Category: Earth element

Learning from the Wheel of the Year

.Reading time 6 minutes.

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Mabon Blessings to everyone on this beautiful early autumnal morning!

The air today is ever so slightly chilly and I wholeheartedly welcome it. It speaks to me of the time we start  our slow descent into the misty, chilly and dark. Land, weather and personal transformations are beginning. I love the darker part of the year and my functioning is the most optimum between October and April, however, this year things have been different in a way of transforming the last remaining sticking points as far as summer is concerned. I feel I did well and managed to extract a multitude of useful lessons about myself, the world at large, the idea of life-purpose and where and how things fit in.

The Wheel has turned once again and today is Mabon, the time for harvesting, re-evaluating and giving thanks for all the blessings we have experienced this summer. The summer has been hot, prolonged, dry and often trying. It taught me about withstanding hardships and remaining centred on the heart and present in my life more. I was faced with a quality of tolerance within, which had been invaluable. Just as we wait patiently for the seed to germinate, push through and grow towards its most potential, the summer reflected that to me and I was rewarded with early harvest. Planting happened later this year due to snow and frost in early and late spring, yet things caught up and the heat accelerated growth and made me face things sooner rather than later. I didn’t plant much either consciously, as this year for me is about simplifying and focusing on a few things only, clearing the space for emotional, cognitive and spiritual processing. Bounty came in the summer in small quantities and it felt so good. The message of ‘just enough’ re-enforced the work I start doing back in winter. Another aspect of having enough and sharing with those around you in pleasure and gratitude has always been a blessing. The heat burnt my potatoes, however, earlier in the summer and very quickly dry plants disappeared amidst the blanket of thick weeds, so I had to go on a hunt for produce. That taught me about challenges and things often changing very quickly and being ok with what is presented right in front of us. It is ok to just observe and continue with what we have without necessarily spiralling into judgement, regret and giving up. That clear representation of the quality of observation with tolerance and potential hardship taught me ‘to be with’ yet again and be completely grateful for what we do have rather than focusing on what we think we don’t have. Sensation of that I found very pleasant, releasing and freeing.

I suffered with pain in my legs and back from early spring and found it challenging, however, I also knew that in order for new transformations to occur this year I had to have something to work with and this was one of those things where I had to look at living with physical pain. I wrote about it earlier this year. Through the summer pain continued and so did my life and that was the lesson of things continuing, moving on, changing, the Wheel turning no matter what and we can either fight and resist it or accept and move with it. The release of my associations with pain transformed hugely this summer and just as looking at dead and not ‘very healthy’ crops amidst the summer heat and as I begin to dig them out with love and attention I began giving myself the same. I aimed to understand, accept things as they are without judgement and wanting anything to be different.

At the end my harvest was complete pretty much at beginning of August in terms of produce or so I thought… On my return to the plot in September I discovered a few more gems waiting for me and my heart delighted in it. Seeds were hanging ripe on dry stalks representing bounty and potential in the future and underneath dry and covered with weeds stalks there were plump bulbs of goodness. Again, the idea of ‘just enough’ was clearly present and again it felt profoundly satisfying.

I am yet to dig all my small, but perfectly clean and tasty potatoes out of a patch of land covered with all sorts (treasure hunt-like) and I am taking my time with it applying patience and joy when working on the land. I appreciate everything about it and tend to continue nourishing and nurturing it for years to come. It holds immense lessons for me as seasons change and the Wheel turns every time. Things come and go, start and end and start again and so does our life with all its highs and lows and everything in between. I very much look forward to what the season brings.

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Announcement – Nature Spirit Walks Tarot

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

I am happy to announce the release of the latest project in collaboration with Cortney Cameron, whose wonderful idea and beautifully designed images materialised in this invaluable resource. It has been my absolute pleasure contributing to this project. Enjoy!

ORDER HERE

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Summer – the time for wilderness, the time for releasing your beast

.Reading time 5 minutes.

Anger, physicality, sensate expression of instincts, body merging with the earth in its full expression – that’s what June is all about as we are building up to Litha. Swimming, walking barefoot, lying on mountain tops, communing with wildlife, beasts, bugs and plants alike are all the activities that feed the body and awake the soul.

There’s danger, however, when summer is fully alive in its wilderness. Night and day both carry life within and it can feel unsafe. This resonate with my overwhelm of the forest and feeling apprehensive about venturing out during the explosion of life in the land during summer. I tend to withdraw, hence I like the quietness and sleepiness of winter. It is safer. However, by withdrawing a part of me remains enclosed, hidden and that’s what needs to change this year.

Wild-self calls and roars pushing boundaries of a self-created seclusion. It needs expressing and breathing with the rhythms of the season.

