6/7/2020 0 Comments Upon encountering seed ...Have you ever been tugged at or called and yet when you look around , you only see a patch of grass and a few flowers? There was a time in my life where I may have noticed the tug but shrugged it off and kept on walking on my path as though it hadn't occurred. It's not the case any more ... these days I pay more attention aware of the greater invitation that I have expressed to be in a greater communion with Nature is one of those requests that opens up a myriad of wonders in my world personal and in my world global... It is not lost on me that an invitation to be in greater communion with Nature has opened up the essential doorway to coming to know the Nature of Me, or to put it more simply ... coming to know my own nature. The desire to have a greater connection to the world around me and that runs through me and makes up the body that has my identity has brought me time and again to the plant kingdom and the elemental forces of Earth that express themselves in a play of constancy of light and not so light and continues to open the perceptual gates of my awareness that we are in this together! So here again, back to that tug, that sense of having been called ... Could it be coming from another sentient being? A plant? A tree? Dare I say it... a stone? Could it be a response to a question or an invitation you yourself have asked or offered...? A response from a greater field of consciousness ... often unseen , tricky to name but undeniably sensible and sensed energies? ![]() I was on a medicine walk ... ... a personal encounter with Nature where I am alive with an invitation carrying lightly a living question that I hand over to the walk…allowing myself to be walked and engaged with… It really means that I am entering into a field that I acknowledge the presence of other contributing beings ... with a heightened sense of aliveness and engagement and yet so natural that there is no effort or trying involved. A space where I come to know my own Nature a little more as I get to encounter and engage with that of other ... I felt the energetic tug of a patch of wild flowers and grasses that I had just walked past lightly enough that I didn't fall over and strongly enough that I knew to respond… So to lower level of gaze I knelt down and took in the sea of colour, of greens of yellows of browns and silvers beings dancing in the light of warmth and the sun shone upon us all… "Hello" says me, to all I see, a smile lighting my face and I softly speak to all that are now within my gaze as it widens to include more than the plants themselves … Glasses on and I take a closer look into the field of plenty that is gazing back at me … This medicine walk is largely an invitation to be shown the nature of seed… “Seed – will you show me more of ye, please?” Now to the eyes of a mower of lawns or even a photographer this encounter would have either been mown or walked past. Had I chosen that it would have undoubtedly been a moment missed, for what opened up there is still with me, changing me, working through my body in ways unfamiliar and my thinking being freed and shaped by new forces… To the eye all beauty shines through colour and form, shape and movement and all who were gathered here had a quota of those qualities …. Seeds of grasses, wild buttercups, sorrels red and other, docks and plantains and many that are unnamed as yet … a wonderfully wild patch of verdant plant life that was attracting many different small flying ones – big orange back/bottomed bumble, small hoverflies, again, un-named by me but not un-noticed … wonder full meetings were happening everywhere. In that space I was face to face with my first ever plant spirit journey of more than twenty years previous - a timeless moment that was immediately upon me as though it were yesterday. ... a personal meeting with ranunculi where I formally introduced myself and sat, drawing her and shyly whispering some of the reason for my being there with this familiar but never before truly met joy bringer .... yellows, openings and a plentitude of smiles in that particular Somerset field so long ago! I also recall the red sorrel on that occasion as a neighbour and ally to the dizzying joys of the waxy soft petals of the smiling buttercups… And here I was again with the same two asking them to show me their seed, what they know of seed, what they contain of seed … and of course seed was in everything!!!
o what happened there in this soft warm place of greeting and meeting these plant beings? Wonder. Curiosity. Joy fullness. Gratitude. Warmth. Friendliness to passers by and a little writing and reporting Presence with other seed bearers at different stages in their cycle of life … The last season’s tall seed head of the dark brown dock or rumex was a fabulous contrast in a scape of youthful and exuberant energies. Standing as one of the taller stalks and full of seeds as yet ungifted, unreleased and by no means fully spent … Inviting a good wind and honouring its own timing was all that was asked of me in this moment for in this dock seed, stalk and pods, that I now know to have been rumex patienta, I meet an all present aspect of myself … It was only today, nearly 24 hours later than the meeting itself that I come closer to the encounter and at a different level. As I sorted through the photographs and reconnected to the energies and the different encounters of this stage of the walk I was also reconnecting to their gifts, their qualities ... and something occurred that shifted my perceptual reality beyond what it had been in the seconds previous ... And then began a vast, expanse of consciousness encounter such that my perception was altering about everything …. Not only through the many seeding plants and other winged and crawling beings that I made contact with the day before but through the response made via the question I had put out to the wider whole … as though I have been given a direct encounter with the devic intelligence of what seed is … I am shifted to a different consciousness, somehow aware that it was occurring and observing a rearrangement of the way my journeying with yesterday's walk was occurring ...I 'leave activities' for some time and am taken to some edges ... I recall speaking to myself at one point, reassuring in tone to stay with it ... we are being gifted something of seed ... and it was a stretch for me to stay with it ... in fact stretch is what was required as I was somehow being pushed to see my limits, where I meet the outer walls and surfaces ... as though my inner soft tissues and fluids of the head were pulsing rapidly and pushing blood flow towards an expansion I wasn't able to stay with ... I drew gently back from the pressure and after transitioning to a quieter and more easeful pace had a clear insight ... ![]() I am a seeded being … I carry within me and as me seeds of awakened consciousness – not static as in a noun but as a verb-al, a living expression of infinite stranded light signatures of energy … I Am a Seeded Being … I feel blessed for the bounty of beauty and delivery from seed in ways for which words are yet to emerge . . tinkering with that tender and still morphing space would be counter to the gift being offered. I was shown where the outer edges are and how they can either stop me from movement, from growth or support me … I was shown the wonders of allowing chaos to be an energy that is essential and though strange and really unfamiliar to my current disposition, I know how to meet it and have it move me ... To not allow this wonder of creation, primary life force to be given space would be to commit further disconnection from seeded or innate Potency and Knowing ... I am re-minded of Wendell Berry's Manifesto:The Mad Farmer's Liberation Front and as I read it through once again I realise that I have never really been able to receive the gift of this poet before so fully as I can this day. The gift of a farmer ... one who has cultivated a shared breath with and from living close to land, to soil, to seed ... Tears begin to rise in my eyes and I become watery all over ... a washing of surface level only so far ...some topsoil being loosened enough to open ground a little and scatter some new old technology energies that may send out roots and bring forth shoots to nourish and generate more. Being unwilling to be ‘out of control’, unwilling to really do or be something that does not compute, being measured in action that requires courage, the courage that is willing to be and live undefined by outside forces... all of this was delivered to me in these hours with the vast and complex simple being of Seed. Seed is a new ally and has me shaking a little with it’s tiny physical representation and vast cornucopic array of movement and shifting of me … I am changed … am still changing… and inviting the encounter and the ally to stay with me and bring towards me the catalysing and activating energies that would serve to ignite our greatest seed potentials … Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something they will call you. When they want you to die for profit they will let you know. So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands. Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed. Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Listen to carrion — put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come. Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. So long as women do not go cheap for power, please women more than men. Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth? Go with your love to the fields. Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap. Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts. As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection. “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1973. Also published by Counterpoint Press in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1999; The Mad Farmer Poems, 2008; New Collected Poems, 2012.
