Silence - Blog Post

There was a boy who once taught me to be silent. No matter how much I would try and make him talk he would just smile and hold me. I would put my head on his shoulders and sometimes we would sit like that for hours. In speech we would never truly connect but in silence there was a way, a space where we would open up and just be with one another.

Unfortunately noise overtook us and silence became a thing of the past but I shall never forget those moments, unsullied by polluted breath and the stink of words. 

It brought me peace beyond measure.

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Season Change - Blog Post

Autumn surprised me.  Summer felt like a long joyful celebration of life in many ways and I revelled in the openness that summer encourages. Fresh from the wild, I still felt her warmth in my veins – her rhythmic pulsing of zest and extraversion.

I know I saw a few leaves touch the ground and fleetingly thought I needed to prepare myself for season change but I somehow believed I had at least a month left to play, to share in the expansiveness and dream. I didn't want to take notice of the signs.

And then Summer suddenly left, without a long goodbye. Overnight, trees started to dry up and crinkle around the edges. The air hinted at cooler mornings, night started to visit a little earlier. Acorns fell to find new homes in the soil, waiting for the squirrels to collect and store.

Internally, I felt panic. I wasn’t ready for the shed, to let go, and change again. I felt discombobulated by seasonal change and the preparation for fall. I wanted to cling as I still felt summer had so much more to give, I had so much more to learn. Both the Aniwa Gathering and Into the Wild had taught me so much and there was still processing and integration occurring.

Yet the earth has its own timings, its wisdom, and continues to teach this slow student about change.

In university the students were arriving with stories to tell. When I walked in the park on the way to work, I saw leaves that looked like static fireworks. There were families arriving in our home, presenting yielded crops for us to feast. There was the greeting of dusk on my bike ride home. There was the end of another course that had continued my link to my Shamanic birthright, as I finished the medicine wheel in its shorter form.

So many endings and new beginnings.

And now as my calendar begins to fill for the semester ahead, I feel I am now surrendering and embodying autumn. I have started to turn within. I seek silence and the whispers of the leaves as they gently detach and start their new phase of nurturing the soil. As I pile the clothes on to my body, I feel cocooned from the outside and can sense the foundations for future hibernation. I can feel the rise of the feminine arising in the Western hemisphere.

I now need to heed and accept change.

Aho.

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Expanding - Blog Post

It's been so long since I have written a post physically, yet, in my head I had written plenty.

Experiences and visions have continued to visit me but somehow there has been no space to sit and write, and allow them to unfold in the way they asked.

Space. In these last few months I have deeply craved the most open spaces.

I have desired the ability to stretch my body, my voice, my words... in a place I could call my own.

And even now I know these last few months have been about creating space, I have also realised I am moved by the ever present tidal pull of my childhood that continuously affects the rhythm of my life.

I had to go in before I could go out.

As we put a deposit down on a small cottage near the deer, my bank account decreased significantly as we invested our savings on the possibility of a new beginning. As I signed my name on the line, for a house I had seen for a short period of time, on my own, once, I felt crushed under the pressure of possible ramifications, haunted by mistakes I had made previously and wondering if I were about to make them again.

In the meantime, he had moved all his belongings in my noisy Wimbledonian bedroom. As our physical bodies and belongings jostled for space and the cars outside clamoured for our silence, I shrank and faced my own claustophobic demons.

In this time of transition, I moved along a rocky road from independence to partnership, and have slowly allowed myself to become an open-hearted companion to another on this life's journey. There had been times when I contracted in fear but then I could feel myself expand in vulnerability, as I consciously laid my heart open to another and allowed them to see the whole of me.

Now we have moved into our small cottage, near the deer, we are slowly creating small rituals of love. I can walk into every room and move. I wake in the morning, from entwined limbs, and extend. I feel his body next to mine but he allows me to reach for space and I reach, and reach, and reach, until I have stretched my body, my voice and now... finally, my words.

It's time to write again.

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Oceanic - Blog Post

There are oceans within me and sometimes a storm whips me into a frenzy. I'm pushed and pulled by the elements and my waves grow mighty, forceful, powerful and they encompass all who come near.

