Jill's Walnut Pesto

Ingredients

Good handful of basil leaves (or rocket)
1/2 cup of walnuts
Glug of olive oil
1/2 cup finely grated Manchego cheese (it’s a hard sheep’s cheese)
1 clove garlic (if using)
Salt and ground black pepper

I use my mini mixer to make it, but you have to pack the basil down and whizz it a couple of times. The olive oil ‘loosens’ the mix. I guess it’s probably 1 to 2 tablespoons. Start with less and add if necessary.

Dark Night of the Soul

I can’t help noticing that this is a big year for many people. Like 2003 and 2008, there is significant change and the turmoil that comes with this.

It feels to me that with all these eclipses we are in a washing machine spinning around and around. I can’t be sure when the washing cycle is going to end but I do know that we have an annular solar eclipse** on 26 December, followed by a penumbral lunar eclipse*** on 10 January 2020 so perhaps things might settle then.

This, after a year that found us experiencing a partial lunar eclipse* on 6 January 2019 followed by a total lunar eclipse* on 21 January 2019, and then a total solar eclipse on 2 July 2019 followed by a partial lunar eclipse on 16 July 2019. 

I’m certainly no expert on the effect of these things, I can only share from my own experience but I have to admit that life has been a touch challenging this year and while I like to blame the moon, I’m going to blame all these eclipses too!

There was the Ayurvedic and Sanskrit studying and then discovering the Scaravelli-approach to yoga, which turned everything on it’s head, this before July. My Ayurvedic exams took place a few days after the July partial eclipse and this was followed by a virus that left me sick and feeling very sorry for myself all summer. 

I finally recovered from the virus in time for our retreat in Glastonbury on the full moon in mid-September, and I felt so much better for this, but it was short lived. In came the super new moon on 28 September 2019 and things felt decidedly sticky again with more illness and more disorientation. 

For others too, there is a sense of being shaken, as if we are being collectively shaken awake (this is exactly what is happening!) and with it there has been illness, bereavements, life-changing diagnoses, relationship break-ups, and/or job changes, and some of these changes happening suddenly, pulling the rug from under our feet, leaving us feeling confused and ungrounded.  

To me it feels like we’re going through a collective dark night of the soul. This is when life feels desperately uncomfortable, with a sense of despair and sometimes a total disinterest in living or in life itself – the darkness descends. Sometimes this feeling may only last a matter of hours, and other times it can last for days on end, and we might wonder if we will ever see the light ever again. 

Life doesn’t fit. Nothing feels right. There is a complete lack of clarity about how life may unfold and a panic that it might stay life this forever more. Life is full of uncertainty, and yet the uncertainty becomes more pronounced, and this brings with it a feeling of disorientation and not having a clue which way is up, or how life might look, or even who you are anymore as who you thought you were starts to dissolve and yet you’re still living the life of the person dissolving. 

There are tears, lots of tears and some anger, frustration, irritation, rage and an overwhelming sense of tiredness and exhaustion. Chaos reigns, we feel helpless and very alone, cast adrift without a map or a paddle to find our way home. And even if we know deep down that we just have to keep going, that it is just a process with a potentially positive outcome, it’s still extremely challenging!

I take some comfort in Simon Haas’ words, “A dark night of the soul is a period of purification and transformation. Like the process of refining gold or making ghee, parts of us that have remained concealed from others, and even from ourselves, rise to the surface during a dark night experience. During a dark night, we may become increasingly irritable, angry, impatient or resentful. We may fall into guilt, self-pity and even self-loathing. This is often our experience to the suffering we’re experiencing. We may even feel hatred towards those who we believe have contributed to our crisis”.

I don’t know about you, but I can relate to all of this! It’s both embarrassing and humbling! I am a cliché!

He continues, “We all have a dark side, an “ungodly” side, which only those closest to us may know. Sometimes the dissolution of our world can reveal things about us that surprise even ourselves. We suffer the death of who we thought we were, whilst encountering those parts of us we have kept hidden – qualities, behaviours and motivations that may be difficult for us to acknowledge. In a dark night, we come face to face with what we can no longer hide.

