Earth Day 2012 and Seed Bombs

Earth Day 2012 is almost here. While we feel everyday is Earth Day, I like to look at it as Mother Earth's birthday. Hey, we all have a birthday. It's a great reason to celebrate and have fun.

Last year's Earth Day post gave you some ideas for things to do to connect with Mother Earth and her inhabitants. This year, we're celebrating with "Seed Bombs"... consider them party favors from Mother Earth's birthday party.

Seed bombing is a subset of the Guerrilla Gardening movement, which has been described as “Gardening public space with or without permission.” People reclaim vacant land to grow flowers, plants, or veggie gardens in spaces as small as an abandoned planter and as large as an empty city block.  There’s also a book on the subject! I see seed bombing more as letting my "Inner Faerie" loose.

The basic concept of seed bomb is making mud pies into hard-packed balls consisting mainly of compost, clay, and seeds, which can then be tossed into a vacant lot or planted in a sad, empty piece of dirt as you wander by with an eye towards making mischief (and we LOVE to make mischief).  And after you bomb, there will grow a wild and happy explosion of wildflowers, herbs, or veggies– whatever kind of seeds you put into your compost balls.

This is a great activity to do with the kids (and yes, kids of ALL ages). Seed bombs can also be given as gifts in party favor bags for those who wouldn't stoop to making mud pies, but might still have a mischievous heart and want to toss a few seed bombs.

Seed Bomb Recipe -

5 parts dry red  terra cotta clay powder - You can get it from a pottery supply store, and its important to make sure it's the dry powder, not the wet kind. You can use other kinds of clay powder, but the red contains minerals the seeds can use to grow.

3 parts dry compost - It adds a lot of nutrients to the ground wherever these seeds fall. You can also add coco fiber, which is a great sustainable resource, and another great soil amendment. Try a mixture of both.

1 part wildflower seeds or other seeds - Preferably perenials, so they come back year after year. Use seeds that are for your region, especially local wild flower seeds. We don't want to introduce stray plants in your area.

1-2 parts water - You add the water last and just a little at a time, after everything is mixed together, and you want it to be just wet enough to stick together. If it gets too muddy, the balls will have trouble drying out.

Now put on some really fun music and PLAY! Get your hands in there and mix away. Close your eyes and experience the feel of the clay and the compost between your fingers. Connect with Mother Earth through the dirt and clay. Let the energy fill you. Take time during your play to give thanks to Mother Earth and ask what you can do or change during the upcoming year to help restore Her.

Once you're done playing in the dirt, you will make one to two inch size balls out of the mixture. You can get creative and mold the bombs in silicone ice cube trays or roll them out and use cookie cutters. I've even seen some who have made pellets out of the seed bombs by packing them in 1/2" pvc couplings, then pushing them out to dry. Keep that child playing!

Now for the more serious part. Make each seed bomb into a prayer. Cup each ball in your hand and focus on a loving/healing thought for Mother Earth and her inhabitants. Feel the energy of that thought fill each seed ball. When you're feel it is full, set the ball aside to dry. Reiki practitioners, use your Reiki and infuse each seed ball with loving/healing energy.

Let them dry for 24-48 hours. You can either store them or start tossing them right away. Be sure to toss them when there has been or will be rain. If it's too dry they won't sprout, but the birds may enjoy them.

Here's a great video on making seed bomb (or seed balls as they call them).

So now to finish celebrating Earth Day and Mother Earth go for a walk and throw them wherever you want to see beautiful flowers growing! Continue to carry your seed bombs and spread love, light and flowers where ever you go.

Have you ever seed bombed?  Does the idea appeal to your mischievous or rebel nature? Go forth and enjoy!

Until next time - Happy Seed Bombing ☺

Mitakuye Oyasin (A Lakota prayer reminding us we are all related)
Debbie & Gary

Manifesting Our Dream...

