Nothing happens by chance and yet somehow, I still find myself thinking ‘if only I had done…..’. But then I’m reminded of the card that fell out of a drawer for no reason the other day, when doing an early spring clean, which said as if divinely offered, ’what if nothing is wrong’. What if I could truly believe that everything was just perfect even all the shocks and nightmares that have taken place in my life, especially these last fifteen years or so? What if to reach the diamond that we all are, it is necessary to smash and drill to get beyond the crusts and debris that is blocking the brilliance of who we really are? Sometimes gentle, kind routes do not wake us up, sometimes we do need a lorry to hit us head on, as agonising as this can feel at the time. Becoming a spiritual warrior is a courageous and treacherous path and it’s easy to fall back into feeling victimised or punished. After all this is how our culture is set up, it’s our default as well. But what if it was brutal grace? What if the universe really did have our back? Do we stop enough to consider this, do we look deeply at the end of the year to honour the alchemy and divine blessings that have really taken place? And do we recognise that whilst the ego is looking for comfort, the soul is looking to evolve and grow, that we need to look at what has happened with ‘real eyes’, to call it instead soul esteem?
I’m going to share just one small story to do with one my own dogs and it’s because my daughter is currently being challenged with behavioural problems with a dog she rescued a dog from Portugal recently. She is currently very stressed trying to navigate how to go to work and leave him, since he is completely attached to her and totally traumatised, ripping up things and howling when she isn’t in close vicinity. It’s because we have been talking these last days about how nothing happens by chance and it’s dropped me to think about the beautiful young dog I had to give back to the breeders, as a result of his aggression and the dog fights that kept on traumatising me over and over. I’ve learnt so much from all the dogs I’ve had in my life who have been my greatest teachers and dearest companions, I could write a book but this is just about dear little Joffie, who I named after Jophiel the archangel (he is the black puppy in the photo). This is what he taught me in the short time we were together. I learnt from experience and from dog trainers, that all dogs are wild animals and mostly we humans live in illusion around this, not recognising that they can turn in an instant for a variety of reasons. In my case, my little dog was attacked by a rescue dog and from that moment he became a killer and his mother joined in, since I also learnt that dogs act in tribes. Two is a tribe. I learnt that people lie and withhold to serve their agenda even if they know it's wrong. I kept learning this. I had been adapted and brainwashed to mistrust myself and defer to outside authority and I lived my life with blind faith without any discernment. In this case, the breeders lied to cover up that Glenn of Imaal Terriers were bred as fighting dogs and the boys in particular should not be left of the lead, since they will attack any small mammals. My dogs tried to attack badgers, small wild boar, squirrels and dogs yet they denied the rumours I heard early on from people who decided not to buy my male puppies and then subsequently denied any responsibility, when I experienced the trauma of repeated dog fights mostly started by my own dogs (mother and son). I learnt that I was not the only ‘ignorant’ owner who lived in illusion about this and who didn’t have strong, healthy boundaries. I walked around the cliff one day in Devon and watched a similar story to my own, where suddenly a small terrier took it upon himself to chase about 30 sheep towards the cliff edge. It was a horrifying sight happening in a flash, where the owners had absolutely no control as their dog was in automatic and instinctual mode. Luckily the sheep didn’t go over but it was not as a result of anything the owners did to get him back and afterwards I heard them talking about how strange it was since their dog had never done anything like this before. I realised I wasn’t alone, mostly we bring up babies and dogs without any understanding of how to do it, we learn on the job and then project our own dysfunctional behaviours onto them, children and animals alike. I was not alone in this even if I felt intolerable guilt. I learnt that even though I had given so much to one particular friend, spending hours of my time in supporting her through a divorce, giving her skills to get through that I wish I had known, that when it came to me asking for some help on the day I gave Joffie away, since she lived en route to the breeder, she was not prepared to defer seeing her boyfriend for one night. I learnt there and then, how I was over-giving and that I desperately needed to receive at times, to choose wisely what friends I had in my life and even more importantly, to look at the reasons for my over-giving. I learnt that muzzles can come off especially in a dog fight and that a collar is essential. Here in Italy too many dog owners leave their dogs out in the countryside and in Dolceacqua with New Age owners, loose without a collar and like I was, they act entitled, absolutely sure that their dogs will do no harm. When Joffie was in a fight with a bulldog who suddenly appeared and his muzzle came off, there was no way to restrain him without a collar such that the owner of the bulldog got badly bitten, trying to separate the dogs as I couldn’t let go of my other terrier who would have joined in the fight. I have finally learnt that I didn’t fail and that I wasn’t bad and un-redeemable. As a perfectionist, I suffered horrendous guilt and shame but in truth I now see that I did my absolute best. I paid for dog trainers, I tried to manage by taking only one dog at a time for a walk, by thinking positively but in truth the fear got the better of me. Dog fights or vicious fights with badgers literally traumatised me each time. I didn’t have a nervous system that could manage it, for reasons that I simply didn’t know back then. I didn’t know that I wasn’t in my body, that I had a dis-regulated nervous system with no buffers to serious stress and shock. I learnt that other people can do what I cannot do, that I truly don’t have to be superwoman every time. I learnt that sometimes I have to surrender and let go, I cannot get it right with everyone and everything. This situation was beyond me. I have finally seen that the level of my anguish in losing Joffie, was not just because he was a beloved dog that I watched being birthed into this world and that we chose to keep. It was because I lost my son at age 12 who went to live with his father post our separation and never got to finish taking care of him through to his university years. That still guts me when I write the words, tears welling up and spilling over like the floods we had some years ago that wiped out my dry stone walls. I also learnt that Joffie triggered an even deeper core wound, of not getting to be born with my beloved twin Graham who died in utero, feeling split in two and with a deep ache in my heart, always missing my other half. I learnt that I don’t do well with loss because of severe abandonment issues, that come not just from the mother wound in this life but passed down through inter-generational trauma as well. Joffie was just a catalyst, something to show me all these things such that I've learnt to be kinder and more self compassionate. I learnt as a result of the serious dog fight in my village where one man had to go to hospital with stitches and I was badly bruised and cut, that I didn’t recognise when I was in trauma because of a life long pattern with disassociation. I learnt how I would self abandon and in this case have sex with my partner only one night later, when I was out of my body and deeply traumatised and needing just holding and tender loving care. He had offered me this but I learnt something even more horrifying about one of my engrained patterns. I learnt that the Aphrodite character, this self in me who was born very early on in my life, would come out and offer sex in all situations regardless, since her job was to get love by offering sexual favours. I didn’t know that I had rights to being cared for without sex, I was so habituated to prostituting myself in this way for reasons of my own abuse but also as women, culturally we have to challenge this constantly in ourselves. I learned that having sex when I was traumatised and not embodied, looking down on this much older man, shot me straight back to the original abuse and sent me into a repeat re-enactment which was absolutely horrific. I learnt after a month of intense therapy to get me through this period, just how I had self abandoned and betrayed myself all my life and in particular with regard to having any needs. I learnt a little more how love and abuse were twisted and intertwined. Who knows what would have happened if little Joffie hadn’t been in my life. It was a shattering period with so much drama and ironically I so nearly chose his sister. But Joffie is who I chose, who we all chose. Undoubtedly the universe would have brought me other incidents to help me wake up out of my anaesthetisation but as I look at it today with the benefit of hindsight, I realise how beauty and the beast go together. Joffie was adorable and he was a killer, this was passed to him in psychic dna, something we humans should be ashamed of. The light cannot exist without the dark and I for one have learnt the most by being forced kicking and screaming into the dark night’s of the soul, feeling out of control and powerless, only to find the treasures that exist in this place of en-darkenment. I have learnt that everything is energy, here to help us return to love . It’s time that I stop giving my power to the victim patterns and take radical responsibility to honour all the brutal grace that I’ve experienced in my life. And in the words of Robert Ohotto recently, to shift from the Shadow Victim and move to the Mystic Victim, to see that the alchemy that takes place, is not about the lead or the gold in itself, not about seeking this black or white solution, this pathology to fix everything, but about how in facing the truth and looking at reality head on, we are forged and changed in ways we could never have envisioned. We become resilient survivors for all we have endured and we see how adverse situations really have served us well. We come home to the heart and shared humanity with acceptance of it all. Bless you dear little Joffie.
