heritage, identity.

00:13:41.900 He was told to speak English.

00:13:45.240 So my father learned how to speak English, but he didn't understand it.

00:13:50.040 he understood the words and he understood how to read the words but he didn't understand

00:13:54.440 how to think like that and then one day he figured out how to think english and how to think as an

00:14:02.600 english speaker which the thought process is very very different i think i talk about that

00:14:08.520 in the book um if not it'll be you know you'll hear me talk about it you can check out my youtube

00:14:13.720 channel to figure out you know what i'm talking about that either you think in the language that

00:14:18.360 you see and because that's your structure right so nevertheless he was taken and you know you like

00:14:28.760 to say oh boarding school well that sounds like you know very structured place um in actuality

00:14:35.480 it's more like boot camp it's more like boot camp to the degree that in my father's generation after

00:14:44.200 you graduate from said boot camp you join the army and when you join or the military

00:14:52.580 that's what you do and if you are only 17 you are told say that you're 18 and when they say

00:14:59.140 my father's original name is not spoken um they gave him a name when he was eight or nine years

00:15:07.380 old. And when he joined the army, he changed it. So he was first Jefferson, and then he

00:15:14.380 changed it to Jackson because he liked that name. So this is how removed the English speaking 0.93

00:15:24.540 and thinking society was from the First Nation, the Navajo Nation. And so it became that when

00:15:32.940 he went to the to the army he it was easy breeze boot camp was a breeze because he's been doing

00:15:41.280 that since he was nine years old standing out there in the middle of the desert not drinking

00:15:45.800 water making your bed just saying yes sir okay and and the hard part about this that i've never 0.98

00:15:53.900 heard anybody talk about but i see it is that you have these little natives and everybody who is

00:16:02.520 white, because the Natives, the white kids didn't go to the school, everybody who is in a position

00:16:08.840 of authority is an adult white person. And that wreaks havoc on the First Nations childlike psyche. 0.94

00:16:22.160 Feeling oppression, feeling that the older white people know more, know things that you don't know,

00:16:31.800 that stays within my father still to this day he will ask and defer to my mom because she is white

00:16:40.520 and in that yeah yeah so that's a point that i wanted to make and in that there is more

00:16:52.200 there is more pain that that we need to rewrite this story so now what i do

00:16:58.920 do is I tell these stories, and I keep my ancestors alive, hence the name Granddaughter

00:17:06.420 Crow, because it was my grandfather on my dad's side who danced with the crows and

00:17:12.200 the ravens, Medicine Man.

00:17:15.460 He is the one that gave me his spirit of the crow and of the raven, and I am here to keep

00:17:21.600 those stories alive, not just with the First Nations, not just with the Indigenous, although

00:17:28.080 that's the closest to my personal story, but within all marginalized groups to start having

00:17:35.240 these conversations. Yes. And your desire to keep these stories, I thought I was muted for a second

00:17:43.480 and I got scared that I'd forgotten to unmute myself. We can hear you loud. It's not just the

00:17:49.520 human stories that interest you, which is kind of a great segue into your book, The Wisdom of

00:17:55.820 the natural world i mean you talk about plants animals landscapes and having their own stories

00:18:02.620 to tell let me this is one of my favorite it's not even a whole line it's like four words or

00:18:08.440 something um being able to translate the land's energy into a story can you expand on that

00:18:18.660 Yeah, so I'm not sure what the book said, I'll just be plain blunt, but I will tell

00:18:26.700 you what I hear today, post book, being able to translate the landscape into a story.

00:18:35.980 So there is a wonderful book called Spell of the Sensuous, and in that book it talks

00:18:45.780 about uh aboriginal people in um australia and that as they walk along the land as they walk

00:18:58.380 along the outback i suppose you know they will tell a story and the story is continued to be told

00:19:06.660 and when i read that i was like oh that sounds like my dad when we walk around on the res he

00:19:13.800 tells me the same story every time when I was little it was really like but it it was in that

00:19:22.300 tradition and so I have a lot of thoughts and theories around this but what I'll say is that

00:19:28.700 the land holds a story and the oral culture such as the Navajo culture

00:19:36.580 continues to pass that history down explaining what the land is about explaining what took

00:19:44.680 place in that to make those sacred mountains to make that that river the center of life blood

00:19:53.600 flow within the the res um to you know in the navajo way we have you know the four sacred

00:20:02.260 mountains that surround us and and this and there's stories behind us that these stories are

00:20:08.820 somewhat like parables they start turning into parables because they have a meaning to show