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There are some beautiful and simple ways to honour the liminal, the edge places and those that are with you that are always willing to co-create and engage with you This is a simple invitation to co-create a little more presence, more with-ness of other energies, Beings of Nature… of Earth. ![]() Are you ever really alone? Pause... Look around you ... You are not alone. Not ever … be it tree or plant or stone of step, be it flower or seed or sun or breeze … at this moment you have entered a new space... one that may be slightly different to that of others... This is an invitation to co-create a little more with-ness of other energies, Beings of Nature… of Earth Upon arriving somewhere new ... anywhere... be it a turning point along the road, a new job, a different view of a familiar situation, a return home after a big change or opening the front door to the person delivering something to you. Just check in a moment and again Pause ... Who is it that greets you at that door? The acknowledgement is everything … it allows others to engage symbiotically with you in ways that are truly gifting. That moment of opening conveys the energies of, the signature of, that which can come toward you … It carries the whole download of information of what you are asking for and from the engagement with other and from that moment everything that comes toward you will be in alignment with it... So simply put - If you start with wonder and joy guess what? More Wonder and Joy! If you enter with Kindness, what will come towards you or the project is even more ...Kindness ... it may even show you where more kindness can be found... If you open with a specific request that response may show up in surprising ways so be sure to ‘get out of your own way’ so that you are not blinded to what is given… And upon completing? A moment to acknowledge the walk of path you have been with has come to a natural end. A Thank You ... A song, a bell, a gift from your own beauty ... A way to acknowledge that you have not walked this way alone ...
and here - for the other end of the walk, the ceremony, the gathering, the journey, the project ... A gentle closing wave, like a soft embrace after something intimate has been shared. A way to bring to completion your time together and to thank the energies that have been with you. Kindly Luminous Beings... Guardians of this Place... Thank you for your Hospitality and May Love Bless You ![]() I was a bit of a horror story these past couple of days and yesterday was really yucky with G. Not fun. Not for me, my body nor anyone. Especially G. I totally needed to have my Bars run. Totally. I knew it but had forgotten to ask ... And then we got there - I asked. And I received. And so did G. Last night we changed gear and I had my Bars run for an hour ... a glorious hour of lying on a massage table and having my head touched in a few amazingly hot places.... This time I was blessed to have G run them. Sometimes I'll run them myself. I prefer it when someone else runs them though ... I really like being touched kindly and openly and it seems to exponentialise the changes possible through a session. So much eased through letting stuff go... just stuff... no particular story or drama... just the stuff of several days traveling across the planet in a vast iron eagle filled with other people, moving in and out of airports, loving and waving goodbye to people I adore knowing I won't see them for a good while longer, coming home to grey weathery skies and a shed load of stuff not quite attended to... you may well know it yourself ... Some of the stuff of what goes on in many lives on a daily basis, but my particular version this week. It ultimately translates as not much fun to be or to be with ... until something creates a change. I was out throughout the session. Blissfully away... One hour later (and quite a few gentle snores along the way I guess) there is a greater sense of lightness all over, especially in my head. I seem to have moved on from what felt like bumpy and edgey and unreasonably irritable to more spaciousness, more effectiveness, more clarity and restfulness with all that is asking for my attention. The thing is that when one is in the shitty pitty small and contracted yucky, one often doesn't remember that there are choices that can change the yuck with relative ease. Do you have tools you can rely upon when faced with Tools for Yuck Management System They are simple to use and pragmatic ... and they work, especially when I use them! And they don't only uncreate the yucky. . . having your Bars run can also open up new spaces and create awarenesses that would never have had a chance to have a look in .. .new possibilities emerge that were simply NOT available before. These can be fairly challenging days and having some reliable tools that can be applied to any situation you might find yourself in can really assist. And really - it can be super fast. Even a short five minute series of questions can change a situation that was looking to get a grip and never let you go. Really. Here's my best tip of the day - If it seems like you've reached a Yucky, a Funky, a compressed or stressed energy ... ask some questions, like - Is this mine? Chances are this one question will create a big shift if you allow it to... What would it take to have greater ease with this? ... and allow the moment to extend ... give it space ... What space do I require to have ease with all I'm aware of? ... and ask for it to show up immediately, beyond a conclusion ... and What would it take to have ease with Being... Me? Follow your hunches, use Your Knowing and be willing to be an Aware Bear in every moment... stay keen and as bright as can be ... and choose what's light for Ye and only for Ye 🙂🙃🙂 4/17/2019 0 Comments A Song of Lavender …Vale do Mondego, Alta Beira, Portugal The day after Canela, the small stray visiting dog no longer was with us … and the cathedral of Notre Dame burnt for nine hours whilst the people of Paris sang to the Mary ... So many tears were shed last night in the wake of the realisation that a last gesture of kindness had been missed, not delivered, not met. So many tears rising from the places where deep sadness is tucked away and breath cannot be breathed. Desolation