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PART ONE : The spiritual path is not about consolation but annihilation. It’s like giving up sugar………… Here in Italy that’s like giving up all breakfast options which are mostly about sweet cappuccinos sprinkled with chocolate powder and cream filled croissants because except for the occasional and pathetic attempt at a fruit bowl or a sugar laced milk yoghurt, in most hotels and bars, there’s simply nothing else on offer. The locals addicted to this way of eating, look at me horrified that I will be going without, having no idea that their choice of food to start the day is not life giving or remotely nourishing. On the contrary, it is they who are starving despite the layers of fat that any good pasta making wife will put on, as soon as she has found her man and settled down with children. I swear that no Italian can exist without a pizza and coffee. Truly. At my own home it’s not a problem to start the day with a healthy juice smoothie but travelling in Italy by train is really difficult, as there are no ‘Whole Foods’ supermarkets around the corner or at the stations where you can buy something healthy and nutritious and that does not contain gluten. For too long here in Italy, I’ve felt like a victim being so different to others but nowadays, finally, I’m stopping the endless judgement at myself or others for the choice I or they are making. Giving up sugar can take years in a culture where we have been indoctrinated and in bodies that have become habituated and adapted for years, such that withdrawal is like going ‘cold turkey’. There are many bypasses and distractions en route, as I found out when I substituted organic versions, only to find with horror, that many of these options like yoghurts, actually contained more sugar than the non organic ones. I soon recognised that this was all part of my own ability to swap addictive behaviours, to play lip service to it all, so it seemed different, when in reality I was still hooked and caught up in the same perilous denials. Suffering is a pathway to truth, not encouraged by our patriarchal culture that pathologises anything that appears to be a problem, desperate to fix and get to some perfect ending. Thomas Keating who recently passed away, says that ‘powerlessness is our greatest treasure’, even though everything in us wants to get rid of it. Our wounds ironically are our gift because this is where wisdom, grace, humility and compassion arise, as well as our sense of shared humanity. Eventually, we will all be led kicking and screaming to a place where we finally say ‘enough is enough’ to our own inner demons and the games we continue to play, whether this is in death when SHE will have HER way or whether we choose consciously to die before, in order to open into the potential transformation that happens when we give up control and everything is taken away. Sugar is alluring, the body is addicted to the immediate fix and sensation of safety and comfort offered. We feel back in control. Our stomachs are less empty. We are temporarily satiated. And, in my case when I used to be somehow drawn uncontrollably into drinking hot chocolates or chai lattes, when I was in deep despair, despite knowing it would be harmful , this addiction actually went right back to early childhood days with night time drinks like Horlicks, which all too often were offered as a substitute for genuine and crucially important emotional support. It’s only in my mature years, that I saw how often I would choose counterfeit spirituality and some quick fix option, rather than honouring what I really was feeling and needing at a deeper level. It’s only now that I see I wasn’t sufficiently embodied or resourced at an inner and outer level to manage what needed to be healed and forgiven. I wasn’t capable of making healthy choices, I’d negated myself for a lifetime. I didn’t know I had any needs , they were so suppressed and unknown. It’s only since I have regulated my nervous system after years of living hyper alert and outside it as a way to cope with complex trauma and shock, that I’ve been able to literally wean myself off many of my addictive behaviours. We have to be gentle with ourselves. Addiction is not a conscious choice as Dr Gabor Mate is so wonderfully teaching the world and, in the words of Dr Sumrok, and now my own, addiction should be renamed as ‘ritualised compulsive, comfort seeking’. When I crashed sick in Amma’s ashram over eleven years ago, after drinking too many hot chai drinks laced with sugar and condensed milk, I had to admit, that once again I was temporarily soothed with my desperate need for comfort and totally unaware of the reality of the diabetic crisis in India that was and is destroying families everywhere. It’s only in the last five years, that I have realised, every one of these supposedly nourishing drinks has at least six teaspoons of sugar in just one mug, to say nothing of the additives that are added to the caramel, chai lattes on offer as our treat to start the day. But as my shaman says, death is easy, living is hard. The living need to have their eyes open, not closed. It’s true, we are killing ourselves with kindness, when we seek to indulge as a way to cope with our daily misery and unresolved pain. The relief is short lived and with huge consequences that should not surprise us but invariably with our denials strongly in place, still does. How did this happen we ask, instead of seeing that the betrayal that is most painful to face, is what we do to ourselves, over and over. It requires enormous courage to face reality that most of society prefers to shove underground, the sugar sweet lies and deception, that prevent us from facing the hard truth that whilst painful, is the only key to liberation and freedom from slavery. We cannot keep running from ourselves, from the truth, there is no ‘away’, no place to hide, no place where we can put the plastic that doesn’t have consequences to the whole. I have reached that place of enough, of trying to do it on my own, in control, refusing to surrender, playing god. I’ve chosen counterfeit options because as a chronic co-dependent, I believed in everyone else, instead of trusting my own inner authority and sovereignty. I didn’t know this was the divine path ‘home’, that the light of who we are, is the I AM or IO SONO. I thought it lay outside of myself, that I was beyond redemption and unworthy without the validation externally. I thought the outside knew the answers, and like so many women, that I deserved to be punished. I’ve paid with my life force and chosen to betray myself rather than speak the truth, to collude with everyone and be part of the patriarchal problem we now find ourselves with globally. I didn’t know that this path of self denial is what allows in the dark, that when we are truly being our authentic selves, that this is when we are in connection with the light of the divine within us. Or in the words of Caroline Myss, I didn’t realise that speaking the truth and being congruent is the greatest thing we can do for ourselves and the planet right now. It’s only now that I can admit that I have had an addiction to sugar all my life without taking it seriously. I also have a very serious infection with chronic Lyme where eating sugar feeds the stealth bacteria, viruses and parasites such I’m giving them ammunition to continue to ‘take me over’ and which simultaneously weakens my immune system. That is the reality and it’s the metaphor that I’m clearly up against. So what do I choose? Do I pretend I’m not really eating too much chocolate, play the same cover up that was a pattern to not look in my family or do I face what I’m doing, look at it straight in the face and hold my craving addict in check so she doesn’t rule the show? This is the teaching of Robert Ohotto right now, as he asks us all to face our shadow victim archetypes like the co-dependent, the addict, the perfectionist and many others in order to move into more mystical and alchemic ways of living. Mostly I manage these days, my diet is very clean, still there are some gaps. Dark chocolate is one of them. Sometimes red wine as with chocolate together this creates acidity which feeds the pathogens. Still I’m human and sometimes I fail. But…..finally I’m not prepared to self abandon and close my eyes, the price has been too high. I am choosing to be myself with whatever it takes, to honour my light, to express what I’m feeling and whatever is needed to heal my body. Or as Mary Oliver says in her beautiful poem, when everything has failed, I am choosing to ‘save the only life really worth saving;’. This is not self indulgence or selfishness, this is the self love and transformation that is changing my life completely and necessary at a planetary level. This no as a complete sentence without need for justification, something we as women need to do more and more. Self betrayal is certain soul death. PART 2 : Lindt dark chocolate and the Black Goddess Today, in the Lindt shop in Venice station as I was waiting for a train change, I was reading the huge array of buckets with different options, the majority showing the first ingredient as ‘zucchero’ which means sugar, with only two showing the main ingredient as cacao. The one I chose was 70% cacao and fondant filled, with beautiful black and gold packaging that reminded me immediately of the Black Goddess, a beautiful statue of HER in Switzerland. An old addictive and craving self, wanted to indulge in all the colours and flavours, loading up my bag like a junkie, memories of days in trinket shops or New Age healing markets, over buying just for the sake of it……but I knew to override this life long, self indulgent urge that is more about sabotage and bypass than healing and evolving. That part tries to grab my attention but no longer has me in its grip as before. I’ve been to hell enough and am done with this brutal self abandonment, treating my body like an object, as a dumping machine and garbage can. So with new awareness and years of re-wiring, I chose the 70% chocolate balls. I actually hate milk chocolate now, even though as a child I was addicted to it, after weaning myself off for years, it’s now way too sweet for my system. I consciously chose the Black Goddess, accepting the refinement that only She offers as SHE clears us out of everything that does not serve. One chocolate ball is enough and I’m in heaven, no further fix is needed. Sugar is counterfeit spirituality and we need to recognise our addictions as we have been hooked for years. We are all starving for the sacred, for nature and HER laws, cut off from our real source of love and power, distracted by the quick fix of multiple distractions that keep us from