Woman's Work Day 1 "Do you know me? The woman who moves as the moon moves"

Using Dominique Christina's book This Is Woman's Work as a guide I will work my way through each of the 20 archetypes of woman that she sets out in her work - one per day. At the end of each chapter Dominique gives you a series of "seed lines" from which a poem or prose may stem…

Day 1… Shadow Woman…

The seed line that draws my eye is "Do you know me? The woman who moves as the moon moves"

Do you know me?
The woman
Who moves as the moon moves.

Drunken on the starlight
Lying still so no one will see her
Move.

The moon waxes and wanes within her
You would not see it
For the mask fits tight

Chewing on a scream
Full bodied yet veiled
God's bride.

Return after 3 months!

I haven't posted in my blog for 3 whole months! So much for every day!

My laptop broke and until I could afford to fix it I was using my iPad. Which didn't make blogging easy at all.

But I am back, Baby!

Touchstone Friendships

What would life be like if everyone agreed with me and we all got on great? It would, frankly, be unreal and also would any of us really ever grow?

I have a friend who called me this morning and asked me about how my weekend had been. I shared a deep insight that had helped me greatly and had brought me into an incredibly good place and space - it was quite a breakthrough. My friend's response was "that's bollocks!"…

Now, I would feel more shocked if it hadn't come from this particular friend who is a yang to my yin and I choose to keep in my life for his refreshing and honest views which are often contrary to mine. I was shocked mind you that anyone has the brass to suggest that something someone is sharing really helped them would so radically deny it's value.

We bantered about it for a while but we both dropped it and moved on. What was most remarkable to me (with a long history of being swayed by other people's opinions no matter how out of alignment with my truth they might be) I noticed that the truth and the validity of my experience was unaffected by his challenge.

After he and I spoke I then had supervision and described the triumph of retaining my centre and personal opinion in the face of such a challenge and my supervisor described him as a "touchstone"…

What was amazing about this is that my supervisor doesn't know that I recently looked up the true meaning of touchstone for other reasons so I know that it is a rough stone against which precious metals are tested…

… and the character of Touchstone in Shakespeare's As You Like It is a holy fool and narrator that weaves together the story (see image at top).

So my belligerent friend is indeed a touchstone - testing my mettle and metal. And I can think of other people in my life like this too. My beloved is oft prey to tell me when I am saying one thing and doing another - "you were vegan last week now you eat meat pie?" "you are driving at 85 mph!" "you bully that cat, reverend"(I don't, we just have a banter) "you never wash up…

I can only retort that I am indeed a meat pie eating, fast driving, cat berating, housework averse slob (which my friend Lisa says "makes you sound ace")…

What purpose these touchstones that irritate and punctuate and drive against the flow of life? They test my mettle! What is authentic, what is false? What is real, what is lies? What belongs to me, what doesn't? Where am I polished, where is there still work?

As my supervisor pointed out; I must trust these touchstone friends deeply to risk allowing them close. And I do, I trust them, I love them and I thank them… often long before I forgive them *winks*.

Communicating the dancing stillness

In the beginning was the Word. The roundly resonant primal OM that shook life from chaos into order. The Word needed an ear; a heart to hear; a listener. The Word became the media between the sender and the receiver; the first layer of duality; the first veil. 

Behind that veil there is the primordial silence; the Void; the infinite horizon; the wilderness.

Sacred is that Word; the movement of sound; the transmission of That which originally speaks (or sings). Sacred is that movement of tiny atoms vibrating against the ear that hears, the Heart.

I remember a time before I trained as an Interfaith Minister; I time when I knew what I knew and I spoke with certainty. The truth I spoke was mine and I owned it. I was right and I was confident; the words spilled forth spontaneously and passionately. I knew what I knew and I spoke as I saw it.

As if the great Word Itself boomed through me and shattered my illusions to dust the seminary training broke me open; I no longer knew what I knew to be true; the axiom of paradox and parallels; my language my gift and my barrier… shaken and healed of my certainty.

Ordination. The touch of oil upon my head, warm hands on my back, and my internal horizon blown wide open. The wind of the wilderness kissing my naked body, the cool sun shining in my newborn eyes. The Void touched me. The silence enveloped me.

3 years, nearly, onwards and I am finding my voice once more. Finding a language that conveys knowledge of That without certainty. Respectfully finding words that lay open to interpretation; that liberate the spirit of the receiver. 

Paradoxically I am no channel as I speak the Word; for its genesis is within me and is not me. I cannot be free of responsibility claiming to speak what the Spirit has told me. The Spirit is me. I am no channel as I allow It to speak through me.

Wordsmith. Sear not the silver and gold in the cold waters but leave the forms to bend and flex. Words are no longer flat on a page but dance! Conveying the essence of stillness through the shapeshifting forms. A process, a dialogue - no longer simply the receiver and perceiver of the Word but a companion in discussion.

Oh that the still movement and dancing stillness could find their expression in the hearts of a wider audience. This is my prayer. I pray to find expression, to experience communication, to speak and hear the Word aloud and in community and in the nation and across the globe… I pray to find expression that liberates truth rather than delineating it. I pray to find my humility proclaiming my love for this planet from the mountaintops.

I can be still. But the Word is within me, the Word is me, and it needs to be heard.