at the realisation that a choice made differently might have allowed the two to have exchanged the gift that lived between them both … a gift not gifted is a gift not received. A human heart ripped open is a harsh way to meet the cracks and fissures of the hardened places as the tears begin to soften the way to open more to what the heart perceives and allows… A message from a Peace Keeper some four months ago enters the open space of her grief and my witness as we both receive the truth of the moment. This four-legged companion of just three short days has brought us both bare faced and open to meet ourselves anew. Here in this land where the energies and forces of heaven and earth come together in every action, living and dying, birth and death sit as comfortable companions at the same table. This morning after a night of grieving I asked my body to lead the way to a plant song that could bring medicine towards me, possibly others, to enlighten and widen the communion taking place each moment. My only specific request was morning sun… She brought me to lavender… lavandula stoechas penduculata to be precise… growing on the edge of a sloped terrace in small straggly clumps this is no lavender bush rom my English and Australian suburban gardens. Neither is this the lavender of fragrance and essential oils with scent permeating the skin with her light notes and oils when rubbed or sniffed. This one is much loved by many kinds of bees and insects and just pops up along the many caminos and ancient pathways here in the high grounds of the Serra Da Estrela national park. These are randomly rooting themselves, freely propagating from single stems and rising up around the base of this long dead woody bush that may once have been the prolific white or yellow flowering broom. That’s how I noticed it this morning – a bright purple flower head waving and shooting up through the dried branches of other. Upright, bright, softly shouting amidst the grey. Aha... there is life here. As I place myself at the foot of the dead one I see so many small ones, living and fresh, gathered all round… Wild lavender doing its thing is soft on the eye and all of my senses…to meet her more fully I drop, open and allow the shift to begin. Come with me as I connect and I am certain sure that this benevolent being of the plant world will gift you as you read these words… allow yourself to open and sense the energies she brings towards your body... At first, after greeting the deva of the plant and conveying to her the energies of my visit I was aware of soft… everything becoming s o f t … breeze soft, sun soft, breath soft and slower… After some time unknown it was the air beings who brought themselves to me… breeze, birds, bees, breath s l o w and e a s y … s o e a s y t o b e h e r e i n t h i s p l a c e a n d b e i n g n e s s s s . . . . . My fingers had travelled to my face and were gently slowly deeply massaging the skin reaching tissues and tendons and bones all over my face in the most delicious way… no thoughts, no design to follow or rules to observe, just allowing my body to deliver what she was asking for with this gracious plant. A quietude of touch and connection through fingers and face. They, my fingers, soon found their way to other parts of my head, opening, massaging, rolling into hard places that became soft through the touch and movement, opening, always opening and somehow stimulating through this super sensory and sensual and deeply relaxing touch. Was this the lavender showing me her gift or had I become her? It was as though my body was imbibing sensual touch and it was no longer me touching me but the plant itself working her magic through my fingers. The seduction of soft and slow was easeful and sublime… My fingers moved down further to my chest and now were rubbing two points either side of the front of my heart…between the fifth and sixth ribs a tender and specific place where a shift of some further opening occurred. Breathing relaxed and the tension around my heart muscle relaxed with it.. This might have gone on endlessly had I not allowed a question to enter the space … Will lavender do what others have reported? Will I end up sleeping the day away? Is that the natural next place that arises from this kind of softening presence with the plant and my body? I have no doubt the answer is yes and in this moment I am a little sad that I asked…would she, the lady lavender have taken me to a different space of dreaming? It was so special to have this sense of soft, slow, intimate space with me and my body ... had sleep occurred it may have been disappointing… Note to self…next session with this plant I release all ideas of destination and allow the dreaming to continue to unfold… I take another soft look at the many sized lavender plants surrounding me and I open my gaze further to allow the life force energies to show themselves... I am aware of many moving energies, gently rising, long and verticular, spiralling softly and longly around each stem. The deva is showing me the ether body as white featherless plumes, softly swirling and surrounding the individual stems, each giving rise to a bud or a flowering bloom and adding to the overall ‘effect’ or gift of this whole local plant community…this lavandulate (my term for a collective of lavenders and the undulating effect of their energetic movements…) What I now know is that ne of the delicious effects of a lavandulate is this softening and easing energy that is so kindly to my body… "Thank you," I whisper from a gladdened self... "You are a gift..." From such an intimate and tender meeting with a much familiar plant such as this one would undoubtedly have anticipated that lavender would present herself as relaxing, but the funny thing is that when I am one to one with a plantI seem to be able to shed any previous ideas that others may have brought towards me about what the plant medicine is or has been. Together we sit anew, in our own conversation and everything is included. My body, the plant’s body. Our full range of senses and a constancy of awareness that I know would be impeded by any projections or expectations, defining ideas from other experiences. The wonder is that what I may have ‘thought’ lavender would gift me is vastly different to what she has.