our true nature. Actually there was a huge sense of relief, I was able to quickly read the other buckets just out of interest but not be drawn in, in the same way that I buy nothing anymore in pharmacy shops because I make my own healing balms and perfumes, preferring for years not to buy toxic toiletries. Life is actually much easier, there is less overwhelm if I stop resisting that I’m not part of the mainstream shopping mall, this aching to belong even though it’s clearly pathological. If I am conscious enough to give myself the healthy mother love that I never received, I don’t need to buy into all the other smokescreens and merry-go-rounds. I can buy one or two bio bottles of wine that I know and love, without having to search through hundreds of non bio ones. It’s quick and easy. I can let it be. My nervous system is less stressed because I don’t have to manage so many options and life is simpler with these clear guidelines and the strong containment that I have always longed for. So with this clarity, I focussed on the only two buckets with high cocoa ingredients and much lower sugar, reducing the over stimulation of having to make a choice from such an immense and diverse range of chocolates in at least thirty differently coloured buckets. As I write this piece I’m remembering the path I chose to step outside of the norm, to be one of a few who enters the bars in Italy, where there is nothing I can eat, as it all consists of gluten ,dairy and sugar or intensively farmed meats which are mostly pork and salami based. There is nothing to drink except stimulants and no alternative milks like rice, almond and oat, except occasionally soya. Only water. I feel like an alien from another planet and yet if I don’t judge myself or the Italians enjoying their choices, everything is fine, there is no resistance, no fight, no war. It’s finally over. I am me and they are who they are. I can stand on the edge and still be included in the overall ‘family’, order a teapot of hot water, put in my own Pukka tea bag called ‘love’ and eat my one 70% dark chocolate ball which is unbelievably delicious. It’s like refined wine, a small amount does the trick. For years I’ve had no need to eat a whole bag of milk chocolate which is intoxicating and addictive, and would leave me remorseful and sick, having sabotaged and self harmed which was an old pattern. However, I can still over indulge in dark chocolate choosing not to notice how many times I’ve gone to the cupboard to break off another piece, like a smoker lighting up for his regular fix. With my condition, a daily half bar of dark chocolate might not seem a lot for most people but it creates acidity and is self harming. Likewise if I drink more than a glass of wine, my liver cannot tolerate it. This is my reality because of years with chronic illness and pretending I’m able to consume what I could before having Lyme’s is ridiculous and still self sabotage if I dare to admit it. Discernment is everything, it’s how we learn as a result of past mistakes and failures. I have felt alone and lost being the only one not eating or drinking the same as others here in Italy and yet, and this is the key, it is this very path that has set me to stand alone, to separate out and to liberate myself from everything that does not serve. SHE asks a lot from us but there is no comparison, the refinement and beauty that is offered by walking HER path, this sacred feminine way, cannot be described in words. One mouthful is enough. I am fully satiated. And I do belong, nothing can ever separate me, it’s only what I have done to myself all my life as an outmoded way to survive. This is the spiritual path, it is one of letting go, of annihilation to all the comforts we have been so habituated to. It is not for the faint-hearted. There is sacrifice, we do have to give up control. And it’s not linear with some ending where we are sorted and fixed. I have found myself fighting and resisting my true path, saying no to HER all too often because it felt too much. SHE seemed to want my life blood and it’s only now that I’m seeing why, the depth of compassion she has for me as I’m trampled mercilessly, like the grapes in Rumi’s famous poem, to be made into refined wine. The path with the Dark Goddess, with Kali, is a powerful, intensely difficult and sometimes treacherous one. Everything is taken away, we are turned to the goo of a caterpillar. Even if I chant HER mantras, I cannot say I have chosen to give up everything willingly because I’m a control freak and it fucking hurts. I will hold on as long as I can because of my abandonment issues but brutal grace as HER, has come anyway, just as death will come for us all in the end. The butterfly needs to struggle as otherwise it will die, this is fundamental and fostering dependency as my mother did, only weakened me, such that I was always at the mercy of outside forces with no self reference and no way to trust myself. We were all caught in a healthy co-dependent trap, fused and merged without any separation. I could not ‘stand my ground’, my legs literally gave way as I was bedridden for years. Deep underneath all my polished and apparently powerful masks, was a terrified wretch who was utterly powerless and alone. This is where my healing has been these last years, this is the inner work we all need to do. Chronic and debilitating illness with a huge dose of trauma has been my alchemic initiation, but it is also a testimony to my ability to endure suffering and come out of the underworld transformed and hugely resilient. I didn’t ask for it consciously but that’s a good thing in truth. As Thomas Keating who recently passed away said “The spiritual journey is a commitment to allow everything you possess to be taken away before the dying process begins. This makes you of enormous value to yourself and to others because you have anticipated death and death is not the end but the beginning of the fullness of transformation.” Letting go also includes clearing out our addiction to refined sugar in all the ways that it’s hidden as well. Eating this one dark chocolate with a soft enticing centre, SHE reminds me to intensify my vow once again, to not default to the easy option. It is enough and I am enough, there is nowhere I need to get to and nothing more I need. I am grateful for the discernment that has been the learning gift and benefit from failing so many times and for the profound blessing and refinement that has been possible when, so often my soul chose to have me walk the ‘road less travelled’, daring to face reality, forcing me to take off my blinkers. Stripped bare of layers finally I’m seeing the purity of holy brokenness thanks to Vera Chamertin’s teachings, of being with the Dark Mother and surrendering a little more to the en-darkenment. I’m finally acknowledging the gift that is in my wounds, how it has brought me to my knees away from my arrogance, to give up the psychological war of self hatred and self alienation. And particularly now, daring to feel everything that arises as I find myself defrosting after fourteen years of divorce and letting the floodgates open, so that as grief finally flows, my life force returns. Grief as one of the last stages in the death process as Elizabeth Kubler Ross teaches us and closely followed by acceptance and…….. dare I admit it, some sense that I have my life back at last. How under all this apparent separation, running to avoid myself and my shadow, the Great Mother, SHE holds me if I only dare to soften and receive. SHE as me, holds it all in love and wholeness. SHE has always had my back. Suffering is brought back from exile. This is the real homecoming and the radiance we are all seeking that Mirabai speaks of in the poem below. "Mother of God similar to fire, ignite my heart in prayer. Where once I stood on familiar ground selecting my spiritual experiences like choice morsels from a well-tended larder, now my garden has gone up in flames and I thirst only for the living God. Let me find him, Mother, As you do Deep inside my own ripened being. Let me swallow the sacred and burn with that Presence, illuminating a way home to the Truth. Lit from within let my blazing heart become a sanctuary for the weary traveler until this long night lifts and dawn unfolds her new radiance." ~ Mirabai Starr Once upon a time, a beautiful little baby girl called Hilary was born to a King and Queen who were not happily married and who lived in a cold and unforgiving land. The King and Queen managed to deceive everyone in the kingdom that they were generous and kind people, but in truth behind closed doors, back in the private rooms of the castle , they turned quickly into the evil trolls they really were behind their ‘charming’ masks. These demons were so desperate for the beauty and love that shone out from this little girl with her gold spun locks, that they wanted it for themselves, even giving her the nickname of ‘Golden Girl’. They absolutely adored her but as a jewel and object, not for herself.
The King and Queen wanted to show this little girl off across the kingdom, they made her feel ‘special and different’, telling her she was like no other princess and expecting great things of her. Each were so starved of love and unhappy, that they decided exactly what their little princess could do and give them. The princess wanted nothing more than to make them both happy and since they were delighted when she excelled at things, she made sure she was always perfect in order to be loved. The trolls were happy to use the little girl’s innocence and the bright light of her faith, so they could feel good at all times, showing her off to whomever they could. This was the violation and deep wounding that would take the princess years to recover from, this inner vacuum and soul loss which depleted her energy but which she was blinded to until much later in life. For now, with all the acclaim and approval from her overly attentive parents and the people in the kingdom who also adored her, Hilary was happy with her role as the shining ‘star’. The princess truly had no idea how conditional this love was, as she never put a foot wrong, had no idea of the soul loss or how she was being weakened and programmed by her very own parents. She was constantly told of how much privilege she had and how grateful she needed to be for all the gifts she was being given by her parents. She didn’t understand therefore why she felt so starved, dependent, anxious and deeply insecure and it was years before she realised it was because she was forbidden to express herself or anything that was not matching how the King and Queen were feeling. She had fallen foul to their empty promises of stardom and did not recognise that