Editor's Note: Staff member, Wayne Lewis was inspired to write the narrative and meditation below after the annual FES staff retreat held in early January, 2006. The retreat is a time when we share with each other the inspiration behind the work we do and the happenings in our personal lives.

Patricia Kaminiski led a meditation contemplating the word "Quintessential;" that is the human being, the fifth element that weaves the other four elements together in our healing work presented to the world. The following is Wayne's own "quintessence" that worked with the four elements to take them deeper into his heart.

McCloud Waterfall, Mt. Shasta

Some of the gardens at Terra Flora

We come together. We share food, table, and gratitude; for the life we have, and the ministry of health. We share stories of ourselves, our happiness and our grief. We pray for ourselves, each other, the forces and powers of earth and life, the planet, and the human race. It is a rare time. It is a special time. It is a time of support and agreement. It is a time of thoughtfulness and laughter. Be glad. We are here.

Along the Heart Stream Trail heading toward the Fairy Ring gathering spot

We walk the damp trails of the land around farm, and buildings. It has been raining. The ground is slick with leaves. We walk into a small ravine, which has a stream running down through ferns, mushrooms, newts, and stone. There is a fairy ring of oak rounds sitting on a shelf of sand and earth. The air is full of trickling water, birds, and small winds. This is part of a vast water shed. In the stillness of that space, there is movement all around. We sit in contemplation of the quintessential elements of this life experience; earth, air, fire, water and man.

Cascade Ditch Canal on Banner Mountain

First water arrives, in sound, in feeling, in thought. Water flowing down the hillside, over grass, dirt, moss and rocks. Water flowing through the soil, and into the bowels of Mother Earth; through underground streams, rivers, and lakes, into over-the-ground streams, lakes, rivers and oceans; Up into the air as cold meets warm, air currents lifting, coalescing into clouds, traveling the world; letting go as warm meets cold, releasing drops and gallons onto mountain, valley, forest and town; mixing earth’s nature nutritious elements into the balm of the planet’s continuum. The push and pull of sun and moon lift the waters of the earth, and the waters in the body of man “As with-in, so with-out;” the water in streams, the blood in veins; the pulse of tide and heart. We are so connected. Focus. Feel the connection.

Woods along the Heart Stream Trail

The Fire of the sun filters down through the boughs and leaves of oak, madrone, pine, and cedar; through brush, reflections on water, into skin and eyes, through membranes, along nerves, across synapse of brain and spine.

Electrical phenomena

Into the medium of creative spatial-ness, and out into the infinite universe of causeless being. Into and through that which the mind opinionates and names, into that being-ness which is and cannot be said. Later, seconds or minutes, the light fire flows into the brain, body, and relationships, with the creative power of love, grounding us in life’s intention of creativity, balance and harmony, support and nourishment. Fire which warms in Earth, ignites in Human, communicates and transforms through sun and stars. Look for the light. Follow the light. Focus. Become the light.

Rarified air

Air carries the sound. Creatures of the air, so light, so frail, trill their happiness, their love, their drives and needs. Insects skitter, and leaves rustle. We answer with a lifting of airs in brain, chest and cell. We rise, we float, and we ascend, through body, into mind and spirit spaces. Thoughts are whispered into creation, an image on time and space. Air…the conduit of sound, on earth, in space, beyond our dimension. Surrounding everything, and yet contained by every thing. Feel the air, feel your presence. Flow into air. Focus. Flow into space.

Wayne at the Yosemite River

Surrounded by and imbued with the four elements, Human (kind)’s gift of intention makes the fifth of the essential elements. What a person focuses on is the experience of life in, through, and as him (her). Focus through thought is intention. “As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.” The creative power of consciousness flows with intention, through the images held in the mind, and shows up on the screen of time and space, is reflected back through the eye and senses, confirming what is (to the mind). Through alignment and attunement we focus on the intention of pure creative consciousness. “As above, so below.” The will of consciousness is expressed and experienced through Human; through us, in us, as us. Think it, hear it, feel it, look for it, focus, and so it is.

Repent Purify Glorious