Authenticity

I found that last full moon rather intense in its shining brightly as I walked the lanes exploring ancient wells, I got myself rather wired, couldn’t sleep easily after that, but was beautiful, there is something so special about being out on one’s own at night, when everyone else is asleep, or at least, there’s very little signs of life, no traffic and just a quietness to the energy.

Since then the energy keeps pushing us to go deeper still. I know I’m not the only one who has seen some pretty old patterns coming up, ones that come and go, but that fundamentally ask us to compromise our authenticity to suit the needs of others. It was timely that I started reading Gabor Mate’s book, The Myth of Normal, courtesy of one of my clients, which so many of you have been reading too. I was a bit resistant, because of this, it becoming mainstream, but there are some pertinent bits in it.

The bit I have found helpful is the dynamic between attachment and authenticity. How we compromise our authenticity, our true self, for our need to essentially be accepted and approved by others, especially care givers, and that fundamental need for love and connection - attachment then.

It can be really uncomfortable choosing authenticity over attachment, if the choice has to be made, of being true to who we are even if that is at odds with what is expected of us, whether that be by care givers or by society. Many of you will also be up against this. The more we open to spiritual practice, the more the practice helps us to let go of and free ourselves from all the many ways we have been moulded by others and by society, so that we become more of who we truly are, soul, beyond what is expected of us.

While this is liberating, it can also be very uncomfortable. To be truly authentic is not easy. To be our true selves is difficult for others and we can be up against this, and, like I mentioned earlier, their expectations of us, and their understanding of the world. We don’t fit, that’s the trouble. Because our true self is not limited by society’s boundaries, it doesn’t look a certain way, and it doesn't behave a certain way either, it is unique to each of us and thus the way we live becomes increasing unique and often, unconventional.

Furthermore, being authentic, generally involves a letting go of mis-identification from a personality perspective too, and this is tricky. We become conditioned from an early age, to be a certain way, for reasons above as much as anything else, as coping mechanisms too in this crazy world we live in to the extent that here we are, with all these mental imprints, and we identify with this sense of being and relating as if this is who we truly are, yet this is mere personality including behaviour patterns and ways of seeing the world (lenses), generally to keep us safe, which can change, is not constant, yet we see ourselves as consistent.

Spiritual practice will help us recognise this mis-identification and ultimately let it go, so that we become more of who we truly are and less limited by what has come before. This process is not easy because of our over identification and therefore clinging to what is known, in terms of our relationship to self. To let go of the bits that no longer serve us, that prevent us being more of who we truly are, can create feelings of intense vulnerability, because essentially we have to change patterns, we have to not react to situations in the way we did previously, to stop feeding the mental patterning.

Despite its uncomfortableness, there really is no other way, because to stay stuck just means more of the same and will deny our true authenticity. We will always be compromising who we are for others, or for some mental construct that was maybe set up to keep us safe but is now creating more of the same, be that stress, anxiety, depression etc. that can also affect our health and wellbeing and lead to dis-ease in the body because of our limiting our truth - the classic head/heart battle. We see this with auto-immune and I can talk from experience with skin conditions, but the list is endless, cancer is of course a huge one.

It’s an ongoing process, the universe only gives us what we can handle in any one moment, and we do well to remember that! It’s definitely worth remembering this as we wane down to the new moon on Monday, the energy is triggering situations to help us remember the fullness of who we are, and this can cause friction, so change the pattern, don’t feed it, care less, love more. It’s always about love and self-love ultimately - realising that we are just pure love and putting our Self first (after all, why give ourselves away to others?)

Love Emma x

Happy Imbolc!

We’re here! The sun really is coming back again! I love Imbolc and the shifting energy, all that new potential, and the increasing lighter evenings and indeed mornings.

I went and saw the sunrise from an aligned spot, only that the sun didn’t show itself until later in the day, but the boost was felt nonetheless and I did manage to get out in the sun later in the day and found myself at the holy well opposite St Andrew’s church which felt fitting as this is the day of wells and poetry and the fire and hearth.

We had children’s fire yesterday, a home school gathering courtesy of Tara at WildGuernsey, which Elijah and I love. We had a fire and we also got to walk the lanes in search of wild garlic, which coincidentally and indeed fortunately took us past an old well I discovered at Christmas in the lanes off the west coast where I was cat sitting over the holidays. There is a Goddess stone there too, which I finally captured to share with my stone friends, here’s a view for you too!