their devotion and control was entirely self serving and evil. Demons are clever, they are masters at deceit, this is their talent and speciality. They are so starving and empty that they will stop at nothing in order to get the vampiric nourishment they need from others. Many innocent and over trusting souls are blinded and contaminated by their dazzling promises of being in the inner circle, this allure of being ‘special and different’, this sense of mattering that snares the needy and lonely. The princess was no different, she longed for love and to belong but she did not realise the price she was paying, the grooming was so subtle and all pervasive. She also had no idea, that this happened all over the kingdom where vile acts of all kinds were being used by other trolls and demons, by Kings and Queens who ruled with slavery, to deceive, consciously weaken and use others who were less fortunate, so they became slaves with their soul light diminished. It has always been thus in most kingdoms until now, the demons projecting their wicked shame and despair on other more vulnerable and genuine victims, so that in this heavy programming, they end up acting as scapegoats without even realising it’s happening. The Royal Birth The little princess Hilary knew intuitively she was in danger from the very beginning, as she was presented with a shocking image of her mother, towering above her, as a huge green preying mantis, clamped down and sucking the juices out of her solar plexus. No words had been spoken but energetically she already knew she was in real danger as she took her first breath. Everything was always so unpredictable, the rules would change and there were constant mixed messages that were so confusing. This particular mother was not warm and loving but suffocating and demanding with a devouring agenda of her own. The princess’s heart ached for her missing twin brother Graham who hadn’t made it through to the earth plane and who died, disappearing in her arms, when only a few months old. Only she knew the real evil of how this happened and still she was in shock from this nightmare experience and heart-wrenching loss. She could feel his warm presence enveloped in his embrace and yearned for that closeness and togetherness. She felt like a half of her was missing and yet no one else seemed to know about this. She needed holding to help calm her tremors and terrors but there was nothing, only this horrific awareness of how she was already being pulled into a world that seemed terrifying beyond imagination. The princess felt more exposed than ever in this strange and harsh kingdom without her twin and with these people who were master shape-shifters, one minute adoring her and the next changing on a dime into unkind monsters for no reason. No-one came into the private chambers of the castle. There was no-where to run, nobody to help. She was enslaved and alone so as a necessary survival strategy, she resolved very early on to be absolutely perfect in every way focussing always on pleasing the ‘other’. Her living older brother demonstrated the opposite and she was terrified by the fight that always took place. The Queen could not tolerate anyone questioning her dominance and her son’s refusal to cooperate as well as his tantrums made her want to torture him until he broke. The punishment was severe. Hilary used to hear her brother screaming at the other end of the private quarters, smashing his favourite toys in rage and desperation and she vowed not to have such anger but to be sweet and pleasing at all times, even if this meant that her living brother secretly hated her for being the favoured child. The princess had exceptionally strong powers of intuition and ‘knowing’, and in the early days would often speak out with such innocence, only to find herself in terrible trouble for doing so. Whilst this was deeply confusing, eventually, it was clear she was at great risk to show any of these qualities that were second nature to her. She would have to shut down for survival, submitting to whatever was required and never ever exposing the shame that these troll parents were intent on hiding. Little Hilary knew that to survive and not be eaten alive by these nasty trolls, she would have to pretend to be perfect and charming, never making a mistake, adapting and adoring them at all times, shining especially in public, so that these rulers would not be exposed for the dishonest, unkind monsters they really were. There was no-one to tell, everyone was fooled by the King and Queen. It was like the whole kingdom was under some kind of wicked spell and the people only saw the polished faces of their rulers, but not the real monster trolls behind their impressive masks. As a tiny infant, the princess had felt hopeless and so alone. She did not relate to her living brother and everyone seemed so harsh and cold. However, she learnt one important survival skill that was to be her saving grace for many years to come. She was able to quickly change awful situations by doing the opposite of her brother and shining her light so brightly, that everyone around her was captivated and won over by her charm and sweetness. At night times however, as a tiny baby, it was different and she was particularly vulnerable, especially when the Queen was out of the castle. Then Hilary was very scared when she went to sleep at night because this was a time of great danger, of evil doings that no-one ever talked about. This was when her father troll came to her but as a baby she had no way to tell of what happened, nor did she understand the molestation except that she felt so wretched and in total panic. She wanted to scream but was gagged and totally helpless, her nervous system blown by what occurred. No-one recognised her suffering, such that after repeated boundary violations and feeling so starved and instinct injured, the light within her dimmed, even though she continued to perform on the surface everything that was required of her. With this split off, it was like she was watching herself from above and looking down from another planet altogether. She was fed by approval and this was her constant goal as she sought to improve constantly in order to please. Perfectionism was her saviour at this time, it was a necessary, life saving strategy even if it stunted all access to her creativity and free spirit. During the day, her mother the Queen seemed so adoring of the princess because she was undertaking her royal roles with such skill and collecting so many trophies as a brilliant sportswoman in the kingdom, often out-performing even the men. However, the princess felt empty and lost despite her apparent stardom, secretly so insecure and anxious, hyper-vigilant like she was always at risk for her life. She never had space to do ordinary things, to find her own rhythm by playing in the garden with other children or quietly painting and drawing. Every minute was utilised in doing something productive such that eventually she only knew how to live in the fast lane rarely resting or taking time out. Also, and this is even more significant, her mother, the Queen was an overweight and plain woman who was deeply jealous of Hilary’s beauty and charisma, (despite pretending otherwise), as well as the way that her father would adoringly look at her. The Queen felt suspicious and angry of how they were both bonded, how the princess was ‘daddy’s special little girl’ where she felt left out and unloved. Although she was not conscious about all these strange dynamics, Hilary knew she had to be hyper alert, she was blinded and caught in a dangerous triangle, a threatening double bind with all its mixed messages and festering secrets. The only thing the princess knew for sure, was that if she wasn’t to be eaten alive by her devouring mother in particular, she would have to be good. Very good. In fact perfect. Faultless. Her father seemed safer and it wasn’t until much later in life that the princess realised just what had really happened in his ‘groomed take over’. She learnt how to survive the best way she knew by adapting to whatever the ‘other’ required. Love and abuse were intertwined but she was not conscious of this, it was more like a second skin that programmed her way of being. She learnt to be hyper vigilant to anticipate danger and keep safe, mastering her skills as a superwoman, in order to please everyone and sadly, even fooling herself at the same time. Only occasionally did she escape from the intense business at the castle to be on her own, as the Queen rarely allowed her a moment to her own devices, she was constantly demanding and controlling every moment of the day. But on these trips out, suddenly the princess would ‘re-member’ another way of being, delightedly talking to the fairies and animals and yet with the weight of royal duties, even these trips were soon impossible. As some kind of compensation, the trolls did buy the princess, a little black and white puppy whom she adored with such a passion and named Dusty, but one horrific day, after a year of such happiness playing with her for hours on end, she went looking for her beloved pet , only to find that she was gone and all trace that she had ever existed. The trolls wouldn’t explain why or discuss the matter. They had simply exterminated this dog who was too much of a problem and who apparently had behaved badly by growling and attempting to bite her brother late one evening. The little princess was utterly broken hearted and from this moment closed her heart and shut down. She was now just a walking shell, blocking all emotions as a way to survive, anaesthetised and deeply scarred. She had no self reference, no way to self soothe. Her little puppy was the only thing in her life she had ever loved after her missing twin brother. It was more than she could bear so she left her body and checked out. Years and years went by. In the meantime, the princess became more and more accomplished, learning many different skills but the consequences were that she always had to look outside of herself for assurance, comfort and love as she could find no sustenance whatsoever from within. She had no concept that her body was a tuning fork as after years of programming without access to her primal instincts, her hyper vigilance meant she was much more tuned into others to determine how to keep herself safe. She was numb with no real identity but being so busy, on over-drive she had no time to notice anything. It would be years before she would recognise how her boundaries had been crossed and how these wounds would surface, because her facade was so well polished and well intact. She had even forgotten there were animals and fairies in the woods, blocked out that she