Places are fast booking up on next year’s Initiation journey. Hear what the women who have travelled the wheel of this year in Initiation have to say about why you should do it..
Autumn Equinox
Wishing you all a bl
essed Autumn Equinox. May your harvests be golden, as the fire returns to the belly of the earth to nurture the seeds and roots through the winter. What treasures lie deep within our bellies to be cherished and warmed with our attention?
Deep gratitude to all who have shared their presence over the summer’s festivals, and to all those arriving for my autumn workshops.
Beautiful art by Kristen N. Fox
Thresholds – interview with Jewels (part 2)
In this longer interview with Jewels, find out more about the space offered by the Thresholds circles at EarthHeart, to those in transition in their lives, seeking a new balance in relationships with loved ones, home life and work life that is connected to the wider healing needed on our planet at this time.
Gratitude
I feel so grateful to all those who choose to join the circle, whether here at EarthHeart or, as last weekend, in London.
The altar at the Awakening the Sacred Feminine one-day workshop
Beautiful feedback to receive from one participant on a four-hour workshop ‘Awakening the Sacred Feminine’….
“Words can’t really do justice to the healing and the Love I received by attending this workshop. It is something I will hold dear for a very long time. I am truly thankful to all the courageous women I met there and Jewels for sharing her Love and wisdom. Thank you so much x” EH
Thresholds – finding the way through our troubled times
In this new video, I talk about the need to plug ourselves into the web of life, to connect with each other so we can truly feel our fear, our grief and despair as we feel the world ‘out there’ fall apart.
The groundwork we need to do, to bring about any positive change ‘out there’ is in the deeply personal journey, in allowing ourselves to both be received by others and to witness them in our turn, in sacred circle.
Join us in the circle for the next Thresholds weekend here at EarthHeart.
Lammas
Bee harvesting sweet clover nectar at Earthheart
Lammas is upon us and in native traditions across the northern hemisphere of planet Earth it is a time for harvesting.
This is the actual harvesting of the crops tended from a tender seed at Imbolc right through to their fully given self at this time. The sun and the rain have brought them to their ripeness and readiness, and if we attend to our inner world, there may be a ripe harvest waiting within at the time.
Traditionally, Lammas would have been a time to feast on abundance and be in gratitude for the fullness of life, as well as that whisper on the wind of another turning in the seasonal wheel and a consideration of the autumn and winter ahead; we need to make sure we have enough to keep us well until the return of of the growing sun next spring.
This time offers us a mirror for reflection on what we are harvesting in ourselves at this time. What have we been tending over this year that has now come to fruition? Have we remembered to give thanks for this life, this creativity, this abundance? Nature shows us the way, simply through being with what is happening in the outer seasons and letting that be a doorway to inner reflection.
It is a good time to consider the months ahead and what we can put in place that will help sustain our inner journey. In nature this has always meant pickling, drying and preserving the abundance of summer crops for the months ahead.
How can we take care of our bodies, our hearts and the health of our soul’s evolution through the changing seasons of our world and our lives?
Death and Rebirth
Rising Up
The daylight hours are long and bright, and I have been waking each morning opened by the explosion of life in the forest and all around the land here at EarthHeart. Everything seems to be reaching up to the ultimate expression of its life force.
The birds are an orchestra and even coming into the house on occasion and sitting on the birch branch curtain pole with their song!!! Any moment I am expecting Bambi to hop along and the squirrels to start doing a dance! It is so magical and every summer it’s the same, I just cannot get over how nature just gives her all with no holding back.
This past year or so I’ve been gestating a seed, taking time out for my ‘Conscious Menopause’ to nurture the glimmering of a new way to bring my work in the world, and to compost an old way of being that really no longer served me. And I could only do that composting process by having a whole year to be deeply in my own winter, letting the old break down and the new seed break open.
Hearing the call to step through this second rite of passage as a woman and become an elder, I met my own resistance as still I feel that I know nothing, and the part of me that does not want responsibility pushed against this call to step up to a new role. But sitting with this over the year I really got that being an elder is not about knowing, but about the ability to sit and BE and be WITH. . .just that.
