Category: unconditional love

A trip that freed me

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Here are some pictures from my trip to Perthshire, Scottish Highlands this past October just before Samhain. This was a long anticipated trip, not because it haven’t been before, I have, but because I made it there on my own after talking and planning for years. I finally did it and something in me changed forever now, solidified in knowing this is it. This is the place I first came years ago and where my love affair and deep spiritual connection with the land began. The trip that I took was a journey down memory lane and my love is just as strong, if not stronger. It was an absolutely perfect end to a wonderful year where all the through I have been committed to doing things differently  and have succeeded. Enjoy Scotland pics in Autumn.

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‘Noticing’ as a path to true living

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When my child says something is beautiful be it a scenery, painting, a person’s face or an experience it goes right to my heart. It is a felt experience for me to hear and know that he’s noticed something that truly touched him. I learn from my son the art of appreciating what is in the moment and banking those moments into a bundle that is a life truly lived.

When we notice, we are present, we are in a felt experience of what is going through us and touching us as a living being energy. The more detail we notice in something or someone the deeper we go into the moment of being present with what is now, what is alive and speaking to us.

To me hearing my son express his delight in what he observes represents a true living rather than a passing energy of existing in a chain of life events, day to day, week to week. It tells me something is always worth noticing, examining, learning no matter how small. It speaks to me of a quality of always wondering what the next day, trip, touch and experience might bring. It is remaining curious and fully in life at all times. It is, to me, is beautiful, and who is better to connect us to that way of being than children, whose light shines through unapologetically and if it’s expression is allowed to be authentic at all times then we benefit from that more so through connecting not just to a real experience of knowing our children, but also re-connecting to our own inner child, which often gets forgotten as we get old.

‘Parent within’ time

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lessons for children

When the earth is pregnant and blooming and preparing for the birth of what is earthly bounty to come, my parent within begins to speak. Eleven years ago during this time I was myself in a place of blooming and preparing, scared of the unknown and excited by possibilities. What my parent speaks of today is lessons for our children. This is what I have learnt so far on my journey of growth alongside my child’s life.

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Teach children to seek balance within themselves and see it in the world around them. Teach them integration and acceptance of what is at any given moment and that’s all valid and ok. Teach them while going after pleasure and enjoyment is humanly natural, but not to ignore or by-pass the pain and disappointment that life often brings. Teach them the sacredness of the body and spirit. Show them that emotions are rich and ever-present and not to be made an enemy of but to read them as navigators towards better understanding of yourself and the world.

Teach them the balance between hard work, relaxation and active rest. Show them that when things happen one doesn’t have to fall apart but to be with what is real and present. Show them graceful and integrated survival and reparation when things get touch. Be with them unconditionally. Show them that personal intimate connections heal, relationships based on love and respect transform. There is nothing that can’t be resolved and/or changed or looked upon with a new perspective in one way or another. Teach them that what is meant to be for them specifically will come about and if our desires do not match to outcomes then that is ok to change a course of action and re-evaluate. It is ok to go with the flow and flex with life as it goes.

For me an instant cure for constant disappointment came about through my mother’s teaching, who said to me one day in my early twenties ‘if something wasn’t for you, it is best it didn’t happen. It also might mean there is something better out there waiting to manifest’. It took me a few years to really understand the meaning of it, but subsequently my life became a lot easier having integrated that perspective into my way of living. I will forever be grateful for that to my mother.

What my son and I often say, which, perhaps, is another side of the same coin is ‘it is not the end of the world’. It is not to say that we shrug everything off and remain unaffected, no, what it means that we feel what we need to feel, accept it within ourselves, give ourselves whatever we need and move on with the knowledge that this is just one roadblock amidst many others that will come throughout life, but there is nothing to fear essentially and there is no reason to think things won’t change or we won’t recover or survive.

