What is the voice of Nature? It is the rush of a wave, and the song of whales far below. It is the scree of a hawk in the night sky, and the heartbeat of a child in its mother’s womb. It is the rhythm of your breath, the force that gives you life, and the wisdom that holds all in balance. It is continually speaking. When we are calm and quiet, we can hear its call. Should we choose to answer it, we connect with a vast and wise presence that forever transforms our lives from monochrome to technicolour. Of this, I have first-hand experience.
In 2010, following a recurring dream of a whale awaiting me under ice, I travelled to the North Pole to sing and raise awareness of the melting Arctic Ocean. This was not a trip or a decision motivated by personal gain. I heard a call from Nature itself, and I answered it. At the top of the world, I sang from my heart and prayed from my soul to be of service to our shared mother, the planet itself, in whatever way I could.
Five months after my return, my relationship with Nature unexpectedly and significantly deepened. In spring 2011, when the tsunami struck Japan, I woke up in my Toronto home with a spontaneous and inexplicable spinal cord injury that left me paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors saw the trauma in my spine and were sure I had been in a car accident. But there had been no physical impact.
I was given a 50/50 chance of walking again, even if I underwent their recommended spinal surgery. Yet, I felt in my essence that I was being called along another path. Through this experience, Nature was telling me something. I had to go deeper within and open to it.
As I lay bedridden and paralyzed for months, I practiced all I had learned of meditation, prayer, and YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine. I knew I was part of a compassionate and interconnected whole. In surrender, I listened for Nature’s vast wisdom.
I drew my awareness deeply inward to sense my spine. At its root—and at the base of my being—was a great blue whale, whose heart rate was nearly flatlining. I knew that if I listened to it, we would heal together. It had called me to the North Pole. It carried me now, and I trusted it completely.
I no longer felt that any part of me was separate from Nature. Something had inwardly opened and a new world was dawning. The answer to my prayers at the North Pole were clearly coming. I now know that prayers are always answered, just not in the way we think they will be.
Though I experienced immeasurable pain, the process of my spinal healing was profound grace. I call it “karma fast forward” as it recalibrated everything I knew. My spine was like the string of a musical instrument being attuned to a new key. I was more in harmony with Nature than ever. I felt angels at my bedside, dreamt of them, and woke up feeling loved and connected. A friend visited me regularly to write down the insights I felt needed to be shared. The first of many books, now part of GEM (Global Education for MAPS) was born.
These insights, and my absolute trust in the healing process, brought me into a heightened state. The world looked like filaments of light of which we are a part. My body seemed held together by my patterns of belief. When I was willing to let them go, I allowed for Nature to heal me. I saw Nature’s compassionate force, like a fierce light, rearrange my cells into greater harmony within the whole.
As I fully immersed in this process, movement slowly came back, first to my toes, then up my body. The whole time, the heartbeat of the blue whale was my guide. After rolling, then crawling, I eventually stood on my feet again. I immediately went into my music studio to compose songs with immense gratitude. Three months after that, I was performing on stage, headlining a festival.
We are the planet. When the Earth cries, so do we. When she moves, so do we. We are carried by an inexplicable force that moves through our cells, that animates our souls, that literally keeps us alive.
Nature loves us in a way we cannot comprehend because it is not of our ego-mind, which knows only to divide and separate. It was through a humble surrender to Nature’s love and wisdom that I embarked on the North Pole journey. It was also how I was healed, in what doctors called a miracle.
Because of the grace of free will, we can be amplifiers or sludge in Nature’s communication pathways. Nature will keep on singing, creating and evolving with or without us. It does not need our “help”. It needs our respect and service. Let’s choose today to listen, give it voice, and be the humble yet powerful change our world needs.
Parvati is an award-winning singer, composer, producer, yogini, author, and Founder and CEO of the international charity Parvati Foundation. Her work is dedicated to protecting all life on Earth by establishing the Marine Arctic Peace Sanctuary (MAPS).