Amen

Marriage: conscious contract

I might be paraphrasing Eckhart Tolle when I say that when we think relationships are meant to make us happy we are heading for unhappiness; when we realise that relationships are meant to make us conscious… then we can work with relationship as a spiritual practice and, conversely, this brings us happiness.

I had a fascinating conversation this week with a dear friend who is about to embark on a conversion from civil partnership to marriage and we were exploring the difference between the two when my friend quite rightly points out… he gave himself 100% the first time around.

Initially the conversation rambled around civil rights and equality but we discerned them in the end to be red herrings. The institution of marriage has its roots in religion and politics and quite frankly boils down to a legal contract which is either blessed by God and your community… or not, as the case may be.

The image that comes to my mind is of the holy wells that are dotted all over Britain. I live in an area that is incredibly rich with them. Many of them now have churches next to them, walls around them, names of saints…

But those wells were there - and they were sacred - before the church came along.

This is how I feel about marriage and indeed about the contract too. That two souls should be destined to meet and to assist each other in coming to consciousness is a contract made outside of time and space. The contract is within and is either conscious or unconscious.

I believe the institution of marriage has been built on these sacred contracts like churches have been built on sacred wells - to such an extent that the well is often now completely forgotten and the edifice of the institution attempted to be replicated in secular law.

Strip it back, strip it back, strip it back!!! Before human laws governed love, before the church governed love… take down the FORM of what marriage has come to be seen as - allow it's dust to blow away…

There is the well. That contract between 2 souls - maybe to love, maybe to be happy… probably to push buttons, wind up and generally agitate too… a common destiny towards healing and wholeness.

When, in preparation for marriage, in spiritual counselling, we are able to strip it all back to the soul contract then we have the basis of the married life… a conscious journey together, the threshold for which is the wedding ceremony.

So the outer form of a contract is not an imposition but rather the inner contract being made conscious… to be blessed and celebrated.

A case study in ambivalence, absence, avoidance and inertia

I recently conducted a funeral for Enid; it was, for me, the most difficult funeral that I have yet to lead and it left me feeling dissatisfied; an itch was not scratched; it was incomplete. The family had been the most disturbed and disturbing that I had ever encountered. Nothing was manifestly untoward on the surface but the unspoken tidal currents of great pain and rage were whirling beneath us. Enid's son did not attend the meeting at the family home and I tried on successive days to contact the son for I had nothing for a eulogy. He was out, he couldn’t talk and then when I did speak to him he had nothing to give me; he was happy with the plans we had in place. His son in law wrote a short eulogy which contained nothing of the facts of her life just a couple of anecdotes. The first time I heard it was in the ceremony itself. The first time I met the next of kin was at the ceremony itself. 

There was genuine emotion in some of the gathered crowd; women wept openly; the men stone faced, red faced, unexpressive. The words I spoke were gentle, pacifying and deep. I could use the word God and did. I chose to lower the coffin at the committal despite not knowing what the son would have wanted; I had to mark the end of her life and I had to assist the transition somehow. The eulogy said nothing of her life; her ancestry, her roots, her parents, her upbringing, her marriage, her motherhood, her widowhood… just a couple of snapshot stories of funny times with her grandchildren. The service ended and the family shouted and cajoled themselves into cars to go on for a meal afterwards; a cursory thanks and handshake; a certain satisfaction that they felt it had gone well.

The funeral director gave me the cheque and I held it in my hands. It felt empty. I felt like I had showed up to a day job not a vocation; there was a futility in the act; nothing had changed, something was unspoken.

Enid had died at age 89 with Alzheimer’s disease. The ambivalence, distance, absence, repressed rage and unspoken resentments that riddled the family; the patchy eulogy of selected stories; the lack of engagement or closure in the token ceremony… this, it has become apparent to me, a case study of a dementia death. As I talked through in supervision how I had come away from the funeral ambivalent myself about the work, feeling heavy, pained and dulled by the experience… I became conscious of how this could help me write the book.

I happen to know that if we adopt the belief that the soul leaves the body at death; the spiritual essence of that individual returns to the collective for either reincarnation or ascension. If we do look through that lens then from personal experience I can testify that souls that enter into the “dementia contract” are destined to die while they are still alive; to experience a death so gentle that few notice they have even died and the soul lacks the momentum to leave the astral plane at all and sinks heavily into the family field if not consciously released.

I wonder if the heaviness of the family field is both a cause and effect of the "dementia contract". Maybe those with heaviness in their ancestry find that they reach a point where they refuse to carry the burdens further and begin to regress to a childlike state where they have no responsibility and cannot be blamed for anything; where their needs are met by others and they are cradled into death without fear or too much pain or torment.

That is not to say that dementia is without pain and torment but it seems that the extent to which the person and the family are identified and attached to their personality roles is directly proportional to the pain experienced by all involved as the personality and identity associated with those roles is erased. 

That is to say that someone is very firmly “man, father, provider” or “matriarch, boss, mother” finds it deeply distressing as their ability to play those roles becomes diminished especially as those that love him or her try to continue to enact those roles for which they no longer have the scripts.

This phase of dementia passes, of course, as all things do. And there comes a time when the memories of the roles are held entirely by the family and have been lost to the individual. At this point they settle into a routine of reliving the core feelings that have been woven into their muscle memory; for some this might be fear but for most there is a contendedness in simplicity… a gentle word, touch, flower, bird song, sunlight… brings about peace.