So really it has been a time of fire and wells, with a little bit of poetry thrown in. Here’s a link to poem I love about Imbolc….https://talesfromtheseed.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/imbolc-a-poem/ and a little poem I wrote…

Imbolc, imbolc, where all is
almost bursting with the potential
of new beginnings
where all is ready and waiting
for the right timing
to burst for into life and make
manifest all these dreams
and visions that have
been building and transform
hope into precious reality
all alive and potent, all
waiting patiently, patiently
it will all soon come
all is well, the light is returning.

Love Emma x

Imbolc approaching, spring on its way!

The signs of Spring are here and I am very excited about that. As I said before I love Imbolc with all its hope and potential and I love seeing this out in nature.

Elijah and I went for a walk this morning, to see what we could see, how the land is changing and the flowers are beginning to appear. As you can see, we spotted snowdrops, dog violet, primroses and daffodils. For me the daffodils as captured sum up Imbolc perfectly - bursting with potential…

I also got some photos of Elijah and a well we found. Imbolc is represented by the goddess Bridgid who represents healing, smith craft and poetry. Although she is known as a fire and solar goddess, She is also associated with rivers and often particularly wells.

Throughout Great Britain and Ireland there are many wells named after Brigid. As the story goes, when pools of water appeared without an apparent source, ancient people thought these waters originated from springs the Otherworld – they arose from within the‘oimbelc’, the belly or womb of Mother Earth. It was understood that their waters could impart knowledge and healing. The waters of different wells offered an array of virtues. For example, one might restore sight to the blind or cure diseases of the eyes, one might have the power to bring an individual back from insanity or to cure arthritis, one might make a barren woman fertile.

In Ireland there are at least 15 wells dedicated to St Brigid, albeit there are said to be approximately 3,000 holy wells dotted throughout Ireland itself. The ones dedicated to Brigid are visited on Imbolc and the water drawn from them.

In England, Brighid is one of the primary Goddesses associated with my favourite place across the channel - namely my spiritual home of Glastonbury, and a holy well is dedicated to her. I know any of you have visited Glastonbury and have been disappointed, not able to see beyond the crystal shops and those who choose to frequent the high street, some begging, and some clearly high on drugs, but it is one of those places, like Sark as a student reminded me, that has various layers to it, and the more you rest into the place and trust it, the more it will reveal more of itself (and indeed yourself) to you, so that you begin to see things that you did’t see previously.

Anyway, wells are my current thing and a bit like neolithic stones, Guernsey is gradually revealing more of them to me. It’s a rather magical land this one upon which I am lucky enough to live and many of you too. There are layers here as well, and I am enjoying finding more of them as Elijah and I explore more of this land, and Eben when he’s not at school. Albeit after school today, he got up this tree, fortunately E is with him!

Anyway, enjoy the increasing light, it’s 5pm as I write this and the boys are still outside, it’ll pick up the pace soon and before we know it. it’ll be the spring equinox and we’ll be half way to the longest day. So enjoy every minute of this fabulous shifting energy as Imbolc approaches on Wednesday!

Love Emma x

The cycles that find us letting go before Imbolc

I’ve been walking the lanes quite a bit recently and yesterday I really noticed the change in light, which I find super exciting. The sun is higher in the sky and it changes everything, the shadows fall differently, and nature looks greener, more vibrant.

What struck me the most though was the cycles. I’ve been following the turning of the wheel for a good few years now, so too the moon cycle and my menstrual cycle, and it’s only now though, that I truly feel the different energetic shifts as the sun cycles and we greet each new turning point.

It’s Imbolc next week and there is a real sense of letting go. I’ve found myself dowsing the same Bach floral remedy for each of my clients this week, all about letting go of the past, and there is that energy in the air, of letting go and clearing out, before the new beginnings that Imbolc ushers in. If you read about Imbolc it will tell you this, but it’s very real. The energy really does encourage you to let go of the past and to look to the future, clearing out the old and making both outer and inner space for new beginnings.

Maybe some of you have found yourself spring cleaning. I certainly found myself having a good clear up in the healing space last night and with it in mind to clear out al the clutter that has accumulated in the shed over the winter, let alone in the boys’ bedroom. But it’s not just spring cleaning our homes, but clearing the mind and heart to allow inspiration to enter for the new cycle. Last night in yoni yoga, and actually on Sunday too, we did focus on letting go into the exhalation and there was a fair bit of shaking it out too.

