Fight for our green sites on Guernsey.

Letter written in response to the request from the Societe Guernesiaise for islanders to object to the PEH Greenfield Plan. More info on this here https://guernseypress.com/news/2022/12/29/voice-your-objections-to-peh-green-field-plan/

If you care about this island and the future generations who will live on it, then please voice your objections. Politicians should not be able to compromise nature like this. It is a beautiful valley and this island needs to keep its beautiful valleys.

Dear Sirs

The Seventh Generation Principle is based on an ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future. 

The Children’s Fire, arose from indigenous culture in North America where chiefs agreed that no law, no decision, no action, nothing of any kind would be permitted to go out from the council of chiefs that would harm the children. The Children’s Fire is essentially a pledge to the welfare of unborn future children (human and non-human alike) but more profoundly it’s a pledge to life, a commitment to the responsibility carried by each successive generation to safeguard the vitality and regenerative capacity of the earth.

 It is my feeling that the proposal by P&R to build multi-storey accommodation and car parking on a green field site by the hospital is ethically and environmentally immoral and those proposing it might do well to take on board the seventh generation principle and the Children’s Fire, created by wise leaders. Our local leaders agreeing to this proposal are not wise leaders.

Sure they may think that they are wise leaders, planning for the future, creating accommodation and parking for nurses and other hospital facilitators, but this is short term and limited thinking when we consider the future generations to come and our relationship with nature.

It is about time that we started to recognise and appreciate that we need nature to exist on planet earth as a humanity. It is very stupid and arrogant of us to feel that we can exist without it and therefore we should be doing absolutely everything we can to preserve what is left of it for now and the future. For those of us who have grown up on this beautiful island it is very sad to see the continuous development, ostentatious at times too, an outward display of increasing greed, of developer’s greed too.

Furthermore, it’s about time that leaders started addressing our sickness, rather than merely adding to it. We are a sick society because we live in a way that is out of harmony with nature -we keep destroying it - and we aren’t encouraged to take responsibility for our own health and wellbeing. Mental health issues increase and we keep on keeping on without pausing to consider changes to the way we are living to ease this.

For example, if we all made more effort to eat well, exercise in moderation, do a job that brings fulfilment and satisfaction, love and care for ourselves, be kind to others and respect our fellow man, appreciate, value and spend as much time as possible in nature (while there is still some available to us) then we might find that we don’t need to keep extending health care provision on the island – our mental health rates might decrease too.

Admittedly some may say that that is idealistic thinking, long term at least, but there is some truth in it. Short term, there are other options that do not mean we have to compromise on previous (and wise) decisions to designate land as – essentially – sacred. Nurses do not need to live on site. We have a perfectly adequate bus service providing regular access to the hospital and cycling is a favourable option on this island. There are brown field sites that could be used for development.

Furthermore, there are run-down sites in need of re-development such as St Margaret’s Lodge and Braye Lodge. Admittedly these are private but if we all started recognising that we are in this together, on Guernsey as much as on planet earth, then maybe we’d be able to come together to find a solution private or indeed public and overcome the greed that has infiltrated this island.

Also, we should be reviewing how we train nurses locally. I have friends who trained as nurses on the island, who have since had children and were unable to maintain their nursing registration, and others who have no interest in returning because they either don’t need to work or found the clinical nature of nursing soul destroying. I appreciate that the States of Guernsey cannot control nursing registration requirements or nurses’ experience of nursing, but it can bring greater control around access to local nurse training and ongoing retention of nurses following training.

I am in complete agreement with Roy Bisson, La Societe president, in that we need to jealously guard our open spaces regardless of changes in population and living conditions. I also share his concerns that ruining and removing a beautiful green facility, on a designated green field site, will set a dangerous precedent for seven other agricultural spaces adjoining the PEH campus. I also feel it makes every other designated green site on the island suddenly vulnerable to poor leadership and politics.

