Category: spiritual experience
Back to safety
Sometimes what once was the centre of your world becomes exhausting, murky and isolating. This year I have opened my eyes to others’ perspectives on that very important thing I had only looked at from my own heart’s perspective. It can be hard to separate heart and mind when the love one feels is all consuming. It is very true what they say about love being blind. Grateful I am for insights and clarity on a picture, which had only ever had one presentation, nothing else compared and something I fiercely and unconditionally protected shutting eyes and ears to anything else in the process. It nearly cost me dearly and took me away in a direction I knew nothing about however much I convinced myself that I did.
Today I looked at that same picture and saw a gloomy, lonely, unwell landscape what before seemed like haven on earth, the only place to live and die. Strikingly it looked back at me as there we both were as if seeing each other for the first time. What an eye-opening experience this summer. I finally admitted and accepted that suffering does not equate eternal bliss, they are polar opposites, yet my attachment to pain, an old pattern, slowly sneaked up into this experience. Being blind was part of the game, part of the lure into a place dark and lonely. Love is a funny thing and that, I understand, relates to all sorts of love, be it for a person, behaviour, place or a certain feeling. We often get blind-sided by what we are not willing to see for the sake of preserving what we think will ultimately bring us joy. When we get out of our heads and step away from this one perspective we can see all the blind spots. The words of others would ring in our ears all at once and suddenly, for the first time, we hear their voices and see their perspective. Being trapped in a love that is projected, idealised can be dangerous, I know it now, as that kind of love will ask you to give up many things and people, who are actually meant to be in your life. Others are like mirrors into our experience, they are there to point out where we are going wrong and take us back into their arms no matter how far we might have strayed. This is a blessing, as what would happen if there was no way back, no one there to welcome us back to a safe shore?
It has been a difficult summer in particular. I found my allies in places I didn’t expect and returning to a home I long forgot provided me with much needed foundation to start rebuilding my experience, anew, in a different way, more kind and compassionate to the whole of myself, not just an isolated part.
Relationships, however, weak, strong, distant or unnoticed are valuable for us all and should be cultivated and cherished even if only for a while, but the most important thing is to notice, to hear, to allow for that hand of help stretch towards us when we don’t know what is good for us. Living in the earthly is fundamental for the spiritual to feel safe – that much is clear. One without the other is limited and it is also the most difficult integration and manifestation there is, the hardest lesson to learn while we remain in this time space reality.
Summer always feels unsafe to me with its unforgiving, merciless sun and the overwhelm of all senses with dense, unpenetrable forests’ paths. I get lost, confused and on edge all of the time, which makes me vulnerable to all sorts of experiences. They hit all at once, relentless dreams, mental states confusion, anxiety, body shutting down its communication. I don’t feel healthy or well during summer and by the end of it I am always exhausted and in a break-down mode in every way. Now with autumn coming, I am finally coming back to myself., back to safety. Relieved I can begin to breathe again. A process of recovery and reconstruction starts all over again, as it does every year. I am yet to figure out a way of working with summer, something, I suspect, is meant to be that exact way, although difficult to tolerate.
Photo: Arielle Vey ariellevey.com
Sacred parts of the WHOLE
There are many sides to each and every one of you. Very often we get stuck in the earthly and conditioning so much that we had not been able to see or know who we truly are. That always comes from such messages as ‘you should be this… or this is not acceptable… or this is a good thing to do… are you sure you know what you are doing…’, imposed expectations and conditions from the external environment, family dynamics and ancestral roots. We grow up hearing, seeing and internalising those messages and voices of the external and with that what we truly are gets simply left behind, rejected or forgotten.
In my work I am primarily concerned with and interested in who a person connecting with me in sacred work is. Who is a person without the pain, without the burden of obligation or duty? Who are you? This is exciting and fundamental work for a personal transformation and a fulfilling life. Through intuitive work/intuitive reading you can discover and connect to your sacred parts of the whole. The work goes in cycles and with each cycle a person goes deeper into their layers and discovering more of themselves. This is transformational work I feel very passionate about. As long as we don’t force to be one way or another, put ourselves in a box, trying to either be it all at once or just one as a dominant force, exactly like it has been done to us from the external before, through this work we can reach the depth of inner knowing that will propel us into life in a completely different way. True parts of you cannot be rushed or told what to do. They will come when they are most needed and what’s expected of us is to get to know each of them intimately and know when to call upon one energy/archetype or another. They are a team working together within your psyche and have your best interest at heart only if you give them full understanding, acceptance and unconditional regard and love. They want to be allowed to be and this is very important.