Okay, we can’t wait any longer to tell the world our big news…. Shamanic Connection will have a new home in the next couple of weeks! We will close before the end of the month on a lovely piece of property just north of Grants Pass (about ½ hour from Medford). We are completely thrilled and more than ready to move. So, you can see why we've been busier than usual. And we may be out of the office from time to time as we move. Please leave a message so we can get back to you.

Many of you in our shamanic family know that this is the culmination of a dream that we have had for many years. Back around ’92 in several of her journeys, Debbie was given the vision of building a retreat where people could come and spend time on the land, reconnecting with themselves and with Spirit (hence our tag line… Reconnect with Yourself, Spirit and Mother Earth Through Ancient Shamanic Practices) and learn about walking the shamanic path. We were living in Oregon at the time, but our ranch property wouldn’t sustain the retreat (we had NO water – had to haul water for household use). So, we carried this vision with us to Michigan and Arizona and then back to Oregon. So, now, 20 years later, and back in Oregon, we (with your help) have manifested our dream. This is the Law of Attraction at work!

A few months ago, we did a new moon ceremony to begin manifesting our land. We were pretty specific about what we wanted and the area we hoped to settle in. We laid out everything, wrote it down and gave it to Spirit. Then, we began the process of finding a real estate agent and looking at properties, all the time holding our vision in place. We asked that the property present itself and any blocks in the process be cleared.

Spirit had this property just waiting for us. Gary actually found it on an internet search. It never did come up in the properties for sale sent to us by our real estate agent. It had been on the market for 518 days with no offers. Talk about waiting for us to arrive! We immediately fell in love with the land. We both looked at each other as we got out of the car and knowing it was “home”.

We tried to keep any fears of not finding the right place or funding issues (it's not easy when you are self-employed) at bay. The purchase process has been a little drawn out as we both were out of town for 10 days in the middle of our inspection period. We had set minimum requirements for things such as well production and internet availability. All the tests exceeded our standards. The sellers have been exceptional and financing was a breeze, as financing goes. It’s amazing how smooth things go with Spirit assisting and  we just went with the flow.

One of the places that people tend to "fail" with the Law of Attraction is focus. We attract what we focus on, and that's not necessarily what we verbalize as our goal. It's the "pink elephant" thing. If I ask you NOT to think about the pink elephant in the room, what do you think about? Yup, the pink elephant. So, if you are wanting to manifest a job because you don't have one, and you SAY you want a job, but all you think about is NOT having a job because you're broke or bored, guess what you get... Right, NO job. It's not easy to hold that kind of focus and think only about the positive, especially when what's happening in front of us is making us think about what we DON'T want. It's definitely an exercise in changing our thinking. I would imagine that we would have manifested a place sooner if we'd have stayed 100% on track, but there is a timing factor in here too. But, if we hold on to our dream and give it as much detail and positive attention, we CAN manifest it. 

So, here's our dream that manifested.

The house was built in 1978 and sits on almost 7 acres of forest land. Not only are we outside the city limits, but we are off a private road with a very long driveway that keeps us completely secluded. All our neighbors are far away and they can’t subdivide their land, so one can build anywhere near our place. The house has 4 bedrooms and a family room, so we have plenty of place for our offices. It needs a little updating. It’s in great shape, but definitely dated for the 70’s with dark wood paneling in a lot of the house. But, that’s what we wanted… something to play with. We have a huge shop that will someday be playshop space and guest room. There is lots of room for a sweat lodge, medicine wheel and maybe a tee pee. So many ideas….

Here is the link to our photo album with the pictures if you’d like to “visit us”. https://picasaweb.google.com/shamanicconnection/PineDell?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPGR6rLk9NzeWQ&feat=directlink

To all of you who listened to us tell about our vision, held space for our dream, said many prayers and blessings, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. It is your love and support that gave us the strength and courage to follow our dream. We hope we can help you follow yours. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Mitakuye Oyasin.  We ARE all related.

Our next blog may be a little delayed due to the move, but until next time... from our new location...

Mitakuye Oyasin (A Lakota prayer reminding us we are all related),
Debbie & Gary