If the Sun was a god… and walking in all weather

The Sun is a solar deity in nature-based spiritual practice. It is both of the Fire and Air/sky elements. Worshiping the Sun God or following its cycles, manifestations, presentations and cycles means it is looked upon as sacred energy of the earth, which plays an active role in the life of the natural world and our own.

On my walk in the rain this morning I got thinking about the Sun, as a god, and Yule celebrations that are coming up. How do we look upon the Sun when it is not shining and in darkness? How do we think of it, speak of it? Notice the language we use around darkness and no so bright weather. There are many parallels between the decline of the Sun, it being hidden, the darkness and human psyche. The main element is that we are in denial of it whether we are aware of it or not. Rejection of the darkness is an old thing, as old as humanity, but I always wonder if it has to continue quite the way it had done. The work of psychotherapy throws a lot of light on what human shadow really is, personally and collectively, and it is my strong belief that the work of integrating your darkness can be one most valuable, if not the most vital, part of the personal journey. Until one becomes of aware, first, then accepting of his/her own dark materials, not a lot will change and projections, judgements, victimhood, blaming, pretending will carry on impeding relationships, progression, understanding and acceptance of things as they are. This is where nature is the most wise, I have always believed. It is all light and all darkness naturally.

Why do we deny rain, sleet, strong winds, floods and fires? They represent emotions within ourselves, very strong ones, the ones we had always been told to fear, reject, suppress, etc. I believe this has been the biggest wounding on earth to humans via humans. Again nature is one such source that can reconnect you back to your humility and heart. It can help reawaken and let the lost emotional parts of yourself be accepted back into the whole. We are meant to be whole, both, logic and feeling, mind and heart with the body holding it all together.

The language we use around weather is a good example of yet another rejection seemingly external, but it is very much internal. Dreary, bleak, dark, miserable – are the words we hear every day whenever the sun is not shining outside. If it is not bright and warm it is not worth ‘worshiping’, yet even the Sun needs recharging, like a battery, like any of us, in order to shine bright again in a few months’ time. We continue to judge it for not shining, leaving us in darkness, nevertheless. This, I believe, is due to lack of understanding, valuing and accepting our own inner darkness.

This phenomenon, please notice, can also happen in reverse when the Sun is scolded for shining too much, instead of too little. It is the rejection of light instead of the darkness. Emotions of ecstasy, mania and depression come to mind and depending on what your experience is with mental health you will understand what I mean. We all heard of chronic clinical depression, but no one has of chronic clinical happiness. It is more complex than that, of course, but ‘happiness’ can be a warning sign, always wanting, moving, needing, asking for the light or pretending to be that way, can bring serious consequences to psyche when not in balance. Nature is the key to bringing things together, to demonstrate to us through weather, seasons, and elemental presentations how to be with it all without judgement.

In nature-based spirituality folk welcome both the Summer Solstice and the Winter Solstice. There is an understanding of the value of both points in nature and in life. We welcome equally the point when the Sun is at its peak and we also celebrate the Sun’s return and acknowledgement of where it has been during darkness.

I saw deer playing and chasing each other in the bush as I walked passed the hedgerows with trees up on a hill. I would not have been able to witness that was it not quiet, empty and winter time. That’s a blessing to me!

Going back to those ‘negative’ adjectives the opposite for me would be when I walk in all weather is raw, fresh, renewing and completely natural. There is no life without the rain and there is no light without the darkness. It really is simple. The rainy landscape offers refreshing perspectives, new insights. I get inspired by wintery silhouettes and transparency and vulnerability of the land. At this time of year everything is exposed and paths are clear to walk to ponder over the bare branches and bones of the natural world. The clarity of mind for me during this time is like at no other time of the year. I love vulnerability and openness in nature and internally during darker winter months.

The darkness is the conservation of energy so it can shine brighter in months to come. Yet we are in denial of any validity of the darkness externally and within while wishing for the light to shine brighter. Want it here, now, in this way and that without considering how things become one way or another or where they roots from. There’s a cycle, a very wise one, the wisest. Nature is not here to please or pacify. It does what it must and what it has always done regardless of collective preconceptions, personal projections and human storytelling.