Teach them to differentiate and sort through what is essential vs non-essential. This will apply to all aspects of their developing lives and the way they see the world. Talk to them about what they find the most enjoyable and what hurts them the most. Listen. Get to know them as a whole. Teach them that the world is full of pain and suffering, but it is also filled with such beauty and divinity that no words would never be enough to describe it. Teach them to feel like through the heart, not just the head. Teach them that being kind to yourself and others can be a way of living and that giving and receiving are equally important. Teach them connections to themselves and others and that emotional bonds can last a life-time.

Teach them that magic is real and that magic is within them. There is nothing they can’t do and the inner power and divinity is just as vital and alive within them as their thinking mind and emotions. Teach them to see themselves and other as a whole, unique, beautiful and worthy of all the wonderful things world has to offer. Teach them sacredness of nature and its powerful lessons. Show them that relating to plants, animals and nature cycles strengthens compassion and helps navigate everyday.

Most importantly show them they are loved and valued just the way they are. Show them there is nothing and could never be anything wrong with them and that choices are there for them to take for as long as they remain open in their heart and curious in their mind.

Much love and many blessings!

Renewed signature of Beltain 2018

.Reading time 5 minutes.

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Beltain this year has been anticipated, which is very in contrast to my usually triggered time associated with the festival. This year everything is newly born, all is different and surrounded and supported by an overarching signature of love and devotion. It has been a truly beautiful energy to immerse in and integrate it as a permanent knowing of what is possible. My usual rejection of the masculine instead turned into curiosity, invitation, some risk taking even and exploration this year.

In my dream the other night multiple memories popped up around various encounters that span throughout my life and I have seen a side of myself, which had long been buried, suppressed, yet this year it is all coming out around this divine timing. I was equally shocked, revived and marvelled at material that jumped out of my unconscious – a wild, fearless, playful, seductive and very relation part of myself stood right in front of me in a kaleidoscope of engagements with the masculine. My sense is now that once again she feels safe in the current union and secure in herself to come out in the open. I also know that the male would very much welcome her in a dance of a deep and passionate connection. She does have passion in buckets.

Love, sex, passion, commitment, tenderness, togetherness, attentive engagement and deeper understanding. Receiving, not rejecting. Compassionate, not cruel. Silently wise, not abusive and loud. Showing and guiding, not expecting. These are vibrations that are present in the current feminine signature of today’s Beltain for me.

In the whole elemental confusion and sorting there is clarify. In recent weeks a lot happened that led me to an even deeper connection to the masculine in my life. I used to say I’d take my soul connection to the land over my commitment to a man. I felt disconnected, resentful, in a place of my wounded Maiden, my scarred May queen. But when the ring I used in ‘a descent to the underworld’ ceremony a few year ago when I ‘married’ the land of my soul, got ruined in water (profound), it felt significant and worth noticing.

When away in Cornwall early last month and not feeling in alignment with the place I also clearly saw my man’s connection to it and it made me re-think both, my commitment to the land of my soul and to him. For the first time in years he came first. I felt and knew it. What I came to realise that letting him be is something unquestionable and all I can do is find another way to say in connection to the land and get that rooted nourishment I crave so often, but not sacrificing what I have in other areas. This lessons had been a long time coming and now it is grounded.

My engagement ring went back on my finger today, before Beltain fires are lit and it now feels right once again. Looking at the ring it is as if seeing it for the first time with a renewed wisdom of its meaning. It has four corners, complete and simple, it signifies my renewed union.

In your Beltain dance of Firy love and passion tonight let things unfold and be. Set yourself and your man free and, perhaps, through releasing and letting things ‘grow and germinate naturally’ a flow of something else will join the river of what is life as it is right now for your both, forever open and inviting to the energies of nature. As above, so below, as within so is out!