00:20:15.140 how to walk in this world another thing that i i find fascinating is that when i look at my father's

00:20:22.580 face it is red it is rugged it is beautiful when i look at a mountain down on the res the red rocks

00:20:35.460 i see my father's face i wonder if if we are staying in a place long enough

00:20:43.460 do we does our body start becoming the land i look at uh people from hawaii they are so

00:20:52.580 plush and circular and youthful and I look at the coconuts and I look at the water and I'm like

00:21:02.000 wow you guys look like the land so that's I come up with all sorts of these things you know

00:21:08.380 yeah I mean you got me thinking like Scandinavians are like um icy blue and yes like glaciers like

00:21:17.680 And that's the thing about those of us who live in North America who are not Indigenous, is that we are perhaps unable to recognize connections like that because we don't have them, because we haven't been here long enough for our features to be reflected or to reflect.

00:21:38.280 Right. Right. I absolutely can see where you're coming from, but that's where I think the wisdom

00:21:45.300 of the natural world comes into play because it helps you to identify your personality with that

00:21:54.080 of a plant, helps you to identify your personality with that of an animal, helps you to identify

00:22:01.320 your work environment with a landscape you know is it are you working in a

00:22:07.860 place that you have to climb these mountains are you working in a place

00:22:10.860 that it's so dry as a desert are you working in this luscious place that

00:22:15.140 everything they touch rose and not only that it helps you to look at the world

00:22:22.200 around you through those lenses about animals like if you were in a group of

00:22:29.120 people and you behave like i would a crow and so i talk a lot and i get mystical and then maybe

00:22:36.080 somebody else has a cat totem so i make sure that i stay high enough that that cat doesn't eat me

00:22:41.840 but there is a relationship there and you honor and respect the cat you know and then there's

00:22:47.360 a spider person over here well crows eat spiders so it's like be careful with that relationship

00:22:54.000 and honor them you know so it is with all of us that we see you know the wisdom of the natural

00:23:00.400 world the subtitle is spiritual and practical lessons and teachings from plants animals and

00:23:07.480 mother earth and so even if you are scandinavian and you live in new york and you say oh i'm so 0.97

00:23:15.440 far away from myself wisdom of the natural world will say oh you silly goose you are the natural 0.90

00:23:25.260 world you are the natural world you are an aspect of this organic natural world but i think that 0.95

00:23:34.080 there has been such a religious input that says that we are above

00:23:43.720 animals and plants that has destroyed that within our human psyche. And what I say is that

00:23:54.280 if you go back far enough in any and all of our backgrounds, our DNA, you go back far enough,

00:24:01.900 we all sat in circle around a fire and told stories so we are all tribe

00:24:08.460 yeah the the religiosity of hierarchy something that i think a lot about when i'm considering my

00:24:18.620 own personal notion of deities and what a deity might mean in terms of there being like a spiritual

00:24:24.220 hierarchy and i remember my my stepdad responded to my you know burgeoning vegetarianism and

00:24:31.880 many, many years ago by saying like the Bible says that man has dominion over the plants and

00:24:37.480 the animals. So therefore God is telling us to destroy them or that they're solely meant for

00:24:47.640 our consumption, that this God, this Christian God created everything solely for us to consume. 0.84

00:24:54.100 And so it's easy to draw a very straight line between that idea and then where we're at now 0.99

00:25:00.540 with the destruction of our species' ability to live on the planet.

00:25:06.760 I won't say destruction of the planet because...

00:25:09.220 Right, because we'll be destroyed before the planet will.

00:25:12.420 We'll just throw it out there.

00:25:14.540 Yeah, we will be gone long before our floating rock that we inhabit will be gone.

00:25:19.220 I mean, we know this.

00:25:20.060 We know from science that there have been ice ages

00:25:22.040 and various changes of the globe that we inhabit.

00:25:27.920 it and the only thing that we are concretely destroying is our ability to live here yeah

00:25:33.520 and once again when you connect that to this and all of these things that we're talking about the

00:25:38.160 residential school system there's no question in my mind that these people these bad evil people

00:25:45.600 who created and did this thought somehow based on this weird bible of that they were doing the

00:25:53.620 right thing and I think that that's the same today as it was then that there's nobody out there who

00:25:58.980 thinks I'm evil like we see a cartoon or something where the bad guy's like I'm gonna everybody I'm 0.98

00:26:05.120 here to save the world I'm yeah I'm going to bomb this abortion clinic because I know save the world

00:26:11.800 from this person who's evil and like you said before like that's the really scary part yes I

00:26:18.340 think you know yes it is it is and um which kind of brings me to briefly speak about um my next

00:26:29.080 book that will be coming out in june 2022 and that is i forgot the whole title but basically

00:26:38.360 it's called belief being and beyond and then yeah belief being and beyond and

00:26:47.140 And this book is about examining your belief system, because your belief system constitutes

00:26:56.340 how you behave in the world, and that maybe there's something beyond that.

