Another cycle begins

Happy new moon!

The new moon peaks at 2.34pm before beginning its wax. I went to sit in its darkness last night on L’Ancresse common on one of the ancient sites, the most ancient site in the whole of Europe, and was treated to stars overhead and Sirius shining brightly.

It’s a kind moon, to me at least. I’ve been writing a manual to accompany a Menstruation and Moon Online Awakening thing that I’ve had in mind for a while now but never had the time to do anything about. So I have been feeling into the moon more than usual this last moon cycle or so, in me as much as anything else, in my own cycle. I have become increasingly aware that there is a timing to everything. An absolute divine timing.

Things happen when they are ready to happen and when everything is aligned perfectly. It’s tricky if you are a doer and an achiever and get impatient easily, wanting results and validation instantly. I’ve really had to work with this over the last few months, of noticing my patterns and going deeper into them and settling and accepting the discomfort that this brings.

Bu the more I have let go of the need to control (the last full moon really brought that home to me, that there is always a flow to be found) the more easeful life has on some level become. This last few days have been magical in their own beautiful way, because the timing has been just right for more of the mystery to reveal itself. Yet at the same time the more that reveals itself, the more I ask questions and the more I have to be aware of letting this go too. We are always given what we need when we most need it - blessings and burdens (and remember that a blessing is a burden as much as a burden is a blessing!).

I’ve been increasingly switching off from main stream media and all the drama with the vaccine, from both sides of the camp. It’s become increasingly apparent how much fear motivates choice. I’ve also been switching away from reading any sort of info on what the planetary shifts and moon cycle may be bringing, which has been liberating too. So much of this is also driven by fear and the need for certainty and for wanting things to be different and saying it as such.

I’ve noticed this year more than others how people are talking about the Lionsgate portal opening despite this opening every year. In fact when I was researching what was said in 2020 to see if there are commonalities with what’s been said this year too, one website was just using the same content this year that was used last year, just changing the dates! The Lionsgate opens every year, why this year are we getting more excited about it? What do people want to gain from it? Spiritual growth without the work? Certainty that life is going to get back to normal?

If you’ve been getting excited about the Lionsgate portal opening, have you asked yourself the underlying reason for this? What are you hoping to gain? What changes would you like it to usher into your life and can you make them anyway? I just can’t help wondering if we are always waiting for something other than out beautiful self to make the changes we seek in our lives, or for things to change without us actually having to do anything about it.

And things can change without us doing anything about it, as in, the universe can usher in significant change for us, the last full moon certainly did this to me, but this doesn’t mean I wasn’t still part of that process, I still had to go through the mill so to speak. There doesn’t seem to be any other way. We have to face our crap to break through to the other side and let go. It’s a painful process, but often rewarding and enlightening too.

I suppose what I’m saying is we cannot bypass and yet I can’t help thinking that new age spiritualism tries to do exactly that, hoping that some planetary shift or moon cycle will do the work and change us without us having to be involved in then process. I might be wrong, it’s just an observation.

It’s absolutely a time to take people off the spiritual pedestals we have put them on too. This can be a painful process in itself when we realise the humanness of those we look up to, thinking that they are somehow more evolved than we are. More fool anyone for putting themselves on a spiritual pedestal either, and believing them superior to anyone else. If you notice yourself doing that then take heed, this is an indication that the spiritual ego has taken hold.

We’re all of us trying to find out way, and we all of us are as human as the next with our foibles and our neurosis and the patterns that we need to work through. But let’s not get too serious either. We are joy and happiness too. We are allowed to feel joy and happiness in each moment if we allow it. Sometimes we can take it all a bit too serious and forget to have fun and play and nurture our inner child - this is often all we need, to laugh, play and take ourselves more lightly - this universe is one of love and benevolence, of vibration and inherent creativity.

If there’s one message I have received from this new moon it is to recognise our magnificence and to love fearlessly, getting out of our own way and the patterns we have created to protect our heart from vulnerability, that limit our potential to love unconditionally. Also to switch off and switch in because we will always be shown the way and it will be OUR way, so it will probably not make sense to anyone else and that absolutely doesn’t matter - when we know we know and often our knowing cannot be explained in a language that will be understood by anyone else and nor should we ever feel that we have to validate our experiences or seek validation of them.