Some for instance, become aware of how much anger that carry. Others must face the unbearable truth that ultimately, they don’t really care about others. These inner revelations can be difficult to acknowledge or bear…[there is] a strong impulse to retreat from life. This impulse is partly the result of acute suffering and partly due to a loss of personal direction, leading to paralysis. When the ego is being destroyed, there is often intense angst and a strong desire to disengage from life. It can extinguish even the desire to remain alive…when our inner world collapses, we’re entirely powerless, like a shell tossed about in the waves of the ocean. It’s an inner helplessness.”

Sadly, I can’t offer you much advice in what you might do if you’re stuck in a dark night of the soul. It’s a process that we have to work our way through in our own way. Personally, I take comfort in getting out in nature, walking the cliffs and sea swimming, spending time alone (when I can) in silence, practicing yoga, repeating the Bija mantra, daily Yoga Nidra (grounded one’s mind), rose quartz, lots of rose quartz, and playing with the children, running around the beach, getting some fresh air together. Sleep helps enormously too, slightly tricky if you have children who don’t value sleep so much though!

 I am very well aware that as uncomfortable as it all is, it is part of the bigger picture and if I can remember this (and not get caught up in the intense emotions) then I feel some comfort in knowing it’s not just me! In fact, it’s the “me” that’s the problem, because essentially what is happening is part of “me”, is dissolving and the ego isn’t particularly happy about this, but it is necessary, because it leaves more space for the heart and the light to come in, instead.

This is all about the heart, it can only ever be about the heart. Love not fear. And as much as everyone says they love unconditionally, it is actually really difficult. There is huge vulnerability in truly loving, without conditions, of putting our hearts on a line and opening ourselves up for being hurt, betrayed or disappointed. Yet we are being asked to step more fully into the heart and out of the small mind. The situations in our life will ask us to step more fully into the heart.

 It is in this way that we may positively impact on the state of the planet. Where there is love, there is fear, and we see this clearly now with the fear being created by the media about the state of Mother Earth and the climatic disaster awaiting us. The fear will not create the change that is needed though, the only way things will change, at least positively and in the long term, is if we keep embracing love, and overcoming the fear (not ignoring it or turning away from it, but acknowledging it).

It feels to me that the whole universe is being upgraded, if only we can step up into it. We are experiencing perhaps a collective dark night of the soul, Mother Earth too. Only that Mother Earth will always be OK, she knows how to look after herself, it’s us, us humans, who will ultimately suffer. Which is why it is our duty to keep stepping into the love, not to just talk about it, but to embody it, to find it within ourselves to weed out anything which stops us from truly loving and truly living.

We are asked to turn towards those who have hurt us or harmed us or who just irritate us, with love.  We are being asked to be clear about our boundaries and what is acceptable in our life – we are being asked to love ourselves too, to keep stepping into the heart. Love conquers all. It is love that underpins absolutely everything (another reason to bring Reiki into your life, the energy of love!).

 I’ll leave you with this marvellous quote from Jack Kornfield in his marvellous book, “A Path with Heart”, which sums it all up rather nicely for me and reminds me of the spiritual and heart in all life:

“Whether in a monastery, in our place of business, or in our family life, we need to listen to what each cycle requires for our heart’s development and accept its spiritual tasks. The natural cycles of growth – developing right livelihood, moving to a new home, the birth of a child, entering a spiritual community – all bring spiritual tasks that require our heart to grow in commitment, fearlessness, patience, and attention. The cycles of endings – our children leaving home, the aging and death of our parents, loss in business, leaving a marriage or community – bring our heart to the spiritual tasks of grieving, of letting go gracefully, of releasing control, of finding equanimity and openhearted compassion in the face of loss.

Occasionally we get to choose the cycles we work with, such as choosing to get married or beginning a career. At these times it is helpful to meditate, to reflect on which direction will bring us closer to our path with heart, which will offer the spiritual lesson that it is time for in our life.