Enid’s story has reconnected me to why I would write the book. For fear of being judged as wacky I wanted to steer clear of the spirit clearance side of things to focus on whether we can work towards a deeper understanding of the meaning and message of dementia; largely for those that care for people with dementia; how can we find peace with the process? I still intend on doing that but I also realize that with the increasing levels of dementia in our ageing population if we don’t become conscious of the psychic and energetic load in our collective field of spirits not making a clean exit from this plane then we are sinking fast into a morbid energetic quicksand. A collective inertia, forgetting, ambivalence and resentment borne of, I believe, the shadow of the personality identified age that we live in. As the generations born into war and rationing now age and die the unspoken terrors of a war-torn childhood, loss of fathers, mothers who had to father, unprocessed trauma, denial of comfort and rapid developments in industry, food production and the pace of life... the development of psychology and medicine, the decline of church and community… all compounding into a cohort of souls incarnating for longer but living much more isolated lives.

So, I am in service of these souls and of humanity. The book contains case studies and testimonials… also meditations on 12 aspects of dementia such as communication, identity, memory, compassion… and it will contain a narrative and insights that the spirit clearance aspect of my work has given me. It continues to grow and change and evolve. Every thing is inspiration and every thing is information.

Menarche Ceremony (a retrospective healing of the maiden for all ages)

Having smudged everyone we shared in the circle and we sat in silence. We placed our right hand over our naval and the left hand on our neighbour and as we did we called to consciousness the unbroken line of women between us and the first women.

Then we lit the central red candle invoking the Mother and all our maternal ancestors, we called in the elements, the directions and those that gather to witness the work.

We held our tokens of childhood to our chests, the teddies, photos and drawings. The youngest of our group read the blessing of the maiden…

"Child, daughter of Gaia, you are not gone but spring eternal in our dancing hearts, we give thanks for what innocence you have retained and draw deep on this well of healing for any innocence lost. Change is here. Like the turning seasons; we are at once both powerless to prevent it and all the more powerful for it. At this point of transition may we celebrate all that childhood held and continues to give us…"

And we took our time to lay our childhood tokens in the care of the central altar. Beautiful song accompanied us.

I took the wine and held it, blessed it with spontaneous words I now can't recall but naming it Blood. And we passed it about the circle - with beautiful song once more - each of us holding the chalice of blood to our hearts and blessing it.

Once the cup had made the circle we stopped. The eldest of our group read the mother's blessing…

"Maiden, like the spring buds opening, your blossoming is to be held in time - take time - may the changes you observe in your body and emotions bring charge to your passions. A million, million women before you have spilled their sacred blood and as the cycles of the moon draw the great tides… know that within you is an ocean of infinite love. May you never fear your fierceness nor allow your sensibilities to be dulled. Always find your true north within you, the compass of your heart"

The silence we held for some time. The metaphor of the silence is the chrysalis of adolescence - to be upheld. And in that silence we called in the healing for any loss of youth that we experienced ourselves.

The silence ended with a chiming bell and we passed the wine to the left giving a gentle and whispered blessing to the next who then drank. When the wine had passed around the circle it was laid upon the altar (and later drunk).

We stood. Taking each others hands we sang together… There is So Much Magnificence in the Ocean and drummed and clapped to close the circle.

Then we ate.

Dancing in the Dark

I became aware over the last couple of days that I felt really weak through my upper body. I had shiatsu last week and it released something from my heart but maybe it stayed. In describing this weakness I said it felt like I was carrying someone around, an attachment or entity. So I decided to light the fire, candles… push back the furniture and dance the 5 rhythms. The 5 R recording I have is ancient and I know it so well - there's nothing spontaneous left in the music for me. I danced the first half - vaguely aware of what was in me - the emotions locked behind yards of glass - the desire to express those emotions only the merest tickle like a long distant maybe sneeze.

Then the music stopped and my head was slumped and shoulders rounded. Stock still like a hung man. I became aware of the body of a dead child inside me - heart overlapping heart - and another and another. Aged 7, aged 10, aged 14. Hanging lifelessly as if hung by the neck. Hair falling forward over their faces. They were not spirit attachments. They were me.

The music restarted after its pause. To the outside observer I would have seemed to have stopped dancing. Feet planted deeply I barely rocked but I was breathing and my energy bodies were open and pulsing. I heard a voice say "wake up" and realised it was my voice. "Wake up"… and the dead children stirred uncomfortably as if wanting 5 more minutes rest. The shamanic drum and gentle music beating like a heart. I could hear a voice groaning… and realised it was me. Long low groans like labour pains. Tears falling straight down, not bothering with my face, straight onto the slate of the fire place.

The bodies were now floating in water… then spinning in space. I looked at the fire and as I did the logs split and flames leapt. The groaning and moaning continued "wake up" I kept saying "I choose you"… "I claim you". And the rage awakened and I roared silently. I stretched up and opened my body feeling the young saplings unfurl and stand open with me... before weariness overcame me and I sank into the child's pose, forehead on the floor.

And there I stayed - perineum pulsing to the music but nothing more - stone still until the music stopped.

And now the world is different and still the same.

The Innocent Mountain needs my Flag

I even surprised myself to come back to this blog full of ideas to write a post about innocence only to realise I did last week! Huh?! Oh yes... now I remember. Honestly... I hope it's a sign I live in the present not that I am losing my mind that I completely forgot I did that. But the topic of innocence persists.