00:27:04.140 And that we all have blind spots.

00:27:06.640 You know, I was raised by a reverend of the Christian faith.

00:27:10.160 I was a good little Christian girl trying to save the world, you know, stopping people

00:27:14.760 on the street saying God loves you.

00:27:16.600 I mean, I was that person, right, until I got to be about 15 years old.

00:27:22.840 And I'm like, wait a second, this doesn't make sense.

00:27:25.080 How come it talks about unconditional love, yet we're judging everybody else,

00:27:29.540 and that some people on the planet aren't going to understand the Christian God,

00:27:33.820 and then they automatically go to hell?

00:27:35.680 How is that a host? 0.83

00:27:36.720 And unfortunately, that's what ousted me from my Christian-believing family.

00:27:42.420 But I think that it is worth examining.

00:27:44.940 And so in this book, the little title underneath it says something like how to critically think about ideas, how to deconstruct old things that aren't working, old belief systems, how to heal from harmful belief systems.

00:28:07.280 and i think that it is so ingrained within north america um this christianized thinking

00:28:17.680 that we don't even see it anymore but the harm and i i know i know that the that the

00:28:26.780 there's another story about my dad um my dad says when i was a little boy uh the belagana woman 0.85

00:28:35.120 told me oh there's these people they're savages they run around naked they don't they are like 0.81

00:28:44.980 animals and they're mean and they will kill you and they are called indians and my dad went out 1.00

00:28:53.760 onto the playground and was with his little buddy and said i am scared of these indians 1.00

00:28:59.760 and my dad's friend said oh she said that we're indians and he goes i'm not indian i'm navajo 0.78

00:29:09.320 you know it's like the whole other side of the world what's she talking

00:29:14.060 so that kind of thinking about i am not going to listen to you and and listen to what it is

00:29:24.400 that you are asking for, if you're asking me for anything at all, I am not going to force

00:29:30.380 my belief system onto you. And please do not force your belief system onto me. So I try to

00:29:39.220 write these books so that we can start exploring, that we all have blind spots, me included.

00:29:48.680 it is not foolish to have a blind spot.

00:29:52.420 What is foolish is to think that you don't. 0.91

00:29:58.120 Or to perpetrate a willfully blind spot, right? 0.99

00:30:02.700 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:30:04.960 I'm just not going to listen to anything about any of that.

00:30:07.900 You know, willful blind spots are different than ones that just happen, right?

00:30:11.360 Right, right.

00:30:12.260 And I do want to say that, you know,

00:30:14.740 these things that are going on of the um the residential schools up in canada i want to

00:30:21.820 applaud you because i think that that needs to trickle down to the north america because

00:30:28.740 we will find that that happened all over north america yeah and and this was quite frankly

00:30:38.200 probably right around, you know, 1940s, right around there.

00:30:43.660 But if you look back far enough, the First Nations,

00:30:47.840 if you look back into 1860, 1865, the Long Walk of the Navajo,

00:30:53.660 the Trail of Tears, I'm sure that there are everybody's version 0.86

00:30:58.260 of First Nation where somebody who came in to take over the land

00:31:02.900 in a very Christianized thought process

00:31:05.000 tried to 0.75

00:31:06.940 eliminate

00:31:08.280 and erase 0.98

00:31:09.640 erase us

00:31:13.220 because of some superiority

00:31:16.540 because they looked at us as though

00:31:18.820 we were animals

00:31:20.260 and animals not meaning

00:31:22.820 yay I'm an animal

00:31:23.760 I love that aspect

00:31:25.320 I'm like hell yeah

00:31:26.560 I'm a crow

00:31:28.180 but moreover

00:31:30.780 the animals aren't alone

00:31:32.900 yeah that they do not have feelings they do not have thoughts they do not have personalities

00:31:37.660 that breaks my heart yes yeah and especially considering you know we we think about this

00:31:44.800 notion of what life was if we if we were raised in christian households let me start this by saying

00:31:50.220 um this notion of the garden of eden and beautiful nudity and shameless shamelessness that existed 0.91

00:31:59.160 before you know the snake and the eating of the apple and all that and then for these christian

00:32:04.800 people to use that exact same scenario looking at these people who by our accounts of genesis