More often we don’t get to choose. The great cycles of our life wash over us, presenting us with challenges and difficult rites of passage much bigger than our ideas of where we are going. Midlife crisis, threats of divorce, personal illness, sickness of our children, money problems, or just running yet again into our own insecurity or unfulfilled ambition can seem like difficult yet mundane parts of life to get over with so we can become peaceful and do our spiritual practice. But when we bring to them attention and respect, each of those tasks has a spiritual lesson in them. It may be a lesson of staying centred through great confusion, on a lesson of forbearance, developing a forgiving heart with someone who has caused us pain. It may be a lesson of acceptance or a lesson of courage, finding the strength of heart to stand our ground and live from our deepest values”. 

*A solar eclipse happens when the moon moves between the Earth and the Sun while a lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth casts a shadow on the full Moon.

**An annular solar eclipse happens when the Moon covers the Sun’s centre leaving the Sun’s visible outer edges to form a “ring of fire” or annulus around the Moon.

***A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth and the Moon are imperfectly aligned. When this happens, the Earth blocks some of the Sun’s light from directly reaching the moon’s surface and covers all or part of the Moon with the outer part of its shadow, also known as penumbra.

Retreating on Sark

I love retreating and while I’ve never had a ‘bad’ retreat, there are some retreats that are very special, and this Sark retreat was certainly one of those.

The weather forecast for the weekend didn’t look that great earlier in the week, but we were indeed blessed. There was the usual strong winds on the Friday, testing us all in some way, but I’m very aware that there is always an obstacle on the spiritual path and always an obstacle in the days leading up to a retreat (or the months in the case of Goa and the whole visa drama), if not on the day itself.

But we arrived safely, albeit the journey was a little bumpy and a little longer than ordinary, setting us back a little from our tight schedule, which meant that the class started later than planned on the Friday and was therefore shorter than intended. But all good! Plus we were joined by a number of Sark residents, so there was certainly a welcoming feel to our first few hours on Sark, which continued throughout!

It was only when I was cycling home on my own that night, in the seeming pitch black that it hit me that this is one dark place! I know it’s a dark sky Island, but I’ve never noticed quite how dark it really is! It almost made me feel claustrophobic and certainly disorientated, and I couldn’t help thinking that it was a metaphor for life, as the recent moon cycle and equinox shift made a lot of us feel desperately disorientated and uncomfortable.

I was reminded that one has no choice really, but to just surrender to the flow as I too had to surrender to the bumpy path beneath me and keep pedalling, trusting that I would end up at my home for the night eventually! Of course we do have a choice, we always have a choice, we choose our thoughts after all! But what sense is there, what sense would there have been for me to go against the flow of the path on that dark evening? In life, what sense is there is pushing and battling against the flow of things?

The flow can be tricky though, simply because we can’t be sure, exactly, where we will end up. There is no certainty! But really, apart from the certainty of our breath (at least from the moment we are born, to the moment we die), and the fact we will age, what certainty is there in our lives anyway? It is more than this though, flowing often means that we need to let go. Letting go of who we think we are, so that we can settle more fully into a more authentic version of ourself, because life changes and sometimes we just stop fitting into the one that we have previously created.

There is grieving that comes with letting go, we have to break down all that we have created, and that can be tricky, heart over head, that is definitely not without its issues, the head likes to control, the heart doesn’t know what control means. So inevitably fear arises - there is some vulnerability that comes with following the heart and trusting the flow of things - and it could be very easy to resist and close the heart, dropping back into old well trodden paths instead, and yet knowing that you have outgrown these now so inevitably they will feel uncomfortable (cue head in sand or numbing out somehow).

Inevitably I made it home, to the light, and there were the children wired, absolutely wired with the excitement of being on Sark and of having my Dad, Baba, on hand to play with them at every opportunity, and of course Daddy too, but in comparison to Baba, Dady is rather boring! So there followed a mission to get them to sleep, and it was a late one! 10pm before the pickle otherwise known as Eben finally settled, and I was not far behind him! I’d love to say it was a restful night but it wasn't! Much bed swapping and finally some sleep!

