A LESSON IN LOVE AND POISON IVY
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A LESSON IN LOVE AND POISION IVY
For me personally, and I think this is true for many others as well, I find it most difficult to embody A Course In Miracles when my body is suffering.
This lesson came to me in full force this summer of 2025, when I ambitiously decided to clear a long stretch of our property of all brush and small trees. This was in an effort to improve our view into the woods in front of our house.
What started as clearing a few brambles and small trees to thin the impenetrable wall of green blocking the current view out our living room windows, became an intense physical experience – both due to exertion as well as encountering vegetation with some potent defenses. This area had overgrown from 25 years of neglect and inattentiveness.
It was time to tame the wild and reveal the beauty of the forest. But as with inner spiritual clearing, such a transformation often comes with some pain and suffering as we encounter unexpected obstacles; those “resistance areas” we do not know lay hidden, buried, long forgotten and undealt with.
It was time to let the sun shine through!
It was also my time to deeply learn the lesson that sometimes, discomfort of the body can be seen as a challenge to further, inner healing which can lead to spiritual clarity.
What can look like suffering and chaos, is actually a mechanism of purification.
“He must work through opposites, because He must work with and for a mind that is in opposition. Correct and learn, and be open to learning.” (ACIM T-5.III.11:3-4)
To embody the teachings from ACIM while the body is suffering, we have to have an open mind, look past the pain and shift into a new perspective in order to see the miracle.
What seems like “punishment” whether from God, “outside forces” pitted against us or due to our own choices, are actually none of the reasons why we suffer.
Now, the clearing of the brush wasn’t completed in a single day. It took several. And while I worked, I was mindful of the plentiful amount of poison ivy I saw in a few areas.
I managed to avoid it the entire time I was carrying out armfuls of brush, pulling out weeds and using my garden shears to clear small trees.
However, apparently, on the last day of my clearing work, I’d let my guard down, which is exactly when our lessons in love emerge and challenge us to “level up” and apply the spiritual teachings we’ve learned. It was time for me to embody the teachings from A Course In Miracles while faced with a serious “body issue.”
Because the next day, I was a complete mess with itching poison ivy.
Blistering sores covered my body head to toe excepting (for some miracle) my face, hands, and back.
I looked like I had been lashed with a whip hundreds of times.
And so began my physical initiation into a “body experience” I won’t soon forget.
Me being the nature lover that I am, and also very human, wondered immediately if I’d angered the forest spirits, for I believe all life contains the One Life, and can be communicated with as sentient beings.
I thought maybe they were punishing me for my actions and did not appreciate all the clearing I had done along the edge of their forest.
But, after a quick attunement into their consciousness, I discovered that that was not the case at all. I chided myself for not checking in, or at least warning the woods of my coming demolition, but they always surprise me with their patient, loving reactions to what I would perceive as blatant disrespect.
Not only was the forest happy to have me cleaning it up a bit, but many of the smaller trees were grateful to be removed. There was no chance of them ever reaching maturity and all things removed were more than happy to make way for those bigger trees to thrive in the now opened canopy for more sunlight.
Plus, there was an overall energy of shared appreciation for the beauty and joy between my family and the trees when the transformation process would be complete.
So, nature was not taking revenge on me, and I could put my mind at ease about that.
“Here is the second step we take to free your mind from the belief in outside force pitted against your own.” (ACIM W-197.1:1)
So, what triggered this unfortunate experience, when I had been so careful to avoid the poison ivy all week as I worked to clear the brush?
I thought about this and remembered that all forms of suffering are an outward expression from an inward projection.
A Course In Miracles states:
“Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others and not yourself have done this to you.” (ACIM T-10.V.2:1)
“You cannot do this as long as you believe that anything happening to you is caused by factors outside yourself.” (ACIM T-10.in.1:3)
So, my poison ivy outbreak could be seen as a kind of physical purging or initiation rite. As I cleared external obstacles, some internal ones may have also surfaced. Skin, after all, is the boundary between our inner and outer worlds. When it’s inflamed or blistered, it can symbolize:
Old protective layers being shed (like emotional defenses or limiting beliefs)
Unresolved reactions to old “irritants” resurfacing for final release
A test of vulnerability—can we stay present, open, and trusting even when we’re uncomfortable?