It’s a kind moon showing us more of our way, it’s validating! It has a roar though, so watch that. Enjoy it and the darkness and the opportunity to see the stars shining brightly over head and all that this reveals. I’ll see you on the other side as a new cycle begins.

Love Emma x

Happy Lammas

Happy Lammas!

I love the energy of Lammas, and the bread making that I attempt to do each year as an offering to the Mother Goddess.

Lammas is the celebration of the first grain harvest - we are now in high summer with the union of the sun and earth and god and goddess producing this first harvest. Lammas marks the time for gathering in and giving thanks for abundance.

The word ‘lammas’ is derived from ‘loaf mass’ and is indicative of how central and honoured is the first grain and the first loaf of the harvesting cycle. It’s a good excuse to make bread, even if I don’t eat it, the boys do and enjoy it too.

I did attempt a sunrise at a sacred site aligned to Lammas sunrise, with a stone to Mother Goddess. The sky was heavy with rain but the energy has kept me going all day. It’s an energy of retreat for me now, a drawing in, as the nights are already drawing in and will draw in quickly now as we head to the autumnal equinox. It’s the wane after such a potent full moon!

Signs of the wane in nature and the seasonal shift are all around us; I tasted my first blackberry yesterday up at St Germain Nature Reserve where I was honoured to teach a yoni yoga class as part of a baby shower. I’d forgotten how beautiful it is up there and would love to try and arrange a drop-in one when I’ve had enough of retreating!

For now though, it’s time to enjoy the first harvest and my plants are keeping me busy and the boys and the Goddess too, in her own way.

Happy Lammas and I hope you have a lovely wane with the moon too.

x

Full moon lessons and learnings

Well that was certainly a memorable full moon, up there with my waters breaking on the super full moon in October 2016, while in the middle of a yoga retreat on Herm. This time we were on Sark and camping, this when a significant storm was forecast for our first night…

I hadn’t really given it too much thought to be honest, the weather reports are frequently incorrect at the moment, and sometimes these storms can drift offshore, plus E was perfectly contented to go ahead with our camping plans, so the impending storm seemed insignificant somehow. 

Perhaps though on some level I had a sense, because knowing that we would be on Sark on the full moon, I had planned a trip to one of the spiritual sites, but as it got closer and I saw the forecast, I ended up communing and celebrating with the moon the day before instead, on Guernsey at a moon temple of sorts instead. This was amazing actually, as the skies were so clear and the moon so bright and there was definitely a message around trust, surrender and love coming up.

Little did I realise how much this message would be validated the next night, as the moon waxed towards peak, due 2.32am on the Saturday morning. Friday evening though, found us by then on Sark, tent up at La Vallette, a beautiful campsite albeit exposed to easterly winds. The storm was ushering in winds from the east as luck would have it, but I didn’t think too much of this as I settled under the duvet on the inflatable mattress, Eben beside me, both of us asleep almost immediately as it was 10pm by then.

11pm and E woke me with a start, shining his torch and telling me that we had a problem, the tent was being buffeted to the extent that the side closest to him had collapsed in. I looked at it, wondering initially how we might move away from that side and huddle towards Eben and I, but then the dawning reality hit – the tent pole was broken and the rain was literally pouring in, and the rest of the tent was about to collapse in and us and we had the children asleep to protect. I knew immediately then that we were screwed, so to speak, I think I might have used a stronger word at the time. 

It was a panic then, Elijah was soon awake and terrified, as I tried to bundle a heavy and sleeping Eben into my arms and grabbed the double duvet and a blanket, and then attempted to find the zip to open the door of the tent, feeling panicked myself now about the possibility of not being able to find my way out of the tent, given the relentless nature of the wind, and now the thunder and lightening cracking literally overhead.

I managed to unzip the door and forced myself out into the torrential rain and the battering winds, E with Elijah behind me, and we ran towards the barn, barefoot, feeling as if we were running through a stream of water and mud. Elijah ran off the wrong way, and E had to go grab him, as I sprinted for the barn, Eben heavy in my arms and trying to keep a hold of the duvet and blanket too.