I might only teach on retreats, rather than attend them as a student these days, but they are still transformative by their very nature. Not least because of the practices and spending at least 9 hours in a yoga environment full of beautiful yogic energy, but because of sharing my passion with others, which is a joy - I love to share yoga and only hope that others may be positively touched by the practice as I have been in my own life, this is what motivates me to teach, it is a duty!

On Saturday, the sun was shining as I cycled to the yoga space at the Island Hall for the first class that morning. We may have had a terrible night with our children, but I was beginning to see even more of the light - this is such a beautiful spot on Planet Earth, a tonic for the soul.

The class was active in the morning, raising the energy, and after brunch, a few of us met for a walk through the beautiful valley to Dixcart Bay for a high-tide swim. Others joined Caragh for her popular chocolate making sessions (you even get to take lots of chocolate home with you!). Other still cycled around enjoying the views, walking, chatting, doing what you do on Sark and on retreat - as little or as much as you like!

Later afternoon some of us met at 4.30pm for some Bhakti yoga and devotional chanting of mantra to Krishna, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. We also enjoyed the illuminating and energising Gayatri Mantra; with much gratitude, thank you. This before the chanting of the Bija mantras, to raise the vibration of each of our seven main chakras. We shared Reiki too, and held crystals, there was a lucky dip and most definitely a theme with rose quartz for the heart and sodalite for the throat showing up frequently. It is all about the heart and voicing this!

The tea time yoga session was gentle in nature. By then my voice was well and truly giving up on me, my sore throat had been getting worse during the day, a message there for me metaphysically, and a chance to look clearly at my fear of not being heard, ha ha! I just loved the class regardless of the croaky yoga nidra!

More dark night and this time walking and chatting to Stocks with Sarah, before cycling on home alone, but this time enjoying the solitude and the unknown within the darkness and finding my way easily home. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the children were suitably exhausted by their Sark antics, all that fresh air had worked its magic, phew, a night of quality sleep!

More sunshine awaited me Sunday morning and this fairly much set the scene for the whole day, which whizzed past after another active morning class, and the end to the yoga element of the retreat. I really enjoyed the group energy that the students helped to create, and felt emotional that this was us done, so quickly! Thank you to all you really lovely ladies who attended and joined together so easily, it was an absolute honour and a joy.

I joined the family and we cycled out to the dolmon on Little Sark. This place blows my mind. How did people get the stones here and why? It’s a beautifully protected spot, with the midday sun, at least at this time of the year, shining in. I suppose it’s just really peaceful, there was no urgency to leave. As those of you who know me will know, I love any sort of ancient stone for they contain a special energy, a link above and below, and I would certainly encourage the traipse to find these one next time you are in Sark.

We cycled around a little more but I’ll be honest, while others went sea swimming, I lay down in the bedroom of the house where we were staying and enjoyed a yoga nidra and opportunity to rest as Eben napped on the bed. Navigating Sark on a bike and breathing in all the fresh air, let alone the yoga, certainly makes one tired, plus of course life slows down a pace and all the stress dissipates.

We returned to Guernsey on the 4.30pm boat, but I can’t say I was ready to leave, there is something about this magical Island, which just gets right under the skin, you can’t help but be uplifted by a stay, there’s something in the rocks and in its general energy.

I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to retreat on Sark, and for the family to come with me. The children absolutely love Sark, especially as they love tractors and tractors are everywhere, but also because they can just be so free. We can all be so free! It feels to me that Sark frees us a little bit in some way, maybe that sounds esoteric but here is some truth in it.

I’m very grateful to all of those who retreated with me and to Sark for holding space so marvellously, and for enlightening, and lightening the path a little. There was a lot of love on that retreat, and on that island generally.

