Lest we not forget

And breathe. To me calmness has returned and a while heap of clarity has flooded in. I’m sure I’m not alone. I did feel now that the last few months of turmoil is coming to an end, like the butterfly is readying itself to come out of the cocoon and a new chapter begins.

For me personally a huge chapter has recently ended. The Family Yoga Book is hours away from finally being published after 4 years of hard work. My latest book From Darkness Comes Light is in its final edit stage and that’s been 3 years of inner processing and hard blinking work at times. There’s been a grieving that comes with letting go of all this and of settling into an unknown and empty space of nothingness and not knowing what’s next, of great confusion and chaos, as is often the case between one way of being and another.

But since the eclipse the clarity has come in and some of the signs that have been around the last few months especially, but probably the last year really, are beginning to make more sense. I can see the possibility of a new chapter that didn’t seem like a possibility, not even a pipe dream, just a thought that would come and go, but now it’s becoming more of a reality, more of something that might indeed shape the next chapter and take my life into another direction that I hadn’t previously foreseen.

But this is the nature of Reiki certainly. I heard myself talking a bout it in then attunement session last Sunday, how when we get attuned we never know which direction our life will take, because Reiki opens us up to other parts of ourself that were previously hidden, that we may have had a little inkling, but never took seriously. or thought it as a possibility. That happened to me when I discovered Reiki, or at leats not long afterwards, I write about it in Namaste, how life changed and I found this while new chapter opening up as I sold my house, left my job, went off travelling to immerse myself in yoga and focus on writing. and hoped that one day I might meet my life partner and have children.

Now here I am, 18 years on from that time and life looks incredibly different. I managed to create the life I could only dream about then, the children, the life partner, writing books, and I ended up teaching yoga and Reiki too, which I never imagined back then. Was it destiny or did I use my will to create it? Who knows. All I know, is that I felt it in my heart,.

I have been feeling my heart a lot these last few months. My friend dying opened my heart in ways never previously experienced, it felt like it cracked open and I could feel enormous pain I hadn’t processed, from this lifetime and others perhaps. It’s been a tough time, trying to make sense of it all. My heart is still carrying a deep wounding and I feel it in some of my clients too. It’s an old wounding, many lifetimes ago now, a collective wounding, about separation and discrimination.

We were watching a documentary on Stonehenge last night and Ewan said something about the division starting when we began to divide and own land, when we tried to make it something that could be owned, rather than appreciating it as the gift it is for all to enjoy and live in harmony with nature and the land in its wholeness and us in our wholeness as humanity too. It struck me how much this theme continues to play out, the collective wounding and pattern around discrimination and separation and how Covid has come in, like the Second World War did too, as a wounded pattern, highlighting to us this discrimination and giving us as a humanity the opportunity to heal it.

Maybe we did heal it or attempt to post war, look at the hippie movement of the 60s and the emphasis on love and peace. But then was not the time, the energy was not strong enough and we descended into darkness again, this relentless need to control nature and move further away from her, to reap her resources to feed our need for greed and power. We really have fallen as a humanity. Maybe Covid has come in to highlight this to us, and of course it plays into our wounded patterning around separation and discrimination and highlights once more our move away from nature (trying to control it, even a virus!) and our own nature too (pop another booster in and hope for the best).

if we can adopt the premise of verse 33 of chapter 2 of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras then maybe we cultivate a different perspective. See Covid not as an enemy to eradicate, and in the process buy into more separation and discrimination, the us and them approach that our history as a humanity is awash with examples of, but as an opportunity truly heal this collective wounding. To come into the heart! Soften the heart to everyone and everything. Appreciate our diversity and our free will, to make decisions for ourselves, freely. This is the gift of being human, we have free will. To take that away from each of us? I don’t know that it can ever be taken away.

This gives me hope. but only if we can keep coming back to the heart and awakening and remembering. Some of us remember. We feel the wounding deep in the heart. Of how life was once lived on planet earth, of the vibration and the magic and the mystery. Of the sheer joy of being alive in this magnificent mystical environment. But the mystical was driven away, the vibration changed, it became heavier and a lot of the ethereal beings could not survive, or chose to hide away. We lost our way. We stopped leaning into nature and pulled away from its and we pulled away from our own nature too, lost sight of the bigger picture, of the purpose, which is simply to BE our true, authentic Self with a purposeful capital S.