In the darkness of the barn, I had a sense of where the hay bales were located as I’d strangely had a look earlier that day when I was trying to find somewhere to dry our wet towels. I didn’t really think what I was doing, as I threw the duvet on the dirty floor for us to huddle on, Elijah shivering with terror, as Eben was still sleepily held against me. I covered us with the blanket, while E set off back to the tent to see if he could retrieve our other duvet, which he did, now virtually soaking wet.

But it kept us warm to an extent, comforted against the elements, as he headed off again, this time to grab our bag of clothes, fortunately contained within our one waterproof bag (I shall be forever grateful for my decision to spend the money to buy this bag), and the electronics and whatever else he could hold in his hands. By then the lightening was literally lightening the sky and I was terrified for his safety as much as I was for us huddled together, not really having a clue what we were going to do, Elijah demanding a quick resolution. 

In his soaking wet boxers and t-shirt, E headed off to the main house and awoke the poor owner who was asleep in her chair at the time. I don’t believe she had any idea what was happening outside, but directed us to the one and only family pod, which was fortunately free at the time. E came and collected us and we ran as quickly as we could in the darkness and the rain and wind, still the thunder and lightning crashing overhead, to the pod, a short distance from the barn.

I can’t tell you the relief to make it into the pod and feel safe. The adrenalin was coursing through my veins by then and I set about immediately changing the children into dry clothes. It quickly became apparent though that we still had a problem as the pod was only equipped with 4 inflatable mattresses and no bedding. Our bedding was drenched and the best I could find in the clothes bag was two children’s towels and a scarf.

E set back off to the tent to retrieve torches and to visit his mum who  was in the tent next to us, a smaller and more aerodynamic tent, which was able to weather the storm, like every other tent on the campsite, bar another family who decamped into their friend’s bell tent. E’s mum was understandably concerned and terrified herself by the cracking and thundering overhead and as I was attempting to settle the boys in their thin towels, she was soon also in the pod with us.  

Being such a kind soul, she gave us her warm sleeping bag, which we were able to stretch over most of the four of us (E and I had half each, on the end as we were, all of us squeezed onto 2 inflatable mattresses). My mother in law lay on one of the inflatable mattresses and all of us attempted to go to sleep. My mother in law though couldn’t stop chatting and E was trying to quieten her and all of a sudden I began hysterically giggling, a form of release form all the adrenalin. I was also struggling to process what had just happened and knew that sleep was unlikely. 

It hit me actually, how I had said only hours earlier to a soul friend by text, that I wouldn’t be doing to celebrate the full moon on Sark as I was tired and the weather wet and I needed to prioritise time for processing, reading and family. Here I was now, very much reminded of the sacredness of family and also the necessity for allowing time for processing. I have a habit of over scheduling and never properly allowing time for the processing, not least of the work done with clients, but also the work done on myself. 

But the family actually, was a very necessary reminder. Eben’s 4-year old testosterone boost has been challenging us on many levels, as I have also been navigating an end to breastfeeding after 4 years and nine months, not only in terms of what this means for Eben and I as we move to another stage of our relationship as mother and son, but also in terms of the hormonal shifts that this transition brings with it. At times he has been like a lightning storm in our home, wreaking havoc on everyone, especially his sensitive and gentle older brother. 

Huddled together, dry and safe, I was reminded that nothing else was actually important. I couldn’t help thinking of Syrian refugees who have had to endure fleeing war torn lands and literally walk for their lives, stuck in refugee camps, living hand to mouth. I honestly don’t know how they survive such an experience night after night. And yet I sort of do, because a deep drive for survival kicks in, to protect the lives of your family and yourself. Nothing else is important, possessions are meaningless, they come and go. But family, that’s different. It’s a very old energy that comes up from the root chakra to survive and protect.

I can’t be sure I slept. At some point the storm drifted away, my mother-in-law returned to her tent for warmer clothes, I tossed and turned, it was impossible to get comfortable and an effort to stay warm. I couldn’t have been happier then when the new day dawned, it was only 5.10am by then but I was in desperate need for tea. Tea helps everything. Tea has saved me on many an occasion, late night travels in foreign lands, traipsing up Mount Everest, the shock of birth and motherhood, the loss of loved ones. And now, a campsite on Sark. Tea made it all ok again.