Thank you. xx

Overwhelm

Today I had a moment of overwhelm.

I felt the rage rising inside me and I heard a scream, it came from my mouth, but I didn’t recognise it as mine.

Not once, not twice, but three times. I felt like I was screaming for me and for all of humanity. This was a raw scream from a deep place that I didn’t even know existed and it surprised me.

I have been feeling this scream building the last few weeks, and as much as I’ve tried to scream, to clear my throat chakra, it felt forced and insincere. I tried the lion breath and some Vedic chanting too, hoping that this might clear the block, but alas, the feeling remained. 

But yesterday, there was a trigger, something small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things that happened, and all of a sudden I was filled with this overwhelming sense of frustration and anger at the pointlessness of it all. 

In that moment of madness, I felt done. Done with life. The fury was all consuming and hot, fury at the world, at humanity and at Planet Earth. How have we managed to create this collective disaster that is our current society all out of balance? Why is there so much pain and suffering? What is the point to it all?

The tears followed. Big and warm angry tears running down my cheeks and dropping onto the floor beneath me. I was so angry that I didn’t know what to do with myself, almost shaking with it. 

I remembered my breath and took big angry gulps of air. I roared.

Anyone would have thought me utterly mad. I felt mad! It was a release, that’s for sure, a healing crisis. It was very real, very present moment and very much a part of what has been building since the last eclipse.

We are awakening, as a collective. And there has to be significant letting go of the way that we think life should be lived, of what it looks like. We need to step out of our comfort zone and into the unknown, and establish a new way of living that better serves our future generations. My children and their children!

Of course the collective is influenced by the individual and so it is us, each of us, that actually needs to do the letting go, so that we positively impact the collective and all of society.

But letting go is difficult, and painful, because we have to let go of our pains and our traumas and all the stuff that we hold on to, which falsely defines who we are, and which prevents us from moving our lives forward. The letting go, sometimes means that we feel into our pain, and this discomfort is what prevents us letting go in the first place.

It’s been a fascinating and yet incredibly exhausting process, all this letting go these last few weeks. I mentioned this in my previous posting, but it’s like things have been popping up rather quickly, one layer after another, of stuff that I thought I had already worked through, and resolved, at least in my mind if not in my body. But clearly there’s more depth to this current healing process than I had recognised and the moon has been encouraging greater release.

So old stuff has come up from nowhere, like an old energy entering my life again, which has felt uncomfortable, because the resonance is all wrong, but there it is nonetheless, reminding me of a time gone by, a depression here, a disappointment there, a frustration here, an old behaviour pattern there, I even reached for my childhood teddy bear the other day, because inner child stuff has certainly been a part of the process.

When I stand back (if I can manage to stand back) then it’s really rather amazing, that we are being given this opportunity to clear out, on the autumn clear out, for the greater good of all humanity as humanity herself, with climate change concern ringing in our ears, giving us the perfect opportunity to make the collective shift that needs to be made.

Today seemed to bring all those old feelings together in one big surge, and threw in, just for good measure, that feeling of utter despair that comes with overwhelm. It’s a scary feeling, because while it is one of great potency for change, it can push people over the other edge, into a void from which you may never recover, numbing out on life as a result. 

I am aware that it is part of a process, of the breaking down of all that’s been, so that life can be recreated all over again. This is life, if we allow it. It moves through cycles. The opportunity to destroy and re-create are constants. We just need to learn to ride it, to be comfortable in the uncomfortableness of it all, of not knowing what it is that we need to destroy, and what might come into its place instead. 

I comfort myself by thinking about a river. How its course will often change, but how it just keeps flowing, sometimes turbulent, sometimes gentle, but one way or another, it does its thing, weaving its way to the sea, its journey’s end, and with that, a letting go of what it has once been. 

I know that I’m not alone, because whatever I am feeling, is felt within the collective, we are one, and because I have asked friends, and many are sharing this healing crisis and feelings of overwhelm.

Please be very gentle at this time and keep close to the land. Get in the sea if you can and keep clearing your energy.