had adored dogs in particular. Slaves and superstars are not so different and there is a driven nature that always that goes with both roles. Hilary became more and more confined to the duties of the castle, to the demands and objectification of the trolls and after years of smiling, performing and being absolutely perfect in every moment, she forgot completely who she was altogether. Everyone in the kingdom adored the King and Queen and they also adored this ‘golden princess’ who was so beautiful and shone so brightly. Everything was normalised. No-one saw the real truth and the extent of her childhood trauma, that underneath her polished mask and empty shell, was extreme self hatred, disassociation, loneliness and crippling shame. The Royal Marriage One day when this little girl had grown up to be a beautiful woman, she was on a rare trip away from the castle, when a stunning knight in shining armour caught sight of her on his white stallion. She fell in love in an instant and he with her . He hadn’t seen such a pure, stunning beauty of a lady in a long time and he had courted many maidens in his time. He recognised her innocence and was captivated by the princess like never before, such that unusually, he invited her to meet his royal parents who lived in the nearby kingdom. Back at the castle, the princess announced that she had fallen in love and since the trolls were hugely impressed by the Knight’s good heritage, they happily agreed to the union. Hilary was so excited to leave her parents and begin what she thought would be a new adventure into the outside world, with this gorgeous man who totally swept her off her feet. They were both so in love, adoring of each other. It was a match made in heaven. They married in a little chapel that was quite idyllic and some five years later, had two beautiful children, a girl and then a boy. Everything was perfect, a time in her life when she truly seemed happy. Or so it seemed. Until one fateful day, aged 39 years, a cruel and wicked spell was cast by unkind fairies, because while out shopping, with no warning whatsoever, the princess collapsed suddenly for no apparent reason and had to be carried home. She could not walk or move her limbs, was completely paralysed. She remained unconscious for days and both kingdoms fell into deep shock. No amount of doctors could find the cure for her and Hilary was not even able to hold her young children nor carry out any of her normal princess duties. In desperation as the Knight was travelling often to many foreign lands, her parents, the trolls were called over to take care of the princess and their adorable grandchildren. Everyone was frightened for Hilary, no-one knew what this strange malady was and why it had befallen the princess and the two neighbouring kingdoms. Her nervous system was on overdrive, her adrenals totally blown, such that she couldn’t even hold her own children because she had to lie still in the dark with the curtains closed. It was a systems rupture, a melt down. Years passed by and still no cure was found. Hilary could not get out of bed, even a short journey to the bathroom was near impossible, her system had give up. No-one knew at this stage that this was a desperate and unconscious cry for help as she was so far away from ‘home’ from the truth of who she was. Her world ended there and then, it was a living death. Every doctor of all kinds in the land was sought for his or her expertise to no avail. Money was ransomed from the people to help pay for the costs but still nothing seemed to change the princess’s debilitating condition. Eventually after a few years of living with her wicked parents in the same castle, languishing desperately in bed unable to manage, the princess secretly consulted the oracle. The divine message was clear, even though it terrified the princess and she wondered if she could manage to follow such a truth. She knew that even the mention of the oracle would bring rage to her parents and husband, perhaps because they feared losing control. However, taking a huge leap of faith that somehow came from deep inside, to the horror of the trolls and out of the blue, still hardly able to walk, the princess asked her parents to leave her home in order that she manage alone. They were stunned and angry at their daughter’s decision. The trolls did not comprehend what they believed to be some kind of madness and definite lack of respect by the princess, but since she was married now and a grown woman, they had no choice but to grudgingly conform to her request. As the trolls left that day, the princess wept with a huge sense of relief and also a terror that almost consumed her, she felt so deeply vulnerable being so weak physically with this mystery illness. Also after a few years of having to go inwards to understand the nature of her chronic health problem, it was clear it had much to do with her parents and having no sense of identity or personal power. This frightened her even more as it was unknown territory and she had no framework or role models to help navigate her way through. Shortly after her shocking decision to stand on her own two feet, there was a terrible rift between both kingdoms, the Queen became suddenly quite ill, and the King who suffered from an extreme sense of impotency, blamed his daughter making it abundantly clear that this was her wrong doing. The princess was beside herself with guilt and panic, as well as trying to manage with her debilitating illness, in these early weeks without help as before. You need to remember this. Speaking out this day, was the first time that the princess had dared do such a thing, to express her needs at any kind of level so she was shaking and terrified but something deep inside her told her to trust to the oracle as the next step. It felt like a life and death situation and in many ways it was. To speak out in the past had meant death, it was never an option. She would have been crucified. She was always caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, a legacy from the double binds and confusion that had marked her early childhood. Now, however, she was not a child living at home, she had a choice even if it didn’t feel like one. What spurred her on, however, was the grace of a surprise and timely letter from her living, yet estranged brother, who told her that to get well, she must without delay ensure that the trolls were banished from her home. This unusual support and advice from her distant brother was just what she needed, since it reinforced the wisdom of the oracle and helped her make this fateful decision. But still it felt like a living death, unable to walk and guilty of committing this apparently dreadful crime. Life felt so hard and punishing. It was all she could do to keep going but because the children were so breathtakingly beautiful, the princess was determined to be the radiant mother they needed again. They were the sole reason she kept going in this horrific situation that seemed to have no end. It’s important that you understand one thing in this mythic story, about this kingdom and many others in the land. There was a spell cast. Sometimes it is wicked fairies from outside as with Sleeping Beauty - this does happen because curses are real, they do exist. Sometimes, however, the demons are much closer to home than anyone will admit and this reality that invariably is denied, needs to be faced as well. In this myth I am telling you today, no-one recognised the truth about the evil trolls because they had such charming and charismatic masks that fooled everyone and they were masterful at making other people the problem, as a way to avoid any possibility of exposure. However, after being banished by her own daughter, without the grandchildren and her vampire role as saviour, the wicked Queen was left to face the empty, miserable life that she lived with the King whom she did not love. This one supremely brave act by the princess, of speaking out, marked the beginning of her slow and arduous recovery back to herself. Her boundaries had been shattered early on and this was her first attempt at giving herself permission to self care as a priority. To have her own back and be prepared for the reality of a ‘back-lash’ for breaking the royal rules which was such a taboo. Her sudden collapse physically was her first soul cry for help and years later, this was the second crucial moment in her healing. Even though she had a long journey still to undertake and many demons to slay along the way, nevertheless this first decision to say what she needed and to set a healthy boundary, was a key part of breaking the disempowering spell that the trolls had programmed and put on her so young. Deep down, the princess knew this was not the only hurdle to overcome in regaining her power and voice but she was given time before having to confront this. At some level albeit rather unconsciously, she knew that over the next years, she would have to confront her husband as well, since she had married a proud Knight who was also not to be questioned and demanded obedience. Hilary did love her husband very deeply, she was devoted but she also knew her place, which was to be the adornment at his side as he shone for all to see. The Knight was compassionate to his sick wife but became increasingly more distant as a way to cope, travelling for long periods of time. He was particularly not happy with the oracle teachings and how much his wife was changing and empowering herself, since he felt left alone and out of control which caused him to be cold and silent. He did not like that she found herself an incredible daemon wolf dog who became her spiritual ally and guardian angel, taking her into the woods daily so that she reconnected with the strong woman she really was. When the princess met various wise healers and oracle teachers when the children were busy studying, the Knight felt threatened and increasingly anxious about the way his compliant wife was changing from the woman he married. At this time, the princess was also haunted by her father the King and old memories that surfaced such that she could not separate out her father from her husband and therefore requested time out from the marriage bedroom in order to find a way through. The princess’s husband was unable to tolerate this situation and betrayed her with another maiden, one of her very own ladies in waiting. In anguish, Hilary consulted the oracle for help and guidance, changed her name to Sofia and eventually after much soul searching, accepted the heart breaking decision that the marriage was over. Her beloved son decided to live with his father at 12 years of age which was unexpected and broke her heart even more, so she and her beloved