I have been met fully. We sipped lavender bloom tea together. I received a facial and head massage facilitated by the plant and then settled into a new way of being together. With her and with me. Of this you can be assured. Having been with this sage green, grey and many shades of purple one today I’ll not be with the scents and oils of her familiars in the same way…no longer will the being of this plant not be an intimate seductress of the tender touch of my body and no longer will I allow her to lift me to the giddying heights of bee without including me! Now that I have danced with, sung with, drunk with, played my golden bowl with, massaged with sniffed, tasted and journeyed with another being of light, we neither of us are ever the same again. It is that perhaps the grieving tears of last night’s loss were expressing themselves this mo(u)rning through the tenderness of this encounter. I am aware again that a moment not met in the space of two beings coming together – four legged and other – or plant and me – is a moment on this earth plane of many that is only available here and, if not taken, is a moment forever lost. I dedicate this meeting to the puppy Canela, his body and being and to the mighty rose windows at the cathedral of Notre Dame. Each encounter, once met, forever changed. I am ever grateful that beauty shows itself in so many forms on this wondrous beauty rich planet. 4/1/2019 0 Comments Oak is Oak![]() An ancient one in the form of tree stopped us, stopped me… Awed in wonder in my tracks, the field of this one’s presence asked me to slow my approach ... meet this one breath by breath. An inward bow of reverence and profound respect moved through me as I stood simply, un dressed in personality in the gazing and the lore… No words do I have here, even from my core. I am somehow face to face with a being that both reduces and enlarges ‘me’ of thoughts and words into silence as I step gently closer towards … the dressing down of ideas, feelings and mental meanderings continues with each step. I say simply to this one in words without sound or breath… “I will come in the morning to be with you, get to know you a little… would that be okay?” And here, in these last four words, “would that be okay?” I enter a doubting, diminished or deferred sense of my personal ‘inequality’ with one such as this. Over the next 36 hours many areas of questionable integrity come up… the ways in which I do not know myself as this one does. Clear, strong, integrous, steadfast, reliable, unwavering, generous, surrounded by many young ones… I could go on with what magnificent qualities this one emanates as I sit now, just metres away and under one of its lower branches. For it was this morning after a night of less sleep that I have arrived to keep an appointment. Although 24 hours postponed, we are now together … and yet somehow also not. I realise as I sit that this mighty Cork Oak, is neither together nor apart. It just is as it is and as it has always been. The many young ones surrounding it know that as they look toward and incline in the direction of this mighty elder of their tribe they can draw out this ones qualities for themselves. Oak is Oak. Quercus is Quercus. By nature through and through this tree is tree you can depend on. Can you depend on you? Can we depend on you? Can I depend on you? When you say “I do”, do you? When you say “I will”, do you carry it forward? For how long? When or what is your personal marker of voice, of question, of will? This one, by presence of body, of being in magnitude and emanation, calls me to notice and to unhide myself from any trace of inauthentic and hollow, flimsy me. This one is also known as suber, quercus suber, has been named for its outer skin of which the texture is corky bark, lightweight and somewhat elastic by nature... This tree, as all trees, has no expectations and requires no promise from me or other. No debt to be owed nor any seeking of that which I lack. Really it is simple. As one engaged in living with others, I ask, as though gifted by tree, what qualities of oak can I be that will allow this being to not extinguish its flame or qualities in a world asking for free? What does it take to know the oak of one’s own being such that it can always be called upon, especially in me? 3/10/2019 0 Comments A Love Song Begins!!![]() Seven months of Plant Mentorship... opening to a greater communication wth the benevolent and hugely life giving presence with plants... it was a spontaneous choice and I was, as ever, in at the last minute without too much consideration. I saw the announcement two days before the course began, immediately signed up and then took in the requisites. It seems pretty clear to me that my body chose this course! There was such rapidity in the choice. It's been quite a few years since I was living with land and plants and garden and wild woolly walks in all seasons... life was a constant contact with many plants and so many aspects of living nature. The truth is that it's been too long. I have in recent months become a longing one rather than an engaging one. I was missing the garden. Missing the trees and the river and the regular choice to sleep out under the stars that was often possible when the plants were so close... The distance between me and that kind of living has become uncomfortably long and the love song that I find there is way too much in the background... When a singer of songs forgets to sing except from the remembering it's time for a change. So to the heart I must go! What makes my heart sing? Plants make my heart sing. They are fluent in their communications and so generous! Generous with their medicine and generous with their inspiration and gifts. This may surprise many but they are also generous with words... I have been many times blessed with encounters so flowing and splendid that I could barely keep up as characters and inspirations, downloads of information and moving gestures would unfold in the space on the paper or the 'song' that was being told. So now, I enter anew into a different space, a new invitation, and I have asked another woman who lives as love for the plants and their consciousness, to lead and guide the way.... to have a shape creating container for this particularly unwieldy and sprawly being who loves to wander out into the wider field at will is a fabulous idea! I welcome the breadth and the change that she, this mentor and guide, will bring to me as I begin here on northern English soil and then head to Portugal, Ireland and Scotland over these next months. A plant a week! One each week to come to know a little, to open towards from a heartspace and allow us both to breathe together and meet in the energies, the space in between... One a week to aproach as and with a question and an invitation and a willingness to perceive and receive what the plant is open and willing to convey and communicate to me. One a week:-) This is homework that makes my heart sing!! It will go like ths initially - in simple terms I use words to convey the meeting but in truth it's more like an energetic exchange ... and as two beings who are new to each other it is only polite to be clear... "Hello dear plant. I am Heather. Can we be together a while and would you be willing to show me your medicine gifts?" So there we are heading to the moors through weather that looked like the clouds would fall on my head...we're off to