There is an awful lot of fear out there. 

Climate change is now everywhere. Lots of people talking…let’s see how many do the walking. We’re very good at making excuses for maintaining our own status quo, and yet finding fault with how other people are adjusting to the need for a more sustainable way of living.

Fear separates communities, and it separates aspects of ourselves, so we must be careful not to buy into it. 

The antidote to fear is love. The world has only ever needed love, yet how many of us truly love? How many truly love themselves, let alone others? That is, without applying conditions, making it conditional.

I’m humoured by all the ‘sustainable business’ chatter that we’re also now hearing. I can’t help thinking that it is business that got us into this mess in the first place. Investopedia reads, “the term business also refers to the organised efforts and activities of individuals to produce and sell goods and services for a profit”. Business is ultimately about making profit and I can’t help thinking that until we reframe and re-define business, then nothing is going to change.

Sure there’s lots of people talking about sustainable business, but are they going to give up their bonuses and profit margin so that greater consideration can be given to the climate and to Mother Earth? Unlikely. Many will actually use the whole idea of ‘sustainability’ and ‘going green’ to profiteer even further, using it as a marketing tool to attract people to their business. Sorry, I’m feeling a bit cynical about it all!

No one really knows what we should be doing, or how we might positively shift the way that we are living. Not yet. But we will know. It’s just a matter of raising consciousness so that we have the awareness. And the only way we will do that collectively, is if we do the work on ourselves to raise our own consciousness, to love more, and let go of anything that prevents us from doing so. 

This happens in many different ways, sometimes life circumstances present opportunities to grow, through illness and trauma, and sometimes we just need to grasp the ball by the horns, so to speak, and do the inner work that is required of us, the universe and the moon will always support us.

 The calmness has returned now, and I have a strong sense that what is trying to breakthrough is the children; my children, your children, everyone’s children. They are our future and we need to become increasingly conscious of how we are treating them and the ‘food’ we are feeding them, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally too. I shall ponder anon and see what else materialises, as my children try to get my attention (the irony of it!).

If you feel a scream coming on, then go for it. It’s not as mad as it may seem, because it can really clear the energy. I’m not mad, honest, just sharing and opening myself to vulnerability, in the hope that this may help you too. 

New moon and Equinox shifting

We’ve a super new moon on Saturday and I don’t know about anyone else, but I am certainly feeling it. Phew.

Like treading through treacle.

Emotional treacle.

But at the same time, the speed at which things are ‘popping up’ and ‘popping out’ is pretty fast, and has been since the last full moon. 

Everyone says that the energy around an Equinox is fairly potent and the layers between the dimensions are relatively thin, and this is certainly my experience this Equinox.

All of nature is in flux, as the light decreases and the colours change and the relentless wind blows the old away. This change should be welcomed, for it is bringing with it a collective shift in perspective that is long overdue.

It’s easy to fight it, to cling on to what we know, because it is scary letting go into the unknown - how can we know that there is another, more aligned way of being, until we have experienced it. It’s a tricky one. 

Sometimes we don’t even realise we are fighting change, or clinging on to a version of ourselves that needs updating. We might have a sense that something is amiss, a depression, for example, or a feeling of weariness and heaviness, or an overwhelming need to scream (as if the scream itself may release something). Sometimes we might just feel as if we have outgrown ourselves.

When we finally let go – and the universe will provide opportunities for this – it can be such a relief, because all of a sudden the heaviness lifts and we experience a lighter and brighter perspective and version of ourselves that we hadn’t even known was there in the first place (this can be both exciting and slightly depressing with the recognition that there is always more potential that we may never realise in this lifetime). It’s as if the world itself has changed, and yet it’s just that we see things differently as our perspective shifts.

This might bring with it some challenges though, because while we may see things differently, those around us may not be party to the same vision. It takes courage to live from this new perspective, because there isn’t always a template. This can be scary, and can prevent us making the leap in the first place as fear might take hold.