00:32:11.120 are the people of eden you know living oh very wonderful point you know living in their shameless

00:32:18.140 nudity and for some reason the mental gymnastics involved yeah it's crazy it's crazy it's crazy

00:32:28.380 but again like so normal so crazy to us but so normal and and i believe that the reason that is

00:32:37.300 is because we forgot we were told not to ask questions do not question your authority do not 0.51

00:32:50.520 question god do not question anything you blindly follow whatever the hell i tell you

00:33:00.200 because i do too so we were now we turn into sheeple and we were raised in households that

00:33:08.360 told us crazy things and of course we aren't supposed to question it because if you question

00:33:16.780 god or at least a christianized god that's considered a sin but i will not worship a god

00:33:24.800 that i am not allowed a god or a goddess that i am not allowed to ask them questions the ones that

00:33:29.980 i work with solicit questions and personally my deity is mother earth yes and you have a very

00:33:39.680 intricate and yet super simple messaging system with this deity can you tell us about how you

00:33:45.780 communicate with the earth and the wisdom of the natural world. And part two, how listeners for

00:33:53.480 whom this concept is unthinkable, or at least they wouldn't even know where to start. So how

00:33:59.140 do you do it? And then how would you suggest someone who is just beginning to learn this

00:34:04.260 language start? Sure. Start the dialogue with the natural world. Well, after I say what I'm

00:34:13.920 about ready to say, you guys will realize that you already are dialoguing with the natural world.

00:34:19.740 And this is what I'll say. I took a communications class in my undergrad where I learned that

00:34:26.480 like I think it's like 7% of communication is actually words, which means that 93% is body

00:34:35.700 language, tone, facial structure, you know, pitch, how fast you say something, how low you say

00:34:43.880 something, how loud you say something. Like if I were to yell, I love you. You don't know if I'm

00:34:51.780 mad about that. You probably feel like I like that you say I love you, but why did you have to yell

00:34:58.420 it you know so in that realizing that what we are how we communicate with each other

00:35:06.140 is 93 percent facial structure tone pitch body language and that we only really communicate seven

00:35:18.180 percent then we will stop trying to make the tree speak our language and we will see oh the tree

00:35:27.180 says, what does the tree say to you? He says to me, I'm strong. I have been here longer than you

00:35:33.240 have. I have seen so many things, so many winters. I have experienced the harsh winds blow and it

00:35:45.540 made me stronger. So stand tall and maybe you will get criticized, the harsh winds, but let it make

00:35:55.180 stronger endure the winters for spring is bound to come so that's kind of in

00:36:04.540 short how I do it as I let it I look at it and I take away the language that I

00:36:13.020 speak and I let it speak to me through its body language and then if you want

00:36:20.360 to these are really fun things you can go out and you can just sit in an open

00:36:24.960 space or park or in your own backyard and let just breathe just breathe then open close your eyes

00:36:34.460 take a few deep breaths and then open your eyes and look around what catches your eye and whatever

00:36:42.840 catches your eye just look at it watch how it's behaving well and and look at its characteristics

00:36:50.120 you can bring your journal you can say these are the characteristics of

00:36:54.120 whatever it is that caught your eye in the natural world this is how it's

00:36:58.820 moving and then oh okay so then let's take it a step further let's go oh I'm

00:37:08.620 confused in my relationships in my romance house I'm confused in my work

00:37:18.060 and my career and my finances oh I'm confused in and my health these are the

00:37:27.060 top three things that people tend to get confused in so take that okay natural

00:37:35.640 world I am going to move into you and then you are going to move through me

00:37:40.140 and my question is explain to me what's going on in my career and then you just

00:37:47.640 kind of take a walk with your journal you will see the natural world will

00:37:52.160 emulate how what the what what's going on what is the environment what is it

00:37:57.640 starts talking to you it starts talking to you you know most people would be

00:38:02.820 like you could say oh yeah your work is like the desert nothing grows oh yeah

00:38:10.140 that's exactly how I feel but I've got so much to offer oh yeah that's because

00:38:15.180 you know you need to change the environment so that you can plant your

00:38:19.540 seeds in the conducive environment that will allow your talents, your inspiration,

00:38:25.980 your authenticity to grow. But let me tell you, if you are a lizard or you are a 0.53

00:38:31.620 snake, you may be drawn to those dry environments. So nothing is right or wrong.