The inner voice alive in me is my inner youth - I am about 13 or 14 inside me at the moment. A time in my biography where everything in my life was being shattered into infinite pieces. I am still that, I am still there.

And the question posed by this predicament (to be 35 and seeking to reclaim my adolescence) is just HOW does one reclaim innocence; especially if you feel you were born an off shade of miswashed gray?

Things I do too much of... I can stop doing. But those things where I feel the lack? How can I pick them up? Money, affection, intimacy?

Tied intrinsically to this sense of guilt and shame I realise the sense of the hunt is on! I will reclaim my innocence if it's the last thing I do...

But how?

The first sensible suggestion has come to me this evening... play! Fun!

Prone to pouting and muttering like a sullen child "I don't know HOW to have fun"... I shall let you know how I get on.

Innocence is all

In the pre-verbal space I feel a sense of being weighed and measured and found wanting. Who is the one judging? I don't know - I don't have logic to explain the feeling but the feeling is one of being unacceptable. Do you believe in innocence? Oh yes (tears spring to my eyes) oh yes I believe in innocence. And what does innocence mean to you? Untouched, unblemished, uncorrupted, pure, not guilty. Do you believe the we are born innocent?

... And I think about this for a moment. I like to believe we are born innocent but what about karma from past lives, what about the ancestral coding in my DNA? When I think about it... no, no I don't believe we are all born innocent. There are some of us that are not. That are pre-programmed to be found wanting.

I have no framework to explain these early feelings. I was not raised in religion nor taught about a punishing God or original sin. But it seems that woven into the fabric of my being is a belief that I and those like me are not innocent. That my very existence brings shame. I stop and think and I say that knowledge is the dividing line - I was innocent as a young being until I knew that I was evil; once I was told... then I knew and then I lived into that version of the story.

But, asks the question, if these things of blame are beyond your control are you not innocent? And thus aren't we all?

And then, yes, I see it. Just as "God is all or God is nothing" so "Innocence is all or innocence is nothing" - there can be no partial innocence because that would create guilt or non-innocence which requires judgment and in the judgement is duality and subjectivity; the henchmen of the ego. All factors leading to a perception of non-innocence are always beyond control.

Innocence is all there is. And when I am; I am innocent.

Testament of our Elders

I haven't written in the blog for a while. It's been christmas.

I have been between death and birth, still. Waiting, treading water. In the between.

I have also been writing my book on dementia.

Funny topic for a trainee doula! Revisiting the past of our elders.

A generation that lived through unspeakable acts of war, and loss.

At a time when our world feels torn asunder by deeper forces again than war.

I am unsure. I am unsure.

I feel such a pain at the grief of war. The pointlessness.

Always look for the helpers, the carers, the witnesses, the bearers.

Steep karma those that tend to the suffering.

Have I hope?

I have neither lost hope in humanity nor in nature. There must be a way.

Dark Moon Goddess

Last weekend I told my mother that I was ready to start healing others again. For 7 years since I received my master attunement I haven't particularly felt that my role was to lay hands on others because I knew that I needed to heal myself first. I didn't see that statement coming but when I heard myself say that I felt myself reeling - am I really that OK? I check in... my body is largely without pain... I am not ill with any infection... I feel light in my body... my emotions and feelings are beautifully wild, real and powerful but I am not identified with them... I like what I see in the mirror, I love the feel of my curves under my palms... my mind is generally still, I am not resentful nor guilty... I feel by and large present to the moment. I feel open in my heart, grounded through my feet and clear in my mind. Check, check, check.

Huh that's weird. Not only am I used to not being in full health but I actually enjoyed it at times. Look after me! Take care of me! Wrap me up and tend to me! Full health means taking full responsibility. Am I ready?

Having performed the attunement ritual laid out in the previous post for myself I also spent time in the ether with my master Morag who also attuned me last night. I asked to be attuned to Abundance, Sacred Intimacy, Full Health, Radical Self Love and Self Care... (In the name of service to others). Already feeling That we sat - Morag near Aberdeen, Scotland and me in Snowdonia and I felt the fire pulse through me. I felt soft and hot and open. Sensual. I held my obsidian yoni egg in my hand (am at menses) and I drank water infused with my clear crystal orb.

I then slept deeply and dreamt of my friend Ian (who in real life is a fellow mentor at the seminary and has established the OneSpirit Ashram Kitchen in the Jungle in Calais - and recently he held me while I experienced a profound spiritual awakening experience - it's detailed in a previous post)... in the dream he was weeping and I held him. He stopped weeping after some time and we were spinning together, then became still and merged. My interpretation of the dream is that Ian represents my animus which takes great action in service of humanity - the weeping of the animus is one of both exhaustion and for being seen. In the holding the balance is achieved and a dynamo spinning occurs of energy.

I was at my Red Tent circle on Saturday and I shared that at the most profoundest level I have yet experienced I feel whole and well. I also feel DARK and am reclaiming "dark" from its association with bad, wrong, evil, sad, lost and the opposite of light (which gets so often credited with goodness).

I am in the winter of my cycle (menses) and started bleeding on the dark moon and am in the winter of the year. I couldn't BE darker. Oh my... how extraordinary do I feel. The menstrual pains are still painful at one level but with my hands on my belly, tuning in I feel this deep groaning swaying primal contraction to nothing - yes, now I can be nothing - and all there is is That that is in All. Like a black hole. I am nothing.