do some forging work (not foraging, but forging...) and realise that I have come singularly unprepared for the other project... Foraging!! We drive onto the land where the forge is and park the van with a speedy stop literally into a confusion of long leggy branches all aplomb with GIANT catkins!! Oh my giddy gorgeousness! This is too much to miss! I immediately reach out to the branch and have my face caress the furry and firm grey blooms. Delicious and sensual contact with these magical beings! They are plump, pregnant and bursting with the joys of spring and lo and behold the weather has turned and we are in full throttle sun! There in the echo of my adoration comes my mentor's quiet words... notice which plant pops up and offers itself... that will be the one to be with. So it's clear! We have begun! No pencil, no pen, no paper to speak of grumble to self... bummer... not a great way to start my entering into a sacred space and have communications ... but rummage around in unknown spaces for long enough and one surely finds what is required, especially when one's body is in full frontal desire!! I settle ... close to an extending branch and we touch each other, long lean willowy branch and I... I close my eyes and soft breathe a little, a meeting of bodies and etheric as we come together ... we created a quiet place together with the breeze, one that lifted me wholly and quite quickly to this - ![]() As soon as I touch her long leggy lengths a wave of surrender moves through me and points to a mystery longly not met that the longer is stronger and movement is strength Come withering, new shoots will transpose the language unfolding of grace in her pose This lady's for movement unfurling and deft like a soft glowing breeze through the airways now swept This one speaks in prose and brings to me the qualities of movement, of length, of air and grace. So much here conveyed and so lightly the touch... Notes I had written whilst getting to know each other a little - aware of my ribcage and a little tightness as well as in back of throat a congealed lump... now some yawns as I greet thee. And then along comes my friend, J, a joy of tears and gratitude as she speaks of a moment recently shared.. "take care of one's self first so that we may be available for others"...was this also a gift being shared from dear willow? I observed that on each of the long lengths of branches there were many nodules not opened, where the life force had passed the nodule by and headed toward the ends...as though those that had been passed by had sacrificed themselves for the energies to go towards the very ends...I looked all over in search of leaves and as yet there were little until I found at the very end f the branch in my own hand a small cluster of dynamic, small green leafy ones with so much potency thrust into that tiny fleur de lys shape that I was reminded of a burst forth expression, like an ejaculation of life force! There in my hand were the only leaves to be seen! Time passes so easily in this space of communion with tree... Some more of what I wrote - This one is the first of my plant songs for ages and I notice a hunger and joy that has my heart glee! I wander about a little with my gaze and take in the comfrey ground cover, fallen catkins galore, with sticks from previous weeks littering the floor... thickly scattered with yellow pollens rising ... I gaze to the shaggy variety, next one along, to see bee that is bumble on winds of a song of these long haired catkins with full flowering throng! I look up to the tangle of many branches filled with the grey silver buds that are filling my face with a smile wide and loved! Note to self for the next seven month or seventy years of my life...always have your plant spirit and communicating wherewithall kit handy.
Contents: A ground mat A well equipped pencil case - delicious selection for pencil and stationery addicts like me A notebook - one that I enjoy writing and drawing on with a good hard back cover Glasses My opinel knife - (don't forget to remove from on board baggage before flying Heather) A couple of cloth bags, small, to carry individual flowers, leaves, stems of plant if plant gifts itself for making medicine such as tea or elixir, smudge or other... Glasses Something sweet to offer ... a singing bowl or singing bells, local honey, a song Camera or phone for photos - switched to airplane mode Phone app that gives plant identification for later notes A heart full of gratitude and a prayer of recognition for whatever language is required in any instance All made happy in a very cool light weight all weather bag 9/11/2018 0 Comments Full Bodied Flight
It was the turning point from December to January, 2000 to 2001.
It was a time of big change and we were in the land of big space, Arizona, USA. I was sitting on the very edge of the Grand Canyon, on my own, having walked away from my young son and his Dad as each of us were taking in the vast space... This land opens an energy unlike any I had ever encountered in this life. At some point in that space of no time, a bird flew past, up close and impersonal, a little unwieldy and slightly awkward in its flight. It was simply a part of everything that was there... and it was wonder full beyond measure or definition. It all was. Some short moments later a couple of Park Rangers came along in great excitement and asked me whether I had seen it ... What had I seen? Apparently I was witness to the first fledgling flight of a baby condor that had been raised as part of an international conservation action between South America and the USA. I learned later of the Hopi prophecy that refers to a time when the eagle of the south flies with the eagle of the north there would be the dawning of a new day with all peoples of the Earth. Seeing this video has awakened a deepest flow from my whole being. One that knows through every molecule that we all know the muscle of jumping, of flowing, of soaring and choosing to be in full flight with our lives and choices. It's as natural for each of us as it was for that fledgling condor on that December day in Arizona and, as it is for this adult condor, released through the witness and ceremony of a group, a community of people who only wish it well as this bird, no longer captive is released unto its full potential. It's natural state of being. As you watch the video allow yourself to view it as though you are there...never mind that you may not have a direct translation of teh words that are being said. Allow yourself to read and translate the energy through the people, the ceremony of honouring and deepest gratitude that is present from the community. Allow yourself to read the energy of the condor itself as it turns and faces the group full on before leaping into the known unknown energy of its winged state of being. Are you open to knowing that energy for you? What is it that allows you to turn and say thank you to your past, your supporters and your future, fully knowing that as you jump you are fully held in the embrace of your own knowing and each fully awakened and intuited step or flap of your own fall as you move into your flight? Are you ready to be carried by the sheer wonder of movement with each choice? Each moment? What I know through every molecule of my body and being is that we all know the muscles of jumping, of flowing, of soaring and of choosing so that we can be in full flight