daughter took up residence and lived nearby. When her son was 16 and gave her permission to go on her travels to far away lands, since her daughter was away travelling as well, the princess realised she was finally free. Terrified yet also enlivened, since the oracle had never failed her, she had no choice but to listen to the intuitive calling and begin her new life and soul adventure. The Underworld So the princess set out on her own, with enormous bravery, banished from both kingdoms, still chronically sick and feeling orphaned and exposed but absolutely determined. She was accompanied by her loyal wolf daemon whom she called Archie, who was faithfully at her side, guiding and teaching with his deep animal wisdom, helping her to re-member lost parts of herself. Sometimes the terror consumed her and was so overwhelming she didn’t trust she could make it through but always grace would come in unexpected ways. She took one day at a time but the sense of abandonment was crippling and frightening. The oracle was all she had since being abruptly relieved of her role as a mother which shattered her whole way of being, catapulting her immediately into having to self care and find a new role for herself. When her beloved daemon companion died suddenly, whilst she was utterly devastated at the loss of her faithful dog, the oracle confirmed what she also knew deep inside, that this was a sign of his deep protective nature that was now embodied within her. The princess was shaking with fear but nevertheless, absolutely ready to leave for foreign shores. On her travels to the Underworld to retrieve parts of her soul, the princess had to slay many dragons and demons both at home and in far off lands, all of whom were attracted to her light as well as huge giants, emblazoned dragons and medusa like entities who came to test her courage, stamina and cunning. They did not like that this warrior was a mere woman and for sure, they had no idea of her royal background. They were simply intent on keeping her in her place, but this time with the support of unseen allies, her own gut wisdom and warrior nature, the more they tried to beat her down, the more the initiations only increased the princess’s bravery, embodiment, wisdom, strength and resilience. Sofia encountered strange and threatening trolls and dragons in one particular far away land that she came to love called Italy, some seeming so charming and kind but with hidden cruel streaks that felt like repeated and all too familiar daggers in her side. This time instead of taking it so personally, she recognised the treachery as a deep soul sickness throughout the lands, not just in her own kingdom far away. With her sacred connection and body wisdom back intact, she was not such easy prey to these predator and narcissistic power games as before. She was also gifted with incredible animal healers in the guise of dogs who would find her up at the top of the mountain and offer her magical support in ways she could never have imagined. As Sofia turned sixty years of age, it was as if she was the same beautiful princess but completely different, quietly embodying her noble, queen sovereignty with compassion in her heart, not as a hierarchal way of being, more as a divine rights of passage. She no longer swam from one extreme of over-doing to the other of exhaustion in a bi-polar kind of nightmare, since she found a way to slow down and be present, rather than frantically trying to avoid herself or find her identity only from the outside. Also, instead of living from blind faith, totally dedicated to please others, she began to know herself again, blessed by an inner dragon’s fire, supported by unseen forces, the power of nature and her animal allies. She had vowed to never again compromise her values and integrity. She knew it would have meant certain soul death. However, that said, the princess still found it painfully difficult to say no without a reason and it always felt like a life and death double bind to allow herself what she needed without apology but this was her path, this muscle she had to flex over and over. In her early life she was literally marinated in poison that had become like a second skin such that all too easily she could split off and not be present. She would fall into freeze mode where adrenaline was firing and yet with the brake full on, this being a deeply engrained, defensive response to managing overwhelm. But, with the new fierce, feminine energy that began to emerge, Sofia became very particular whom she allowed to her isolated castle in the mountain. She was acutely aware of the ‘bella figura’ in Italy, that attempted to deceive with it’s fake sweetness and she had no wish to fall foul again to what she had endured before. She had many healing strategies and techniques to help her self soothe and stay in her body. This wisdom had been hard fought and the sword of discernment was one of the most important alchemic gifts that came out of being so duped, betrayed and wrongfully used. The New Encounter One day after years of solitude in her far away land, whilst on an adventure to a foreign and neighbouring cold land in the north, she met a special and very kind, wise Lord who also had a love of animals, fairies, poetry, art and nature, so she invited him to join her back in her homeland. They lived together for some weeks and because she began to feel peace for the first time, she asked him to stay as her trusted companion. For the princess there was something even more amazing that happened. With this special, talented and quietly humble man, it was like being back with her sensitive twin brother, sharing simple times in this gentle union and without the danger she had known for so long. This Lord was also different, for he cared for the princess and her beloved land, cooked and looked after her in a way she had never experienced. Sofia and Ardhan were friends above all else with a deep respect for each other. The princess had been familiar with dazzling, charming Knights not with real, honest men like this who stayed the course and didn’t expect to be waited on. This myth is different, because this story is about the man supporting the woman, honouring her path and standing at her side and expecting little in return. This modern myth also does not follow all the fantasies of the Knight or Lord rescuing the Princess and living happily ever after. This is a new story of Hieros Gamos, the healing and integration of the sacred masculine and sacred feminine that needs to happen first within each one of us, before we commit to another, and therefore before a healthy union in relationship is possible. Co-dependency is not love, it’s what the princess knew from how her parents lived with each other, both unsatisfied and yet incapable of leaving. Sofia wasn’t ready to open her heart or put herself at risk before she was safe within herself, this was to take a long time and for the Lord too, as he also had been deeply wounded in love. First Sofia needed to fully commit to herself and heal the violation that had shattered her sense of self, her inner self hatred and separation, the brutal troll voices that haunted her every moment of the day. Nothing was ever enough, nothing filled the aching hole inside. This inner betrayal and self abandonment was where the journey had to take place, for the loss of her beloved and protective twin and for the confusion and madness that had set in as a result of the love she had of her father the King, this predator she had adored so much. This man who was supposed to have protected her but groomed and harmed her the most, such that she could not separate out intimacy and danger, love and abuse, as they twisted and danced so close together. The wise Lord was understanding and compassionate with this, as he too had been at the mercy of evil trolls in his kingdom , when his cruel parents sent him off to a punishing school for boys only, far, far away from home. He too had suffered violations and he too had to find more self love and reclaim lost soul parts. His longing and soul path however in later life, had always been to support and stand for the sacred feminine and as such, he was totally dedicated to helping the princess bring her vision to fruition. Sofia was eternally grateful for Ardhan’s commitment and care because for the first time ever, she was able to surrender and receive, to trust in the possibility of a co-creative relationship sharing the ups and downs together. Meanwhile, the princess’s two beautiful children were now grown up and thriving with great abundance, living in far off lands but occasionally coming to visit her and loving spending time with the animals and with Ardhan. Ardhan’s daughter too at times. Sofia’s children were inspired by their mother’s adventures and courage, devoted to their own soul paths and always encouraged by their mother to follow their own dreams. To have changed her own pattern so that her children could live their own authentic lives, for this she was grateful. Healing and ‘Welcoming Home’ : The new kingdom Sofia had always wanted to create a sanctuary castle in a far off land, that was blessed with glorious sunshine and filled with fairies, animals and nature spirits, where tortured souls could come for respite and care without risk of danger. Where these victims of brutal circumstances could once again be Welcomed Home to a small and very special kingdom, witnessed and honoured warriors trusting finally, that the ‘war of childhood was over’. A place where the path of 'holy brokenness', the sacred feminine way was finally honoured and revered. Where exhausted souls could know that someone would listen and believe in them, without wanting to take advantage, change, fix, belittle, judge, reject, improve, devour or annihilate them. Sofia’s home and refuge would be where inner, wounded and especially pre-verbal infants, these disowned and forbidden parts, these refugees could be brought back from the internment camps and welcomed home to be unconditionally loved and accepted for all they had endured. For too long this inner ‘war’ had been raging, this insane patriarchy that dominated and enslaved and it was time to address the shadow side, for these inner, battered and dis-membered selves and demons to be ‘welcomed home’ to the light as well. She knew that suffering had to be brought back from exile, it was part of the whole. Time also to bring the higher and lower mind together in companionship, listening to the attractions and repulsions, not in order to obtain some illusion of enlightenment, but simply to come into a greater sense of wholeness. As Rilke said : “Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” Returning to love therefore, to