Furthermore I know I am not the only one who has embarked on a healing journey at the beginning of this year. I am a month now into weekly Reiki sessions from a lovely Reiki Master I have found on the island. Some of you have been coming to see me weekly too, to really go deeper and clear away some of the clutter, which has accumulated and needs now to go so that there is space for the new to enter in.

I didn’t do this consciously, in so much, as I wasn’t thinking, “ah ha, Imbolc is approaching, most let go”, but some part of me clearly recognised the benefit in doing so in tune with the energetic shift of letting go that this time between winter solstice and Imbolc brings, reminding us to trust those intuitive nudges, even if we don’t feel we can afford it, or have the time for it or whatever obstacle we place in our path to prevent us starting in the first place.

I mean there is another element to this, in so much as Imbolc is traditionally the festival which honours and celebrates the pagan Goddess, Bridgid, who is the goddess of healing, poetry and smith craft. She is essentially the goddess of fire, of the sun and of the hearth. She brings fertility to the land and its people and is closely connected to midwives and new born babies. She is also known as the Triple Goddess but at imbolc she is in her maiden aspect. Thus this is a fabulous time for healing as we embrace the energy of Bridgid within ourselves. We should probably be writing some poetry too, in front of the fire!

It’s kind of funny though because back in the day, 10 and 7 years ago now when we were going through IVF, I knew lots about the moon cycle and my menstrual cycle, and while I celebrated the turning of the wheel, I wasn’t so aware of the reality of the energetic shifts and how these could be used to opportune whatever we are trying to bring into our lives. I mean, sure we can read about it, but to truly trust in it and live by it is a another thing.

Yet I was sort of doing that without truly realising it, in so much as we were embarking on IVF at this time of yea, over Imbolc. I was indeed the maiden, and I was keen to conceive and become pregnant. Of course there’s lots I did to support this, which some of you have probably read about in my book Dancing with the Moon, but there is no doubt that the energy of Imbolc, and the fact my eggs were collected and fertilised on a full moon helped enormously. It was just coincidence on the one hand and yet, probably entirely not on the other - in so much as sometimes we’re aligned and sometimes we’re not. Sometimes we’re in our flow and supported by the cosmos and sometimes not.

When we tried a frozen cycle in the summer it was no surprise to me that it failed. Not least because I wasn’t in the right place to go through IVF at that time, but also because the energy was all wrong. For the embryo too it wasn’t right, it had been frozen in springtime, full of that vital cosmic energy of newness and it was being defrosted after Lammas, towards the autumnal equinox, when the energy was waning considerably. It was still a shock, but I just knew that energetically it wasn’t supported, the alignment wasn’t there, the timing off and a process that I had to go through to have greater empathy for my clients who experience failed IVF cycles.

Anyway, Imbolc is one of my favourite turning of the wheel celebrations because of the new energy. It marks the beginning of the lambing season and signals the beginning of spring too with the stirrings of new life. The original word ‘Imbolc’ means ‘in the belly’. All is pregnant and expectant and only just visible if at all, like the gentle curve of a ‘just-showing’ pregnancy - I love this comparison. It is the promise of renewal, of hidden potential, or earth awakening and life stirring. It’s about hope really.

But it’s one thing reading this and quite another being actually able to feel it and to live one’s life in accordance with this cosmic shift. Perhaps we’re all doing it anyway, but to be conscious of it and live one’s life in alignment with the shifts is empowering and indeed magical. But it does take time, and one does need to make an effort to connect with nature and her cycles, as well as one’s own cycles and this in itself can involve some significant letting go, reshuffling and orientation and in most cases, a change of being within the world.

When I think back to when this all started, well my life is significantly different now. I spend a good percentage of my life outside now, which I did’t do back then bar the daily sea swimming which took me at least to the beach. I don’t swim much in the winter now, but I am outside daily, not least cycling on the school run and to the shops but out walking and with my little home school lot as we tend to meet outdoors. I get out at night too, when the moon and the neolithic stones call, so I am lucky to have an awareness of the cycles as they unfold.

It wasn’t always this way, I think back now to my twenties, before I found yoga and Reiki and how I would get outside to play netball but I didn’t have any awareness of the changes in moon and/or season other than from the netball court and the office window! The outdoor living is much preferred, and has been well worth the financial sacrifice that it has demanded. Mind you how can one put a price on one’s freedom and time spent with children, well more so Elijah in my case, i don’t see as much of Eben as he is at school and I am often working when he is at home.