with our lives. What do you require of You to set yourself on the joyous path with the energy of a full bodied Yes? 11/10/2017 0 Comments Thank You! November 10th, 2017![]() Do you, like me, sometimes wonder whether there is a stop or pause button you can locate to create a wee bit more space for you? Well these past couple of weeks have been that for me - it usually is at this soft time of year. I created a little space for a new breath... a wee bit of stop...breathe out...sense...slow and allow just a little more attention on what has been. It points to one of the things I love about seasons. I love seasons! It might derive from the fact that I come from Melbourne - a city where some people say we have four seasons in one day! It might derive from the fact that I was born at the point in the year where thanksgiving occurs (yes, it's coming up) and I get to be celebrated along with so many other lives... And it might stem from the simple joy of loving the changes. Yep. I really did say that. Loving change even though there are so many things I'd like to hold onto. So now, here in the misty zone of autumns greys and haze I am taken to some of the rich goodbyes and reflectings on what has been and I create a space where I also come to nurture some new seeds in my creative heartspace before planting them into cherished ground for winter germinating and warmings... So here are my pop up questions - arising from this moment of passing... Are there aspects of your seasons past that you would like to revisit? Bless? Thank and acknowledge? What aspects of the harvest would you like to acknowledge and take along with you, encouraging them to grow and be nourished? Are there some new choices required that can only be made if there's a wee bit more space for you in there? Is there something you'd like to release with more presence but you just can't find it? Perhaps there are some energies that you've been holding onto, weighing you down, sticking you kind of in something that is totally beyond reason, slowing you in some undiscernible way? (way...weigh...interesting huh???) A few days ago I was definitely in the weigh too squidgy zone - body weigh and mental way - heavy and not moving anywhere. Kind of stuck and getting stickier by the minute... Undefinable tears at waking is definitely not a sign of a promising day... My beautiful friend asked me whether there was anything at all that I would like that would assist. (Thank you beautiful one...) Before I could stop myself and between some sobs I asked whether she would run my Bars... every day. Really. Every day. I actually asked that!! You know sometimes in the despair of not knowing a girl really does ask for something that she does Know. Well there and then she offered to run my Bars and within a very short space of time - less than an hour - I was free of a whole lot of stuff. It didn't require talking about, unpicking or understanding, disentangling or reasoning, story sharing or justifying. I lay down. She placed her hands on the Bars points and I eased into a different way of being... let's say that I woke up again that day and was no longer the person who had woken up crying. There was nothing there any more that was creating the heavy and sticky stuff that you can't explain cos it was never real in the first place kind of thing.... Is she running my Bars every day? Well kind of. We are doing an alternate day sharing with each other. The great thing about Bars is that when you run them for another your own Bars get run as well. You can also run your own Bars by touching the points and asking your body to run them AND we both enjoy the energy body processes that come from Access Consciousness as well and so we have been running them as well. Each day something for the other is creating more for each of us. I have alot to be grateful for... And I am:-) ) ) ) 3/8/2017 4 Comments The Space of Becoming...I've been off radar these past weeks - in a kind of zone where the living and the dying meet each other, a space I have called a Space of Becoming. I was taken to Australia as my beautiful mum finally left her body after years of being interred through a very long period of life with the condition known as Alzheimers... It's not an easy place to write about because the language of words is limited by definitions and forms but I have been somewhere that exists on this planet and it wants to be spoken about... It is an energetic place, a space really, a space where we can go beyond our emotional restrictions and rise in a way, to another way of perceiving...receiving...accessing our knowing and also our being. Is this the same space where new beginnings arise as well? The answer is Yes. It is an unconditional yes. How do I know? My Mum told me so on a salt sea and warm windy afternoon on the northern coast of Queensland She gave me words - words that have never been spoken before to me and words that carried an energetic awareness of her, though she had never before spoken in this way. I wrote them down and they flowed in a way that was simple, clear and free. She spoke of what creates and maintains Alzheimers in a way that was directly pointing to something we can each and all recognise and it is this that I wish to share with you. It's a gift for the living when the dead convey freely what it is they are aware of from another realm of existence. You might ask why I would wish to share such a personal and intimate experience such as this and I simply say - it is no longer personal when it points to something that we each experience. She gives us pointers to glimpse a way of living from greater consciousness. I never knew her in this way but apparently she knows something about this now. I was blessed to be able to run her Bars and also several different Body Processes over the occasional and infrequent visits to her bedside in Victoria, Australia. There was always, but always, a shift that was palpable...a relief and a lifting of something. Others with her recognised the shift too - this was lovely though never required. Sometimes the door seemed to open and a real glimmer of possibility emerged from her direct gaze at me or another. and then she would sleep and rest in a different way...deeply. Here is the link to the gift she brought through to me. It is for us all - directly pointing to the choice to not engage with the avenue of regret or remorse or even of backward gazing through the haze of longing... Yeppoon Hilltop. Southern Great Barrier Reef. Looking out to the Keppels… The sea sweeps the vast shore and the waves kick up stories that she has spoken of or inferred or simply transmitted through her divine like lightness of being… Over the years I was able to osmose …sense… the many pleasures that she experienced here in this placeof her growing. I am brought straight to the top of the highest point and I walk down clutching Red Ted - a soft bear that was clutched by her through night and day in the many years of incarceration through Alzheimers - and my laptop that simply plays the music of a Space of Communion like a long-lost accompaniment to a great friend. I find myself stood on a central hearth, an altar of friendship that has been expressed by those who endured and remained in constant awareness of a time during the 2nd world war when this place was the home base to a large squad of soldiers from the US forces. They were the soldiers of the 41st battalion. I