There are pockets of vibration on the land. We’re drawn to certain places for a reason. Sark draws me because it isn’t so tainted with the heavier vibration of modern life with cars and buses and all sorts of vehicles, of the tarmac and the degradation of nature that modern life with its ownership, division and human desire and pleasure demands. It is difficult to imagine a landscape that wasn't sculpted by human hands, of nature, even on Sark, before land division and hedging and fencing. We are so conditioned to it, to seeing the land as it is, that we can scarcely imagine that it could be and has been so different.

So we’re still in the heart. We still have lessons to learn. This is one of forgiveness and compassion. Or trying to see all different perspectives and appreciating everyone’s free will and choices made for them individually. There’s also an orientation towards children. They’ve been neglected by our response to Covid and it’s time they were given their voice back again. They’re our next generation. Lest we not forget.

That’s the mantra that keeps playing out in my head, I saw it on my visit to Stanton Drew, at the side of the road and while it was in reference to remembrance day and there were images of poppies, I did think it rather appropriate in reference to the ancient stones too as these carry an ancient vibration - lest we forget. You can’t forget when you touch those stones, and that’s probably why so many of us are increasingly drawn to them these days, because they help us to feel into an ancient energy that resonates with a very deep part of us, from ancient times and previous lives, lest we not forget how the planet once was, of its magical lighter vibration, of ethereal beings, unicorns, mermaids and faeries, there’s a reason we seek them out now as children, we remember on some level…and then we become adults and our left brain logic cultivated so wonderfully by our education system blocks us to it.

Let us remember then, the reason people have fought and lost their lives in the past for the next generation, for the children. Where did we lose our way on even this? How is it that children now need to make the sacrifices for the older generation. It’s all gone back to front somehow. We’ve stopped caring about the world we’re creating and are trying to hold on tightly to the old one that actually wants to change. It makes no sense. But then nothing about our response to Covid makes any sense, not really, not when you approach it from the heart rather than fear. Heart.

I have hope and I have love. I’m hopeful that love will show us the way and that our hearts will guide us there if we can listen and hear them. Keep practising yoga and Reiki because I know with out doubt that these ancient practices lead us there, back to the heart. The heart will heal itself if we allow it and in allowing it, we (being the micro of the macro) will heal the heart of the world too. We need to do this for our children and for the future generations to come, for their hearts to thrive on planet earth and for planet earth to thrive too.

Love Emma x

Peace within the eclipse chaos

Phew, this squeeze solar eclipse and new moon energy is intense to say the least! It’s throwing up all sorts of unresolved stuff, especially around judgement, the way others judge us and how we judge others and ourselves. This alone is enough to test our self worth, but we are also being asked to cultivate greater discernment about what works in our life and what doesn’t, about the people with whom we keep company and the energy of all this.

I have become acutely aware of all of this in own life and have found it very uncomfortable at times. i see how I react to criticism and the way I harden my heart to it, and the manner in which I may then lash out to others, taking my stuff out on them, as a defence mechanism. I see how much it pains me when others reject me for who I am and how easily it then is to consider that there’s something wrong or flawed with me, without appreciating that that’s merely their perception of me, their judgement then, because of me triggering something in them, and on it goes.

None of us are flawed or in need of fixing, we just need to hang on to that fragile aspect of self that tells us it’s so. The more we buy into this as a possibility - that we are flawed and in need of fixing - the more we will attract in experiences, which will l validate this to us. So we need to be aware of this, and catch ourselves as we drift down that patterning, as it will not serve us to give ourselves a hard time and judge ourselves so. Our poor heart and soul will suffer and if we have a tendency to depression, we will find ourselves in that dark space again.

Mind you the dark space is enlightening, because it gives us an opportunity to literally find our light again. At such times I personally find it very helpful to dig deeper into my yoga practice, get outside into nature, switch off from media, take a break from seeing anyone other than very close and trusted friends, doing things that fill me up, eating as well as I can, hydrating and allowing myself time and space to both grieve out the old and allow in the new. Depression has always been a process of transformation for me. The key is to not get lost in it however and try and numb from it.

I’ve just finished editing my book From Darkness Comes Light, about my journey with depression, and the irony is not lost on me that I now find myself plunged into new moon darkness! It’s the end of a cycle, and there is a grieving that comes with that, also a recognition of needing to let go of certain situations/people that are no longer resonating, and the stepping up that this process entails.

I took comfort the other day in a paragraph of a book I am reading by Ethan Nichtern called The Dharma of the Princess Bride, which reads:

“Ironically, the more nonjudgmental you become, the ore discerning you get about whether to cultivate a closer friendship with a given person. “Nonjudgment” is the clarity you need to see that some relationships just don’t work. The difference between a healthy and unhealthy relationship is not whether you love each other; it’s whether you help each other wake up. And if two people want to help each other awaken, they need to do something that the greatest action movies of our time understand. To help each other wake up, you have to help each other beat the bad guys”.

