Remembering the Magic of Nature
By: Kelly Dignan
Tags: Ancestry, Nature, Ancestors, Plants

When I was a young girl, my maternal grandparents had a small cabin in Coal Creek Canyon, Colorado. For me, that’s where the magic happened. The woods were alive and mysterious. My brothers, cousins and I were free to wander all day, as our parents had done when they were young. There was a dilapidated lean-to with a wooden floor and windows, and we were certain it belonged to Rumpelstiltskin. We swept the floor and cleaned it with Dawn dishwashing soap. We left him food and even sat down for meals with him, chatting all the while with him and each other. I’m not exactly sure why we thought he was a good and worthy fairy (I recently re-read the tale), but we did. He was real and good to us — turning straw to gold in our imaginations, and not asking for our firstborns.



We picked wild raspberries and made sand castles in the dirt roads. We scrambled up

the rocks to a place we called Inspiration Point — overlooking Gross Reservoir. There, we were on top of the world. It felt like a portal — an entryway to all that was bigger than me.

As life marched forward, it was there that my uncle’s ashes were spread and then my two grandparents’. Their lives were and are remembered in, and around, and on that land.

As life marched forward, the cabin was sold, I got to work, and I forgot the magic of nature.



After the conversation with my friend from NARF, I went to that sacred, magical place in Coal Creek Canyon. This time, I sat down below Inspiration Point on the shores of Gross Reservoir and felt the presence of those ancestors. Their ashes had long disappeared into the land, but I heard the stories my grandparents told and the secrets they kept that have now been revealed. I wondered what else I could learn from them. Then I heard fish jumping and saw concentric circles of water ripple toward me. Yes, they would speak through nature. The natural realm offers one message after another. That day on the shore, I heard, “Hello darling. We love you so. Your life ripples out in never ending circles. We are with you. Keep rippling.”

Then I felt the Ponderosa Pine I was sitting against. I felt its deep roots, its tall branches and its rough but supportive bark. The message it had for me was simple that day: “We are with you, too. A whole network of trees surrounds you like a circle, ready to inspire and lead you. Listen.”

The following week I found a book called Plants that Speak, Souls that Sing by Fay Johnstone. In it, she describes how connecting with nature is ancient and more important than ever. She says: “Many barriers have sprung up, in our Western way of living, that separate us from nature. Not only do we spend the majority of our day behind closed doors or in front of a screen, but we think we run the world, rather than remembering that we are merely part of the whole organism… We can get so lost and frustrated, desperate to be or to achieve something, but we are often far away from getting in touch with what that magical something is because we are disconnected from our sense of wholeness. Yet I’ve never met a sapling that did not know what kind of tree it was to grow into… Nature knows. Since we are nature, then so do we. Nature is a powerful healer in terms of aligning us with our true essence and helping restore wholeness to our soul.”

I had known all of this as a child. I just needed to remember it. And so I began to spend time with trees every day, listening. I honored every flower that sprung up in my surroundings. Once a weed in my mind, dandelions became healers that I rejoiced in finding. I began to meet the spirit of every plant; its energy and vibration offered me insight. I remembered that without plants I would not survive. Without plants to convert our carbon dioxide into oxygen, we would not have air to breathe. And as we breathe out carbon dioxide, we give plants what they need. Nature was calling me to reciprocate with it, to remember its magic, to honor it and listen to it.