I still feel waves of grief - largely for my black dog - Nero, bless him. But the grief when I hold it tenderly is like the great heaving swell of the oceans. It moves within me and beyond me - I am the ocean. 

I feel tired - but the judgment that that is wrong has died - the tiredness is a delicious settling and resting into a soft bed of moss - the tendrils of earthly roots reaching into my ears and mouth - breathing me and nourishing me as I sleep. I am the earth. 

I feel in Love. That Love keeps breaking me into fractions of grains of sand. My heart is breaking over and over for the pain of those I love, for the state of the world, for the refugees, for the bombs, for the angry ones. My heart keeps breaking open for the elders of our world lost in dementia - tormented by demons. For all the creatures of this world cold and alone, hungry. That Love and Grief are One.

The Love is ecstatic and is excruciating. I am not high. I am sitting calmly on my laptop sharing how I feel. I know what is consensus reality - I am feeling awake and grounded and real.

The Love I feel for everything right now is beyond words.

Claiming Divine Inheritance

Funny thing is inheritance. In all my time working in older people's services I saw time and again how the possibility of inheritance clouded the children and grandchildren's judgement of how people should receive care. Lost inheritance is the theme of my life - my maternal grandmother owned her home and sold it to pay for the renovation of our cottage and outbuildings into a granny flat and offices for my father's business. My father got involved in what would have been a massively lucrative invention which had his name on the patent but when he was declared bankrupt and we lost our home we lost the rights to that patent and my grandmother lost her investment. I never ever expected there to be an inheritance - I don't think its something you think about when you are young but as I get older and friends of mine are coming into inheritances and I see it stabilising their lives I can only wistfully release the now distant half promise that never was. I recently found out a. that there was some savings on the paternal line and b. they are plundered and lost... and I can but wistfully release that half never-promise too.

As I am consciously working on my root chakra and laying down roots and strengthening my security I am incredibly beautifully provided for in the material sense of a lovely home, food and warmth. I don't often share with friends how hand-to-mouth it is for me financially. My bank account recently hit £0 - again - and I was in minute by minute prayer contact with God to check I was doing all I could to bring in the money I needed. 59th minute of the 11th hour - again - the money I needed came in. Just. A friend came over and offered to buy me food and she put at least 3 weeks of food in the cupboards and bought me a christmas tree, bless her. I am surrounded and surrendered to love.

I know that I can expend masses of energy seeking work when the truth is that I need to stop and centre. Go within; recharge from the divine source. When I do that two things happen - I find I no longer need what I think I need and what I thought I need is also provided.

I was massively reassured recently to read in Catherine Ponder book on prosperity that someone who went on to become incredibly wealthy had, for some time, "to pray for her daily supply". I have come to accept that, for now, I have to accept and receive with grace my "daily bread". And relax into knowing that I AM doing all I can - the rest is up to God.

Spotting a looming burnout on the horizon I have stopped frantically seeking work. For the month of December I have made the commitment to myself to do daily self healing, meditate and pray and do yoga and go for gentle walks - and to check in with social media and my emails less. I have nothing t lose and everything to gain in reversing the 1 hour a day meditation 6 hours a day computer time imbalance. 6 hours a day connecting spiritually, 1 hour a day connecting technologically... I'll keep you informed of developments.

I have seen a significant softening in my relationship with my Mum recently which I can only assume for my part is a result of the work I am documenting in this blog. I am building up to asking her if I can perform a blessing way ritual for her to honour her as a mother - she might not like to - but I would like to design and offer it anyway.

Last night I was supposed to connect with my reiki master Morag - she and i spoke earlier in the week and noted that I have been a reiki master for 7 years. I asked for an attunement to mark the milestone and last night was going to be the night. Except Morag's baby wouldn't sleep. I sent them sleepy vibes and it worked for both of them! In the end, at Morag's suggestion, I attuned myself (I know... makes you go blind)... and this is what I did...

I created a circle on the floor in front of my lit fire - with a circle of candles and crystals. The clear quartz globe that I received at the same time as my master attunement 7 years ago was behind me and the green (can't remember name of crystal - got it at same time) earthing was in front of me. I sounded the bells around the circle 3 times, smudged it 3 times and spoke a spontaneous invocation in which I said "this is the space in which I claim my divine inheritance" (just came out of my mouth)... I stepped into the circle and sat down facing the fire - I held up my palms and for each of the reiki symbols in turn my hands were charged and I passed them over my brow, behind my head, over my throat, down passed the heart to the solar plexus, behind my body, back to the navel and down passed the root to the earth. It was incredibly serene.

I then went to bed and slept deeply; dreaming that I was guided around my old school by a man in arabic dress, the walls of the old school were incorporated into its new design, the central quad had spontaneously filled with water and become a lily pond, I went to a class but there was a fire alarm so we all went and sat in the sun by the pool. It was a very chilled and relaxed dream.

This morning upon waking I performed a self healing on myself and then have got on with my day. Watch this space for further developments...

Mother's Blessing (part 1)

If you have never heard this you must

Snatam Kaur Mother's Blessing


 xxx

Spiritual Counselling

I had a really good session of spiritual counselling today. When I say "I had" I mean "I gave"... I was the counsellor... but the thing is... I'm not, really, it's not me doing the counselling. And since this is an unusual concept I thought I would try to explain what the spiritual counselling experience is like and what I do to play my part in something so much bigger than me.

