When the residents of the Scottish spiritual community of
Findhorn first encountered Pan in the forest, Pan asked them to
convey a message from the Beings of Nature to the rest of
humanity. Pan said: “Tell them, ‘We never leftyou did.’”

The colorful toucans squawked from within their tiny cage: “Why
would any free spirit ever confine another free being?”

The incarceration had rendered the once vibrant birds withdrawn
and lifeless captives. Their eyes cried this piercing question
just as the same bewilderment echoes from the dull gaze of every
animal in every zoo:

“Why would any being with heart ever drive the dagger of
imprisonment into the heart of another being?”

The answer is obvious. No being with heart would shackle another
free being. No being whose spirit still lives would ever kill
the spirit of another beingby any means.

The beseeching toucans were on exhibit at the country inn where
I stayed in Costa Rica. The innkeeper explained he was building
a huge cage around a tree so the birds would have a whole tree
around which to fly and live. But the confined birds told me
they didn’t want a larger enclosure. No cage would ever be big
enough. Their spirits needed to be free. After a few days, I
could no longer look into the toucans’ eyes. Before long, I
avoided going near their cage altogether.

Instead of focusing on the plight of the caged toucans, I was
guided by my inner coach to explore the free and untamed
treasures of the stunningly vibrant and beautiful country of
Costa Rica. During my travels, I was blessed by direct
encounters with wild animals, virgin forests, raging rivers and
an erupting volcano. In their natural state, these diverse
elements of life were undomesticated, unbridled, unfettered and
unspoiled. Every cell of my body felt the raw, free essence of
each basic kingdom of nature: mammal, reptile, bird, plant,
water and mineral.

I connected with a sloth hanging out in its jungle haunt, a
tabor scouring the forest carpet for grubs, a crocodile sunning
in a sultry swamp and a very curious iguana checking me out
through the mist of a waterfall. I shuddered at the primitive
roar of jaguars too close for comfort. I witnessed reptiles
called “Jesus lizards” with so much aliveness they literally
walk on water, skimming across the surface on webbed feet.

I reveled in the unrestrained, exuberant expression of brilliant
orchids, enticing mushrooms and outlandish fungi. The beauty and
grace of exotic parrots, wild toucans and resplendent quetzal
birds awed me. I was gratefully battered by the uncontrollable
strength of ocean surf. Standing at the edge of an exploding
volcanic cauldron, I exalted in the undiluted rapture of the
fiery, flowing lava.

Soon I began to appreciate my soul’s purpose in sending me to
this lush, virgin land. My spirit’s strategy was for me to
encounter so many dynamic examples of the exhilaration of raw
nature that I would break through to the other side of my rigid,
conditioned, overly civilized state of being. And I did!

Through diverse outer appearances of vitality, I connected with
the inner source that animates all forms of life. I danced with
deer riding waves of natural electricity over grassy hills. I
soared with caracara hawks spiraling with wind currents above
luxuriant valleys. I clamored with howler monkeys playing in the
rain forest canopy. I surrendered with meandering sea turtles to
rhythmic tidal currents.

On the surface, animals, plants, rocks and volcanoes appear to
be solid forms. Through intimate contact, I discovered firsthand
that what creates these seemingly immutable shapes is primal
life force, the basic essence generating and driving all forms
of life.

A volcano in Costa Rica was the natural element that shared this
secret with me in the most dramatic, effective and revealing
way. When the molecules of mountain granite are sped up by
intense heat, the true nature of this solid form is disclosed as
being fluid, moving, alive energy. Universal life force is so
fundamental and powerful, it melts granite. It transforms the
most condensed form of matter into molten lava, liquid rock.
Primordial life force is so alive, pure, wild and basic that
it’s potent enough to liberate the most rigid crystallized
matter into free-flowing life expression.