I am really disappointed and saddened that politicians feel that this decision is in any way in the best interests of our beautiful island and those who live on it, not just now but for seven generations to come. I long for wise and visionary leaders to step forward on this island, who are bold enough to consider both the longer term interests of the planet and the future children, and indeed adults, who will live upon it.

Your faithfully

Emma

Be free!

Another year passes and another is born, and with that no doubt many musings about what needs to go and what needs to be created instead and with that a dread and a hope, a despair and an inspiration. Always the yin and the yang, and in between all that a beautiful dance to seek and experience more of the balance.

If nothing else, each year gifts us another opportunity to just be OK with where we’re at, all of it, to let go of our ideals and quest for consistency and perfection and making everything known and instead to sit into the messiness of it, the uncertainty, and find peace within this…in the not knowing and in the presence of simply being…OK with everything as it changes and moves and shifts and ebbs and flows and wanes and waxes and shortens and lengthens, disappoints and elates…in a never ending cycle of change…

So here is to another year of more change, of more uncertainty, of more ups and downs, more moments of gentle bliss and moments of wondering if we might be able to face the world because it’s all gone very dark, and moments when the light returns, and moments when we question everything about the life we’re living and moments when we just feel at peace with absolutely everything and love and feel such intense joy and then the shift to a layer of pain, and more work to be done, more rest needed, and then out into the world and on and on…

It’s a fabulous experience this being human. Even better if we can watch ourselves and our minds as they move us from one narrative, story and drama to the next, when we witness old patterns popping up again and we see how much we create our own suffering, and to laugh at ourselves, gently, to be humble, kind, and live as simply, peacefully and lovingly as we can, respecting ourselves and this beautiful planet. To come home to ourselves. To know ourselves. To be ourselves and not care what anyone else thinks. To be free. And wild. And true.

Let’s make this a bloody amazing year with lots of laughter, lots of tears and lots of being deeply honest with ourselves and doing what we can to help our fellow man and woman and this beautiful planet we are lucky to live on. Be free!

Love Emma x

Happy yule and new moon

Happy yule everyone, the winter solstice, shortest three days of the year when the sun reaches a standstill before beginning to swing farther north again, allowing more light…

It’s a potent point in the cycle, reminding us of trust…we trust that the sun will rise in the east each day and set in the west. Just as we trust that each out breath will be followed by an in breath, at least until the day we move on to the next realm. Here though, many ancient megalithic structures are aligned with the winter solstice, to honour this shortest day and to no doubt ease fears of the sun never returning again, slipping farther and farther south. But alas t doesn’t. There comes a point, today, when it stops it’s movement south and that is a time to celebrate.

In our lives we may be transforming too. Delving into the darkness to find more of the light. The Gayatri Mantra is worth a chant today, and practising sun salutations in honour of the sun, provider of life, without whom we would not be able to sustain ourselves, not least by what we eat, but by the vitamin D provided, and of course the heat and light.

I had a feeling it wouldn’t be very clear today so I headed out to La Vardes dolmen on Friday, when I knew I’d actually get to see a sunset. It’s common knowledge now that a ray of light shines through this dolmen at Yule, hitting the point where the pregnant belly of a female stone meets the straight body of a male stone in the back chamber, which I believe is a fertility chamber. Without doubt this dolmen is a goddess temple, a carving of goddess is even etched into one of the capstones, and there’s evidence of rock art genitalia. I can see the face of an owl too, and various other bits and bobs that this amazing dolmen has revealed to me over the time I have been visiting.

Anyway, I was lucky to the place to myself to see it ‘going off’ on Friday while the boys played outside. It felt such a gift, because last year there were over 30 people in there with dogs and phones and chatter and general chaos, which sort of detracted from this most awesome spiritual moment, which was usually only enjoyed by a few of us over the last few years, the hard core ones amongst us who would troop up there day after day hopeful for clear skies.

We headed over to Sark that afternoon and I was lucky to enjoy a shooting star or two that night as I traipsed over to Little Sark and enjoyed all this magical island has to offer at night time and a visit to the dolmen of course, hidden as it is right there on the south coast, certainly I always get this place to myself, which is the best way!