A safe place for wild spirit for me is the Highlands of Scotland. There my wild-self is contented, it is allowed to be in its full majesty. It scares me always yet I thirst for it at the same time. There my whole aligns with the wild nature around me. I eagerly drink it into my cells, I merge with it like it is home and my spirit sours into endless skies daily and consumes my whole being with a sense of raw, complete, real and natural. It often manifests with anger, emotional cries and outward expression of raw things. It is unable to hide and sit still. It needs to run, fly, crawl and swim all at the same time. It can feel and look scary and crazy uncontainable and vicious, but it all makes sense and, perhaps, in embracing and allowing that for myself a bit more will also relax others in joining me and not being afraid of a strong bite and a loud screech that it often comes with.

Summer is truly a time for letting go and letting be. It is a time to fly higher and swimming further. Last summer I remember wanting to go on the water in a kayak and the fear that gripped me was so irrational yet it immobilized me. Someone said to me ‘go for it, we only live once, might as well’ and so I did. The freedom of releasing the urge to glide through vast waters released the excitement I had ever felt before. With each push across the lake I went further and further and with each minute I wanted to do more and more.

When I am faced with the mountains of the Highlands I can hear the scream within me telling me to run, scream, be in its fullest. The impulse in me to merge with the land is so strong that I know if I don’t I could easily just stagnate and die through my own fear and a loss of the potentially ecstatic experience. It is like choosing to drink poison and staying in a position of never knowing what it’s like to live fully. When I step on that mountain trail my heart and spirit sour, I want to run and cry and scream, the feeling I have of being as one with the land, a place I never want to leave for as long as I live.

I break my heart every time I have to leave the wilderness behind, because it means my wild-self has to go back into a safe enclosure of my other life, which is managed, contained and often unexciting.

“Do something different” – 2018 signature

.Reading time 8 minutes.

leap of faith to change your life

What seems to be happening this year, of course, as planned always, is more challenges in terms of ‘do things differently from now on’. Its call is deep and it is not messing about. Instead it feels authentic and with a meaningful purpose behind it. The voice of ‘new’ tells me to close my ears to the old, conditioned and ‘the norm’ and look outside of the comfort zone or rather outside of the box we have put ourselves in. Having been in a box for most of our lives makes sense. That’s what everyone had always done and many will continue to do, but what it is about this year that asks us to step up on a different ladder, take a different turn? Just try and see, what have you got to lose, yet we hold on, fear comes over, doubt sets in and we retreat into our shell, which is effectively a self-constructed prison.

The thing is we all know that there is this place within us that now and again calls us to do things differently. It is there nudging us gently, ‘go on, go on’, but we are very good at ignoring that voice, as other voices, e.g. judgement, criticism and doubt are so much louder we are more likely to surrender to those. It is just how things have been created for most of us throughout our lives. At some point we come to a conclusion, or rather convince ourselves, that there is not much point in changing anything, why do it, it is all ok as it is, too much hassle. What it is too much of essentially is fear. We are scared. No one likes what we perceive as failure, how would we recover, oh no, but how do we live without trying and failing, how else would we know what works and what doesn’t? This is not easy and I am right there with you.

This process of un-knowing, un-conditioning, un-becoming seems like, on one hand, an unattainable goal, too hard, potentially filled with pain and disappointment, but, on the other hand, it is exciting, liberating, ‘not giving a damn’ type of brave and all-embracing life just as it is. It is true, essential core living, fully present in life and focused with eyes and heart wide open.

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This is exactly the process I am talking about. Many do take this path and they do fail, but the thing is what we don’t realise is that we have all the potential to get back up again. We’ve all been there, done that, we know we can go through the toughest challenges and survive and all of us have plenty of life examples to support it. It is not a myth, it is real-life experiences that we can draw upon when fear strikes. We can fail again and again, but we would have lived something different, something alive and uncertain and had a chance to shape something into a thing of beauty and confidence. Yes, nothing is easy, but why would we want it to be?

I feel like a young part of me is writing this, the one that had never had a voice and being silent for so long produced internal fire ready to come out. Luckily these days my voice and internal fire are in good balance providing a good foundation for taking a leap into something new and freeing.

Air element has taken over my spring so far, it seems, and I can see why exactly. Whenever we are presented with a challenge or a dilemma one of the defences is to use our head more, fly into the mind and identify with everything it has to say. The mind is not always right, however, and learning to decipher mind messages is a useful thing to learn. It is also important to get to know your mind generally and what it tends to do in various situations. There has been days when I was aware of my mind working overtime it was making me exhausted, but I let it. It had to work things out and not all of it was bad, I must admit, but I had to bring it back into my heart and my body eventually, as we cannot function in the Air, in the mind alone indefinitely. I tried to balance out the mental defence with tapping into the feeling body and align with the Water element and also Fire when I felt some passion was needed to support my ‘good’ thoughts.