We surveyed the wreckage of our tent and everything soaking wet. While we waited for the kindly owner of the campsite to wake up there was nothing else to do but head for an early morning high tide swim, another necessary grounding experience. Back at the campsite the owner offered to attempt to dry our bedding, confirming we could stay in the pod for the next night too (we were booked to attend a festival and didn’t want to give up and go home, we love Sark!). I shall always be grateful for the kindness she showed us 

Later that day the moon confirmed more of her full moon teachings and lessons. Elijah and I joined my soul Sark friend for a trip to Grand Greve for a swim and ramble. As we walked towards the Coupee we could see heavy skies over Jersey and I commented that I hoped that the weather wasn’t heading our way. My Sark friend said there was a possibility it might blow further south, and I hoped for that.

But alas, no, the horrendous weather headed our way and it wasn’t long before the rain started falling and we found ourselves having little choice but to huddle in a cave to shelter from the worst of it. We thought it might ease but it just got worse, so after a time we accepted that unless we wanted to stay in the cave all afternoon we were probably going to have to face the torrential rain and get off the beach. Of course we managed a quick sea swim first!

Leaving the beach was certainly an interesting experience, my Sark friend had never seen anything like this before on Sark. The rain run-off water was literally pouring down the steep steps reminding Elijah and I of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s liquid chocolate. Only this was sadly not chocolate and there was the concern of a land slipe as the cliff face is unsteady on that beach, as it is on many of the Sark beaches, we have seen rock falls.

But alas we made it to the top unscathed, albeit drenched through even in our water proofs! My Sark friend suggested we might return with her to her house for a bath and a change of clothes and whereas usually I would reject such an offer of help, not wanting to inconvenience her and because of my fierce independence, but alas I was so cold and so wet that I actually accepted her offer of help and I’m so pleased I did. 

So while E waited out the rain in the pod with Eben and his mum, Elijah and I enjoyed a lovely bath, a picnic in the lounge, and clean clothes. Even this was a liberating experience, to wear clothes that were not my own, this when I got beyond the trigger of clothing sizing, a hangover from my eating-disorder days. It helped me to see this too from a different perspective, as my Sark friend is an inspiration in only buying clothes from charity shops, my mission for this 47th year (to not buy any new clothes that is). 

I recognised that the moon has ushered in a healing to the root chakra. This chakra is like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, ensuring that we have food to eat, clothes to wear, shelter above our heads and can continue the species – survival individually and collectively as human beings. This strips away all the crap around what we’re eating, wearing and living in, the fundamental issue is about whether what we’re eating, wearing and living in is keeping us nourished, warm, dry and safe. 

It also wasn’t lost on me that my yoga teacher has been taking me on a journey to receive more of the upper arm bones in the shoulder joints and the thigh bones in the hips, so that I can find more of my centre and freedom of spine and mind. I definitely felt more freedom than I have felt for a long time and it struck me as I cycled back to the campsite yesterday that freedom and love are all that really matters, to me at least. Freedom of speech, freedom in love, freedom of mind, freedom to live from heart etc. 

I have to say that I felt incredibly nurtured and nourished by all the help received, and extremely free too, liberated, because of all this was very reminiscent of my full moon experience in Herm, where I was reminded that the universe always has our back and will always support us when we surrender and trust. I had no choice but to trust and go with the flow. My faith had been deepened and I felt extremely calm and comforted by this as I had done when my waters broke all those years ago. 

It was only later that it also dawned on me that there was another lesson that I was being encouraged to learn. Two weeks previously when we had visited Sark for Sark Fest, I had visited the charity shop as I love to do. A book jumped out at me, as has happened previously, there’s something about this place! Last time it was just days before the first lockdown when I was running a yoga retreat on Sark and stress levels were high the virus was a real risk.

In the charity shop a book jumped out called ‘The Game of Life and How to Play it” by Florence Shinn. Iopened the book by chance on page 51 and there in front of me were written these exact words:

“Perhaps one’s fear is of disease or germs. Then one should be fearless and undisturbed in a germ-laden situation, and he would be immune. One can only contract germs while vibrating at the same rate as the germ, and fear drags men down to the level of the germ”. It was totally relevant at the time and I have taken much comfort in that ever since. 