I celebrated winter solstice sunset last night, ahead of time, simply because of the forecast for today, not looking so good. There’s an alignment on the south coast, the sun setting between some rocks, it’s rather special and the boys got to enjoy this with me again. It’s a gift to be able to see the sun rise and set like this and I am very grateful.

The message I am receiving over yule and the wane to the new moon on Friday is one of retreat, rest, solitude, silence, space and deepening into Self. I am keen to embrace this and dig deeper into this new moon cycle and clear out what needs to be clearer out, to create more space, and be very quiet, hermit like! So unless I get a momentary creative urge, then I probably won’t be on here again until the new year…so just to wish you all a happy yule and new moon beginnings and all these offer to you in the darkness that they bring, and of course a merry Christmas and happy new year for those celebrating.

Love Emma x

Mothering oneself ahead of menopause

I have seen quite a few women recently, especially older mothers who are really up against themselves. Not least because they are experiencing the tiredness that comes at this time of year, as we descend to the darkest days of the year, which demands our resting, while trying at the same time to keep going and manage all that Christmas demands of us. Add in hormonal shifts as we begin the transition from one way of being to another that the perimenopausal years bring with them and we are likely to feel a touch squeezed.

What I have noticed within all this, and again especially with older mothers who are navigating primary-aged motherhood while also navigating the beginning of the change to enchantress and on to crone, that they feel anything but enchanted. Maybe because they came to motherhood late, they have thrown everything to it and lost themselves along the way. Not to say that younger mothers haven’t done the same, just that energy levels for older mothers aren’t necessarily what they were when younger, and sometimes there are established careers to manage too, or at least the need to earn money continues regardless of age that one comes to motherhood.

The mother guilt can be huge around doing anything to nourish themselves, taking time out, going within, and looking at the internal landscape, giving back a little. Not only that but also connecting to a deeper level fo self and indeed truth. Many of these women are putting up with lives which don’t quite fit but not sure what to do about it and feeling selfish for putting themselves first.

This happens naturally, around mid forties. It’s how we come to embrace our inner power, cutting back dead woods, letting go of people who drain our energy, exiting dead end relationships, seriously considering what we want to do with ourselves in the latter part of our life, beyond our role as mother. We might also finally start to recognise that unless we do something now to love and accept ourselves, then it probably isn’t going to happen - at some point in our lives we have to look at ourselves honestly and what we want living forwards.

And while some will feel selfish for taking the time to look at themselves, it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise we are teaching our children that it’s OK to lose oneself to someone else, that it’s OK to spend your life in dead end relationships and jobs that don’t fulfil us and that often take advantage of us. That it’s OK to disrespect ourselves, to not care for and love ourselves.

But really it’s not OK and goes against our micro managing of our children’s lives as we try to reduce the harm done. And yet even this is an illusion because we can only ever base this on harm done to ourselves and the way that our mind and motional body has perceived/felt it. And our children are their own little beings with their own emotional body and mental perception and they can have exactly the same experiences as us, but perceive them and respond to them totally differently. So really we can let ourselves off the hook and just get on with getting on, knowing we are doing our best, life is not always easy and we each have a unique soul journey.

Whichever way we look at it, regardless of the age of our children as we approach our mid forties we are up against ourselves. But the quicker we can notice this and take ownership of it, doing something about it, taking time to nourish, nurture and heal ourselves, looking honestly at our lives, at what is working and not, of where our energy is being wasted, of the way we talk to and relate to ourselves, whether we are always pushing, whether we deal with our stresses and anxieties, whether we have resolved our trauma, then the less we will be burdened down by it as we enter menopause.

Menopause brings with it a huge change in the way we live and relate to self and it can floor people if they haven’t been doing the work to prepare themselves, if their life is out of balance and they have given themselves away to others. Menopause tries to bring you back home, but the body can do some pretty radical things to get your attention if you have been ignoring it thus far.

