Back again

Do you know how you can feel stunted by pure hatred and ignorance. What does ignorance taste like? Bile, of yellow and beige, I think. The same vibe as jealousy. Well, being stunted is not like being in shock, but more like losing all of your senses, but feeing. No matter what you do, you can not stop feeling and you cannot get other senses back.

This happened in 2022. However, as I have discovered over the course of my life, in every tricky situation there is a blessing, a learning and even a transformation. And here I am, having spent the whole year stuck in a place of intense feeling, yet frozen and devoid of imagination and creative sparkle and that freeing sense of flow, I am claiming it all back. What I have felt through the emptiness and the ugliness of the physical and human was the beauty of the spirit. It’s defiance, strength, unwavering loyalty and an unshakable sense of purpose. This year will always stay with me as a year marking my homecoming in the most profound way. There might be and will be, no doubt, more of these periods coming, yet for today, I am here, sitting fully back with myself, writing again with all my senses back together in perfect partnership. 

Life is ugly and stunningly beautiful. It is cruel and violent yet filled with tenderness and grace. It is challenging and complex yet profoundly simple. As one great writer once said ‘do not look closely at life’ meaning the beauty is in simplicity, life itself, day-to-day sparks of joy and just being alive. From tragedy come revelations. A brush with death can release and propel us into living harder. 

Let us all remember to appreciate the journey and trust ourselves to know the right way forward even though quite often it is simply one day at a time, one step at a time, and when one day an expansive landscape opens up in front of us and we know we belong and feel that God within us like it’s our own heart, that’s what we all thrive for. 

Grab that joy with both hands and run with it until our legs are exhausted in satisfaction of being able to feel the earth underneath us and our face hurts from smiling too much and all that light within is a feeling one can never explain only that it tastes sweet and it is pure like heaven on earth.

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Intuitive update – April 2022

As we approach the beginning of the ‘enlightenment period’ that starts at the end of this week and the beginning of next, many things will begin to crystalise. This update is one of those that, I know, had to be shared.

Journaling, as an activity, is getting outdated, expired. It has helped many people for many years, yet now the call is to step out of your mind and process things through your experience and the body instead. It is also a call to locate yourself firmly in the present and live each day ‘moment-by-moment’. What we are doing is not simply being in the present, which can feel confusing and intimidating, but homing in and fine-tuning of what really matters to our well-being in an overall sense and it is only by tuning into the experience and the body each day we can begin to hear what is what. My advice in my practice is also changing from processing via the mind towards processing via the body. Examples of it would be massage, sauna, hiking, stretching or simply lying on the ground or floor.

A lot of things have already expired over the last three years and will continue to do over the next year and beyond. Pay attention to what you feel does not do it for you anymore. For me it is quite a lot of things, but one or two are very clear – journaling/keeping a diary is one such activity. It feels like a clean sweep and a respectful packing away of things, perhaps, for later or forever. I believe once we have gone through this crystalising process, some things might come back into action, but in a very different form and it will feel entirely new; or they might remain as part of our experience, meaning done once and for all.

When something is expiring you might find it will be quite clear, but one sign to pay attention to when becoming aware of this dynamic of ‘things extinguishing’ is picking an activity you used to do all the time and enjoyed doing, however, in the last few months it just doesn’t cross your mind at all and when you do catch yourself thinking about it, you have a feeling of ‘forced’ about it. When you try to do it, an enormous amount of energy and emotional ‘overcome’ is required when previously it was effortless. That is one sign that it has expired if not forever, at least for now.

Journaling is a way to put your thoughts on paper, i.e., process all that is going on in your mind and gain clarity and perspective. We all know how helpful this might be, BUT there is a shadow side to journaling, if you like. One is addiction to the process and second is becoming stuck in the process of ‘thinking’, living via processing your thoughts and leaving everything else behind. Writing, in general, can be one of those activities too, as a lot of time is spent in the deep thinking and detaching from the world as we experience it. There is a type of freeze that happens when a writer is in the process. It is not good or bad, it just is and we are being called to step away from this sort of activity whatever forms it might take for you.