00:38:36.540 We're the ones who put these good and evil things on there. The natural world

00:38:42.420 it rebalances itself and it's it's not all pretty either and neither is our life

00:38:49.540 so the natural world will be able to say yeah you're in a hurricane but look at how we get

00:38:55.500 through hurricanes to what happens you know it's honest one of the most incredible messages that

00:39:04.580 i've begun to receive i've been living in the woods for just a few years now so i i focus on

00:39:10.340 um you know listening and paying attention the the absorption side of communication not so much

00:39:16.040 delivering messages to this to this place but one of the most beautiful things that i'm i'm only

00:39:22.480 just beginning to fully recognize even is the taking turns the the working together like nature

00:39:32.780 is in under capitalism it's like everything all at once and you know there are billboards

00:39:39.380 everywhere and everything wants your attention but in my little patch here you know the dandelions

00:39:46.180 come up first and then the dandelions kind of you know pass and and then other wildflowers and then

00:39:52.940 different colors and then they and then the last things of the the growing season are always you

00:39:58.560 know the asters and the goldenrod but you don't see asters and goldenrod until like august you

00:40:04.440 know like everyone is sort of patiently taking their turn and doing their contribution and and

00:40:10.720 it makes sure that you know the pollinators have somebody to hit up you know for the year here

00:40:17.120 because our winters are very long and very cold and and once again there's also a beauty in that

00:40:22.760 that I didn't recognize when I was living in the city you know when I lived in the city I hated

00:40:27.600 winter because it was just the same but cold you know out here it's completely different it's it's

00:40:34.100 calming it's not treacherous you know yeah it's it's sleepy time it's hibernation time it's when

00:40:41.060 you know the life cycle of a tree is one of our well okay so i want to say this without sounding

00:40:51.220 too confusing a tree's day is our year a tree wakes up in the springtime stretches in the

00:41:03.160 summertime and then gently falls to sleep in the august september whatever wherever you were at

00:41:12.440 in the autumn and then it sleeps during the night oh you missed a crucial step though

00:41:19.020 oh yeah before it goes to sleep it releases what it doesn't need and what

00:41:23.840 oh my god that is so beautiful because the trees you know we suffer in this

00:41:31.620 hold crew world because it says just let go and you're like no i gotta hold on for my life

00:41:36.760 if you want to learn how to let go go talk to a tree in the autumn it lets it releases

00:41:43.880 its little leaves that dance in the sun and happily go about its way just like releasing

00:41:52.760 a thought or an idea you know so it's it's that a day where you could even say that a tree

00:41:59.920 it's one breath is our year where it makes up and it inhales and then all of a sudden it holds

00:42:14.220 its breath for a moment and then in the autumn it exhales and it goes to sleep so when you look

00:42:22.300 at those patterns talking about circles those are the circles and so you know we in the in our in

00:42:30.800 our thinking we need to create these calendars and sometimes they work but every four years we need

00:42:36.160 to add a day and you know just look at the natural world it has its own life cycle its own beingness

00:42:45.060 and I love that you say that it takes turns absolutely because that is

00:42:52.440 the organism that we could learn from what if we were to take turns

00:42:59.300 you reminded me of the very first line of your book which is Michael Smith

00:43:05.420 Michael Smith wrote the foreword to your book and you know like I say it's the very first line

00:43:10.420 in the book and you read it and you're like this is gonna be good

00:43:13.460 michael smith props to him wrote breathe in now breathe out you have just experienced a complete

00:43:24.220 cycle of life you have experienced in that simple moment a microcosm of the entire universe yeah

00:43:33.220 isn't that amazing i think you know for for those of our listeners who um are having trouble with

00:43:42.000 this like natural world connection i think is is like you say like go somewhere and breathe

00:43:47.560 yeah you know it's a great first step and breathe and you know another thing is is that

00:43:55.240 if you want to develop more of your relationship with the natural world go out in the morning

00:44:02.780 sit under a tree and breathe and look around notice the way that the shadow is cast

00:44:09.980 notice what birds and squirrels fly in and out of it and then make your notes go back inside

00:44:17.280 and then come out at noon and compare and contrast go back inside do your little thing

00:44:27.680 or whatever you come back outside in the evening notice it's in the same spot notice how it changed

00:44:34.840 right take your notes about the characteristics and the attributes and and what's going on because

00:44:40.440 wow there were so many birds in the morning where did they all go in the evening you know

00:44:45.180 um and then set your alarm wake up at midnight and go sit under that tree

00:44:50.260 yeah do that a few times you'll start connecting with oh wow i thought it was just a tree but now

00:44:57.420 i understand everything changes in the cycle of one day and of course you could do that same thing

00:45:03.920 every day for a year and a day you know that's that's just witchy fun that's just a whole lot