There are oceans within me and at times it ravages me and I can only hold on as it rages and breaks the banks of my body. I moan, writhe, bend whilst I withstand the lunar callings of my own tide. To ignore my own torrents and undertow places me and all around at peril.

There are oceans within me and sometimes I need to dive deep into my own depths to feel the stillness that I inherently am. I float in the peace and quiet until I feel replenished and ready to brave the elements once again.

There are oceans within me and I am grateful for the eco-systems that are created within. I marvel at the interdependence of all and appreciate the fertility of life. I hold the fearsome and delicate and balance them equally.

There are oceans within. 

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Birth - Blog Post

Normally when I write a blog post I just write about one thing that has happened. I will focus on the incident or feeling, drill it down to see the effect it has had and then look at how I will incorporate it into my life going forward... But this last month and a half has brought such a whirlwind of change and connection into my world that I want to capture it before it becomes my new world order. I guess the next series of blog posts will be focusing on each aspect of the change that has occurred in such a short space of time, so I apologise now for my indulgence!

August was heady with friendship and conversation as I bounced from one lovely person to the next, allowing our words to drift over the river Thames, which then took me across the Channel to my rock in the sea. I bathed in companionship and family and received a text from my sister in law, saying that she was willing her son to arrive so his Zia would be able to meet him. 

Past midnight my phone buzzed, I looked at the screen and saw that my brother texted, 'Her waters have broken!'

Unable to contain my excitement, I peeked inside my mother's room, but I could see sleep had already claimed her for the night so left her in peace. I then peered into my father's room, the dog barked furiously as I entered her domain, so my Dad lifted his head. 

  'Her waters have broken!' I whispered excitedly.

  'He'll come tomorrow,' he said calmly, like a man who has experienced four children of his own, and then he and the dog promptly went back to sleep. 

I sat in the spare room with adrenalin rushing through me as I thought about another being entering this world and the journey he would have with my brother and sister in law that night, and the many nights to come. I marvelled at the miracle of birth and fully felt joy in the knowledge that my family would grow and be abundant. I was excited to meet my nephew and felt such deep gratitude that I had chosen the right day to be there and a part of the experience. 

I also wondered at the transformation of my brother and how I have watched him since birth as a baby, turn into a child and then grow into teenager and a man. I realised that I now had the privilege to watch this gentle and gorgeous man become a father and grow with love, as his world takes on new meanings.

Life brought a new being into this world, ready to start his own journey of love.

I can't wait to see what happens...

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Wisdom from a Tree - Blog Post

There is a line drawn. A point made. A place where an event happened some time ago and no one around you can have another conversation about it. For me it was him. I lost him. And I have had every conversation possible until there were no words left. I thought those conversations would make me bare, ready to start again, but I realised I was still full of him – of loss, sadness and heartbreak.

This morning I woke up feeling as if I would burst. Emotions leaked from my eyes, nose, mouth... even my pores. I couldn’t move without spilling and nothing seemed to help. I was filled, as if I had packed in more feelings than I had body space.

I realised in all that time I hadn’t emptied much at all and I was still full.

I put on my shoes and started walking my usual route to the woods. I needed to seek solace and feel grounded - find my connection and place within the world. I needed to find some peace.  In my meandering I found two silver birch trees together, yet apart from the others – one of the trunks had been struck by lightning, and even though it was damaged it was still alive and blossoming. I decided to sit.

I started to speak.

I spoke about my love for this man who no longer wanted me to be in his life, about the times we spent together and the joy I had felt being in his presence. I spoke about the stability I had never experienced before, and the quality of our love – the nurturing, sweet, kind, soulful love of twin spirits. I spoke of our relationship which included a friendship where we could have a conversation just by reading each other’s facial expressions and gauging the energy fields around us.

I spoke of my dreams and expectations of keeping a love like this. I spoke of making a commitment to someone and what that means to me. I spoke about how when I say I love someone it means more than just a feeling within. How it means that I will be present for that person, that there is a willingness to grow, being there regardless. It means I will face life in partnership and not walk away or let go.

Like he did.