the sacred feminine that had been so massacred and destroyed for millennia, was Sofia’s deepest challenge. She wanted to run as far away as possible it was so painful to re-member the ancient Mystery Teachings she knew so well and the destruction that happened. She experienced the desperate cries of her ancestors, those brave women who had been silenced for standing in their truth. Could she dare to face this new way of being, given that it meant re-living and experiencing what she had blocked off a long time, eons ago? Or was it easier to withdraw and isolate, to shut down and pretend that love and deep connection didn’t really matter, it was at too high a price? Was it safe now to bring in the new teachings, the fierce feminine that truly needed a voice at last? Was she strong enough to dare to speak the unspeakable in her own life as part of this awakening, to dare to touch into this wild feminine, the animal wisdom within her? Sofia had to bring her tormented and starved infant back into the light, as well as her alienated and rejected body, this violation and contamination from the predatory ghosts of the past that then had continued to be re-enacted over and over. This systemic betrayal from the ancestors that had built such momentum and was now being mirrored globally, like a giant pus ball needing to be lanced and healed. For this soul crisis and to open her heart, the princess needed to retreat from the world and from most people in her life and find this deep within. For many years she sought solace alone with her beautiful animal healers, the magic of the forests all around and staying close to grace and her body temple at all times. First Sofia had to do this ‘welcoming home’ process for herself, to heal the greatest wound of all, to embrace the banished inner infant, starved of oxytocin and to heal the extent of her childhood trauma, instinct injury and repressed emotions, in order to recover her long lost health. For too long she had normalised her state of being as a way to survive. She could see clearly the metaphor of her chronic illness with an immune system that was totally unable to defend itself and with stealth bacteria that were literally eating her alive. For too long she had been like an anaesthetised superwoman and now the repressed memories, flashbacks and nightmares came to haunt her daily as she recalled her childhood sexual trauma, recalled the loss of her beloved twin, such that the war zone of her own body needed to be faced and accepted. This was the hardest task of all, as with intense symptoms of all kinds and raging inflammation, it was much easier to avoid the pain in her body altogether and push through or disassociate as a way to not feel. It was not a linear path, sometimes she made progress, other times she fell into habitual and self harming patterns where she was forced to wake up abruptly as her health always deteriorated. However, she also knew that trauma did not heal with the passage of time, alone, so she bravely agreed to turn towards these frozen memories in her nervous system, instead of running away from her flesh and body as she had done before. Telling her story was part of the process and allowing the tears to fall as she confronting the intense grief of so much loss. Setting healthy boundaries, titrating what surfaced, recognising what she was feeling at a somatic level and tuning into her long lost needs and animal desires was paramount to this whole healing process. Above all, knowing that this deep work she was doing was healing generations of her ancestors before and clearing the way for her children and those yet to come. She had decided that this generational trauma would not go forward and this kept her motivated and strong to keep going regardless. Gradually, not without kicking and screaming as she resisted the intensity of her feelings and body symptoms, she found a part of herself that had never been touched or scarred by her experiences, and in this sacred realm she was able to connect to thoughts and prayer that helped inspire, heal, guide and direct her to shift the trajectory of her life. She had to surrender in the dark night's of the soul, to allow the shattering to break her open, the holy brokenness which in the words of Leonard Cohen are the cracks where the light gets in. She began to release from her nervous system the residual, adrenalised state and find some kind of defensive response that she would have had if she hadn’t frozen in shock. It was often a tortuous and brave path. Many times she fell back in despair having tried yet another medicine or strategy only to experience no shift in her condition. She repeatedly woke every morning, with a sense of panic to realise she was alive but in shock at the loss of her beloved twin, as if re-living over and over this original trauma of his loss. However, what she began to realise was that instead of being a victim, her experiences were testimony to how resilient she was, because despite many desperate times where she collapsed into hopelessness, in reality she never ever gave up. When anger began to surface she saw where she had self betrayed and given away her power. She mastered so many aspects as a way to get through the ongoing challenges and in this, she kept choosing life even if a part of her longed to return to the 'other' side. The princess never stopped believing in her own fairy tale and in the grace and magical synchronicities that kept showing her she was on the right path, the amazing light workers and animals she would repeatedly meet, even in her dark nights of the soul which went on for years on end. She was however, still stuck in a negative cultural belief that she did not have a right to help others, if she was still ill and suffering in any way, that somehow perfection was the objective and trophy to be sought. She didn’t realise at this stage that her gift as a Wounded Healer was just that, the wound and the gift being so closely connected at all times. Sometimes then, worn out by the repeated initiations and her sense of unworthiness and not feeling she mattered, all she had were her divination tools and the prayers of the mystics and poets like Rumi, who shone a precious light and reminded her of the bigger picture, the initiation and deeper transformation that was really taking place, like a seed underground in the winter months. Some years later, together with the safety of her kind, loving partner who helped her bring the derelict land back to life, alongside her own shattered psyche and body, creating beautiful sacred spaces together, in contemplation, prayer and writing they gently encouraged their lost, split off and disowned parts to return home feeling solace and safety as they did this brave work together. Eventually when the princess’s inner flame was strong enough and she had repaired her shattered boundaries, both Sofia and Ardhan who by now were much more committed to each other and their symbiotic union, prepared to open their Light and Shadow Kingdom to share with others. The princess longed to be of service to other people to help inspire them to find this sacred part of themselves, the expression of life itself , so that they too could build back their lives and move beyond self sabotage, into self compassion and sovereignty. The princess’s greatest lesson and the teaching she has to truly offer others, is that we are actually hardwired to survive and to trust in what our inner child/baby/foetus and body wisdom has to say, this somatic intelligence, instead of pushing it away as she had done for so many years. Sofia’s exquisite sensitivity for picking up danger signals and intuiting her energy field, is an invaluable asset to the princess in caring for herself and those who come to her kingdom. Whilst the princess had invisible scars and no proof about many of the traumatic experiences that had happened, her body never failed her with its implicit wisdom and the memories held at a somatic level. This was the greatest homecoming, this return back to her body which had to be handled very carefully, one step at a time, this gentle pacing to avoid overwhelm and re-traumatisation, which so often happens with over zealous healers wanting a quick and ‘happy’ outcome. Gradually the princess began to share with other resonant souls, often in open dialogue as equals, in order to have a witness, to receive this unconditional love and connection from outside that she had never experienced. Abuse victims leave their body and whilst disassociation is an incredible grace that keeps us safe so we don’t have to endure and feel overwhelming emotions that are too much for the system, eventually it is necessary to come ‘home’. We cannot live on the 'other side', half here and half not and there are so many reasons why we do this. The loss of a twin is one as this bond is so deep and symbiotic. Childhood molestation is also a huge issue where we split off and especially when perpetrated by a father who is supposed to love and protect us, there is nothing more confusing and crazy making. There is the deep love but intertwined with intense repulsion, disgust and fury, a longing to repel and be ‘rid of’ this intrusion that somehow never goes away. Living in a body with so much sickness and pain, often the princess felt a deep longing to not exist but she knew this was not her deeper truth, she was carrying it for her ancestors, distorted psychic energy, DNA adaptations that did not belong to her. As a result of these agonising double binds, where we cannot be with ourselves or our body, eventually we are forced to self care and honour our very own temples and to give up this abandonment, this self inflicted banishment as we come to recognise the divine light of our own being. We have to return back to our sacred container, this connection that was violated and given up as a way to survive. Creating beauty and sacred spaces in her magical piece of paradise was essential for the princess to heal and re-connect back to nature and to life itself. She had to fully grieve the loss of her twin as for too long she had not accepted his leaving and negated herself in the process as a way to manage the wrenched separation that split her in two. She had to reconnect to herself fully in order to reconnect to her twin, this was the paradox. We have to re-engage with the part of us has never been touched or damaged, this is what the princess found within, her innocent child so full of life and patiently waiting for the unconditional love so long denied. This is what she found in the beauty and stillness of the land with it’s stunning olive trees, cactus plants, birds of prey and incredible breathtaking views from every angle on the land. This was the antidote, beauty