My soul arranged for me to “accidentally” stumble through the
dense fog onto an active lava flow for the purpose of exposing
me in a very palpable, tangible way to the true nature of all
reality. Walking on this semi-solid river of fire, I absorbed
the raw, innocent, spontaneous vital energy lying at the core of
all physical manifestations of life. I merged with the
alchemical power of basic life forceuncontrollable, undiluted
and pristine.

The direct transmission I received from the volcano and all the
other wild creatures of Costa Rica is that this fundamental life
force energy is as available to us humans as it is to them! If
we choose to unite with this energy and allow divine alchemy, we
also can become one with the pure, primal, passionate,
undivided, unqualified, unlimited expression of life. This
underlying flow is referred to by the Chinese as the Taothe
river of knowing, the central stream of consciousness, the God
current that is our true nature and essence.

The harsh contrast between the toucans in captivity and the
toucans in the wild awakened me to the magnitude of the
aliveness and connection we humans lost somewhere along the way
in our collective life journey. The fact that we cage toucans
and other animals in zoos and homes around the world is a clear
indication of how far we have removed ourselves from the natural
vitality and joy of freedomboth our own and that of other
inhabitants of Earth.

Our human quest for love, security and energy cannot be achieved
as long as we remain in a state of consciousness in which we
systematically seek to control the freedom of our fellow
beingshuman and otherwise. In the process of “civilizing” our
species, we humans have become conditioned to not feel deep,
dynamic passion and love for life. Our collective heart, the
world’s heart, has become so crystallized and armored that it is
now as hard and cold as the granite of a mountain. Our
collective heart has turned to stone. Only a granite heart could
do what we are doing to the natural expression of lifewithin
ourselves and on the planet.

The original Old English meaning of the word panic was “of the
nature of Pan: wild and free-flowing.” But now we humans are so
shut down, controlling and cut off from natureand from our own
vital electric naturethat we experience “wild and free-flowing”
energy as scary and threatening. Life’s creative enthusiasm
sends us into a panic in the modern sense. Most of us are
terrified of living fully alive and free.

How can we humans reverse this process? How can we melt the
granite faades of our public institutionsand our own
facesthat so starkly reflect the state of our hardened soul?
How can we re-light the pilot light and stoke the cosmic fire
within us?

As I melded with the effusive wildness of Costa Rica, I
unearthed an answer. We humans can re-connect to our natural
aliveness by opening to a force that is more powerful than our
programming, more compelling than our collective conditioning.
The force that can liberate us is universal life energy, primal
life force. This unbridled exuberance abounds everywhere around
usand within us. Fortunately, cultural conditioning cannot
control primal life force. This raw creative energy is free and
innocent of all human concepts and beliefs. Primal life force
doesn’t follow its own drumbeat; it is the drumbeat.

Primal life force is more fundamental, more basic, than our
human psychological and cultural creations. In reality, this
power provides the lifeblood, essence and juice that sustains
and supports the entire human culture currently existing on the
planet. Primal life flow is the natural energy source that
literally runs our human creations.

Several years ago, a wall of red-hot lava streamed down the side
of a volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii cutting right through a
village located between the volcano and the ocean. So intense
was the temperature of the boiling lava, its radiant energy
vaporized the wood and cement foundations of the human
structures before the lava physically touched the foundations.
All traces of the village and human habitation were annihilated
in the wake of the lava inferno as it made its way to the sea.

Modern science doesn’t know a way to stop the power of the
Goddess Pele, the impassioned expression of the spirit of the
volcano. The human structures were not as real, fundamental or
substantial as the energy of the volcano. Human concepts,
beliefs and paradigms trying to overlay and dominate nature are
no match for the raw, creative primal power of natural vigor.

The vibration of original vitality, passion and excitement is
strong enough to melt our collective granite heart. Just as
primal life force vaporized the not-so-solid foundations of the
Hawaiian physical structures, primal life force can dissolve the
foundations of the psychological structure that makes us think
we need to control and feel separate from other life in order to
get enough energy to survive.