My feelings of fullness could not be denied any longer. I sat in front of the tree and cried. I broke open. I shouted, wailed and thumped my hands on the ground. There were tears, snot, phlegm and clutching of grass and at one point I clung to the tree as my tears fell into the crevices of the bark. I felt every emotion I held within fully, finally there was no need to control or stifle.

I told the tree about the lies I was told, about his betrayal, his actions and the pain he had caused. I told the tree about how he ended our relationship and walked away without another look back. I told her about how he let me go. I spoke of my pain, grief, shock, heartbreak and how his actions had impacted me, as if a lightning bolt had struck me and I was still reeling.

As I calmed I then spoke to the tree about my fear. I told her about how I am scared that I will never find a love as beautiful. How I am fearful that I will never be able to know a partnership again. I crawled up close to the tree and whispered, ‘Have I been so damaged that I will never experience love again?’

And patiently, in union, the wind buffeted the tree and she gently spoke, ‘Look up.’

I looked at the stump, sitting strongly in the ground, rooted in Mother Earth. I let my gaze travel as I saw the damage, the scars and the pain the tree had experienced over the years and its subsequent healing. As my eyes travelled I looked further and I saw her leaves dancing gently in the breeze – alive, alight, happy and joyful. And then I really saw the tree’s capability to survive, love and bloom, no matter what has been experienced.

I had been given my answer.

I was spent. When I stood up and walked away, I realised my roots were deep just like the tree. I realised I was capable of surviving and thriving too. My mind had calmed and my heart was stilled. I finally felt emptied, liberated and free.

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Innocence - Blog Post

The Man from The Bush turned around and told me, ‘It’s so easy to forget what we learn. We need to practice regularly, what a waste of a life it is if we just keep relearning the same old lessons.’

The Man from The Bush sits next to me daily, telling me insights I need to know, imparting his wisdom for others to hear. I bathe myself in his calmness on a regular basis.

Sometimes when I talk to myself, I can hear my innocence. I thought I had lost it years ago but for the last few years I have re-learned that it has always been within. How many times in my life will I need to re-learn that innocence is an inner facet I will never relinquish? That I will never harden with experience?

I don’t want to waste my time re-learning. I want to devote my time to accepting.

I accept there is innocence within me. Along with wonder, excitement, purity and joy in simplicity… I hope I never forget that being innocent brings a joyous hue to walking through the park and sitting in the trees, hugging a friend after a long time, sitting on the beach and watching the sun travel to the Southern hemisphere… The quality of innocence within brings me joy.

When I don’t see The Man from The Bush then I know my day will be a little less brighter and will hold a little less wisdom. But I know I can hold on to the lessons I am learning and try to practice my own wisdom daily. I don't have to waste any more time.

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Sisterhood - Blog Post

Photo taken by me of some amazing graffiti in Brighton

Oh I am so blessed as my sisterhood weave and entwine with my body, soul and emotions. They plait my hair with their joy, wash my body with their tears and hold me with their hands whilst they sing sing sing into the night their wisdom, truth and love so I can hear the private stirring melodies of creation.

Oh I am so blessed with sisterhood as grandmothers, mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, colleagues, clients and strangers join in union. I listen as they tell me their stories and secrets; I know their pain, their joy, their hearts melding and breaking. I feel our mysteries grow as we band closer together within the great mystery of creation.

Oh I am so blessed as together with my sisterhood we experience our births, childhoods, teenage years, girlhoods, and now they watch my journey becoming a woman, crone and wizened old witch. Together we survey our landscape and nod in recognition of our birthrights - our hearts soft and our ways receptive. We are wild, oceanic, lunar and we call to the creator knowing we have been given the gift of creation.

Oh I am so blessed to be born from a long line of strong wise women who faced pain, hardship, poverty, war and still managed to love, care and nurture from their wellspring of love within. Their strength, wisdom, purity and grace pulses through my body, is inherent in every breath I take and provides me with the intrinsic knowledge of all that merges within creation.

Oh, I am so blessed.