I felt like I was “molting into a new person.”
That was no coincidence. This was literal and symbolic. I seemed to be shedding an old skin, an old thought system I didn’t even know I was hanging on to.
The forest had a message for me, and it was my job to open myself to receive it through the Voice of the Holy Spirit within.
It was this: make space for Me, for My Life, My Light; just as you are making space for greater light within the forest. Then we can thrive in harmony and peace. Make peace with all that is not at peace within you.
Often, we hold onto things, situations and ideas that look like growth to us, but are actually stagnating, choking our ability to grow. Letting go of such things can feel harsh, even like a complete undoing of your life at first. But ultimately all such transitions lead to Light and Life – the true beauty that lay unseen, buried and choked shines through once the old is removed.
“For He will give you all things that do not block the way to light.” (ACIM T-13.VII.12.:2)
“All things work together for good. There are no exceptions except in the ego’s judgment.” (ACIM T-4.V.1:1-2)
And the forest responded immediately to my gardening attentions.
Once complete, that very night, as I sat on our deck assessing all the work I had done, fireflies, deer and deeper vistas opened that I had no idea were just a few feet away, hidden behind the wall of dense vegetation.
Just as ego-dense illusions of being a body were being cleared away within my mind.
This echoes ACIM as well:
“The ego made the world as it perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the reinterpreter of what the ego made, sees the world as a teaching device for bringing you home.” (ACIM T-5.III.11:1)
The intense work of clearing the brush plus the poison ivy and all the itchiness, pain and suffering that goes with it — were all part of my “teaching device.”
I was brought Home through my inner mind to clarity, beauty, truth, and connection to All That Is as I chose not to focus on it. I remained centered though I suffered. I remained focused on the growing Light within me instead.
It is said that “where your thoughts go, energy flows.”
Where did I want to place my energy and grow? On my aching body or on the Light and Love within me?
With this in mind, I could clearly feel the test of my spirit. Not in a punitive, punishing way, but more of a question of whether or not I was ready to “level up.”
Can I handle the Light waiting to come through?
Am I ready to walk this path, even when it gets uncomfortable?
Will I trust this process even when the body’s reaction feels like punishment?
Can I stay in my light, my truth, even as old growth falls away?
After passing through roughly 3 weeks of the poison ivy healing process (yes it takes that long to recover!) I truly feel lighter, clearer and that I can now see things I could not before (both literally and spiritually).
My body is not something that holds me hostage to it – it is hostage to my thoughts.
I improved the view and health of the woods in front of my home, but the real view that has been improved is within myself. My inner landscape now matches the outer; more space, more Light and more connection with Life. And yes – there is always room for new growth.
And the discomfort? That was just the friction of transition. Like the friction of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.
We often think the discomforts we face are signs that something is wrong. But in truth, they are signs that something very right is happening. That a breakthrough is near. That the soul is making space.
So, if you’re in a time of shedding, itching, or stretching, I encourage you to trust the process. The fireflies are waiting. The deer are ready to be seen. The light is coming through.
Just keep clearing the brush, one branch at a time.
Release what no longer serves and make space for truth to bloom in the light.
Shed your old body in peace and embody Love in its place.
And remember: It does not matter what happens to you. What matters is what your response is to what happens – and nothing else.
Respond to all things with Love and you will cease to repeat lessons failed in the past, brought to you once again, so you can learn to love in the face of fear.
“Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, “My brother, choose again.” (ACIM T-31.VIII.3:1-2)
Always, choose Love and you will never fail in anything you do.
Beth Geer is the author of three books: Awakening To One Love; Awakening Humanity: Our Place Among ETs and Angels; and The Light Has Come! You can find these and more ON AMAZON or at: www.bethgeer.com