When I know I have an appointment with someone I make sure the space around is tidy and clean, even if I am working on skype as I often do - I always set myself up in my therapy room with a candle lit. I take some deep breaths and release any thoughts I might have about how I might want the session to go. And I take my awareness to my heart and I release any tension by breathing long and slow; I ask inwardly to be guided to be of the highest service.

Then the skype rings or the person arrives for the session. It works the same whether it's in person or on skype it's important that that person feels comfortable. Warm? Comfy? Settled?

I used to ask more upfront about a person's belief system because I wanted to make sure I said "the right thing" but increasingly I only do "small talk" until the client is sufficiently arrived and relaxed enough to start. I don't explain too much about it I just suggest experiencing it. I do say that silence is joyously welcomed as is sharing. That I hold the silence for them as they are likely to be on an inner pilgrimage but I do ask them to stay with the process and to tell me if they mentally leave the room and start planning tonights dinner. This reassures us both that we are "in" for the duration.

I do explain confidentiality and that I have supervision and that the only person I might disclose information to is my supervisor.

We settle into some silence together. Focussing on the breath... breathing... settling... slowing the breathing down...

From the fall of the silence I won't know what I am going to say until I open my mouth. Sometimes I find that I am suggesting to scan the body from the feet to the crown... sometimes we focus on the gut, the heart, the head... sometimes a guided heart opening... something perfect always comes out of my mouth. At the outset the aim is to find comfort with the focus on the heart and to be open to receive guidance.

I might speak an invocation. Using the words that come I acknowledge That which guides, That which loves, That which holds us... I affirm the safety of the space.

What comes next will be an invitation... and each time it seems the invitation takes different forms... "what rises in you to be shared?" "we are at the altar of the heart, what is your prayer?"... and then it is time for the client to hold the "talking stick"... I pass them the metaphorical baton and wait.

In the early days I used to have to actively still my mind while they were silent - I might draw sacred symbols in my minds eye - or have to say silently to myself "God is listening" or "peace" or something... but over time that need to still my mind has passed - now I almost finding myself impatiently waiting for the opportunity to be in the deep listening space with someone, the mental chatter falls away.

They have their eyes closed, most often, but I will have mine open. My gaze resting softly on them. I find that my body might tense at the same time that they shift position. Or I may get a sensation in a chakra as I watch them pass their hand over the same part. I breathe, I remind them to breathe if their breathing has become short.

They speak. Or stay silent. I listen.

The silence is beyond a lack of sound. It is like waiting in the womb, suspended from time and space.

Often they speak falteringly, playing with a concept that is arising - sometimes they talk a lot - sometimes they just start to cry. I don't react. I make gentle soothing sounds and keep listening.

I might feel prompted to interrupt but I rarely do. I never react to the first prompt as it is most likely ego wanting to fix something they are saying. I wait... breathe it away... keep listening.

I am not just listening with my ears I am listening with my soul. It can feel inwardly like floating on the ocean, being one with the ocean and not. Feeling the ebb and flow, rise and fall of the waves.

If the prompt comes through more than once or twice then I open my mouth with confidence (no one wants an apologetic weak interruption!) and I speak what comes out of my mouth without thinking too much about it. A learning edge for me is to keep it succinct, to the point. But almost always the words land well and a deeper insight is gained.

I am sitting with a mirror and in that mirror is me and is my God. And I am a mirror to them, they are in me as is their God. So often I hear issues I am working on in my own life articulated. I can sometimes feel my body reeling with the realisation that this issue I thought was "mine" is being brought to the space.

Sometimes heartbreak is inevitable. This is where the intense training of the seminary comes in. Because my heart is permanently broken open, because I am a griefholder and have released as much pain as best I can, because I have (as best as I can) released my own story I do not fear screaming heartbreak, the utter void of grief.

I might cry. It's my greatest gift I can give is my profound empathy. But it is not about me at all - I don't lose myself in the emotion.

All that the client offers washes through me; like flood water opening me and cleansing me. I am listening but I am not hanging onto their words. This is humanity; raw humanity and I am full of joy to be present to it.

This is about the moment. It is about the vastness of the human experience in that moment.

If the client asks a question of themselves I might pick that up and ask them to put it to God... "why does this keep happening?" "what can't I see?"

I notice if they affirm themselves and I repeat that back to them "yes, you are very good at..."

If they seem to say something that rings the wisdom bell with me but I don't feel they have heard their own wisdom I repeat it to them "the more I surrender the clearer I become" or whatever.

Keeping an eye on time with 10 minutes to go I gently say "just acknowledging we have 10 minutes left... " and I might summarise what I have heard in the session.

Then with 5 minutes to go I invite them back into some silence. Allowing all that has arisen to settle again. Breathing again. Feeling the presence of That which guides and loves and holds us. Offering thanks.

Sometimes I feel prompted to pray for someone as a closing. More often not.

I always thank them because it is the most extraordinary privilege.

Then it's over. There's some light chat and then it's done. They go.

I sit quietly and make a note of what remains with me - both content and feelings. I have fortnightly supervision and I might talk about my feelings or how I felt but rarely about individuals. My supervisor holds the space for me and the incredible dive into the ocean starts again.

So beautiful.

I could have written about what it feels like to receive spiritual counselling but I wanted to share my experience as the counsellor. To outline the process, the container... what actually happens to hold the space.

The inner journey is determined by what the client brings. And their willingness to surrender to the silence and guidance that comes from within them.