This I can do and I now feel ready to take steps onto this new path.
I feel so bles
sed to live and work surrounded by this incredible forest and what came through as I composted my old self was the energy that this land itself brings. No longer a need to do it all myself, I learnt to let go and surrender to receiving, both on a practical and spiritual level. To allow my body to be a conduit for the life that is around, allowing its expression to speak through my body. I am learning to find the words to wrap around what is coming through and bring it to those who come.
Creating empty space through grief and honouring of what had been my old way of working allowed the bubbling-up of new growth.
I am so grateful for the creation of the EarthLodge – a place and space for deep ritual dreaming and a place in which I spend much time, with the sacred hearth of my work in the world.
The 11 gateways to optimum relationship
These 11 gateways are essential to a healthy relationship:
1. Quality time – Creating time specifically for tending the relationship. Not watching TV together or doing practical tasks but time to simply BE together without everyday life distractions. Couples often say “but life is too busy for being” . It is like tending to our garden – without watering, the flowers will die and without regular weeding, they take over.
2. Self Love – Relating from our centre and caretaking our own inner young places of hurt . This is the foundation stone for optimum relating. When we connect with our partner from a place of loving kindness towards ourselves so much more love is possible together. For many reasons we might struggle in loving ourselves or feel hurt by our partner’s actions or words, and lose touch with ourselves.
3. Good communication – A lot of couples get stuck here, one seemingly speaking Italian and the other Japanese and getting lost in translation. The ability to truly hear each other and speak with an honest open heart that is in the service of love is soul food. Both for moving through conflict as well as for being able to express needs and for meeting our partner’s needs from love and choice rather than ‘shoulds’ or ‘deals’.
4. Gratitude – Expressing gratitude with each other on a regular basis, especially if there has been a drought. Expressing the little things day-to-day that we appreciate about our partner or ourselves is food for the heart. Remembering the good stuff and why we are in relationship rather than focusing on the ‘problems’ helps keep our hearts open – even with the hurts.
5. Emotional maturity and intelligence – Conscious mature emotional expression is healthy and natural and keeps the energy open and flowing in our bodies, hearts and minds. Pent up emotions are like damming up a river. Toxic emotions destroy intimacy. Learning to express our emotions beyond blaming our partner or ourselves keeps the relationship alive and brings a vulnerable open intimacy.
6. Vulnerability – Taking the risk to express to our partner our ‘undefended self’ creates trust and a deeper field of love. Choosing to show the parts of ourselves that we believe will be judged or rejected is profoundly healing both on a personal level as well as serving to deepen the heart connection together.
7. Non-sexual loving touch – Physical affection and tender loving touch that does not have a sexual agenda creates safety and trust and can sometimes speak louder than words.
8. Sacred sexuality – Expressing Love through the body and our sexual flow of energy goes beyond sex as obligation, or using it as a stress management tool, or avoidance of deeper intimacy. Sacred sexuality is a true meeting of Love and Freedom and when this is experienced between you it can transform the whole relationship.
9. Innocence – Remembering our playfulness and innocence is vital. To delight in the wonder and miracle of life through the eyes and heart of the magical child inside of us bring a softness and creative connection to the relationship.
10. Divine remembering – the relationship is something Sacred, a sense that you are held by something more than each of you at the level of your humanity and that reminds you of your essential state of Grace. This is specially helpful to remember in times of difficulty and hurt.
11. External support – Culturally we have been taught to keep quiet about our relationship struggles and pretend to the world that all is OK. We end up feeling shame and a sense of failure if things are not perfect. We tend to try to sort the problems out alone or ignore them and hope they go away. Rarely do either of these methods work. Having support either with someone professional or good honest friends you trust is a wise and mature act of care for the relationship. This also transforms the personal as well as collective shame that we carry about feelings of failure. It helps to transform not only our own relationship but ripples out to the collective field as we discover we are not the only ones to experience these struggles. So take a leap and see if any of the options below could meet your need for support