However, there is nothing worse than living a life that no longer fits. The resistance and the fear of change becomes much more painful than the uncomfortable feeling that accompanies the surrendering in the first place. Yet many never make the leap, and numb out instead – there are many, many ways we can numb out, just think about it, we all have a go to numb-out-approach.

If there’s one thing yoga has given me (and it has given me many things) is the ability to become increasingly comfortable settling into the unknown. This is mainly because the practice itself leads us into the unknown, to those parts of ourselves that we might not yet know or that we have been resisting, or have been in denial of, or have rejected for some reason. Furthermore, it directs our lives in ways that we couldn’t ever have imagined, and all it asks of us in return is to keep surrendering and practising.

It’s this reason that many stop practising yoga, because it all becomes too confronting. Why look at ourselves honestly if that is going to make us feel uncomfortable? Isn’t it better to rest in ignorance, comfortably numb, drifting along? That approach has never worked for me, there is too much of a drive for the truth, however difficult that might be, but I appreciate that we are all different. 

Surrendering is also not easy. There’s no guide on how you might achieve this. Generally, life will provide an opportunity, the final straw, so that there is no choice but to let go, no more fighting. This summer I had that experience, as illness took hold and forced me to surrender to another way of being. It was much needed as the way I had been living was unsustainable and was no longer fitting. 

But I feel as if that process continues on, that while I might have felt a settling a few weeks ago now, I have been shaken up all over again by this energy that is whipping through our cottage and sending my youngest wild. There is more that needs to shift, I was only touching the sides previously, there has to be another, more sustainable way to live, one that is even more aligned to my truth.

It’s perhaps good timing (as these things tend to be) to find myself reading Simon Haas’ book about dharma and making enlightened choices, because in here, he shares this quote, which struck a chord with me:

 “The low minded person thinks in one way, speaks in another, and acts still differently; but the great soul, or Mahatma, says what he thinks, and does what he says.”

It’s this reason that I find Greta Thunberg so inspiring. Here is someone who is not only living her truth but speaking it too. Her speech to world leaders was genius because it cut right through our denial and said what many of us have been feeling:

 “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight”.

Speaking and living our truth is something that keeps coming up, and this new moon is just accentuating it. It’s not easy because on some level this is tied into boundaries, and boundary work is definitely not without its challenges, simply because it asks us to take ourselves seriously, and this brings with it a need for a shift in perspective.

So here we are. 

Being asked to consider our truth, and to look at where our actions are out of kilter with this, and to consider our boundaries too. It’s in the field, we can’t escape it.

It’s noble work, and needed.

Underlying all this – before it all gets too heavy – is to acknowledge that essentially all is well. Mother Earth is supporting us from below and the universe from above, and the moon and everything else in between. We can feel gratitude, for there is much to celebrate – we are on the cusp of a significant moment of change.

Each of us has a role to play, and it’s important to remember this, because it can be easy to feel lonely and isolated, as if only we are going through this inner shift that needs to be made. It’s also important to acknowledge that we have our individual role to play – our authentic offering to the world that is aligned to our truth, not anyone else’s (this awareness should keep the ego in check and stop us feeling threatened by others).  

We are part of the collective and so any change or shift we experience will shift the collective consciousness too. This is exciting. It makes the need for inner work even more important, for we can literally shift the collective experience of life on Planet Earth. This is important to remember when we start to feel overwhelmed about the current state of the world affairs and wonder how we might ever be able to change it. Just do you work, make your changes and this will impact on the collective.

We’ve heard it a zillion times before, but the change has to begin with ourselves. We can faff around trying to change our outer world, but until we change the inner world then the change is only superficial. What to do?    

 The clarity may well come with this new moon. Opportunities to surrender may also arise. The weather is supporting this, so try and flow with it as the wind clears the cobwebs away, and the rain cleanses our energy. We may have a greater sense of our truth and how we might manifest this in the world, and we may also feel renewed gratitude.  Let’s see! 

Happy new moon!