00:45:10.740 of witchy fun yeah and even then you know when i when i stare at my trees sometimes i get super

00:45:17.640 excited about the idea that what i'm observing an almost mirror of that a negative mirror in the

00:45:25.460 sense of you know black and white um is happening underground yes the root systems are spreading

00:45:31.680 like like limbs like in the same way that the limbs spread above ground there's a whole other

00:45:36.980 universe happening that i never get to see and again that to me is such an amazing metaphor for

00:45:42.820 our personal lives you know there is what we see and then there's the unseen and and in our

00:45:48.400 contemporary thinking the unseen doesn't exist or it's it's not real or you know what if we can't

00:45:55.400 see it it's not real then how do you explain dirt and roots you know worms and and you know

00:46:02.260 mushrooms and all the millions and billions of things that are going on underneath us

00:46:06.360 the amazing architecture of ants yes the way ants design their colonies it's like

00:46:13.400 crazy and again like we were saying like ants are individuals but they operate as a unit yeah

00:46:21.620 that complete organism in fact i heard i'm not sure if this is true or not but it's a really

00:46:27.900 cool story so we'll pretend for a second that it is true i heard that um groundhogs are able to

00:46:35.680 build underground a something that we can learn that of a of a system that cools itself down

00:46:44.420 like an ac unit by the way that they build it you know like this is up here heat rises i got to

00:46:51.180 build a lower hole to draw in some of the cooler air you know so i mean it's it's phenomenal what

00:46:57.060 you can learn from the natural world it is absolutely phenomenal and i think that you know

00:47:04.520 i have another book out uh it's called uh the journey of the soul the path of a medicine person

00:47:10.920 and all of these you can get up on amazon kindle or you just request it from your local bookstore

00:47:17.200 they can order it straight from Llewellyn. But that book was kind of like, we earn the medicine

00:47:24.680 that we carry, we earn the wisdom that we have, and we earn this through life's dark night of the

00:47:29.820 soul. Those initiations are what causes us to be strong, just like the harsh winds caused the tree

00:47:36.080 to be strong. Do not hide from these shadows. Do not hide from these stories that you wish

00:47:43.840 you didn't have to think about mine them go to a therapist call granddaughter crow call a friend

00:47:50.720 figure out what about that story made you stronger what do you now understand that you did not

00:47:57.120 understand and and carry that wisdom with you and you don't have to walk around telling your story

00:48:02.620 i believe that once you mine that jewel it is carried within your energetic field and people

00:48:08.820 will come up to you and they're like i don't know i can't talk to anybody about this but i feel it

00:48:12.700 like you would understand you don't have to tell them why you'd understand but you can go yeah

00:48:17.260 you you've become a medicine person in your own regard you know and uh medicine people are in all

00:48:25.380 cultures okay they're in all cultures there is a healer whatever you want to call it in all cultures

00:48:33.300 so do not just because your skin may be lighter than mine doesn't mean that you can't be a medicine

00:48:39.720 person to me especially in regards to your own health your own absolutely yes you don't need to

00:48:47.300 start going and telling everybody how to you know let's start with where I like to say I start with

00:48:53.040 the man in the mirror and then I love that from there you know yeah and you know that that brings

00:48:57.960 me to another point um just because you notice something in somebody else's life doesn't

00:49:04.540 necessarily give you the right to tell them what you think. Always wait for

00:49:10.060 people to ask you. If they ask your opinion, give it to them. But otherwise, let them

00:49:19.060 learn their lessons. Let them live their story. Let their internal narrative come

00:49:24.000 out. We are not here to save each other. We are not here to save each other. I

00:49:29.520 don't think anybody needs to be saved. I think we all go through hard times and

00:49:33.900 could use a friend you know but that's a christianized thinking that oh i'm gonna what i'm

00:49:40.700 gonna do is i'm going to make this huge company and then i'm going to make it green or i'm going

00:49:45.660 to donate or i'm going to have a matching gifts which which basically i just want this company

00:49:51.100 because i want the power and control the money but i will cloak it in this oh yeah well i have

00:49:57.500 have a matching gifts program or i did this that's that's christianized cloak that's how i see it

00:50:04.220 you just make me think of like the absurdity of if you can imagine like a dandelion telling a

00:50:11.480 golden rod like right to show up sooner i come out in like april may i come out in may and we're like

00:50:19.140 both yellow and we're both flowers so i don't understand why you're waiting till august

00:50:23.400 obviously may is the time that yellow flowers are supposed to bloom it's absurd to even think about

00:50:28.980 but that's what we do as humans to each other yes we do yes we do my son when he was um up and