One key to becoming fully revitalized is to reconnect with
universal life force in such a way that we are not only fed by
it, but also transformed by it. If we resonate with the abundant
aliveness all around us, divine alchemy will transmute us into
the experience of being that eternal essence of life energy.
When we become one with universal life force, we are able to
draw our very sustenance, supply and security from our own
source within. We are sovereign, self-generating, in terms of
where we get our energy. Sourcing our own energy, we then have
enough personal power to melt the crystallized granite heart
within ourselves and our culture. And until we walk with the
authentic sovereignty of natural vitality, we won’t have the
courage and strength to go out and love with true spirit and
fulfill our core purposes on Earth.

Another crucial aspect of the message I received from the
wildness of Costa Rica is that to be successful on our quest, we
humans need to open to this primordial energy through direct,
pure, spontaneous, innocent and fresh means. We cannot approach
this enterprise from an old paradigm or model. For, if we seek
natural, organic vitality in an unnatural, nonorganic way, we
won’t uncover the pure source we seek. To approach aliveness in
a sequential, methodical, linear manner prevents us from
contacting its basic nature. This natural aliveness does not
exist within the framework or box in which we currently exist as
a society. Pure, free life expression lives outside of our
cultural conditioning, underneath it, behind itbeyond it.

We can reclaim our natural power only if we approach the
challenge in a manner that is new, wild, free, unexpectant and
in-the-moment. If this alive space is sought in any way that is
familiar or known, it won’t be found. Where we’re going and what
we’re looking for isn’t located on any existing cultural map.

The way to natural vitality is uncharted because the very
finding of this energy transforms us and our universe to such an
extent that no previous map, blueprint or paradigm is relevant.
By the very nature of the goalalivenessthe path to the goal
remains fresh and spontaneous, impossible to document or plan.

No methodology, technique or structured approach can ever remain
valid for any period of timeor even a second timeto assist us
in reaching this vibrant state. This space, once achieved, once
embodied, once lived, is so free, transforming, creative and
constantly changing that any existing map, chart or way won’t
take us there a second time. Strategies previous to this moment
take us to old places and old experiences. Really cool, but not
current. Pleasant, but not present. Potent, but not profound.

To undertake this odyssey in the most advantageous way, my inner
coach suggests a simple, direct, personal approach. To rekindle
our fire of aliveness, we can open to peak moments in our life
when we experienced a strong connection to the vibration of raw,
creative primal life flow. Many of us can’t think ofor
remembera time when we did merge with this basic life force.
Fortunately, it doesn’t matter that our memory of our true
nature is blocked by our mind. We can employ our intuition as a
guide, instead of the mind. Our intuition knows where and how to
access this vibration of vitality. Our intuition knows how to
remove or go around any barriers or denial. Behind our veils of
fear, dismissal, distraction, invalidation and misinterpretation
are hundreds of firsthand encounters with this universal fire.
Within each of us lies a treasure house of direct personal
experiences readily available for the enhancement and
transformation of our everyday life.

The heart of Costa Rica radiated one primal message: “Go for the
juice, the electricity. Forget the form.”

If whatever is happening in the moment looks and sounds right,
but doesn’t feel intuitively right to you, then it’s not right.
It isn’t what you’re meant to be doing at that momentit isn’t
what is spiritually appropriate or indicated for you to be doing
at that precise time.

In regard to any situation, the key question to ask yourself is:
“For me, in the moment, is there passion, aliveness, heart?”

If there is not, then you are not in the right place, no matter
how convincing the outer appearance might be. Let it go.

The spirit of the Earth urges: “Move on. Stay open. Keep
flowing.”

In an Arizona canyon twenty years ago, a venerable Hopi medicine
man named Medicine Cloud shared a keen observation with me:
“Everything you need to know about life you can learn from
streams and clouds.”

I now know what he meant.

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