So really we absolutely need to ut ourselves first at times. Follow our joy. Fill ourselves up. Stop micro managing and controlling our lives and those we care for Love our children but don’t take away their right to their own experience of life. And definitely not to lose ourselves along the way. Freedom ultimately, from all that binds us and takes us further away from the truth of who we are.

Anyway I stumbled across this fab quote from Dr Christiane Northrup which I just love as it sums it up perfectly…

Mothering Myself

In a society preoccupied with how best to raise a child

I’m finding a need to mesh what’s best for my children with

What’s necessary to be a well-balanced mother.

I’m recognising that ceaseless giving translates into giving yourslef

away.

And when you’ve given yourself away, you’re not a healthy other

and you’re not a healthy self.

So, now I am leaning to be a woman first and a mother second.

I’m learning to just experience my own emotions without robbing

my children of their individual dignity by feeling their emotions too.

I’m learning that a healthy child will have his own set of emotions

and characteristics that are his alone.

And, very different to mine.

I’m learning the importance of honest exchanges of feelings because

pretences don’t fool children,

They know their mother better than she knows herself.

I’m learning that no one overcomes her past unless she confronts it.

Otherwise, her children will absorb exactly what she’s attempting to overcome.

I’m learning that words of wisdom fall on death ears if my actions

contradict my deeds.

Children tend to be better impersonators than listeners.

I’m learning that life is meant to be filled with as much sadness

and pain as happiness and pleasure.

And allowing ourselves to feel everything life has to offer is an

indicator of fulfilment.

I’m learning that fulfilment can’t be attained through giving

myself away.

But, through giving to myself and sharing with others,

I’m learning that the best way to teach my children to live a

fulfilling life is not by sacrificing my life.

It’s through living a fulfilling life myself.

I’m trying to teach my children that I have a lot to learn

because I’m learning that letting go of them

Is the best way of holding on”

x

Opening to greater love - clearing the heart

Well that was a punchy moon! A much needed one too. She gifted many lessons in her wax, and a realisation of many things on her initial wane.

I know many of you were working through the same themes around security and rejection and opening to greater love as a number of clients were heading into that territory on the day of the moon herself. Fortunately after a deep dive into the darkness and with the help of a timely book and the honesty of a friend, I was finally able to see through the illusion of all of this - it’s been a long time in coming!

And yes, the heart being cracked open with the bike fall allowed a deep healing of suppressed feelings of betrayal, grief and indeed broken dreams, let alone a final surrender to one’s love for self. We can pussy foot around this theme our whole lives but at some point we have to dive in, clear away the mud and the weeds and all the resistance we have from finally accepting, our own wonderful and beautiful essence.

Once we’ve cracked through the other side, we might wonder why it took us so long. What could be more amazing than finally valuing and loving ourself. It amazes me actually, the many ways we give ourselves away and give more of ourselves to others than we give to ourself as if it is somehow selfish to love and care for ourself as if we are somehow neglecting others or upsetting them if we put their needs before our own. Bonkers really, but this is how society conditions us and it take time to shift that perspective.

Anyway, what I noticed when I deep dived into all this, mainly because the universe had grown impatient and clearly it was time to finally succumb to it, was the many ways we distance ourself from our heart simply because of our fears around being hurt. This feeds in beautifully with the whole rejection theme, which is a huge one really. We have a whole heap of behaviour patterns the arise when we feel in any way rejected. Yet are we truly rejected?

The truth is, we feel rejected when we reject the reality of a situation. Someone says they don’t want to meet us and we feel rejected. The reason we feel rejected has nothing to do with them really, albeit we’ll kid ourselves that it does, but mainly because we are rejecting the reality of being told that that person doesn’t want to meet us. We do not like the situation one little bit, so rather than just accepting it and going, ‘ok so they don’t want to meet’, we go into full on wounded mode and get upset and close our heart and maybe sulk and become grumpy and defensive, which just feeds more of that energy and indeed patterning.