Blessed Beltain!

previous years’ posts

My Beltaine darkness

Beltaine 2016 

 

The winter of love

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heart chakra

The next couple of posts are significant in recording my journey towards ‘home’, myself and wholeness this year. It was crystal clear towards the end of 2017 that 2018 was to be the year of doing things completely differently, stepping out of life as we know it, as we created it, looking outside the box and leaving your comfort zone. It makes me realise now how important it is to align with the yearly signatures, as when in the same flow and not resisting, avoiding or going against, it aids our progression. Often all that is needed is readiness to listen, to change and embrace all the qualities within us as facilitators on our journey. As Alfred Adler said that it is not about surrendering to your safety zone supported by safe guiding behaviours, i.e. not believing that you can change and keeping yourself blocked indefinitely using the same ways of being over and over, “withdrawing from the challenge of life”. It is about facing life head on, adopting a more courageous approach. We are capable of courageous behaviour provided we are willing to engage in it. This resonates with the process of psychotherapy, which is a journey one undertakes towards adopting and cultivating a more courageous, engaging approach to life, working towards changes that are needed for a more fulfilling life. Over and over I have witnessed clients stepping courageously into areas of great difficulty and facing life head on. It makes my job a very rewarding and humbling experience to bear witness to human resilience and strength of spirit.

So, 2018 is such year when the space is open for us to step into with an open heart and an attitude of something different. I have found this process extremely revealing about the potential within and one that puts you in touch with the whole of your personality. All that is needed is openness and willingness to engage.

My 2018 winter has been profoundly peaceful, calm and gentle time. For the first time in years it was very different. Usually it is a Fire element space for me when I am dynamic, energetic and very productive, a time I engage with various projects and manifest a lot. Not this year. I counsciously decided to stay ‘still’. It almost effortlessly unfolded into a process of me connecting to my heart centre and sides of myself I had not experienced for as long as I remember. I have not felt my own niceness or softness, e.g. for such a long time I forgot, therefore this feeling was new, different yet also imbedded in the knowledge that it was there all along within me. The book that I spent reading throughout winter sang to my heart gently and with each page I felt my being becoming lighter, more open, and softer and engaged with LOVE.

Freeing the Heart (2001) 

After seven years of painstakingly difficult process of opening my heart I felt I was finally there and I still am today. Throughout my life I went through experiencing transcendent love towards another, which stood the test of time. I also visited places completely devoid of love. I spent frequent days of terror not knowing if I was ever to come back from that place where love didn’t exist. Again and again I felt love abandoning me and literary forgetting what that was and feeling nothing for anyone for periods of time. I can truly say that was always one of the scariest experiences in my life, you see, I never knew if love would come back and that felt terrifying. My heart disappeared. Images that I went through in my journey was heart in a cage, bleeding, having a huge piece of glass wedged into it, shrunk heart, a stone and many more. You can read other posts on my blog about my work with connecting with the heart.

This winter I fell in love with my husband and my son all over again in a way I hadn’t felt before. There was deep sense of acceptance and compassion. It was a place where conditions didn’t exist and all I had was a beautiful flow of being present with love minute after minute, day after day. The world around me appeared the same yet my heart was lighter witnessing things much slower, which previously would have thrown me into places uninviting. Most of all I started to ‘fall in love’ with myself, more precisely becoming aware of my essential qualities, my ability to love, give and participate in life in a way that flows not blocks or rejects. It is difficult to put into words and I can only say that this was profound, new, transformative and beautiful. It was as if I was transforming, but actually I was merging back into the self I always was and meant to be.

I noticed how my mind calmed and as it did my heart began to grow open and it no longer felt scary or unsafe. It felt like I was home. In terms of the elements I would connect it to Water element most of all and this winter it was all about water element in its purest form. My opening of the heart was steady, slow, gentle like a bubbling brook in a forest or a small river gently flowing through land. It was not a forceful roar of the ocean or crashing waves of the sea. This makes sense to me. Water has been my shadow element for as long as I remember. It is also my birth element. Aligning and merging with my own Water element made the process of coming home even sweeter.

Memories in the snow

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I woke up from a dream of being back in my Siberian land. Dreams that take me there are always set in winter. Most of my childhood and youth’s significant events happened in winter and amidst snow and remain the most memorable to this day. Sledging with friends in freezing temperatures when we couldn’t feel our faces, hands and feet, yet incredibly happy and full of joys of childhood. My first kiss, awkward, yet warm and sweet. The day I let him go also took place in the middle of winter with me crying in the bright light of street lamps and snow sparkling all around us. I remember my blue mascara running down my cheek as if it was yesterday and the smell of his winter coat as he pulled me close to his chest. I remember his heart beat as we said good-bye.

