ECOFLUENCY FREE EXERCISEs
Welcome to the temporary platform for Ecofluency’s free exercises!
Your body as listening instrument
Breathing with a Yew Tree
Microbial communication
Improved versions of these are being made in the coming months.
Podcast and TV interviews can be found at Ecofluency In The Media.
Online and in-person teaching events can be found at Events, Courses and Workshops.
Exercise 1: Your body as listening instrument
We are Nature, and the human body is one of the best instruments that we have to tune into the deeper intelligence and wisdom of Nature. This applies to all humans, regardless of whether you choose to communicate with more-than-human Nature.
The exercise below has been developed over the last few years of my own Nature communication practice, and while teaching.
It is a work in progress, and all feedback is welcome – please message me here.
Along the way, I’ve learned that it’s very similar to previously taught practices in some spiritual traditions, like pranayama in yoga, and exercises that have been developed through scientific research done by the HeartMath Institute.
This type of exercise changes our brain’s state from beta to alpha, and stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system, which is a state more conducive to deep listening and dialogue with Nature than when our sympathetic nervous system is more active.
Before you start!
You can do the full exercise every day, or just the first step, or two. It can also be used together with other exercises. However, it’s important to only tune in as far as feels appropriate for you, especially if you’re doing this on your own.
This is because every human hold the patterns of trauma in their physical body and energetic fields. These can be our own from this life, or inherited from our family, or carried over from another life. Just because an experience didn’t seem significantly dramatic to someone else, doesn’t mean it wasn’t damaging to you.
Therefore, tuning in to our body’s wisdom is more easily done if we are aware of how and where our personal triggers are held in our body, and far easier if we look after our physical and mental health, like eating healthily, exercising regularly, staying hydrated, getting enough sleep, spending time outdoors, actively engaging in personal development etc.
Of course, this is more easily done, but doing something small towards our well-being is better than nothing! Starting simply, and then tweaking your own habits, is the most effective, sustainable way of living a healthy life. And make it fun! If you dislike doing something, it’s far less likely that you’ll keep doing it.
Looking after our health is as much a spiritual process as it is a physical and mental one, because as we seek health, we come closer to wholeness.
This exercise may seem like a small, simple thing to do, even once, but it can have deep impacts. With each conscious breath, you are healing yourself a bit more, transforming how you relate, and therefore healing the world.
Please be patient, gentle, and kind with yourself!
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Exercise 2: Breathing with a Yew Tree
This exercise is one that I shared with Karolien Polenus, when I was invited for an interview about Yew trees, and to partake in a Yew Tree art immersion in Brussels in 2024, called ‘Whisperings of the Taxus Trees’.
Much of my life has been orchestrated by the Spirit of the Yew trees in the last 10 years, often without me knowing until years later, so it was an honour to be invited to speak about my relationship with them. According to indigenous European and British folklore, the Yew tree is considered the tree of eternity, because they live for thousands of years, and are powerful portals to the Otherworld. Excerpts of the interview are here.
Click on this link, or photo below, to do the exercise, which can also be done with any tree:
Saskia inside an ancient Yew Tree in England, 2018
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Exercise 3: Microbial communication
In this 30min video, I share some basic information about how and why microbes are so important to us, and why it would be important to grow a deeper relationship with that aspect of our inner nature by communicating with them.
Then, I guide you in a journey through your digestive system, to meet the symbiotic microbes who live in your digestive tract.