But somehow we find a way. It’s a dance, a give and take, but that’s the thing with life, it is a cycle in itself. We live in a universe of cycles. Nothing stays the same. And while at times this can be extremely disorientating and maybe even scary, at other times it’s a blessed relief. We need the dark to see the light as much as we need the light to see the dark. It is only us who place value on one more than the other, but really they’re both parts of a whole and so there is nothing to fear, but fear itself.

And the other thing is that really, there’s a lot of comfort that comes from knowing these cycles, because we begin to see that there is actually order in this universe, despite the seeming chaos. You know, the menstrual cycle, the moon cycle, the daily sun cycle, the annual sun cycle, the cycle of nature, all just a wax and a wane and everything in between. There is something very comforting about not only knowing this but seeing it manifest in nature and feeling into it in our own energy field.

When we follow our own menstual cycle, for example, we begin to notice when our outer life is out of balance because our menstrual cycle, and especially our blood, loses its flow a bit. We can also notice when we are going through a period of transition as we will transition from menstruating on the full moon to the new moon or vice versa instead. We will also notice when we are not nurturing ourselves as much as we should because we might experience more pre-menstrual symptoms than usual. We’ll notice how much stress affects our cycle and the repression of emotions too, because they’ll all come up just before menstruation and we’ll either end up angry, or a blubbering mess, or both!

But it doesn’t have to be that way. It can be much gentler the more we reclaim all parts of ourselves and wax and wane with our energetic flow, knowing when to be active and when to slow down. But anyway, pointless me writing about this here as you can go and read much more about this in my online menstrual cycle and moon pack, which also contains a selection of yoga and meditation practices to help you understand more of the nature of your own cycle and the moon cycle and much better for you to have first hand knowledge and experience and indeed embodiment, than reading my embodied experiences here!

There is much more I could share about the shifting energy as we cycle the year, about how I met a best friend in a dolmen on the spring equinox bringing together the masculine and feminine, he with a Bengal cat too and also a Reiki Master and lover of neolithic stones and in service to Gran Mere too. Let alone the intense energy at Beltane that has us all wanting to dance and come together in union, sexual or otherwise, and not surprising therefore that the St Michael’s line, which is aligned with Beltane, runs through Glastonbury Tor for here the chalice and the meeting with the Mary line for alchemy and indeed the sacred marriage.

Let alone the energy at the summer solstice that has us up early in the morning and hyper all day after watching those first sun rays even more so if you’re at a site like Stonehenge, which has been built with an alignment to that auspicious day. And the shift that one feels at autumn, as we descend deeper into the darkness knowing that there is literally no way back now and then the joy that arrives at the winter solstice, snug in our blankets, fires warming us, and knowing that the light will now return again.

There is great joy in all these cycles and I never cease to be blown away by the magic that pervades our world if we let it, if we take the time to tune into it and notice it, not least within ourselves but out there in nature - we are a micro or the macro. I’m grateful for this opportunity to heal and let go, for this transition that is upon us as we move from one way of being to another. I have a feeling that life will look very different by the time we celebrate the spring equinox and tip the balance to further light.

Happy cycling and happy letting go ahead of Imbolc. You have probably seen but I am offering a last minute Imbolc yoni yoga session on Sunday to truly let go of the past, of whatever is hiding you back, and embrace the newness of this beautiful new energy and new beginnings.

Love Emma x

. Or the active energy at the summer solstice that has us up in the early hours to see sunrise and energised ALL day off the potency of the experience, let alone the wane

New moon and the egg

So we have a new moon in Aquarius arriving on Saturday and I am loving its gentle and yet potent energy!

This is the first new moon of the year and it feels as if it is truly ushering in new beginnings. This is new beginnings in terms of or relationship with ourself, which will undoubtably filter out into our external world.

I mentioned in a recent blog post that 2022 was about getting our ducks in a row and I have been aware this week that that continues for many, stilll there is a holding on to the past and that which needs to now be let go of. The bind is huge though for many, for some a marriage bind, that vow that was taken that forms an energetic link that is difficult to break for all sorts of reasons, and that might involve a ceremony of sorts to set you free from each other, and binds in terms of core beliefs we have taken on and invested a lot of energy in maintaining all these years

You see sometimes its difficult to let go of that which we have become, even when we know how much we now need to move on. It’s not that fear binds us, although it absolutely does, but also our lack of faith in the universe and in ourselves and lack of trust that all will be well. We might ask ourselves wo will we be when we let go of this story and that narrative - and that relationship/career that is deadening us - but actually who are we if we keep continuing to tell ourselves the same story over and over again, getting bored of our own narrative in the process.