What needs to happen now is for us to becoming ‘alive’ in a new way via the whole experience and particularly through the body and senses. We need to experience, act upon things, as they feel to us, rather than ‘think’ about our life or our experiences in general or thinking what should and shouldn’t be or what one thought was right or not. Another way of looking at it is that we do not think about what we did and didn’t do, but begin to ‘bank’ what we did today or yesterday, meaning we own and feel our experiences and, therefore, integrate it into our whole. This could be small things, as well as big ones. It doesn’t really matter as long as they felt good in that moment or there was some learning in the experience. Take it into your body and keep it; do not go over and over it in your mind, continuing to process for days on end.

We need to focus on what is essential to us right now, not what was or wasn’t in the past (remember, it has expired, integrated).  future. This is also important and, I am sure you would have heard of this before, however, this time it is almost paramount to experience and be with yourself in a way we have not done before.

If I continue to be called, like today, to bring these updates forward, I will continue doing it.

Have a good week!

Pagan Dawn article

I set out to write Baba Yaga: Slavic Earth Goddess at the time when the collective was screaming with pain and fear and the call for making unconscious conscious was becoming ever stronger all around. My work with Baba Yaga intensified a few months prior when she was not just coming forward more but staying around for longer. That is unusual for an elusive and highly private deity. Yes, to me, she’s beyond literary and cultural archetype and a folklore figure. To me she represents the world in both its dark and light manifestations. She is the ultimate alchemist and magician of the highest rank.

Why now, I wondered after seemingly eternity waiting for her to speak? It was time she disclosed a path for collective to take, if unafraid and prepared. It was time for her to whisper, if not speak openly. Feeling overwhelmed and deeply honoured I began to listen to what she said and in that discovering who she really was beyond her collective labels.

The book was born that speaks of Baba Yaga in ways of who she really is. My journey was only just beginning when in 2020 she stayed around for longer than she, perhaps, wanted. She first appears around Samhain and remains throughout winter dwelling in dreams and shadows and post Ostara she begins to loosen her grip on the Earth and allows the Maiden to step forward. This time she stayed for longer to bare witness to events that unfolded and to offer assistance and wisdom, however, unheard of, to myself in writing the book and to the world in its state of chaotic fear.

Apprenticing into her magic is a difficult task, perhaps, one of the most difficult tasks one can undertake as once on the path turning back has serious consequences and if staying transformation is inevitable and profound. 

Baba Yaga is a world-famous character with which we are familiarised from early childhood and she stays for many of us in our consciousness for the rest of our lives. This speaks of her power and universal appeal, but why? I believe that is because her mysteries are deep and limitless. She inspires questions and sparks endless curiosity, yet she often remains as a static archetype of a scary Crone who lives in the woods and devours children. She continues to live in fairy tales that tells stories over and over in the same way they had always been told. In our consciousness she does not evolve and that is also for a reason. She’s full of darkness and darkness is a place of immense fear and avoidance for us humans. So, she remains hidden via the narrative and via our lives, as who dares look darkness in the face? Now we are faced with it in all areas of our existence. “Facing the demise of what is familiar and precious and becoming wild again is the quest of brave and raw ones. Are you one?” The thing that I discovered was just how much she resents repetition and lack of evolution and her imprisonment in the collective hive mind infuriates her. As I began my relationship with Baba Yaga, I discovered the light behind the darkness, kindness behind hatred, the well-hidden nuances of this folklore figure, her character, spirit, attributes, and magic. 