 
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Spring... - Blog Post

Spring is always uncertain. I never know whether to quite believe in it. It combines the worst of winter and the best of summer, sometimes in one day. Yet somehow I am starting to see buds form, pregnant with life, waiting to open up and burst forth. Nature is preparing herself somehow and I take heart that I am also like that too.

Ready to bloom...


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Keep On Keeping On - Blog Post

My mama told me I am a grown woman now and that I will know…

Know what?

Know when to work at things and when to let go.

I am a believer in making things work – I am a believer in doing everything in my power to make something work. I am not a believer in giving up and moving on; I try to value people, places and things – I try not to throw things away unless they are irreparable.

He walked into my room and he said, ‘Nothing’s changed.’

I said, ‘The room has changed.’

He said, ‘But everything in it is the same.’

I said, ‘Why would I replace anything if they don’t need to be?’

You know I have started to get rid of all these different websites I have subscribed to on my Facebook Feed because they all peddle the same relationship advice – ‘Let go, let go, let go...’

He told me, ‘I think life is one big process of letting go.’

But in my heart I know people don’t let go, they replace. If they let go they would have nothing and become monks and nun, and I can patently see that hasn’t happened. People just keep throwing away and replacing with something, someone or someplace new. And it leaves a lot of sad people and large landfills on our planet.

And I am tired of it.

So many people come into my workplace feeling mentally ill because people let go. Parents, siblings, family, friends, spouses and lovers… have left and let them go. Internally this makes them feel worthless and useless, feeling unable to cope with the loss in their lives, and these people have become very unwell.

I don’t want this for me.

I don’t want to be thrown away, moved on from or ignored. I don’t want to be let go. I want someone to see me – really see me – and think I am of value. I want to be seen as someone worth working with and for; someone that could be around for a long time to share highs and lows in the light and darkness. I don’t want to enter relationships with the thought that one day either one of us could let go. I want to find worth in every encounter and realise we are all mad, crazy, happy, sad, light, dark, big, small, insecure, secure, ill, well, lonely, contented and so much more. The whole spectrum of humanity is within each and every one of us. If we could see that in each other and see the value in each of us, we would appreciate and treat each other so differently.

We wouldn’t let go. We would hold each other in love.

And realise our value.


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Small messages of love - Blog Post

It's almost a joke between us now - his inability to plan.

  'I can't find ping pong anywhere except in Hackney,' he said, frantically searching the net mere hours before we were supposed to meet. It was a given that neither of us were prepared to head to East London on a cold winter's school night.

  'What about meditation? Oh, I can't find any in South West London tonight...' he lamented.
  'What about yoga?' he asked.
  'I don't want to tonight...' I replied.

He came to my home fully prepared to be berated for his lack of planning for our date night. He expected the worst.
  'I have an idea, it could be lame-o, but it might be fun,' I said.
  'What is it?'
  'I saw on the internet an idea of writing positive messages and putting them in our favourite books in a book shop for someone to receive.'
He thought about it for a moment, 'Okay, let's do it. But I don't think we should go to a book shop.'
  'What about a library?'
  'Yeah okay.'

We took pens, paper and scissors to the local library and started writing messages. I was writing short messages about how beautiful, gorgeous, wonderful and amazing people are. He sat there and just wrote on one piece of paper for a long time.

  'Do you want to read it?'

I nodded.

I read his story of pain, shame, self-doubt and a life of comparison where he felt he was always lacking. I read the story of a man who is now willing to become vulnerable to another human being and share his own story. I read the story of a man whose life is no longer beginning to own him as the story he wrote also gave a message of hope. He spoke about the best ways to grow, to find the self, to find a person's way home again. Connecting his heart to the pain of others and helping them find a way to heal in a world that seems so lonely.

He wrote, 'You are not alone.'

He placed it in a book and as the security guard started to haunt the aisles informing us the library was about to close, he was caught writing again and told that his actions were not allowed. When asked he told the guard he had forgotten which books his other messages had been placed in, protecting the love he had given that evening.

As I walked back from my own expedition, he was there with my bag walking towards me, 'We've been busted.'
  'Why?' I asked, forever questioning authority.
  'I don't know I didn't ask. It was probably the most excitement he's had all day.'

