Connecting with Earth Spirits

As you become more attuned to the spirit in all things, the first guides you may sense are the forces of nature.

Grouped together, the nature spirits are called elementals. Comprised of the spirits of earth, water, fire, and air, they're sometimes known as gnomes, sprites, sylphs, devas, and salamanders (which are not anything like the small reptilian creatures). Although this may sound like the stuff of fairy tales, every living thing has its own spirit force and vibration that looks after it.

The nature spirits are wonderfully therapeutic, and by raising your sensitivity to their presence and asking for their help, you'll immediately begin to feel their support. When you learn to identify them and become open to receiving their gifts, the natural world will then become a place of healing and excitement for you.

It's best to start connecting with this spirit realm by concentrating on the spirits of the earth—also known as devas—beginning with the trees, flowers, and of course, Mother Earth herself. The earth is an incredible living, breathing spirit, majestically supporting all of the life on this planet. Affectionately known as Gaia, she is the organic mother of us all, and becoming sensitive to her energy instantly helps us feel physically stronger and supported.

Connecting with the earth is known as "getting grounded"—a term that's casually tossed about, but rarely fully understood to be the act of allowing our spirit to be nurtured by Mother Earth. When we're disconnected from her we feel scattered, weak, easily pushed about by life, and cut off from support. By raising our sensitivity to and becoming conscious of her, our life calms down and our basic sense of security kicks in.

Not one of us is so smart that we can live without Gaia's force beneath us . . . even concrete cannot fully block her energy. If you ever doubt her power, just conjure up the magnitude of a big earthquake to bring you back to reality. At the same time, she can also be astonishingly gentle - nothing is so restorative to your body and bones as a massage from her.

About a dozen years ago, my husband, Patrick, and I took our daughters to Hawaii for the first time. When Sonia hit the beach, she could hardly contain herself. It felt so delicious and soothing to that five-year-old that she threw herself onto the sand; grabbed it by the handful; squeezed, smelled, and even tried to eat it. She rolled around in the wet sand for hours and never tired of it. As I was putting her to bed that evening, her heart was so brimming with joy that she gave me a full-body hug and said, "Mom, before today I used to love you like a dot . . . now I love you like a circle."

If you feel drained, disconnected, unsupported, and unloved, tap in to Mother Earth's spirit and let it nurture you. Have your spirit ask her to enfold you with her endless arms and pull you back to her breast. Gaia's spirit is so powerful that connecting to her will lift depression and fear, and can even ease one of our greatest social diseases - chronic fatigue syndrome.

Hot-stone massage therapy, a recently popularized treatment, channels the earth spirit. The spirit in the rocks, which are strategically placed over a person's body, manages to touch bone marrow and has the power to calm, fortify, and restore strength to the individual like nothing else.

By the same token, the spirits in flowers work to calm and balance your emotional body—the first layer of energy overlaying your physical body—which goes through a lot of wear and tear in a day, a week, or a lifetime. It can get weak, thin, and torn, leaving you prey to all kinds of emotional distress.

Tapping in to the spirit of flowers doesn't take too much effort . . . simply smell a rose, appreciate an orchid, or sniff a sachet of lavender to see what I mean. If you're feeling flat, weak, or uninspired, bringing your subtle awareness forward to connect with that flower and plant fairies will restore your balance, and can gently calm and reweave the emotional body and restore balance.

Some people have become so connected to the spiritual energies in flowers and their immense capacity to heal that emotional body that there are entire alternative-healing methods devoted to the therapeutic qualities of flower essences. To give yourself an added boost, you can even look into using these essences, which embody the restorative spirit of plants and flowers, and are available in health food stores as well as on the Internet. Each specific plant extract brings a different result by tapping in to the particular energy you are focusing on. For example holly relieves you of being critical, lavender opens and calms the heart, and violet builds confidence. 

You can really connect with fairies if you grow a garden -even if you just nurture a few potted plants. The next time that you find yourself mindlessly watering the azaleas, stop and feel their energy and appreciate their strong, yet gentle, spirit. Talk to your plants and flowers and even play classical music for them. . . after all, experiments have proven that their spirits react to kindness and in response, they'll go wild and grow like crazy.

If you really want to feel some psychic support, take this a step further and hug a tree. I'm completely serious when I say this. We (especially those of us in the Western world) have become lazy and dull in a subtle awareness, but very few people can remain immune to the formidable grounding and healing power of a tree. Be willing to look as loony as a lark if you must, but take the risk and throw your arms around the next oak or elm in your path. Place your heart up against the bark and see how you feel. If that's just too over the top and you can't bring yourself to enjoy that experience, at least plop down at the foot of a tree and connect with its majesty through the roots.

The spirits of trees are so powerful that they act like amplifiers for your psychic sensibilities. Connecting with their energy will pull your awareness deep into the spirit world, quickly enhancing your ability to connect with higher-frequency entities, such as your guides and angels. And although it may not happen overnight, if you work with trees for a few weeks, you'll no doubt start attuning to other spirit forces.

If you're a city dweller, you may have to use a little extra effort to attune to the earth spirits, but quite honestly, the benefits and rewards are worth it. City life is very stressful and draining, so connecting with the nature spirits is all the more urgent. In the end, you'll become calmer, more grounded, and emotionally more peaceful.

Sonia Choquette's latest title Ask Your Guides: Connecting to Your Divine Support System, is a fascinating and inspirational book that provides all the information you need to help you connect with your spirit guides so that you can enjoy all the love, abundance, and joy you’re entitled to. Her Soul Lessons and Soul Purpose Oracle Cards are an excellent resource to assist you in answering life’s most profound and pressing question. Sonia is conducting an all-day Wake Up Your Spirit and Connect with Your Guides workshop in cities across the US. Click here for dates and locations.
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