It’s interesting to see the word “bad” used by a Buddhist teacher, but me even saying that shows my judgments! But talking of the bad guys, there is a sense of that in my world at the moment. I’m struggling to understand the current media and political reaction to Omicron and the desperate measures taken to further infringe on personal rights about what happens to our body and to our face and our health generally.

It’s a tricky world to navigate. Unless you toe the fear based line then you are vilified for not being united, even though the supposed united front makes no sense to so many of us (and when you get beyond the media spin you see there really is no united front!). There is no control of nature, no getting out of here alive, I do struggle with all our attempts to make it otherwise. Always we’re pushing the us and them, the right, wrong, the good, bad, rather than just appreciating that we’re all different, we all have different needs and why can’t we just live and let live.

Mind you this is the theme right. Even amongst those who might have similar views on nature or health, there is division and betrayal. So we come back to discernment and retreating from the world, discovering more of our own truth, what we feel in our heart, our truth and staying true to that regardless of the judgements and criticism hurled our way. This is the work of humanity, of the collective, the ability to live in peace together. But first we have to make peace with ourself. That is really what’s coming up this eclipse. Peace.

Everything is up in the air and I felt that very much i everyone’s energy this week. We don’t know where it’s headed next. But really if we remember to breathe, to get our feet on the earth, to listen into our heart, then we will find a certain grounding. It’s staying true to us that will help us through all this, not someone else’s version of the truth.

I’m going to spend as much of the next 22 hours in as much peace as possible, switching off, hibernating and letting the eclipse energy work its magic and change us, as a humanity towards greater peace by helping us find greater peace within each of us individually an collectively. Well, here’s hoping anyway!

Love Emma

Moronic times

Well that was some storm, blowing things through. I was lucky to see Jo de Diepold Braham in the midst of it early Saturday morning and the clarity was much appreciated.

As I have said before, this eclipse is bringing up unresolved issues around the heart and trust. We are being asked to get into the heart and allow any past heart breaks to help us now to break down and break on through to a more heart-expanded way of being.

We have to feel the pain and digest those previously undigested life experiences, to truly make the change. This isn’t a time for spiritual bypassing, of pretending to do the work, saying all the right things, but not making the shift psychologically and in our very body.

The spiritual ego will always attempt to maintain the stars quo, it fears nothing more than its annihilation as it is trying to keep us safe, so it fools us into thinking we’re doing the work, when we’re not really. We’ll know we’ve slipped out of flow and alignment when we project our crap onto others and put ourselves on a superiority pedestal.

Humility should help to keep us grounded, but a good dose of nature may well be helpful this week. I lay down on the earth at the Guet today staring up into the trees, it’s called ‘grounding’ nowadays, and really it is very simple and very easy. An older lady waling her dog did look at me rather strangely, probably relived that I moved, fearing that she was finding me early Sunday morning dead!

The sunsets are stunning at the moment and right around to the south. You could be excused for assuming the land had been shaped to accommodate the sun’s descent…it happens.

BTW, I love how ‘Omicron’ can be turned into ‘moronic’. Ha.

Sending love for the week ahead

Emma

The winds of change - between eclipses

These are intense times and I don’t think I know a single person who isn’t being triggered and challenged in some way. We are between eclipses and these are BIG eclipses, HUGE, shaking everything we believe to be true, bringing up all unresolved patterns and emotions that need resolution, especially around trust and faith.

The universe is definitely trying to wake us up and move us along, we’re one step on from the heart/head theme of the last new and full moon, we’re right in the heart now. We’re being asked to really look at our self worth and what we want from our lives, and whether the way we’re living and the relationships we are keeping are in line with this. It’s like we cannot have the wool pulled in front of our eyes anymore.

Ultimately though, its about forgiveness, compassion and unconditional love, towards self and others. this doesn’t negate the need for healthy boundaries, this is not to allow us to play out door mat themes in the name in unconditional love, this is about self worth too - as I already wrote - what is alined and what isn’t, deep connection with inner truth, and having the courage to give voice to this

I’ve found it really helpful getting out into nature this week. Elijah is being home schooled for now (well actually we’re in the repair stage but will move to home ed at some point), and it was so heartening to see more of his spirit this week, meandering and climbing at the reservoir and engaging in some nature based stuff with some other home-based children. I haven’t seen him so at ease with other adults and children for a long time now, no anxiety, such a relief. Eben was off school with the common cold, which is circulating, and so he got to enjoy the fun too.