This time the book was about receiving love, which was pertinent as I had recently been discussing this with a soul friend; how much easier it is at times to give love rather than receive it. I had been reading the book on and off, bits of it resonated and bits of it not. I wasn’t sure whether to continue reading it but had brought it with me to Sark, together with two other books such was my over-confidence in having any time to read books!

As it happened the book had got soaked in the storm and while I had attempted to leave it to dry in the earlier sun, it was likely totally soaked through again with the recent downpour. I realised though, that I didn’t really now need to read it, because I had opened myself up to receiving, not least from the campsite owner, but from my Sark friend too. Inevitably it had brought up feelings of having to somehow reciprocate their kindness, but once I got over this, I realised that it’s really lovely receiving from others, and it gave them the opportunity to help.

The rain didn’t stop though and we found ourselves huddling in the Bel Air with members of Buffalo Huddleston funnily enough, who were also huddling from the atrocious weather. I made it to the festival in time to enjoy some Himalayan fare and the end of one of the bands, before I had to head home to put the boys to bed. I couldn’t have been happier to settle onto the inflatable mattresses with our virtually dry duvets knowing that we were safe and warm.

Years ago I would have struggled with all of this; of no sheets, no pillows, no duvet covers, no showers before bed. But none of it seems the least bit important anymore. All our wet clothes and possessions also didn’t phase me. And coming home Sunday evening to find our WIFI and telephone line dead, our freezer semi-defrosted and the cat’s excrement and attempts at peeing in a plant pot stinking out our office space, did not phase me either. 

The moon had unexpectedly ushered in change. It cleared the energy in a stupendous way. It brought us back together as a family, reminding me of the importance of fun and adventure, and of living simply. I was also reminded of the need to go with the flow and trust in the universe, it helped me to accept help and receive love and it deepened by faith in the process. I’m hoping it will last, and my washing machine will survive all the washing…and we’ll adjust to living life offline…another necessary experience ushered in. 

Full moon and perspective

It’s an Aquarius full moon on Saturday morning, peaking at 2.36am, so the energy is ramping up these last few days.

In myself and working with various clients I have noticed a theme; this moon is bringing up feelings of injustice around the system. The system is broken. We are living in a world where the systems that are broken and many more are suddenly awakening to the uncomfortableness of this awareness.

Here in Guernsey the judicial system is flawed and is in desperate need of a review to bring it into the 21st century. We have evolved as humanity and this now needs to be reflected. Imprisoning people isn’t the answer in most cases, and we need to collectively wake up to create a world where people are treated individually, compassionately and humanely. The laws themselves are out of date.

In Guernsey we also still haven’t moved forward in resolving the educational issues. Another generation passes through the faulty system and as parents all we can do is hope for the best, or home school or go private. As a teacher it must be beyond frustrating.

But the same could be said for nurses working in the health care system also flawed and outdated, especially in mental health. Fortunately we’re now seeing social prescribing here on Guernsey, but we have a long way to go to shift the paradigm that finds people giving they power away to health care professionals, expecting to be fixed with pharmaceuticals, rather than taking responsibility for their own health and wellbeing. Given the choice between yoga and an anti-depressant for depression, most would probably still choose the anti-depressant because people continue to look outside of themselves for resolution.

However there are others who are awakening and seeing through more of the educational, societal and cultural conditioning and realising more of the illusion. It’s never an easy process to go through, and we can feel as if we are awakening for the very first time, even if we felt we were awake previously, and in many respects its harder on those who thought they had seen through the illusion, to discover that there is another level to it. There are many layers and levels to the illusion. We peel away one and see more clearly the truth, and then another one reveals itself and we have to peel into that one too, so always the picture is changing.

It’s easy to get lost along the way, playing out old paradigms, from the ego, whether that be mind ego or spiritual ego, it’s all the same in terms of keeping us stuck and fixing us in time and space. if we truly want the systems to change then we have to let go of trying to fix it in any one way and just allow it the space to unravel itself into something more aligned and true. It serves no one to begin fighting the system, because the system will fight back and before you know it you’re caught in more war, even if you believe that you are fighting a just cause, it doesn't matter, it’s all the same, a lack of harmony and peace.