I will share with you examples from my own journey. There are several parts that I know well within me and have built or am building a relationship with. Seasons of the year, the wheel of the year and four seasons of the soul have played a huge part in my journey and you can connect a lot of it with what is going on in nature. My intuitive practice and spell casting are interlinked closely with working in nature. This is part of who I am, something I was born with that can never be lost.
The Nature Spirit – this is my biggest, all-inclusive part that includes The Inner Mother, The Goddess (a few of them depending on where we are in the wheel of the year), The Healer (working with plants predominantly), The Magician (solitary practitioner that seeks solitude and quiet to bring about a change), The Green man (a position masculine energy), The Five Elements, fairy folk, spirits of the woods and many more archetypes. It is the most alive and vibrant energy within me, something I feel I knew even before I was born and is inseparable from the core of who I am.
The Witch – this part is the most connected to underworld/unconscious/the Moon/darkness. It usually comes forth several times a year and the way I recognise it or know it comes into my body is through my hands. Magic energy starts pulsating and buzzing in my hands and goes into my fingers that I can feel it very clearly. What I do with that depends on what intuition tells me at the time and what is going on around me or within me at the time. It can be nothing, just being with it, or doing some creative spell casting (more on that in another post) or change an altar. I always follow my intuition as an Intuitive practitioner. My magic practice is also intuitive rather than ritualistic, mainstream or fixed. The Witch is unsuprisingly fond of autumn time and comes up close to Samhain, and my own birthday time.
Land Guardian – this part is the most connected to my soul, but different from a Nature spirit. This one is all about a deep sacred relationship with the land. It is an expression of the most beautiful love that I know. It is a source of my inspiration, my deepest emotions. This part of me reads various locations naturally, it picks up on land signatures and knows what needs to be healed or how we can be healed by relating to the land.
Wolf – this part is connected to the body. Leezil is a female wolf. It is wild and instinctual and a source of sexual energy. This one feels incredibly freeing and empowering when it is present and makes me feel invincible. It also has the most profound quality of honour and loyalty – my primary life values.
Intuitive self – this part of me is connected to Spirit. It receives messages from the Source for myself or others and it is the most knowing part of me that taught me a lot about living a fully intuitive life. Nowadays I don’t know any other way to live.
Inner child – this part is connected to freedom and joy. I have been working on this part for many years (my inner child was lost for what felt like an eternity and was not reachable for many years. It took a long time and effort to bring it back. I am still working on it discovering more with each inner work cycle. The most recent discovery earlier this year was that there are, in fact, two inner children within me.
These are just some parts and there are many more, of what I see as many parts of the whole and when I sit with a client, who had been ‘in a box’ for many years, it is always the most hopeful thing for them to hear that they are not just THAT, they are many beautiful manifestations of the Spirit. The journey of discovery of these lost parts of yourself that need to be called home and collected into one whole piece is the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed within myself and in working with other people. It is a true privilege to see someone arrive where they had always meant to be.
Many blessings!
Image source/Credit to: https://blaqkdiamondgroup.com/green-diamond/issue1/
Forest bathing
There’s a place in North Wales where forest is like no other. Gentle yet imposing, soothing yet dark. It never fails to stir the soul within me. Air so fresh it speaks of the deepest, most nourishing sturdiness and wisdom. It compares only to the most delightful embrace where I bury myself utterly in bliss. Forest bathing is by far my favourite spiritual experience where my body comes alive in completely in tune with my soul and I feel complete, at home.
One such experience earlier this spring reaffirmed my love for the forest yet again and spoke to me loudly of a place of belonging. As I walked deeper into pine kingdom covered in emerald moss I felt myself coming alive in every cell in me. Both my skin and soul screamed for exposure, immersion into what I can only describe as the light of spirit, ancient and completely perfect
Its welcoming voice whooshed through tree tops roaring me into its body and I became as one with it. Stripping layer after layer till bearing all I gently rested on its moist floor never wanting to be anywhere else ever again. Complete bliss enveloped my senses and pure peace entered my soul. I wanted to stay in that glorious house for eternity. Such feeling is rarely replicated in life. Like a mother the earth licked my exposed feet with soft caresses and I felt myself melting into the ground. It took a while to awake myself into the world again and sorrow of separation entered me as I left the forest.