Yule is such a time and opportunity to reflect of the meaning of light and warmth and the Sun as a God, a spiritual, astrological, seasonal phenomenon that has been here since the beginning of time and every year offers lessons for reflection and potential change of views and perspective.

Yule Blessings, everyone!

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Beauty in a heartbreak

When a heart breaks magic happens. It reawakens qualities in us we forgot existed.

Ever since I was young I have been an advocate of feeling. Feeling deeply, openly, letting your pain spill out into the world like a cry from a place of the darkest shade. There’s beauty in suffering and sorrow and that is because something in us awakes when we are broken hearted, sometimes subtly, sometimes profoundly and we all know that nothing can be the same again and we are changed by it. It often goes unrecognised as we are programmed not to feel, shamed and punished for it from tender age and so it goes from one system into another. For as long as I remember I have been revolting against the oppression that is ‘no dark feelings are allowed’ and have been fighting against suffering in silence. It damages the soul to the extent of it being either abandoned or exiled.

Do you know what a gift it is to be able to feel to the deepest places which only soul can touch? Sorrow speaks of the depth of feeling one is capable of and most of the time it speaks of the power of love that is immeasurable and precious. Through the pain it shines like nothing else.

If only we let ourselves feel to the full open capacity, with honour and compassion not only healing occurs but a transformation that takes us to another level of being present in our authenticity. There is nothing more real than a broken hearted being. It’s raw, it’s tender, vulnerable and beautiful.

In my practice I work with feelings more than anything else. It is the work of carving the light out of a dark cave that is pain and trauma. It is hard, labour intensive, emotionally taxing yet when the break occurs and the heart turns to healing through allowing feelings to flow, results are stunning in its beauty. One touches the soul place once more and it speaks of all that’s been forgotten and suppressed. It offers gifts to us that we had always had within and now we can use them.

Feelings are wise. They live in our bodies and attempt to bring us back to who we are truly from the first moment before the world stamped its hard armour onto us. Through opening up to pain we recognise and accept and visit all the places within that had iron gates on them for what seems like eternity. It is that stepping off the predictable, lit and well-walked path into the dark woods where treasures lie and transformation back into the soul beckons.

Shadows at dawn

The pull of a new calendar year is strong, as if something in me can’t wait for a clean sheet of paper to start writing another story. It yarns for the taste of spring, for fresh changes. This is very much in the collective at this time of year and I do have some resistance to being caught up in the collective yearly pattern, as I know there isn’t a need to be in that place, yet here I am. Have you noticed how pictures of bluebells begin to pop up here and there around this time? People post them everywhere. It pulls us out of here and now in an instant and we begin to wonder.

Anger is often present for me during this month, which is one of those months I wait to be done with. The cycle of holidays every year and all that comes with it brings a lot of ‘don’t want to be part of it’ feelings. It is quite uncomfortable with a bitter taste that needs to digest and integrate before a new something is seen and experienced. I guess what I refer to is some shadow elements of the psyche is brewing on the surface of my unconscious and, yes, I do recognise it. It needs expression, but also containment. It is angry, expressive, violence-like, impulsive. It needs attention and love, but it doesn’t mean it is a nice picture to look at. It is often not and it can be loud especially in dreams when I know how to parcify it during waking hours.

Very similar in nature if you notice in certain places, like the one I just came from, e.g. everything was grey and not just in a way of rainy skies, but the whole atmosphere was covered with colour grey, dull and feeling like it’s not enjoying it. I describe this energetically, but visually it looks like a wet, old rag, for example, that can do with a bit of whiteness injected or a dirty water that’s stagnated. It needs renewing, refreshing.

If I was to describe it as a feeling in the body that would be stress, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, ‘bags under eyes’ type of presentation. It is a sort of wanting to rest yet being restless as monsters are moving within in the dark, under the ground.