We left the library as rebels but still had some positive messages in our hands. We tried to give them to random Londoners rushing busily on the street to their important place. Some people were willing to receive a pocket of love from the universe and their smiles were beatific and beautiful. However, most people threw some negative, displaced and annoyed energy towards us for stepping into their world uninvited. It made me feel sad that such distrust surrounded me as I walk my path.

  'We've got two left,' I said. 'I know, let's go into the shop and place them in handbags or purses so when people buy them they will find a message of love.'
  'Okay.'

And we did, we placed two small messages of love and hope, of the promise of sharing our true authentic selves with the world in the hope we can make the world a more beautiful and harmonious place to live, and then we went back to my home.

On the bed we snuggled with our heads and bodies touching. It felt like he is returning from the journey he has been on. It felt like the puzzle pieces were starting to fit and the picture becoming clearer as he seemed more whole, real and willing to be.

  'Seeing you and doing aarti are like a refuge,' he said.
  'Lee Lee is always here,' I replied.


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Finding Me - Blog Post

For so long he had tried to convince me to move there...

  'You'll love London, it's great!'

  'But what's so great about it?' I asked.

  'The sheer variety, that whatever you want to do, whoever you want to hang out with, you'll find it there.'

I stood there, unimpressed. What do I care for variety?

  'Why don't you move to Hove? It's got the sea,' I countered.

  'I am happy to move to Hove if you want me to,' he replied.

We scoured the transport links on the internet and realised it would be a single 2.5 hours trip to his job in North London. I couldn't ask him to do that - if I wasn't prepared to put those hours in, I wouldn’t expect another to try.

I sat and contemplated what to do. I could sit in Hove missing him and continuing a long distance relationship, with no realisation of it becoming the fully fledged relationship I dreamed of; where I could see and kiss him regularly. Or swallow my fear, my distaste for the heaving, sprawling and grey metropolis London is and trace my fingers on his naked skin every night, whisper my love with my lips and clasp his warm large hands in mine.

I thought about what Ben Lee would say.

He would tell me to gamble everything for love.

I thought about what Beth Orton would say.

She would tell me to open my heart.

So love won.

Love always wins.

In March 2014 I packed every single item I owned and waited for two lovely people to take me to the capital. When we arrived he was already there. He held me and then helped bring my stuff into our home. Our new life meant I had moved my belongings and bed to London but every week day my body belonged to Brighton. The hour train ride brought me back and forth between two lives. One of love, compatibility, fun and jokes - a relationship so precious, beautiful and fragile; but I had no support network or understanding of the city. Then back to the sea that contained my friendships and the home of homelessness where I battled daily to help prevent more people living without a roof for a night and a fractured management team at work whose expectations I could never fulfill.

The pressure was immense - my feet were in two places that seemed geographically and emotionally further and further apart. The injustice I experienced in Brighton started to affect the love I experienced at home. I felt torn, low, depressed and angry by the way I was being treated by people who I had respected at work, and I held onto the pain tightly. My earlier personal transformation as a social worker exploded into a sea of indecision and doubt, with every move I made misrepresented and misread by others. Where I expected support all I received was derision and disdain, in the name of professionalism.

I cried, thought, wrote, dreamt, spoke and fantasised about it at length - and during this time I lost my joy and spark. I strayed from my centre, felt off kilter and it bled into every area of my life. I questioned every decision that I made and thought myself worthless, useless and lacked the self-esteem and worth I was trying to instill in my clients. The pressure was building within, manifesting itself as ticks and pulses in my body and a jaw that continually ached. Something had to change.

Then everything changed.

I started applying for statutory social work roles in London. I wanted to live in one place properly so I finally cut ties with my old job.

The month after I resigned he turned around and told me that he was leaving me and our relationship; that he couldn’t undertake the next year with me at his side.

So I found myself in a city I didn’t know, didn’t like, and in a new job I didn’t understand. I was without my love, whom I knew deep within my heart was my twin flame. I watched him walk away from me in the airport, knowing that he was bound for Indian climes, alone.

I was isolated and lost.

But I was free.

And in that freedom, I found London... and me. 

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