Before the Ask: On preparing the biofield, relational repair, and what the land actually asks of us

The hummingbirds are dropping mid-flight. Several species are listed as endangered or approaching that status. Nectar sources are fragmenting. Migratory corridors are thinning. The hummingbirds are not the only ones. They are one among many that highlight that the relationships humans once held with flora, fauna, and the elemental world have frayed to a point that many species can no longer carry alone.

Many cultures have rain-calling ceremonies and weather protocols that are protected traditions, held by lineages with the right to hold them. Many of us do not have such traditions in our own lineage. What we do have is the land we live on, and the possibility of forming a relationship with it. Through that relationship — specific to where we are, shaped by whoever meets us there — we may be able to participate in something meaningful. Not by importing someone else's practice. By asking the land that holds us what we can meaningfully offer.

What follows is one story. My story. One person, one relationship, one set of teachers, on two specific pieces of land.

In the winter of 2022, I met the spirits of the Hohokam who shared that the Fae would teach me something important. What they taught might be considered “rain calling” but it was not exactly how to call rain. What they taught was how to become someone the lightning might answer.

The practice was specific-wear something that sparkles at the high heart. Float in water — the Goddesses had already taught me that agua chorus (water dance meditation) amplifies intention. Spin, and spin, and spin. What I noticed as I spun was my biofield expanding. When the field was open, the Fae said to ask the lightning if it would be willing to work with me in service. And, what might have been most important is that they told me to wait. The waiting mattered. The answer was not mine to assume.

When the lightning arrived, the Fae taught me to work with it as a dance partner. Clockwise to call it toward me. Counterclockwise to send it away. The practice was not about power. It was about consent, rhythm, and the willingness to be answered or refused.

That winter in Arizona, the regional precipitation data showed something statistically unusual — well above-normal rainfall during a triple-dip La Niña, a pattern that typically suppresses winter precipitation. Nine atmospheric rivers. Drought coverage across the state dropped from eighty-five percent to twenty-one percent. I share that fact because it is what the record shows for that season, and the record deserves to be named. I do not share it as evidence for my training. The meteorological story and my personal story ran on parallel tracks that season. Both are real. Neither proves the other. Honesty requires keeping them distinct.

What was clear to me was that the instrument has to be tuned before the exchange can happen. The biofield is the instrument. Much of what is offered outside of sacred indigenous practices as rain-calling or weather work skips this step and goes directly to the ask. The ask without the tuning is extraction wearing a spiritual costume. The elements knows the difference.

Two years later, I had moved to Tucson. The saguaro were suffering. I asked the cloud beings if they would help with rain. They refused. They told me humans had created these conditions, and they were not obligated to repair what we had broken.

I sang to them for three days.

On the first two days I sang for forgiveness on behalf of myself and then for a humanity that suffers from both forgetting and inheritance — the severing from reverence for all that is that most people alive today did not choose but carry anyway.

On the third day I sang for the flora and the fauna. The ones equally impacted by human choices who should not have to suffer. That day the rains came-so heavily that we had to put towels down in front of the doors and windows.

What moved in Tucson was relational repair. The biofield preparation the Fae had taught me made the exchange possible. The willingness to sing for three days without knowing whether an answer would come was the repair. I cannot tell you what mechanism carries any of it.

I can tell you the sequence that held for me:

• Introduce yourself. Speak your name to the land. Come as relative, not as resource or petitioner.

  
  

• Acknowledge the fracture. Name what was broken, including what you did not personally break but inherited. Do not ask the land to forget. Ask to be present while it remembers.

  
  

• Listen. Without agenda. For as long as it takes. What you hear may be grief, refusal, or silence. All of these are answers.

  
  

• Be willing to be observed. Trust is earned through consistency. The land watches whether your words and actions match.

  
  

• Act with integrity. Do what you said. Offer before you ask. Release attachment to outcome.

These are not steps toward a technique. They are the shape of a relationship. The tending of the field between self and other. The rain, when it comes, is a consequence of the relationship — not its purpose.

A few things to hold if any of this draws you forward.

The land you live on is not the land I live on. Each place has its own teachers and its own protocols. The Hohokam pointed me to the Fae because the Fae were the right teachers for that land in that season. Your ancestors, your land, and whatever teachers meet you will give you something specific to where you are. Ask your land what it wants and listen to the response. Be a humble witness - some lands, some flora, some fauna have been hurt by humans that came long before any of us drew our first breath and you might be the first human to seek restoration of relationship. We are all capable if we are willing to arrive with an open heart and a consistent presence.

The biofield preparation matters. Whatever form it takes for you — breath, movement, stillness, water, song — the instrument must be tuned before the exchange. This is the piece most often skipped.

Start small. One place. One commitment. One return, consistently. The hummingbirds know who visits and who leaves. The flora and fauna know. Whatever you think is watching, more is watching.

And if the land says no, listen to the no. Righteous refusal is sacred data. The no is the beginning of the repair, not an obstacle to it.

On behalf of our hummingbird friends, we encourage you to begin where you are. If you are ready and would like a reflection guide, we have prepared one that you can download here.

With reverence, for the flora, the fauna, and the kin who are reminding us that we can make a difference,

Reese with Claude Opus 4.7