There are as many different perspectives in this world as there are people living it. Everyone will see things differently and Covid has absolutely highlighted this with various opinions on what should happen next. There will never be a right or wrong way that everyone agrees on because of perspective. There is never just a ‘yes’ without there being a ‘no’, such is the nature of duality and we currently live in a world of duality. However if the sages are to be believed then we are moving towards a world of oneness and therefore harmony.

We have to begin to recognise that for this to become a reality, we have to play our individual role in making the change from ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to maybe or perhaps…to allowing. It is in the space of allowing that magic happens. If more of us allowed a change to the systems, then the system may have the chance to solve itself into something more, well, evolving, something more suited to the evolving nature of society, into something more fluid then. So therefore fluid has to start with ourselves.

The full moon as we all know has a habit of shining light into the shadows, of highlighting where things aren’t working for us in our lives. Where life isn’t working! This full moon is highlighting that the systems aren’t working, but it’s also highlighting where our internal system of evaluating ‘yes’ and ‘no’, our fixed point of view then, might also not be working, especially in relationship to our self. Have we a fixed idea of how we should live? Have we a fixed idea of how life should be lived en masse? Do we have a fixed idea of how we should relate to our self? Or to others?

This moon is bringing fluidity, water, not necessarily in the sense of going with the flow, albeit there is no harm in going with the flow, but in being fluid in our approach to life and in our relationship to self. Heck, giving ourselves a break, letting go of the fixed mind and its rigidity. Giving ourselves some time and space to allow whatever needs to drop away to drop away and to allow whatever needs to come in to come in…if there’s no space, if we’re too fixed then nothing will ever positively change.

It’s the allowing both sides of the coin and everything in between that we might experience greater harmony and inner peace, love then. And the more we feel that inside ourselves, the more we will feed that into the collective consciousness and the more the systems will break down and evolve - reflecting our own process of breaking down before we experience a shift in consciousness and evolution. Fighting against ourselves will just create more injustice and loss of harmony, and this will merely feed the war in the outside world too. There will be a lack of love.

Again we come back to the notion that to change the world we need to first change ourselves. Love the self and everything else shifts.

It’s sort of related and maybe not, but there are more flies than usual here on Guernsey and I have had a fly in the healing space all day, and it has just reminded me about the need to live in greater harmony and to let go of our irritations. The fly was absolutely annoying me during my first session, but as I realised that it was possibly teaching me a lesson, and as I tried to radiate a sense of love towards it - it has as much right to be on planet earth as me, just like viruses and bacteria and all other life forms - so my irritation eased and so the fly stopped bothering me or my clients!

It has to begin inside us. We have to notice what is irritating us and then learn to turn towards it and see its alternative perspective rather than turning away from it, fixed and blinkered in our own perspective. It is in this way that we step away from feelings of separation and aloneness, of victimhood and blame hood, of ‘us’ and ‘them’ of ‘yes’ and ‘no’, and begin instead to enjoy glimpses of ‘perhaps’ and ‘maybe’, of not being fixed in any one direction and of the magical inner harmony and oneness that might arise as a result of this allowing of all perspective.

As always it’s about love. Allowing love the space to heal and allowing ourselves to be loved. To turn toward those who irritate and annoy us with love, because they’re merely reflecting a part of ourselves that irritates and annoys us! A hard reality to face, but a necessary one too. It’s harder to love than it is to hate!

Enjoy the full moon, we’ll be celebrating on Sark! Spread love!

x

Ramblings of change

I returned from Sark to find chaos in the moon garden! The St John’s Wort has taken over the Oil of Evening Primrose and the flowers all needed picking, so too the last of the chamomile, and the endless mint, gosh, it really has gone quite wild and this after just a few days of being left alone in the rain and the sun.

It’s been funny old weather but the garden has loved it and judging by all the blackberries taking form all over Sark, these have loved it too. But here the garden has especially thrived and I am very aware that all my plants are planted really far too close together, and yet despite this, they are still abundant in their growing. There are flowers! This is the second year for many of the plants - they’re flowering year, I missed all this last year, so it is a real treat.