am with her again as she conveys the warmth of these times through the gratitude that is expressed through these plaques. They speak of a tangible, an actual period of time that brings me to her youth and my own – the own that sucked in the stories and lived them over and over. The love that was touched and fanned and tantalised, the laughter and the heroics, her kindness and grace and her joy in stepping out with a new and wider fan base. These men opened her doors to a wide world that teased and taunted her burgeoning sexuality and her delicious flirtatiousness as well as the potential terror of the war sitting close by as though in her lap. It is raw and it is vulnerable and it is enlivening to all her senses. She tastes the salt of living and it makes her thirsty for more. Mama – what is it that I can do for you from here? It seems now that the following words are given to me through the energy that is my Mum though this is a new frequency – one that I cannot say that I experienced directly whilst she was lived in her body. There are many who came onto these shores and the throwback in generous, way beyond your and my years. The cost has been high – a cost in cognition and consciousness and one that is created through the disconnect from the rootedness of being with one’s place of knowing… There is a place of the grieving that has strong men weeping and small children ever sleeping. It is the place of unknowing and un becoming…a lost-ness that creeps into the bones and locks out a pulse that simply lives through the sweet soft marrow Whilst you hang on to the haze – whether at the forefront or the back cupboards of oblivion - it lives as a lure, a silent and deadly lure to entice and enthral a kind of sadness that shuts down vital essence of life. Many have tasted it and fall in love with its hypnotic gaze…. dazzling and seductive in the most whispered way this seduction lives as though by secret proxy, a place recognised as a heroic gesture – a love lost, a parting of such sweet sorrow, a longing and luring back, always back, to something that has been won and lost and never to be returned. Whilst the taste of this memory continues to be sweeter than the moment, any moment, it acts as a hook into the dizzying space of nowhere at all…the space of the other world that one is never given total and complete access to. This is not the same space as presence and awareness – these have a different life force, a different quality of vitality. They simply generate more of the same – aliveness and clarity. Dear one – my daughter. You owe nothing to the many who are caught and seduced in this ever web like veil of seduction. Be not lured by it any longer and please cast off the nets from the gaze across the shores of your own becoming…look not to this space where the understanding entices you – the wish to recover those lost is not yours to complete. Allow it to end for you, only you, with this sweep of the shore. There is no life here and there will never be. Be awake my lovely heathering one. Awake to the multitude who wish to communicate through many means. Punctuate your new life with a wakefulness that no longer mourns the dead or the unborn but one in which each moment is a dance and a question, an open door to creation with all of the life forces that are present to your every expression and wish. Dot the I’s and cross the t’s and keep choosing to wake more fully. It is more than I can convey to you through words what it is that you are in the constancy of creation with. Be not a hero or a heroine, be not a martyr or a slave to another. Be commensurate with the rising sun and the morning birds – these are your truest gauges of how to live. Wake up each day and each moment. Wake up more fully and breathe in a way that laces your very being with the delight of gratitude. This will be an ongoing gift to me … and you owe me nothing. As to my ashes there are some to whom it is important. To me it is not. I will convey to you the way and the spaces as you enter into a night tonight….be not troubled by them. You did me proud and you did me well. Thank you beloved daughter mother sister aunt dear… I am of the sea and with the sea I am of the wind and with the wind I am of the sand and with the sand I am of the light and with the light And shall ever be You chose a good body. Mark it well with attention that rewards and nourishes. Live my daughter as though you have never fully lived before and you shall know the sweetness of laughter as though a tonic for a heart that shall need not ache once more. I loved your father and he loved me well. Let it not be necessary to ponder or muse upon your parentage…you are more than all of us brought together. A composition of joy and wonder. A daughter of the Earth and gift to us all. Let the wind carry me away and we shall weep no more. I call upon those who would wish to come with me that they shall occupy you no more. I call back to the ashes of the many, the memories of lost and yearned for spaces and we release the bindings and unfulfilled promises from each other and the many others as we become truly like a breeze and lifted to the air. Let there be no one who lingers any longer between the veils of lost-ness and grieving. It is done. It is done. Weep no more. Hold onto nothing…not even yourself. Go now Be ready The moment will be clear and light We alight As I walked away from the place of the writing my eyes alighted on five small newly planted sea pines – the kind that the Australian coast loves…There they had been all along protected from the strong winds in that exposed landing by a strong layer of polythene… I approached one, knelt down, touched the coarse fronds and caressed them as I introduced the idea to the one representative of the five. “Hello trees…I am Heather…”I whispered to this young life form who had witnessed my brief visit there… I wonder whether you would like to receive the body of my beautiful Mum as a contribution to your life? Would you like to take her bones into yours and have them nurture and feed you as she did me? My fingers moved to lift the plastic and I touched the soil at the roots, pulling away some of the grass that was covering the soil, all the while listening, aware and awake to the energy of a clear yes or no coming towards me. It came clearly – in the way of least resistance. That’s really where yes lives. I went to the car and collected her box and a using a spoon I was able to lift the lid, prising it away from the seal and opening this most sacred new ground, new earth from old. And there in the dark of evening light, with a wind that was warming to my very being, together with my mum, we brought about a union, a kind of wholly communion, of life and death. Five trees said yes to receiving the body of life of the woman who gave me life. She was called Bern And she did. Songbird and I have just returned from a truly wonderful six day in Budapest where we went for a three-day Access Body Process Class. Over the years, I have been learning to gift and have been receiving these processes one or two at a time. Upon first learning about this particular class with Kacie Crisp my whole body leaped at the video as I watched it multiple times ... my energy levels soared. There was no arguing - Hungary had always been a destination yes but this was not what I had imagined would take me there! The class had its own energy and called loud and strong.
