It was a few months ago that I met the Salmon Spirit. I was attending an Imbolc and plant medicine class and had an encounter with a plant that brought me on a journey to the sacred laws of reciprocity through the body and life of the Salmon. A dream message that slowly revealed its lesson through lived experiences that awakened a full awareness of my impact on the whole organism of life. (The full story will come forth as I allow myself to fully digest the gift of this insight.)
The Salmon is cross culturally symbolic as a totem of knowledge and reciprocity. The Salmon’s journey and dream is one of service and initiation. The upstream path home carrying life and knowledge from Mother Ocean in its body, back to the river’s waters where it was birthed into form, is the purest form of love. Despite the diversions, droughts, rocks and ripples, it knows it is here to carry that knowledge and medicine back home. To share and surrender for the dream of Life to continue as its body becomes nourishment for the Earth.
The dream seed of everything that you ingest has been stopped short on its path to ally you on yours. A willing sacrifice under the code of sacred law. Willingly encoded with the dream dynamic and sacred laws of reciprocity. A code of love and pure unwavering faith containing the knowledge of Life’s design.
Maybe that is why the human being was invited to this paradise Earth. Maybe we are the dream of this bio diverse and mysteriously beautiful planet. That we were invited to bring the songs and stories of the natural wonders into form. To sit with the trees and give them voice and watch the animals and bring their healing spirit to life through medicine journeys and totems. That without humans seeking nourishment and medicine, the medicine of each created thing would never be and neither would we.
Humans are vastly talented shape shifters. Our minds holding the unique capacity to choose and create a vast array of conditions for ourselves and for this planet. When we ingest a plant- or an animal, when we drink the water we are saying “yes, I will carry your dream into and through me. I will receive your nourishment that I ask for and use it in a good way. I will digest and fully absorb and bring to full life- each mouthful of dream seeds. I will slow down and be with you and thank you for your encouragement of life to grow within me from you. I will become a walking totem of reincarnation- a living, breathing, morphing proof that death is not the opposite of life- it is how life continues or we, I, would not be.”
How do you receive that dream, honor the sacrifice and allow it to fully nourish your every cell? You keep your dream alive. You know the dream you deny that lives in your soul and not dictated by society or your mind. You walk with awareness that you are not alone-ever. You dig into and do the inner work it takes to allow yourself to remember that your life depends on every other part of life. You surrender as best you can your guilt and shame by breaking your heart open to knowing that you were invited here to be a part of creation and that what nourishes and supports your every breath and movement and facilitates your tears and triumphs is counting on you to lend your support in return.
How will your flesh and bones nourish this beloved beautiful place when you surrender to the flow at the end of your human days? What have you ingested in your life that when assimilated and reborn provides more life?
How you nourish yourself is a direct reflection of gratitude for your life and respect for the Earth. How you nourish yourself shows that you know it’s not about you, and yet has to come through you. That you are a piece of this puzzle for the picture to be complete. That your original medicine remembered in the vast open mysteries of the cosmic ocean is what will guide you back home into the ever-dreaming arms of Love.