It has felt a little ground hog day for some this week in their healing. More of the old coming up, which they felt they had let go of. The thing is, and I talk about this from my own experience, we don’t aways realise the extent of the protection we have put around our heart, the invisible armour we use to hide our vulnerability and the mask we apply to our face to hide the pain and suffering and sheer anguish we are feeling on the inside. We are all very good at putting on a show to the world.

And then we are surprised when we find that a part of the costume needs to drop away, because we had forgotten it was there in the first place, having placed it there many years ago perhaps, in childhood for many, when we first faced pain and instability, when the earth may have momentarily dropped away and our life as we knew it changed. We should never underestimate the effect of the transitions we make in our lives, leaving our mothers for the first time, or her leaving us, starting school, having our best friend turn on us, our parent being late to collect us, our first sleep over, having to read a poem by heart to the class…all of these things can cause us to grab a piece of invisible costume and pop it on.

But alas, the costume is dropping away! Bit by bit. So that we get to see who we really are on the inside. We just don’t know until we know. And sometimes that process is painful, like the uncasing of a seed within a shell, we are fragile, this new version of us that was always there but which was hidden, is revealed to the world. How will we be received? Well, the thing is, we actually stop caring. Because we start to realise that it is the caring too much about what others think that has caused us so much of our pain in the first place, that has caused us to runaway from who we truly are for fear of our brightness and standing out.

It feels as if this is the time to stand out though. To be our lovely self come what may and what opinions other people have about that. Opinions change like the wind and there has certainly been a lot of that lately. Best not to get rigid then, not least in our opinions about others, but in our opinion about ourself. We are all where we are meant to be and we are all doing the best we can do with our current level of awareness and relationship with fear. Thus if we do want to set ourselves free, then it is our level of awareness that needs to shift, letting go of our fear that sticks us in the process. And when the awareness shifts and we set ourselves free of our fear, well the costume drops away a little bit. Its genius really.

I am constantly reminded that we are in a world that is always changing due to the thoughts we think and the collective reality that we create because of these thoughts on a collective basis. Also because of the thoughts we think, we see life a particular way - our perception then is shifted by our thinking and our level of consciousness in any given moment. So really we come down to those thoughts and how we might shift them at a very deep level. But as any of you will know who have tried to meditate, we get a whole lot of thoughts running through our mind seemingly endlessly and not all of them are very kind, and many of them are very fear based. And these are only the ones we are conscious of, let alone all the ones in our subconscious mind.

All of this becomes more apparent with awareness. With awareness we start to witness more of our thinking and the way that it informs our relationship with ourselves and with others as well as the wider world - we notice our fears and how these limit us and keep us small, stop us saying what we truly want to say or ding what we truly want to do or just being who we truly are at heart.

We are gifted the opportunity then, with awareness, to see where we are reacting from a place of wounding and/or conditioning and/or fear (all of these are interlinked usually) that is no longer helpful in our life, and do something about it to the extent that we can then respond differently next time. It is incredibly liberating when we can put this into play, set beyond our fear and our limited view of things.

All the time the universe is nudging us on. There are gifts left here and there. I found a little white egg clearly fallen from a nest on my walk through the lanes yesterday. It was kind of funny as later that evening I found myself reading up on egg shaped stone circles and then this morning I pulled the cosmos egg card from an oracle pack. Egg is deinfitely then a theme in my life, but I also feel it is a theme for many more of us too.

We are at the beginning of something new. And we need to rest into that a while longer now. We might know where we want to go and what it is we are trying to birth into the world, create then, but now is the time to just let everything be, look after ourselves, keep warm, keep nourished and let the rest take care of itself in divine timing. If we push, if we try to make things happen before the time is right, then we end up with a scrambled egg and while that might taste yummy, its not the creation we were necessarily intending to birth into the world and it won’t have flowed with ease from spirit and the heart.

Enjoy the energy of this new moon. The light is returning, I have seen it shifted the last few days, the sun is higher, visible longer, and the bird are singing a different chorus. The shoots are evident and Imbolc is only just around the corner. We really are in the fragile stages of new beginnings. Be gentle. Be kind. And love yourself as much as you can. The egg will be hatched at just the right time and remember it has the whole of the universe contained within it, just as you do too.

Love Emma x