00:50:35.120 coming in his industry uh which is working with um repairing heavy equipment and uh he was he was

00:50:43.960 at this shop and uh he calls me up at noon and he's like um i don't know what you do and i said

00:50:50.220 well what's going on and he says all of my co-workers are telling me to slow down because

00:50:55.080 I make them look bad and when the when the foreman comes in you know everybody works and but I just

00:51:03.480 work all the time what do I do do I need to slow down and become their friend what do I do and I

00:51:10.720 said Michael you are a tree and they are bushes there is only so far that they will want to grow

00:51:17.640 but you will outgrow where you are and someday you will be the foreman

00:51:21.760 and you will understand what happens when you're not in the book.

00:51:26.900 Well, this year he became a foreman.

00:51:30.820 So it's fine. A bush has a job. 1.00

00:51:34.660 You know, flowers have a job.

00:51:37.380 My tree doesn't look down at my rose bushes and say, 0.99

00:51:40.700 you, what is this pretty little flower shit, right? 0.98

00:51:44.200 the tree is like be you be your authenticity and i think that that's my mission is here on earth 0.99

00:51:53.680 is to inspire to encourage to empower people to be their authenticity even if their authenticity

00:52:00.840 doesn't like me because maybe maybe i am your cactus you know maybe what i say rubs you the

00:52:08.040 wrong way. That's fine. Don't listen. You just made me think of one thing. So maybe we'll sort

00:52:16.160 of sum up with this. I'm just going to read it straight from the book. You planted 18 stalks of

00:52:24.520 raven grass. Now I'm going into your voice here. I wanted to monitor and record the growth of the

00:52:31.480 grass. So I picked one plant and took pictures of it every week or two to see how fast it would grow

00:52:36.160 in order to compare with where it started. Why not? It was fun. I love that you included that.

00:52:42.400 Why not? It was fun. At the end of the summer, the stock that I was monitoring and recording

00:52:48.600 grew to be twice the size of the other ones, and it was the only stock that plumed.

00:52:54.560 At this point, I realized that the natural world recognizes when it is being observed and may

00:53:01.920 possibly even have an ego now this next line i have highlighted in several different colors and

00:53:07.680 a little star i have my own you know system for note making but i want it on a t-shirt energy

00:53:14.420 flows where consciousness goes and i think that that could maybe be a mantra for us all no matter

00:53:24.380 what we're doing can you just like give us a little bit to add a little subheading for our

00:53:31.480 title of energy goes absolutely you know i think there's like this old saying that you know if

00:53:41.140 you've got a headache you can hit your hand with a hammer and the headache will cease to exist

00:53:48.160 right so because your energy goes to your hands now you know please don't do that

00:53:54.600 go get a massage or something you know lay down but at the end of the day if i 0.99

00:54:03.540 go shit shopping i will indeed find shit if i seek out miracles i will indeed find miracles 0.99

00:54:11.700 if I think about what is good in the world it starts emulating from me if I think about you 1.00

00:54:19.560 know emotional energy where your emotional energy goes you know they say it's the grass is greener

00:54:28.140 on the other side of the fence meaning that you might want to get out of a relationship

00:54:31.520 I say the grass is greener where you water it right and so if you're thinking about your

00:54:38.760 consciousness is your essence and we talk in in witchy terms and metaphysical terms and all of

00:54:45.840 this about consciousness i'm here to say direct your consciousness because where you direct it

00:54:51.700 that will grow you know if i sit here thinking you know if i sit here thinking about um you know as

00:55:00.440 you were speaking about your trees i can see your trees in my mind's eye i don't know exactly what

00:55:06.840 they look like but now I'm sitting there with you looking at this tree which to me is out that side

00:55:13.340 of you you know that there's this big tree or something you know and I'm just guessing but it's

00:55:17.620 like my energy flowed with your consciousness and I was I went there with you it's beautiful

00:55:23.380 you can think about that in so many different ways but yes energy flows where consciousness

00:55:28.540 goes and so take your consciousness and put it into a beautiful place and if you are going

00:55:34.780 through a hard time and you don't have the strength or energy to do magic, I will say

00:55:40.420 if you wear lipstick or chapstick, get some stickers, put a heart on your chapstick so

00:55:48.420 that in the morning when you put it on, your consciousness will go, may lovely words come

00:55:54.020 out of my mouth. Maybe foil a bunch of eggs and on the eggs put runes or words like peace, joy,

00:56:05.420 love. And then throughout your week, just go in there and close your eyes and pull out an egg