I recall ice-skating with my father and falling into the deep snow, up to my waist, in the wilderness forest. We laughed a lot. Another kiss takes me back to a sacred place where memories stand still and not just my own, but for the whole nation. Wearing white hat and mittens in a cream coloured coat I was deeply in love.

As I walked to the window this morning I was greeted with a snow-covered garden and land beyond. Beautiful. It continued to snow all morning and I decided to go into the forest for some nature and elements communion. I always feel it is such a raw, spiritual and necessary experience to immerse yourself in the elements be it rain, snow, sunshine or wind. Each element awakens something within, touches upon places that need to be visited to remind us of what is essential and where we are in life. Crunchy under my feet I found snow and pure white landscape stretching ahead taking me further into my memories and on a journey of seeing and feeling things I hold dear to my heart. Memories flooded in like a bitter-sweet river and looking around me I smiled also feeling a smidge of sadness in my heart. He is long gone, but what he left is a place within me that is unconditional love and to this day I carry it inside and always will. Forest was noisy with splats and swooshing sounds of snow falling off branches. Many trees were bent down under the snow weight touching the ground. I stopped and breathed it all in. I miss him still and I remember everything like it was yesterday. Sadness filled my heart, but it is no longer grief or longing, it is settled and contained, warm and alive. It is love, forever.

The world’s gone mad… even more 2017

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Below is something I wrote back in 2015 around this time of year and what I am observing is that I am beginning to step into the Fire energy around this time of year – Winter for me, unlike for many, is a time of productivity and Fire. It brings up feelings of injustice, crime against what’s good, fight against consumerism and robot-like relating to the front. What I wrote back then I am feeling again today all over my body, acutely present in my awareness and every day interactions and experiences. It feels like an overwhelm of madness of the world and everywhere I look or listen to I am slapped with it and it is not getting any better year by year.

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Today I literally feel the ‘madness’ of the world like it is sitting in my front room screwed up in pain and desperation. It is potent and it smells bad. There is disintegration that is happening within its consciousness that feels like madness and when madness occurs all boundaries are blurred and that is when it becomes dangerous, out of control. It has no longer anything more to lose, so it is released into its own destruction. I never felt it this strong before and its presence is felt in my body everywhere. I want to cry, I want to run, I want to stay and cry some more. Conflicting, overwhelming emotions running through every cell.

Today I suddenly understand my father’s struggle with the world, his anger and disappointment with the way things are. I understand it through feeling it all over my emotional body.

I feel the Earth barely holding it together. The world is going mad. Separation is a big factor, too much division while everyone trying to make sense of things. There is another way, there is only one way, I feel that can heal. It is LOVE, it has always been love, and nothing is as strong as that. We are all able to feel it, we all know it, but the problem is that many have forgotten understandably so, as love can also die a slow death, bit by bit it can slip away into places unreachable and that is deeply psychological. There is lack of love and there is lack of consciousness. What we need is the will to bring it back to life and for those actively engaging with love daily multiply it as much as possible in whatever way is possible.

There’s a need for a collective ritual of some kind and a big group hug. Start at home. Hold your loved ones tight, let them know how strong your love is and let the vibration spread out there into the world. Tell your child you are blessed by their presence and joy they bring into your life. You are in awe of their beauty and unique nature. You are immensely proud to be in their presence.

Tell your partner that no matter what their sharing of life with you feels like a gift every day. Let them know that feeling as one with them in moments of intense love is the feeling you wish to live in. Tell them how grateful you feel for the lessons you learnt in their company and thank them for making you a better person. Forgive those, who are not able to see through your eyes or hear your voice or see your inner beauty. Let them go with the message of ‘I love you and forgive you’. Sit quietly visualising the light of love spreading through your body and out in to the world.

Love is all we have, love is the only most powerful tool that we need to engage here in order to heal that creature on the sofa in my living room. Only through giving comfort and acknowledgement to it we can release it off its torment.

Many blessings!