But of course it’s thrown me into a spin because what on earth do I do with everything?! My first ay back found me rushing around trying to process all the dried leaves and flowers in the drying rack, to turn them into teas, this so I could create space to dry more of them. Then there was the endless picking, goodness, who would have realised it took so much time to pick St John wort’s flowers, and then turning some of the pickings into tinctures and oils.

I also returned with this renewed sense of getting things done. I had ordered a Vitamix as a birthday present to self and this still sat boxed and unopened, so i was keen to get going and make some much needed nut butters and humous of my own. What a delight! I’ve wanted to do this for ages but never got going, so I am grateful to Katie for getting me going, and for putting me onto healthy supplies.co.uk where you can buy organic nuts and seeds and all sorts of other things at a reasonable cost. I’ve got the almond milk to make next…

There was also the Ayurvedic consultation space to set up. I’ve had it in mind for ages, but this required clearing out a space and moving furniture etc. I’d made steady progress, throwing away a ton of out of date paperwork that was just holding old energy, and clearing out cupboards that were housing stuff we no longer needed. It’s all just stuff really! We found a gap to negotiate an old sofa down the stairs and I managed to shift a few other things and voila, finally the space presented itself to me.

It feels a long time in coming and yet absolutely the right timing to it too. Sometimes it takes time to step up into a more aligned and authentic version of ourselves and along the way things have to drop away. The dropping away is never an easy process. Nor is settling into the uncertainty of not knowing what is coming next. This can throw up feelings of fear as there is nothing stable to hold onto, nothing concrete. It can throw us into quite a spin, as we desperately try to figure out a way forward, but without having clear idea of this.

I’m in that zone right now and I know others are too. If I can elevate my perspective to see that I’m in it, then it’s actually very exciting, but when I am caught up in the thick of it, it can be extremely unsettling.There’s a lot of change in process. Elijah finishes infants tomorrow and Eben finishes pre-school. Yet more change in September as I have to attempt to settle Eben into big school and Elijah steps up into juniors. Both suffer with separation anxiety, the common factor being me, so I guess I must allow it on some level, we all have an inherent fear of being separated from one another! It’s not easy to manage, drop-offs are emotionally exhausting, age-inducing, after 4 years of it now.

Eben is also going through his own changes, as he transforms from a little boy to a bigger boy and plays around with self-weaning. I’ve been breastfeeding him now for 4 years and 9 months and before him, Elijah for 2 years and 1 month, so it’s quite a shift for me too. But one has to accept that the children want to fledge from the nest as they become increasingly independent. However I am very aware that they always need their mum, and their dad, just the demands change.

It’s funny how much of our lives can be dedicated to something like breast feeding, where once it was all consuming, every 3 hours in those new born days, to nightly, and how we just get on with it, forgetting that there was a life before it and will be a life after it. I never imagined back then, that I would keep going this long. Or that at the age of 7 and a half, Elijah would still require one of us to lie with him when he falls asleep at night. That’s over 7 years of one of us being at home every evening to put him to bed, bar the few times in the earlier days when he would stay with my parents before separation anxiety put pay to that. Eben has never slept away from home yet.

So it is a change. We have now entered the world of sleep overs and having Elijah’s friends to stay over. Eben’s started going to clubs when I said I would never do this with my children, be their taxi service. but this is what happens. He wanders around with a football most of the time, the kitchen has become an indoor football pitch, a basketball court, a hockey pitch and a tennis court. There is often a ball or a plastic bottle flying around, the latter because of some You Tube challenge where children throw a bottle to see if they can land it right side up. Eben spends hours perfecting his bottle throwing.

Even the cat is going through a period of transition. He’s losing his mind and forgets he’s eaten. He miaows for no apparent reason. He walks from the front door to the back door and back to the front door again. It’s a relief when he finds a comfy place to sleep and gives us some peace for a few hours. I never used to let him sleep on the bed, but even this has fallen by the way side. It humours me how much we end up letting go over time.

This is life though isn’t it, peaks and troughs, and periods of noticeable change. It’s not just teh external world, but the internal world that goes through its transitions. We have changes of heart that find us seeking a new direction, of wanting to live life differently. That’s where I’m at. It’s been another one of those years, what with lockdown, and all the various Reiki attunements, let alone the eclipse and all the hanging around in dolmens. It was inevitable really, that things would change.