The whole experience was quite simply profound. Kacie Crisp took us on a five day ride that covered money, bodies and showing up in the world. We are both still present to the constant ripples of change occurring as we continue receiving the class and run the processes on our bodies. I have a sense that I will continue to experience the gifts of this choice throughout my life. How is that choice showing up just five days later? Aware that there is an inherent danger in using words to express that which is beyond words I shall write from the energy of being that is available in this moment... I have an awareness of my body and my choices coming into a greater sense of 'un-holding'...a kind of energetic expansion with all that I am with. It seems that everything is being addressed and dealt with from a new space. Moving ever more lightly through immense outer changes (house moving for one) whilst being exquisitely awake or receptive to every moment that requires attention. We spent our last few hours in Budapest in open winter sun at the delicious outdoor baths Szechenyi...(My body absolutely demanded that we go there before leaving – even to the extent that I would forgo a much-desired visit to the famous Central Market Hall.! It's true to say that the wish to visit a food hall was no longer top of the list for my body...) Once chosen everything was possible. Time and space no longer a limitation we moved effortlessly through Metro to park to waters and sun. For only one and a quarter hours I sat, stood and gently swam in the quietly bubbling waters asking my body to have everything she required from that ancient pool of mineral wealth from the earth. . .Sensate deliciousness... and greater communication from body to being... It followed that our journey homewards through public transport of every kind was effortless and ease filled even upon encountering tremendous detours and delays on the M66 when driving home.It seemed we were not returning the same way we had left! This work changes things and is mostly experienced through the changes in how I and you move through change! Less resistance at every level. I cannot be definitive about anything - there is no cause and effect through these tools. They create a greater capacity for us each to live from our original language - that of the Energy of Being. We spent our last few hours in Budapest in open winter sun at the delicious outdoor baths Szechenyi... (My body absolutely demanded that we go there before leaving – even to the extent that I would forgo a much-desired visit to the famous Central Market Hall. Everything became possible. Time and space no longer a limitation we moved effortlessly through Metro to park to waters and sun). For only one and a quarter hours I sat, stood and gently swam in the quietly bubbling waters asking my body to have everything she required from that ancient pool of mineral wealth from the earth. Sensate deliciousness... and greater communication from body to being... Apart from now being able to bring these energetic body processes to others we are both very inspired by how they are allowing more of our lives and work with sound to be integrated more fully with the body. The 'how' of that is something that we are constantly in the space of learning and becoming more aware of ... like everything, it is through the willingness to choose it that it begins to show up. The dance of Creation and Creating is alive with this level of inquiry -it is not always cognitive, it is always happening and it can be highly chaotic within the process of organising itself into something new. This morning Gabriella played a bowl to me as she often does during the forging process...a bowl coming into its most coherent self is one that invites many questions...what is required? More fire? More hammering? If so what kind? Does it require something other than the forge? Is it something from another? The earth? Is there something that I am being asked to do or be that can make the difference here? and so on. It is a living engagement with the metal, the tools, the person who has called the bowl forth, the wider sensing into the being that is in the becoming - the bowl itself and its unique 'homespace'. What arose this morning was a new level of receptivity to perceiving sound. Through a sustained and gentle playing of the bowl I stopped seeking an answer to her question - is it done? My body as a sense organ with its own response system started to show me that the bowl was inviting me to something that I Knew but had long forgotten...senses numbed or dulled to this aspect of fine tuning.All words and thoughts dropped away and I became aware of a distant space - one that is always present but unreachable from my trying to reach for it. There, just on the other side of what? It became clear - like a moment of light shining upon a place not oft seen but always sought. In a flash I recognised that the difference was that I was receiving the sound through my body and not my ears. Yes I could 'hear' it but the listening was happening through Gabriella's engagement with my receiving it. We had, like new lovers, lost ourselves in the exquisite space of presence beyond judgment...a space where there just is that moment. In those moments I was aware of my relationship to all things...open to the earth and the minute and grand forces that are continually dancing the same dance. It is a constant pulse and orgasm of the unknown becoming the known and falling away as we open to receive, gift and engage with each of these moments. Here in this place called home , whilst present with a bronze singing bowl I am face to face with the creation forces of this incredible planet and I am free of my mind...it is sublime and alive and cannot be held onto. What I know is that I have had experiences like this before - many energetic transmissions and perceptions, transforming experiences that allow me to visit the great depths of sensorial experience.What was different this morning with this utterly beautiful singing bowl is that I did not have to leave my body to fetch the 'information' or the 'download' from a source outside of myself. My beautiful body, co-creative partner in life and living, was the enabler for what I received and perceived. This is new for me. Until this moment I had always 'thought' that being in my body during a sensing experience of this kind would be restrictive, create a limitation to my capacity to tune in. Until this morning I had expected that my body would only contribute through the visceral, the physical, the tangible aspects of the senses - touch, smell etc. What I experienced this morning was new for me. My body is capable of bringing me more information than I could have ever imagine with my mind. Just because she is physical - mater - does not mean that she can only perceive the physical realms. She can bring me the universe if that is what I ask for. This is new for me and I am enjoying the wonder of it without going into the state of awe and leaving, or ex-ing her again. Body will you show me more of your magic please? Universe will you show me more of the wonders of creation through having a body? Thank you. So everywhere and anywhere that you might have created a limitation to what might be possible through having or being 'in' a body would you like to change that...experience something different? |
AuthorHeather Smith Cowen - a social artist, a muse, an alchemist and as a sense organ, a sensitive and a being ... Archives
June 2020
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