She calls for a revolution and evolution, for rediscovery of spirit like never before. She is hugely relevant today to all of us individually and the world. For the first time in very long, perhaps, she is willing to offer some wisdom, however unnatural it might seem, as she is private and does not come forward unless there is someone truly ready on the other side. Are we ready? Many of us are. She can offer perspectives on balance, climate change, beauty and aging, motherhood, belonging and connection, partnerships, and gender roles. She is the world, the Earth, nature all wrapped into one energy that is immensely powerful and important and to know her is to know the deepest, the most meaningful and profound truths about yourself, others, and the world.

OUT today – Weathering the Storm

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Free e-book download around the world and £0.99 in the UK

Proud to have contributed to this project along with other wonderful Moon Books Authors. A valuable resource, beautifully written.

Written in three parts, psychological, spiritual and practical, Weathering the Storm is an anthology offering support to those of us who are isolated or vulnerable. The book has a primary Pagan focus but will be of interested to all those interested in Mind Body Spirit matters and in alternative lifestyles and spiritualities. Covering areas from loneliness and anxiety, self-care and gardening, to cooking and crystals, Weathering the Storm is a book designed to help everyone through uneasy, unprecedented times. A complementary compendium of hope, from the writers and publishers behind Moon Books.

On writing

Photo by Rakicevic Nenad on Pexels.com

We have lived in a construct, label-based, boxed-in reality, which is based on dualities, contrasts, limited choices based on ‘either this or that’, needing and having to influence others to agree with what we believe is the truth. Let me tell you something. None of it matters, it is just a story that had been created, told and designed to enslave and control, since the creation of ‘humanity’. We all fell for it, we all were born into it whether we had a choice or not. By the age of five most of us would have lost, rejected, supressed or moved away from what we intrinsically knew was true and unique for us. The price of conditioning into a programme has been high for us all with no fail, generation after generation. This has been applied to every aspect of human life. Writing is no exception.

You would have seen, heard, read and experienced the idea of writing needing to be an act of suffering, sacrifice, deep emotional pain. People approached it from that point for a long time with many deciding to check out through ending their lives, as the belief of ‘unless you do it this way, it is no good and you are not worth anything’. You all read things like, which are still circulating everywhere today ‘the first draft is shit’, ‘unless you go through the bad stage of struggle, you will never produce anything worthwhile and good’. Nonsense! Have you ever written poetry or anything just using your intuition, or experienced something that writes itself through you effortlessly and in a state of flow. That feels easy, soft, beautiful and very true to our hearts. Forms that come out perfectly on the paper with no need to word count, time watching or anything else. It is true creative flow. The way one writes cannot be separated from the way one lives. If that is so ask yourself a question ‘How do I live my life?’ How do I value myself, my time, what gives me meaning, etc. The list of questions is endless and can be attended to consciously and continuously if things are called for change.

One thing that we must understand is this. There is absolutely nothing bad in an expression, nothing. We cannot continue labelling our writing as good or bad. It is not this or that. It just IS. Whatever is being expressed by an individual cannot simply be labelled bad. We do it to ourselves fearing that if we don’t others will. Detach from what is a label, construct that one must struggle to create something good. It is just an illusion. All that matters is an experience of writing, an experience of a creative expression and, therefore, life itself. When you create you tap into life literary, therefore it can never be bad. How can it be bad? Labels are an intrinsic part of the programme that somehow values and focuses lack, unworthiness, suffering on purpose almost and so on. Sounds like we all have a choice, the thing is we always had a choice even though we didn’t think we did and, perhaps, as children we don’t have depending on the family we came into, but as adults we certainly do have a choice and a right to change things to what feels good to us. Writing is a unique expression, just like paining, playing music, crafting or anything that requires a different type of flow to how we are told the flow should be. There are no should or musts. All you have to do is recognise that this way of writing is what prevents the flow in the first place, what stops from your own voice being heard and blocks enjoyment of the whole process. Drop it all, create an anomaly in life and in your writing and go with that with deep belief that anything is possible when expressed without having to attach to labels, external opinions or anything else that creates a friction within us when we do it. We all felt that often.