As for security. Ha. When are we truly secure? It’s an illusion to believe that money gives us security as it can be taken from us in any moment. We might feel we have a lovely secure job and then a recession comes along and our job is no more. Anything external to us cannot really provide true security because even when we have money we can date so much energy stressing about it being taken from us, the stock markets crashing or being taken advantage of. We can still suffer with mental stress with or without money so there has to be more to it.

True security then, must come from within. It’s about owning who we are, at heart, standing on our own two feet, centred in ourself (not centred in someone else) and treading OUR path with trust and faith and being ok with uncertainty, because ultimately it is ALL uncertain, and yet we are always trying to make it certain. inherent within this is overcoming our fear around safety. This fear causes us to do all sorts of silly things like try to micro manage and control ourselves and other people to the detriment of family members and those who we might manage in the work place. This can get critical at times and end up in addictions, eating disorders, OCD, high level anxiety and general loss of mental wellbeing.

One of our inherent fears is around uncertanity

It’s difficult to change this though, until we deep dive into the feelings that our fear creates when triggered. Thus when triggered, rather than turning away from it and following one of our many well trodden paths to avoid feeling, or to distract ourselves from the situation or create some drama around it, we need to own it, step into it and be with it, however uncomfortable it feels, and start to notice, be super, super conscious and aware of what lies under it, why that might be and how we can change it because it is all an illusion anyway, the way that our mind thinks and perceives the world, not a truth then, despite the fact the mind will try to convince us otherwise.

Ultimately all of this is a lesson in trust and faith. Trusting in the earth to provide all that we need and having faith in our path and in our heart and truly leaning into all of this. Also inherent within this is accepting our reality as it is. I have noticed a tendency in me and of course in others, to imagine how life might be lived differently. Or to get carried away with the notion of dreams. But dreams can only ever be based on what the mind knows and therefore on the past and the reality is, that the universe often delivers to us more than we could ever have dreamt possible, beyond the control of the mind! And it’s all very well to imagine, but this prevents us from accepting our reality in the here and now.

Thus, the spiritual texts are totally correct in saying that there is only this moment. And to constantly take us out of it, by clinging onto the past and re-living it over and over again because of the limitation of our mind to know anything different, even if we believe that we are dreaming of a new future, is pointless really. This in much the same way as constantly imagining a different future when everything might just fit and we have truly learned to love and accept ourselves. If we can’t do it NOW, what makes us think it will be any different then?

At some point we have to truly accept our really as it is and if it isn’t how we want it to be then we have the choice in each moment to make it different, not by changing the external necessarily, but by changing the internal and letting go of the thoughts and behaviour patterns that are causing us to be frustrated by, or react to our reality in this moment. It sounds easy but isn’t always so easy in practice, but this is where the practice is helpful, because we practice our way there, and one day it just clicks and we land in the now.

Mainly though, we have to stop chasing our tail and looking outside of ourselves, pushing, being busy, trying to control and make things certain and secure, filling every single moment with something for fear of…

What could be more amazing than just being. Our wonderful self. In this moment. With all its wonderful uncertainty.

And this is what it’s all about. Really. About being and loving. This was made very clear to me the other day, a dusk walk in nature and seeing and feeling into the energy. Nature is love and being. It is not trying to be anything but what it is, it is not trying to achieve anything, gain anything, control anything, it is just its wonderful self, loving.

But of course for us humans fear gets in our way and this is the reason it is always so helpful if treading a path of heart to get to the root of the fears that prevent us from truly opening to love…unconditional live at that. It reminds me once again of Marianne Williamson’s poem, which I share with you below.

All I can say is how grateful I am to the universe for shaking things up for us and taking us to darker places because it is only by going to the dark that we find the light and sometimes the universe has to intervene to re-align us and help us to chip away at the defences that prevent us opening to greater love and the insecurity that prevents us from the simplicity of being. Our body knows the score and will get our attention when we are off course and need to go deeper to clear away those out dated modes of being and relating because it gets sick of holding the pressure and tension of repressed emotions, unhelpful behaviour patterns and an unresolved relationship with self and reality.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking, so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

xxx