A Light in the dark
My barefoot childhood
When I was a small child I loved being barefoot and ate with my hands when no one was looking. I spent time in nature, talking to the non-physical world and seeking solace with the animals and trees. Because of my early trauma, I found it hard to trust humans and therefore developed an ability to connect with the spirit realms, with the light beings, and with the nature all around me which guided me to navigate what I was experiencing in my family of origin growing up. I felt held and safe in this company. I developed a deep capacity to ‘see beyond the veil’ and be in the company of this wisdom and guidance. This has remained the case for the past 50+ years.
In my family of origin I was seen as weird, a rebel, the crazy one, the difficult one, the one who would not comply, the who was ‘away with the fairies’ and worst of all, I was seen as stupid, uneducated, a liar who didn’t have anything of value to bring. I witnessed the vulnerable ones around me slowly have their spirits broken by my father who was too hurt to know how to care and cherish others. At age 5 I made a sacred promise to my guides that I would not let him break my spirit or tame my soul. This has cost me in some ways, as I have largely lived on the margins of life. I have lived a very ‘alternative’ life : seeking the company of others who I felt resonance with.
In my late teens I discovered shamanism and through the experiences of plant medicine, to my delight, discovered that it was not me that was the mad one at all. It was our tamed and disconnected world that had reduced itself down to a very narrow bandwidth of existence. I felt both elation and deep sadness simultaneously as I realised there was division in our world and that MY experience of life was the one that was perpetually denied and repressed. Not only that, but it looked like it wasn’t about to change any time soon.
Being a voice for the mystery
I have spent the rest of my life speaking up for the mystery, for this half of life that few of us let ourselves experience. I have spent much of my life with the beauty and magic I have encountered that I do not know how to put into words. It exists outside of words. But it’s a love and a profound magic that is so wild and expansive that it has left me not fearing what is on the other side of death.
I don’t want to live in a world of division. I want to live in a world that allows everyone to have their experience and where no one is made wrong for it. I also passionately want people to experience some of the things I have, because I believe it would transform our world from trauma to freedom and living once again in a whole, loving and integrated way. I want us to live in balance, equality and with respect for ALL life. Most importantly, I want us to equally respect and value the guidance offered by that which exists beyond ‘industrial revolution capitalist growth thinking’.
I don’t need to make science wrong or anyone who has never experienced these things. But I do believe with a passion that our world is broken BECAUSE the developed world has lost touch with spirit. We are only living as half of who we are and the resulting division exists within us as a schism in our psyches.
I have dedicated my life to being the voice of the mystery; holding the flame of coming back to wholeness and I am not about to stop now. Call me a conspiracist if you want to, call me a witch, call me mad, call me anything you want. It does not take away my experience or make it less valid. I know what I know and I see what I see. This seeing does not live in the realms we have all been raised in. We fear what has been put in the shadows and my life has been devoted to bringing this all out and into the light.
I am not willing to dilute myself so as not to offend anyone. I have seen what is happening now on Earth coming my entire life, I saw it in visions in my teens. It’s not hard to see if we are willing to step beyond the division and use the eyes of eagle to look at the sickness we are in. It’s a sickness that comes from a disconnection to the mystery.
We are at a Threshold, a spiritual crisis, and spirit is calling us home: calling us to turn around and look. It’s not going to be easy and it’s going to bring fear to the front and into the light. But we have a choice right now and it goes beyond arguing about whether certain medications are right or wrong and it goes beyond scientific data. These are important of course, but they are merely symptoms of a much deeper brokenness that we are facing. We are trying to fix the brokenness with the same tool that broke us in the first place. It can never work.
Love is the ONLY thing that will take us through, a willingness to see what we have done and open our hearts to feel it.
I have a knowing that rests within the wisdom of the web of life, both the visible and invisible life. It comes from what the flowers and herbs show me, it comes from the animals and the trees, from the water, from the air, from the beings that are liminal to the eye. I know we are out of balance and I don’t need to see any more scientific studies to know that. I know we are a traumatised species and I know that unless we wake up out of this disconnect and out of this mass hypnosis we will not be here for much longer and nor will much of the life on this planet.
The time is now, it is not next week, it is NOW. This time of winter solstice is a potent gateway if we are willing to sit in the darkness with the firelight to guide us. I will walk with you through this passage, I will walk with anyone who is up for walking through this passage, in the grief and in the love, hand in hand. And I know I need you too, I do not want to walk alone. I may lose some of those I love and I may lose friends, I can bear that in devotion to the bigger picture of transformation, we will all come together again in the end anyway.
First step is to allow the letting go of the old ways, to honour our grief. I am dedicating the whole of 2022 to honouring grief by offering held spaces for this. These spaces will also hold the space for laying new stones for a new path of love. Grief and love are like 2 wings of the bird, we need both to fly.
The human guidance we have been following in our world over the past few hundred years has brought us to where we are now and if this does not put a huge flashing neon light of ‘failure’ on them, I despair at what we need to see in order to get it.
What is happening in our world now has been shown to us for millennia – “It was even in the bible”, say the Christians. “It is in the stars” say the astrologers, it is in the the prophesies of the mayans and many others. Indigenous people from around the globe have been telling us this for the longest time, yet we refused to hear it and thought we knew better. Even scientists and philosophers throughout time have told us this and still we have covered our ears and closed our eyes.
I say it is time to listen to these ways, to let go of this arrogant superiority and accept that we have failed. It is no one person’s fault, it is not about blame. But to see where we are and to say we have not failed I believe is the real madness in our world.
I am spending most of my time in the darkness of the EarthLodge at the moment and will be there through the passage of 2021-2022.
On December 31st, I will open up the lodge, live through the internet, so we can prepare to step through together. If you want to join me my arms are open and is the fire and the company of the ancestors.
Information and booking is here
The image above is from our local sacred spring which is a scrying spring. Have been asking water to guide me at this time of the full moon.