The whole thing needs to ground now and this is what I am still working on. I need that Earth and waiting for the moment when I can dig my hands into it again to start planting seeds for real and allowing my whole being to balance out. Waiting for warmth to come in and root me back into the earth. I think that will help greatly. There is still doubt that comes in now and again, but I no longer feel fear. A large part of me is trusting the process and my inner knowing and allowing for the chance to decide and manifest whatever is needed. I know I will be ok whatever happens, as when I hear ‘oh no, you won’t be’, I know this is only my mind talking, which is often supported by what we are conditioned to hear by a society, a family system that is not functioning well or simply fear that is present in the collective on so many levels. It is that prison calling ‘come back, come back’, as it is also scared to be left behind empty and meaningless.

This spring why not start dismantling our prisons brick by brick through engaging with one, two, three new ideas and implementing them, trying them out to see how they feel. Do something different this year. Why wouldn’t we want a different experience, which often is actually more in alignment with our inner calling than we realise. What we are experiencing is a call back home, which is what it is all about. We are called to do that full circle of un-becoming, un-learning and coming back to the way we were born to be.

Flying into spring

.Reading time 4 minutes.

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With hair smelling of earth and aching leg muscles I feel like I can fly. Air element is strongly present since calendar spring began. Identification with flying, birds and wings propels me into areas I would not have visited before or even considered. There is space, openness, possibilities and opportunities. Ultimately freedom. Elemental change has been quite sudden and quick this year just as one day we had snow and the next all the flowers were out. From Water I stepped into Air, or rather flew into it.

My pace changed from gentle quietness of winter to a very busy mind full of ideas, engaging with a lot of research and literary feeling like I was going to take off any minute and fly. My views expanded hugely. I didn’t just begin to step outside my comfort zone and think outside the box I threw the box away. I also experienced my clients having breakthroughs in their process one after another. There was an opening of some sort, which again invited us all, it seems, into being something different. This all feels like a big change overnight.

What I am working on now is bringing myself back into balance and what is needed is Earth, so I walk a lot. I wash my hair (crown chakra) with clay and mud and exercise my body so I can feel every muscle and joint to connect me to the physical. It is grounding. On my walk today I encountered a heron bird I often see and even though it was a bird, a lot of them in my awareness right now, Heron is a wise old crone, which warns against haste and too much speed. I hear her and I slow down standing next to the bird.

Experience is exhilarating and again different. What I notice most of all is lack of fear. Courage is all around me. I feel like I can fly and not just that, but I also know how to. I am in touch with my skills and inner wisdom more than ever and what also comes in strongly is trust, which overrides doubt every day. It feels incredible and liberating to a point of ‘jumping’ off the cliff and being ok. As many doors remain closed or get shut in my face I find my ‘wings’ grow bigger. I find my way, I manoeuvre life and people with greater confidence and skill. I think things through and able to step away when I feel I have overdone it. Too much thinking is never good, hence bringing in balancing elements is important to keep the overall effect positive and yourself intact and healthy.

I am enjoying ‘my flight’ so far and excited to see what else this spring brings with it. In the next couple of week we will have Ostara and nature will burst into blooming picture of glory. I am ready!

Earthly and Spiritual

.Reading time 7 minutes.

spiritual and earthly

There is something very sobering about the earthy when it comes about. It puts you in your place, it shakes you out of your imaginary outcome. It is dry, unsympathetic and often ruthless. It is a pallet of dull mud brown and dirty grey. It lacks vibrancy. It is needed sometimes and when it’s needed, it can be very grounding like putting us in front of what we are truly meant to be focusing on at a certain time. Earthly is solid, inflexible, it is how it is. Earthly let you know that choices are limited, it is either this or that and that’s it. There is not much room for manoeuvre or space for negotiating. We often find it hard to deal with, which more often than not causes us stress, anxiety, depression and disappointment. However, it is not always a bad thing. It can also be containing and reassuring when it is needed, when our imagination might have run away with us and we lost touch with the ground, so to speak. Pulling us down can serve a providing a level of safety. Earthly is about what we do and how we do it.

 

Spiritual is about limitless choices, but not necessarily about what we do, but how we are being, feeling, flowing with life. It is full of pure whites, bright purples and emerald greens. It is about feelings we choose to engage with when faced with certain situations, earthly situation, and even when we make a certain earthy choice or given one where we don’t have a say it is that spiritual choice of being a certain way with it that can become our light and saviour in such times.

