The Wisdom of the Living Nature with Matthew Wood

We are very excited and grateful to welcome again Matthew Wood and his immense wisdom.

Join us for an exceptional LIVE discussion with Matthew Wood on "The Wisdom of the Living Nature".

The Wisdom of Nature tradition saw its heyday in the Renaissance, if we are limiting our discussion to Western culture; it is actually a universal approach to understanding and learning from Nature. This way of understanding brings Nature alive for us and empowers us with a language for speaking in the inner world and on the shamanic path.

• Nature is a living, conscious being. Some of us have fond memories of when that first dawned on us.

• If Nature is conscious, she also has an intelligence. She also has a definite personality.

• Nature’s language of expression is not logic or conclusions drawn from argumentation. Nature and her subjects, the plants, animals, and our inner selves, have a distinctive speech pattern —“allowing things to speak for themselves.”

• The corollary: speech and thought by comparison, which involves inference, similarity, and contrast.  This sort of thinking is intuitive.

This thinking and speech is intuitive. The organ within us that senses by similarity and contrarily is the heart, which feels emotional love and aversion founded upon our perceptions of same and other.

This produces a type of knowledge, different from the ways of the outer world, or humankind, traditionally called the Wisdom of Nature or Natura Sophia.

Note: We find, of course, analogous teachings in indigenous and non-Western cultures throughout the world. For this reason, I always have found an ease of acceptance among traditional herbalists and spiritual leaders, especially Native Americans. I have both doctored and taught—and been taught—by Native people, particularly in the Minnesota region.

• Herbalism adheres to the principles of the Wisdom of Nature. Treatment is by like to like, essence to essence, or by hot to cold, used in a gentle way, to restore balance.

• Mother Nature herself may grant us her license, as opposed to man-made licenses.

More than anything, acquaintance with the Life and Wisdom of Nature makes the world authentic, a personal homeland, a beautiful place to be, an exciting adventure, a wonderland, never-to-be-taken-for-granted and always to be appreciated and loves.