But when life is busy and constantly organised into a neat timetable of always doing, it is very difficult to see the wood through the trees, and absolutely impossible for the old to drop away. I was sick for two days recently and I am never sick, I just picked up a cold from the boys and I knew that it was because I needed to slow down and drop in. Stuff needed to drop away. It was an intense few days, followed by this wobbly energy up to the new moon, which was a wonderful new moon, because we were in Sark and there was a whole heap of space. There’s always a settling after a new moon and a day of total chaos.

I notice that in that chaos I cling to the past. I try to find reasons to do what I’ve done before, to hold on to what’s been, or to reach for it again. It’s not that my heart is longing for it, only that the fear gets the better of me, because I absolutely have no idea where life is going and as exciting as that is (as I mentioned above) it is horribly disorientating. But if we can settle into the discomfort, be with it, rather than turning away from it, or reacting to it, then we will move through it, and life will change by itself without us actually having to do anything about it.

Saying that, it can be helpful to take yourself somewhere on your own, out in nature, and just settle into yourself. Take some breaths, meditate if you can, or watch nature unfold in front of you, anything to get you more in tune, and then write or draw, from the heart, all that you feel inside you needs expression at some point, all that you hope and dream for in this world, almost like a vision board of sorts. Sometimes it just needs to come out. But then we put it aside, pop it away, let go of any attachment to outcome, to forcing things to happen and just know that when our personal will is aligned with divine will then all will come to fruition, in its own time.

There is a timing to all of life. A time to be active and a time to step back. We women especially have our menstrual cycles to guide us through this, so that we are naturally drawn to retreat from the world at times, and also to be very much in the world too. For me the summer is always one of retreating from an otherwise busy workload and yet taking the time to be out in the world, on the beach mainly, if the weather allows, and we’re backwards and forwards to Sark, which feels increasingly like a second home. There’s something about the energy of this place that feeds me energetically and spiritually.

We all need to be fed energetically. We all have our ways. For some it is feeding off others, for others it is feeding off place, or space or some activity. Once we know what we feed off, what fills us pop, it makes it easier for us to seek it when we know that we need a pick-up. Silence feeds me, so too spiritual landscape and working with energy. In the silence of giving reiki there is great joy. Sometimes we don’t realise the extent to which we fulfil our needs by the things we do. More often we notice when we are not meeting our needs and we feel depleted.

Which brings me around to the whole sharing today, of change. Mainly because I know I am not the only one going through this transition, we are being awakened and asked to step up collectively. It’s helpful then that we know what does fill us up, asking us few energised and feeding our authenticity. This because it is easy to kid ourselves and to settle for jobs or situations that don’t allow any of this, because we lack the awareness of what we do actually need. It’s easy to cling on to what is known, to do more of the same, albeit in a different place, or under a different title, simply because we don’t know how to be with the discomfort of the unknown.

There sre stepping stones too. Sometimes we have to move somewhere to allow us to take the next step after then, to where we are actually meant to be. The risk is always forgetting to take the step and getting stuck in the middle. I’ve seen this happen with relationships and jobs, the stepping stone is overlooked and people settle into something that isn’t quite aligned but was better than where they were previously, albeit precarious as it is based upon a stepping stone, a place that is meant to allow movement, not settling.

We all find our way eventually, or we don’t. Something will happen though, illness, death, redundancy, something to awaken us and prompt us back to the heart. The heart always knows best, but sometimes we can’t hear its because there’s too much noise around us and within us. And thus we come all the way back to silent practices, that allow us to settle more fully into ourselves, yoga, Reiki, gardening, solo walking, all of this can give us the space we need, and the grounding to really feel and listen.

Enjoy your transitioning. I’m told 2022 is going to be a big year, so 2021 was always going to have to facilitate that and get us questioning and opening up to new possibilities, of unsticking ourselves if we have gotten stuck, of dreaming new dreams and of letting go of all that’s been. It’ll take its time, there’s a pause right now, great big exhale taking place…keep exhaling too, and letting go.

Love Emma x