They are not broken nor ever were so I am relieved of any responsibility to fix. I uphold. They are perfect in their humanness as am I. They are whole. They are already healed. They have all the wisdom they need within them.

If I am anything I am loyal friend to their higher self... waiting for it to remember.

Dress for dancing!

I believe it was Hafiz that said "come to God dressed for dancing, or be carried on a stretcher onto God's ward"...

It's been a week since I last posted. It's been a week of sadness as our country decides to bomb Syria. I attended a climate change rally at the weekend and a peace vigil in the week. I cried in my welsh class yesterday because my heart broke to see all the babies there and to hold them in the same heart that holds Syrian innocents. It's been a week where meaning has been hard to find and peace has felt elusive.

It's also been a week where the sign on my wall "ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find"... has pissed me off so much. Even though I claim to surrender to God's will I can't help but define what form my providence might take. I would, for example, expect that since I earnestly throw myself into service of God that my rent, bills and food might be covered (nothing fancy... just the basics). And I might imagine that, sure, I need to do something for that so I put myself out all over town looking for work. No work comes. The days tick by.

I still my mind and pray about it and what comes to me is that winter would be the perfect time to write my books - how can I write books when I am worried about the rent? I ask my God - "ask and it shall be given" - ask people to fund you to write it, offer them a book in return. So I do... I put out my video, my paypal link, my vision.

And wait... and wait... gentle, beautiful donations come in. I hold them lightly and lovingly and feel so grateful for them. But my ego sees what I don't have and not what I do have. Each passing day nears me to rent day and I can only deeply see and feel the deficit.

This is the same time as I am due to go to Dublin on Saturday and the tickets have been bought by the organisation I volunteer for but I cannot for the life of me find my passport. I turn my house over twice, my partners house, my car and my old workplace. No where to be found.

These are utterly insignificant problems in the grand scale of things but I tell you what it's the little stones in your shoe that gets to the pilgrim!

I found myself raging at God... "I am worth more than this! Why wait til the 59th minute of the 11th hour every time? I am worthy of a home! I am worthy of warmth! I am worthy of food and clothes! Why?!?!?!" and I could feel God smiling and all fear left me. THAT was what my Higher Power wanted to hear - it sounded like self will but actually it was an uprising, upstanding, estimable statement!

And then I realise that while I thought surrender might bring about some nice work so I can pay my bills - the truth of it is that I needed to own for myself the sense of worthiness. I also needed to not have the work come in so that I should think creatively and commit to writing my book. I also needed to not be all holy and self sufficient because unless my hand is forced I never ask for help but do it all by myself (but willing to help others - which is a power/control imbalance if I ever heard one).

I needed to lose my passport so I would sort through my boxes and clear out all my old papers and receipts. 4 bin bags of them.

I found my passport. I have paid my rent today. Not quite the 59th minute of the 11th hour but I had about 30 minutes to spare.

This is only a small example of first world problems but I hope there is some message of reassurance in it - that we may not know what the plan is but there is a plan. It may be that in short term there is suffering so that we rise up to meet our full potential.

To come to God dressed for dancing is to surrender. To resist the dance is to beaten into submission by self will and egoism. The destination is the same.

The only difference is acceptance. what IS is what is. Suffering is created when there is a discrepancy between what we think we want and what we have.

My choice today is to decide whether I want to wear myself down to a sick and exhausted wretch that needs a stretcher... or whether I choose to dance.

Undergoing God

A friend shared with me a reading from Richard Rohr which talks about how "... It's only the wise, broken ones who allow themselves to "undergo God" and willingly trust, "let go and let God"."

I am struck by the use of language of "undergoing" - you undergo an ordeal, surgery or a transformation. The description of God not as the beginning and end, nor as separate, nor even as an entity... but as a process... this moved deeply in me in ways that my mind couldn't comprehend.

My worldview shifted. I am not in a process of living a better life to be closer to God. God is the process.

There was never a time when I wasn't in process and that process was always God.

The unfolding process of creation is God. There is vector to God. God is going somewhere through me and I am going somewhere through God. There is no destination but an infinite deepening.

I have not failed.

I was never in control.

I couldn't have done anything differently - no need for regrets.

I can DO all I like but I don't need to - the organic flow unfurling into deeply resonant depths IS. I can BE that without doing anything.

The actions that arise from stillness is the God-process prompting me.

I feel so profoundly relaxed and relieved. Just to know I never failed and I cannot fail. I can only Be in the eternal unfolding of the presence of God-process.

Wow.

... I got the answer!

The last posting here asked what it would feel like to really trust?

Well.

There is much I can't tell you about my weekend because of confidentiality. But a great healing took place in which I released a sense of carrying great darkness from my ancestral line. There may be sickness there but not evil.

This was a belief I had been holding that was preventing me from really feeling I could have a child of my own.

I saw my Aunt on Friday who lent me lots of great books to help me with my doula journey, and she gave me my paternal family tree and lots of information about the family that I didn't know and I was glad to find out (even though it is dark!)... I then went to play my role of mentor for the training of onespirit interfaith ministers. I mentor 6 students who are in the second year of 2. In the second year we trace our own biography from before conception through birth, childhood, adolescence, relationships, marriage, endings and partings, illness, old age and death and beyond and we learn to perform ceremonies to mark these great rites of passage.

This weekend was about Birth.