We learned to light a fire without matches or lighter, and got to hang out in hammocks and explore the pathways and stream. There was wood whittling and hatchet cutting. My friend and inspiration, Tara, whisked up some hot chocolate on the fire for those who wanted it. I got my rods out and the children had fun playing with those. It was organic and lovely and we didn’t want to leave. I had forgotten how wonderful it is to sit in circle, around a fire under the trees.

I have a feeling we need to flow with this crazy energy the next week, until the new moon eclipse on the 4th. There are strong winds coming in tomorrow, at least here in Guernsey, the winds of change…there’s no turning back now, the eyes have been opened! Try and get in nature - sea swimming is still helping keep me sane, and on the cliffs if you can, even in the lanes, just breathe the air, see the stars and witness the changing season.

We are collectively being awoken. We can’t keep putting our heads in the sand. We have to face our fears and take them by the hand. The universe will highlight them to us regardless. Life has to change. It cannot continue with us taking such little responsibility. If nothing else, the is what we are being asked to do, stand up, and truly listen to our inner voice and its whispers of a more heart based way of being and living in this world.

Love Emma x

Pilgrimage to Glastonbury, Stanton Drew, Stonehenge and Woodhenge

I just got back from an amazing pilgrimage to Glastonbury with Elijah, as part of his 8th birthday present and my need to get off this ridiculously fear-fuelled island!

It felt supported in every way, clear roads, wonderful timings and special experiences, I am very grateful to the powers that be.

Many of you know that I love Glastonbury and it has been calling for a while, but the timing was not quite right until just now, there was gap and the idea just wouldn’t go away and I heeded it eventually with a gentle push from the universe to get the message through loud and clear (my weird and wonderfully-timed phone call as mentioned in a previous blog) and booked the trip.

Amazingly the White Spring was open. This is my most favourite place in Glastonbury but I had been told it had closed due to Covid, but there was a small chance it might be open on the Sunday afternoon. As luck would have it, the gap in my schedule included a Sunday afternoon - I prayed and alas those prayers were answered for it was open and for a few hours. Elijah isn’t so keen on the place but I managed to dip a couple of times in the white water.

We headed up the Tor a couple of times too, once coincided with moon rise which was a treat, especially as the mists appeared soon afterwards. We went to the Abbey to imbue the energy of the land, and to Chalice Wells too, topping up on the red iron water, albeit you can collect that from outside the White Spring too. We did the obligatory crystal shopping too, and visit up to the Goddess Temple to light a candle and say thanks.

The other exciting bit of the trip though, was getting up to Stanton Drew, the third largest stone circle in the UK, I LOVE stone circles as most of you know, and while this one feels very sad, it has a very welcoming energy, at leats when it trusted me being there. I especially loved the South Western circle and a message came through from there. It was the Cove though, that really blew my mind - this is a little way away by a pub, it’s quite unusual, but very potent, and something that has been on my mind suddenly became much clearer when I stood between the stones.

On our way back yesterday, I was intending to drive past Stonehenge on our way to Woodhenge, but I saw the sign and that was that. As luck would have it we turned up at the entrance at the exact time it was opening, as if it was always meant to be, and we headed out to the stones on the shuttle bus, manifesting one of Elijah’s dreams (all trip he’d gone on about wanting to go on a bus), and fulfilling one of my own of getting back to that land and those stones. We were the first ones there and while you can’t - sadly - touch the stones, we virtually had them to ourselves. The message came through here super clear too.

We headed out to Woodhenge, another calming place, with a potent stone in the middle. It’s al potent around here though, the land speaks! I guess if you’re not into all this sort of stuff than that sounds bonkers and makes no sense. But the area is alive, Wiltshire, the trees were something else, the autumn colours were just astounding, really bringing home that message of love. Nature loves unconditionally. Each breath is love.

The eclipse is bringing love to us too - deep into the heart chakra and to our relationships, both with our Self and with others too. Eclipses have a habit of bringing in the change for us, and realigning us with where we are meant to be, at least from a soulful perspective. Never easy. Blessing in every curse. Remember this!

We have to stop feeding what isn’t working. We have to see through the illusion. Society ain’t working. What we are currently doing to our children is harmful, the sooner we awaken to all the deceit and lies the better, for our future generations to come.

Enjoy the ride!

xx

Love