 

Both earthly and spiritual have their functions and it is often a challenge for a human being to be able to see, be and engage with both if and when needed. Having both running in parallel is not easy all of the time and there is a certain push and pull motion that frequently occurs. It can be confusing, but it teaches are awareness about what we do, how we think, how we react, being and what we feel.

Both can become distorted and go ‘wrong’.

Just as earthly can restrict us whether necessary or not in a way that will serve us, so can spiritual become an illusion. Attachment to a certain spiritual idea or a construct can lead to disillusionment and even a loss of faith. I have touched upon that recently and came close to seeing how and why that might happen. I could understand why people turn away from faith and find it difficult to reconnect. When an idea we attach to, e.g. ‘How can God allow this’ or ‘universe is always on my side’ gets crumbled we get disillusioned. These sorts of ideas, I suspect, get crushed often and everywhere. The reason for that is that ideas, as above, are limited, constructed and do not allow for flexibility, so they become a sort of fantasy with not much bases. Those ideas are not expanded further or looked at from various angles. I experienced the crumbling of ‘it will be fine, the universe is always on my side’ idea recently and it was painful. I found myself questioning a lot of things and it took a couple of days of unpacking through my emotional body and feeling through what was coming up before I again began to see clearly. I can see how, if one allows to surrender to that disillusionment without processing the whole thing, human being can lose their faith in the spiritual. What became clear was the need to redefine of ‘the universe is always on my side’. Do you see how limited that is? Of course it is on your side, but it might not feel like that when certain concrete earthly elements come into play. It can be about an error somewhere along the way, or it can be that some things can only be one way or another. Examples of such earthly ways and they are often inevitable regardless of whether universe is on your side or not (do you see how irrelevant that spiritual construct is here?) are typically when dealing with death, illness, government rules, schools, regulations and law. All of these are very concrete earthly positions where spiritual may not hold much weight when we are faced with it.

Spiritual is a bird’s-eye view, general overall feeling, a flow of energy. It is about lessons we learn as a result of our earthly choices or their lack of. Taking spiritual to heart in difficult times eases the pain and restores the flow. Spiritual helps us keeping our spirit and soul light at times of difficulties. It is hopeful and free. It speaks of things beyond the physical and that earthly is not the whole picture. There’s a bigger and wider view available. It expands the awareness and helps keep hope and resilience in us alive. That is the function of the spiritual, much more expansive and it is felt through the body and seen through a hidden eye available to us all in times of hardship.

The balance of both, therefore, is necessary and cultivation of that unity and collaborative work is a life-long commitment. It is, indeed, possible to navigate life with the heart completely open, soul shining while engaging with all things earthly. The alternative is being either one or the other, which lacks balance and doesn’t promote the wholeness of human experience.

 

 

Relationships – another challenge

.Reading time 3 minutes.

relationship break up

What’s popped into my awareness this morning post various nightmarish travels overnight is the vibration of a relationship break-up. There is betrayal, abuse, blackmail, manipulation vibrations all mixed into the message that has come through and it relates to what we need to face next year. This past year has been a difficult one in terms of relationships of all kinds. It has been tense, destructive, ugly at times to the point of no return and the reason it has been coming up quite so strongly is to challenge the ways that we have gone about being in relationships up until now. I feel the test, the challenge is closely related to our vibration of pretending everything is fine when something deep within had been telling us it is not. We do this out of fear, not feeling safe in any dynamic different to where we are, but paradoxically keeping ourselves in a place where it is potentially even more unsafe long-term.

Therefore, what next year and this next cycle is asking of us is to sit with the discomfort of the truth about many of our relationships. Face it head on and bring up honestly into the open about whether they are actually working for us. With the next cycle, new moon in place we have a chance to envisage and plant a seed for a relationship that we do want and start working/manifesting/changing either the one we have, doing some reparation/replanting work or a complete renewal brought through awareness and honesty with ourselves and others.

The most important dynamic and a relationship, of course, that we are asked to look at and revisit next year is the relationship with ourselves. Where do we fail and what do we exceed at? Honestly unpicking and looking at each of our own qualities in detail we can find ways of smoothing rough edges or, perhaps, understanding where we don’t always serve ourselves and others and embrace our true gifts, our beautiful qualities, which can be amplified even more with an aim to benefit many around us and feed our soul.

Ready for another ride? Relationships are the hardest to be in, manifest and cultivate things that we experience here in this reality. We grow through relationships, we get to know ourselves through relationships, we live, love and get exposed through them. It is one of the main functions here on earth. It is not going to be easy, but if we don’t attend to our relationship dynamics we risk to be stuck in a vibration of dishonesty, disappointment and eventually resentment.

Many blessings!