00:56:12.640 and think about that. And then ingest that energy, right? There are so many different ways. Like when

00:56:20.240 i um take a shower i let i think to myself i'm not just cleansing my physical body let this pour

00:56:29.040 through my emotional body and clear away all of those residual energies let this water flow over

00:56:36.120 my mind and settle my thoughts let this purity roll through my spirit and let me tell you that

00:56:42.080 shower turns into like a power deep cleansing you don't need to go see the reiki masters day

00:56:49.340 because you just did it yourself you know i mean of course go see the reiki master but

00:56:53.460 also go see the reiki master also yeah we need to keep them them fed and alive because they give us

00:57:00.600 a great gift but yeah so energy goes for consciousness goes so direct your consciousness

00:57:08.040 if not only for a moment and realize that when you are observing the natural world

00:57:15.720 And it is observing back.

00:57:20.140 Yes.

00:57:21.260 Thank you so much, Granddaughter Crow.

00:57:23.260 Thank you to you and to our listeners for sharing your consciousness.

00:57:26.760 All of us together in this moment, in these voices, the heard and unheard, the seen and unseen.

00:57:33.400 Thank you so much, Granddaughter Crow, for telling stories, for keeping the wisdom of the natural world in our minds

00:57:42.860 and at the forefront as we go seeking our own wisdom

00:57:46.300 to know that it is out there waiting for us,

00:57:50.440 just waiting to be observed

00:57:51.900 so it can flourish and flow even more.

00:57:56.260 Yes, that's beautifully said, beautifully said.

00:57:59.880 Now, practically, where can our listeners get a hold of you

00:58:03.460 if they want to reach out to you?

00:58:05.180 You shared both of your books are on Llewellyn,

00:58:08.500 which is, you know, most of us witches know Llewellyn.

00:58:11.940 Right.

00:58:12.860 Well, actually, both of my books are on Amazon and Kindle.

00:58:17.520 Llewellyn, I self-published my first book.

00:58:20.200 Oh, you did?

00:58:21.260 Yeah, so you can get it off of Amazon or Kindle.

00:58:25.660 And or, you know, maybe even order it from your local bookstore.

00:58:30.320 The Wisdom of the Natural World, which is spiritual and practical teachings from plants, animals, and Mother Earth.

00:58:36.060 You can get that one on Kindle and Amazon, but you can also get it directly from Llewellyn.

00:58:41.560 or you can call your local witchy shop and or your closest Barnes and Noble and just order it

00:58:47.100 straight from them and if you do want to reach out to me I would welcome that even if you just

00:58:53.000 have a comment that uh you wanted to bring that because maybe in this dialogue together something

00:58:59.840 clicked and you want to share it um again energy goes or consciousness flows if you spread that

00:59:07.220 consciousness it will even more solidify itself in your story i'm happy to connect with you guys

00:59:14.620 via email i think the easiest way to get a hold of me is just www.granddaughtercrow.com

00:59:21.100 and uh on there you know you can look at what i do you can look at the different books that i write

00:59:27.560 i do public speaking but right now it's more like virtual public speaking which i enjoy being an

00:59:34.420 empath. I don't have to travel through those crazy lives. But you can also, I think I have

00:59:40.780 my phone number on there. You can text me. You can do my email, which is drjoy.joy at

00:59:47.760 granddaughterpro.com. And once again, thank you for calling yourself granddaughter instead of

00:59:53.620 any of the other handles that you could have taken. Because once again, it reminds us that

00:59:58.980 you are an ancestor that you are one of a line that goes back yeah and as old as I may be I'm

01:00:09.540 not the oldest no matter how old I get there's always going to be somebody older than me

01:00:16.740 thank you again so much granddaughter crow you're welcome and so just to kind of wrap it up

01:00:23.940 um now the work has been brought wicked worrisome unwanted white swind way and now we get to enter 0.87

01:00:31.340 our day with this beauty our egos can gently come back because we need our egos they make us shower 0.79

01:00:37.880 you know so we need our egos and so they may kind of solidify within you and i hope that you all uh

01:00:46.900 let this speak to you and think about your authenticity become that i would love that

01:00:55.380 because nobody can be this version of you be the greatest that you can be yes if you're a dandelion

01:01:03.720 let no goldenrod tell you what to do thank you again so much granddaughter crow it's been a

01:01:10.500 Dr. Joy, as always.

01:01:16.920 I love it. 1.00

01:01:18.200 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

01:01:24.620 You must be a witch. 1.00

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Missing Witches - September 29, 2021

WF Granddaughter Crow - The Wisdom Of The Natural World

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