So! Armed with my family tree, 6 weeks of persephone underworld explorations thanks to Yoni Egg and a pile of birth books I went to my mentoring duties. The content of the weekend is confidential but I can share with you my experience of what happened on Sunday...

The night before I was reading an account of birth in one of the doula books my auntie lent me and I was overcome with a desire to have a child. I prayed and said to God that I dare not ask in prayer for something that was not God's will... and God said "ask"... and I did, I said "I want a baby" and God said "OK".

On Sunday part of the altar was a shamanic talisman of a owl's wing (the owl had been hit by a car and a shaman had preserved the wing) and one of the students was terrified of it but was brave enough to touch it. I too am phobic of birds and all things fluttery - so in the break time I touched it. It represented my deepest fear to me and when I touched it it was so soft - softer than the cat - unbelievably soft and I picked it up and it was unbelievably light. I felt "something" enter me and I knew that it was a part of me that had never incarnated. I came fully into being. I went and stood by the window out of the way and started to weep and shake uncontrollably. The floor and walls disappeared - again (4th time this year) - and I was bathed in light - I came to stood by the window with my hand on the pane of glass. I was overcome by the beauty - of everything - and I found myself stroking my fingers down the glass stroking the images of people beyond who walked up and down Baron's Court tube. 

I could not stop this weeping - excruciatingly raw and in complete bliss at the same time. I knew I needed to anchor so I saw Ian - a fellow mentor - and ran into his arms - he saw me coming and stood to meet me and he held me while I sobbed and shook. Eventually the tears stopped and I looked Ian in the eye and said "tell you later" and he said "you don't need to".

I don't need to. But it is a tale worth telling.

In answer to my question "what would it feel like to fully trust and surrender?" the answer is "to Be fully alive".

What would it FEEL like to really trust?

I feel profoundly edgy today. A heady amalgam of the storm that has been battering my corner of the world for over a week - relentless wind and rain - leaving me feeling caged; combined with the world stage overrun with melodrama, mass scale suffering, a sick game of chess where the powers that be have forsaken any rules and are just chucking the pieces at each other; combined with my own first-world concerns of having enough money and enough time and enough love.

Ugh.

Why does it feel manifestly impossible to surrender right now? When I ask myself what my choices are I see that I can either trust in my God or I can wallow on through the mud of life on my own will riddled with self doubt and fears, my mind whirling with machinations of solutions to indefinable problems.

The intelligent decision would be to surrender and trust.

"You tried that once" my ego says "and that one time... you didn't get what you wanted" - evidence enough to keep trying the steep route eh?

Why do I resist surrender? Why do I find it so hard to trust?

The answer comes... "I don't trust myself". I foresee myself trusting that everything will be alright financially so I go and blow all my money on "stuff". I foresee myself trusting that I believe God will save me from eating disorders only to then go and gorge myself to death. I foresee myself trusting that I will be loved only to die a lonely death.

I totally need to control these things! I do not want to be skint, fat or alone.

Oh hang on... these are the things that I am fearing will happen if I trust AND if I don't trust. These fears have nothing to do with trust! They are just fears. I try to rigidly control my money, food and relationships because I cannot and will not accept my powerlessness over these matters despite the destructive evidence of my past that prove my attempts at self control futile and my fears self perpetuating.

How would it FEEL to totally trust God?

I guess I wouldn't even need to trust myself because in trusting God I am trusting myself. There is no separation between my trust in God and my trust in myself.

I guess I would feel peaceful. I would feel calmly accepting that come what may I would be OK.

I guess I would stop fretting about paying the bills in favour of trusting that whatever happens I'll be OK.

I guess I would let go of determining what "being OK" looked like, relinquish my interpretation which really means "get what I think I want"...

I guess I would feel relaxed. I would feel alive. I would feel inspired. I would feel connected. I would feel free to take time out and rest if I needed it and guided to work and take action when it was required.

I could listen to my body's signals. I could hear my intuition.

I would respond rather than react. I would feel loved by everything and seek love from nothing.

*Tears come* I see myself freefalling through space with no-thing to define me or reassure me I was good enough - these things I seek to control... they are my benchmarks of worthiness. When I "win" a job, lose some weight, win some affection... oh boy oh boy... I am worthy. If I relinquish the game to prove myself worthy how will I know I am worthy?

How will I know I exist? Without work or reward or love or attention from others... how will I know I exist?

Maybe I won't. Maybe I am nothing.

What's the worst case scenario that prevents me fully surrendering to God and trusting.

My worst case scenario is that I will be let down. That my trust will not be rewarded. That I will fall into rent arrears and be homeless again. That I will be left by my loved ones and be alone. That I will be penniless, homeless, alone.

I fear that I am not worthy enough for my needs to be met. That I cannot do enough to ever be good enough. That I am nothing without love and money. That I am forgotten about in my little corner of this scary world.

After these recent weeks journeying into the underworld; I am about to be re-born. Can I find it in myself to choose to trust? Have I any choice?

The world did not end today

So another day came and went. The sun rose and set, the stars are there... just... behind the silver veils of cloud. The birds sang. The mountains sat unmoved, the tinkling waters of the river sang her tune like she has done for millions of years. The world has not ended today. There is still Beauty to be seen, Love to be given and received, Truth to be spoken. Whatever we are told there is still so much goodness in this world to be breathed deep into our souls. It would be a crime to forget it! Seek it! So much beauty, so much love.