I thought I would share some things i am doing in my shamanic practitioner course (with Katie Creuynni) from time to time. Providing examples of how we can interact with nature, for healing and perhaps some ideas about how you can increase your connection to nature wherever you live. So this morning I went running with only the intention of exercising in nature and gaining some personal time with my thoughts. On my route I saw a twig with three stems each with a pine cone on the end. This reminded me of the the stories we needed to find for working with shamanically. I started this last week and had identified three patterns I wished to heal and decided on which would be addressed first. My next task was to collect items to represent different facets of the story. This twig reminded me and so triggered my collecting. I started from this point in my run. It was the furthest from my house and the most remote part of the route, it felt like a safe place to be and I had been running long enough to have released daily thoughts. I continued running and was just aware of what called me. When I picked something up I tended to listen to my inner voice to hear any symbolism or specifics of what aspect of my pattern the object represented. I gathered sticks and a stone which would be used to unpick the pattern and become a reminder of the healed process. One stick had a lot of lichen on, and felt to be the complexities of thought around the subject and how I hide the feelings in the analysis of it sometimes. The fruit of the pattern, the gold and that which it has taught me was represented by another twig with a pine cone attached. I carried it with the picture boundary sticks for the rest of the run. I realised my hand was sticky after a while and i felt blessed as I realised the pine oil would be boosting my immune system which was still struggling to release the last bits of the cold I had over Christmas. I thanked it and felt blessed with healing on lots of levels. I will likely collect more items another time before I work with creating a picture representation of my issue and then use the stone to help release it from my energetic system. Katie’s website with details of her healing and training sessions can be found here. Http://creuynni.wordpress.com 