I know the ‘beast’ very well although I haven’t seen it or heard for sometime. With me the triggers are stress and being stretched or asked to do things I don’t want to do. These have been running for years. During this time I also pick it up from others easily and that overwhelms me a great deal. December is like the remains of something, like the last residue of some unpleasant drink or wet ashes post fire.

This year has all been about doing things differently and the above patterns have also run their course. Enough is enough I’d say. There’s got to be another way of expressing shadow material so that it doesn’t just have its needs’s met and go back into a state of being parcified, but it has a chance to transform into or balance with the opposing force. Something is needed immediately as these things arise. More transforming and less keeping in awareness I’d say. I will give it a go next.

Happy 2019! Let it offer more explorations and awareness. Further success and achievements, more joy and satisfaction.

In waiting…

Feel unrooted, between places, between worlds. A sense of keen belonging is yet to land, for now I feel suspended in anticipation. Can’t say I like it.

Uncertainty, expectation, increased longing for what I don’t know yet. Feeling without a home is not a pleasant one. I have one yet out there there’s another one that sticks itself into my skin like a thorn every year. I am faced with a choice, on one hand wanting to abandon my current position but yet to attach to another. I feel ungrounded and in that space I do lose myself a little. Restlessness within is not a smooth flow but rather jagged projection on to everything and everyone. There is also an element of not being in control and that’s unsettling too. Waiting is another vibration that can present challenges. Waiting for what? Knowing I am waiting for something but what I don’t know and in that waiting I detach from one but yet to attach to that unknown and will I want to? Like losing ground from under my feet without knowing if whatever it is I am waiting for would catch up. Patience in that state becomes difficult and impatience sats in, which again manifests in rough outbursts of emotions and cold energy projection. It can be a dark place to be even amidst the sunshine, it is also lonely as difficult to convey the feeling that goes with it. I find myself wishing the sun away and wanting rain but it doesn’t feel rational or logical or even intuitively right. Confusing, searching, lost…

I recognise that every year this occurs as I prepare to leave my home in search of a home yet to be.

Summer and patience

What is patience? It is allowing. When things are being as they are we stand in observance of what is. I find it deeply healing, humbling and liberating when there is no fight against what one thinks should be because there’s a discomfort present. Where there is no resistance a space opens up for observing what is being and living in that moment. Summer is a hot season, of course, it is, that’s the nature of things and when it is hot in summer things are aligning to the vibration of what summer means. It is not cold or raining all the time, although it is sometimes, it is simply being what it is.

I have experienced a high degree of tolerance towards summer this year. It happened due to conscious effort not wanting things to be something else and me desperately wanting to change it. That never works. This can be applied to so many aspects of growth and healing when we drop resistance and allow things into being there’s a release of freedom of attachment to what we think should be in order for us to be soothed. There’s a lot to be said for being uncomfortable, however if one fights it actively it will always persist and increase in its intensity.

I stood back or rather decided to travel alongside summer this year and observe everything there’s to witness about the season rather than shutting myself off from the experience and waiting for it to be over. Such a waste. By being present with summer I noticed how present I have been with everything else and everyone around me, every day, every week, every event and moment shared with those in my life. The value of everyday presence overtook my resistance and dislike of summer. I found I didn’t want to complain or participate in the fight within, which had previously been there always. Instead I lived each day and found a lot of positive aspects in the season.

I have been patient and allowing with myself and the summer to be what we are meant to be, living, moving, flowing and grateful for experiences granted.

It is not wanting to cut off a part of the whole, which can be applied to the seasonal wheel of the year, as well as parts of ourselves. We will always have preferences for certain seasons and aspects and ways of being and that is not to say that lessons and joy can’t be found in less preferable places, in fact, those aspects that we mostly resistant to carry some of the most vital and profound teachings.

Patience is a beautiful way of being in a state of non-judgement, slow flowing with energies just as they are and allowing expression of all that is necessary. It is acceptance and a silent stance of holding a space.