and mysticism was the pathway for Sofia. As we return back with compassion to self love, we find a simultaneous need to be re-united and welcomed home to our Tribe, this sense of family and co-creation that we are all a part of and to the Great Mother, to the unseen energies all around and to the land Herself. As Teresa of Avila a 13th century mystic expresses so poignantly, ’It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves’. So Sofia returned back to reclaim and re-parent the little infant Hilary and tenderly hold her close letting her suckle at her breast and feel this safe attachment for the first time. In this myth, Sofia is a princess, a wise priestess and a fierce, feminine warrior but she has also been deeply abused and wounded at a soul and instinct level. There is no perfect happy ending, a place where she becomes enlightened with no pain or suffering, this is an illusion that too many souls have bought into as a way to survive and that needs to be shattered. The path of Holy Brokenness, being with our deepest wounds is the mystic path to the heart, the Kingdom of God. There is no good and evil, black and white, it is all just shades of the one pure light, the source of all. Sofia had to accept she was a Wounded Healer who had so much to offer as a result of her hard fought journey but the greatest gift she offers is the reality of how we all have to sit in the emptiness and do the healing work. There is no saviour coming. She had to dig deep to find methods, strategies and resources of all kinds to keep her embodied during this healing process, deep breathing, chanting and many other techniques. What she also had to acknowledge, is that with freedom, comes much more accountability, they are not separate and it is courageous work with every choice that is made. Every word and action has huge consequences. Healing does not come from outside, there is no Knight in shining armour waking us up with a transforming kiss, it is an inside job. Sofia was her own saviour but it came through surrender and being broken. She had to give up the fight and control of going it alone without connection to her divine nature. In particular, she had to give up her own competitive script, this illusion and distorted New Age thinking, which led her to believe, she would heal her chronic illness and with acclaim and validation from others, live happily ever after, trauma free, at the top of her blissful mountain in a romantic relationship. As such, the princess was forced to address this unhealed aspect within herself, this old dualistic, mythic story of perfect goodness and perfect evil, of black and white, God and the Devil, which enforces our separation and isolation from ourselves, each other and the earth itself. Sofia’s wisdom, resources and healing capacity is exactly as a result of the wound, they are interlinked. One does not exist without the other. She was tested as this is part of the initiation process to create strength, compassion and humility, it’s part of the mystic teachings on ‘holy brokenness’. This is the alchemic and transformative process that cannot be bought or learned from a book and more importantly, it is about abiding by natural laws, yielding and softening, instead of blindly following some kind of delusion (based on projected parents in the sky), that if we are perfect, hard working and well behaved we will be somehow granted and entitled to access the kingdom of heaven. The New Story and Integration of Power and Vulnerability This therefore, is the New Story with a capital N and S, a different paradigm, the sacred feminine path of accepting everything that arises, one step at a time in this earthly body as our temple, (male and female) allowing the feelings to guide and reconnect us. It is not a linear path like the masculine focussed way, it is about honouring all that manifests which includes the supposed good or evil and all the messy bits in between. It is human and spiritual at the same time not one or the other. It is about Sofia on earth with her beloved twin on another plane. It is about connecting and calling in the ancestors, giving up the illusion of perfectionism with all its toxic, patriarchal spiritual shame and no longer attempting to play God, trying to go it alone. Everything is energy and needs to be brought back to the light, our own shadows for too long buried. This is the path of the heart where the mind is in service to the heart, not the other way round and where every healthy choice that we make leads us from our fate to our destiny. The princess had to learn to parent her starved infant inside who was wretched, alone and desolate, longing to be seen and adored, instead of projecting and manipulating others to give her what she missed as a child. And more importantly as a highly sensitive and empathic soul she had to find a way to turn her empathic distress into mastery, as for too long without healthy boundaries, she had merged and taken on way too much that wasn’t hers to carry. Sofia shone a light so bright, so radiant, that she was like a beacon in the darkness which attracted many to find her and her wise Lord from far and beyond. Many were also wounded healers who had fought brave journeys with many dragons, likewise banished from kingdoms for questioning the status quo and who were looking for a safe place to fill up their empty coffers, broken bodies and injured souls. She did not have to do more than this, just to be herself and know this was enough. Ironically this began to happen when she was forced to fully surrender, broken from exhaustion, to give up the over-trying and over-responsibility which had caused her repeated burn outs. She gave herself permission (not often enough it must be said), to be a flawed human being who had needs but also, who through many life experiences and initiations, had unique gifts and talents like everyone else. The princess recognised that regardless of her regal background, she was also a normal human being and her powers came, simply because she re-membered to consult her higher power, listen to her body and above all, to always honour the sacred wisdom of the oracle. She came to see after many years that ironically it was the very wounding she had received that was her deepest gift, the compassion she could offer to others, simply because of the shared humanity and her own learned wisdom. She had nothing to prove and no need to try so hard. She was enough. If a crop failed one year, this was the mirror of nature being at the mercy of the elements, that taught her how to surrender with grace and to live more in harmony. In the holy mess when things did not go as planned, this is where the greatest growth would take place. With deep retrospection and devoted attention to changing her engrained patterns, she moved beyond being the ‘special and different’ princess who was above the others in this grandiosity that belonged to the past and also finally gave up her identification as the wretched victim and ‘problem’ that lay beneath this. Both these opposed ways of beings were masks just like the ones her parents the King and Queen had presented, they were not authentic and real. In recognising that underneath her princess masks, was a normal, ordinary person like everyone else, Sofia had to join the human family, face the shame and grieve and accept all the years she was not present to her life and re-learn as an adult, how to become intimate and receive love for the first time. Linked to this, Sofia also knew from her mother’s jealousy and pain, that many insecure women in the nearby kingdoms who were unable to find happy trusting partnership, taught to compete and behave in brutal patriarchal ways to each other, could not tolerate her beauty and good fortune. She had always kept her illness as a kind of protection and boundary against this outside attack and judgement but now she decided to fully shine the light of who she was. And as part of this, she recognised that she had unconsciously used her wounds as her only way to protect and set boundaries, so as she began to get stronger, she made a commitment to be more authentic and honest when relating. However, as part of creating safety for herself, instead of being so over trusting and somewhat scattered by all those she encountered, she chose a different path and one that was less open and available, more discerning. With her finely attuned antennae, she could easily recognise the same pain and suffering that had been so prevalent in her mother the Queen and whilst she had compassion for the behaviour, she had no intention of welcoming it to her new healing space. She stopped blindly assuming everyone had the best of intentions and learned to ask questions, to allow time to reveal what was important. Even though this kingdom was different from many others as it was founded on equality for all beings, the princess as an extraordinary energy sensitive soul, knew the positive benefits of having a wide moat and secure, well-defended drawbridge, the vital importance of these strong boundaries, to be sure who was permitted entry to this sacred and very precious space. Because of her torturous journey to the Underworld for so long with the repeated and often radical initiations thrust upon her, the princess was now in a position to teach others about resilience and their right to say no as a complete sentence. This permission that was so vital for women in particular that they say no without any need to justify themselves and no apology, to brandish their swords when necessary in service of the fierce feminine and to set healthy boundaries as a priority because this was the real teaching of the oracle. Sofia felt more intact and gradually with a sense of what defined her, these boundaries, her skin, her body, the land she was stewarding, these instinctual rights that were previously denied. She had tools, strategies, resources and none better than astrology that helped make sense of her incarnation, all that she had suffered, to see the higher perspective. She recognised that she couldn’t pull off who she was without a healthy sense of ego, there was no way round this shadow work to heal the original wounds she experienced. The princess created her own statement remembering her journey to the underworld and kept it close by at all times “my dragon’s fire fucking burns anyone who violates my boundaries’. This felt good and allowed her to soften more and more in this conscious safety she was creating for herself. As divine beings, she teaches that we must honour and love our selves and that this divine power and sovereignty lies within, not outside of us. How we must first start with self esteem and self worth before we can hope to trust ourselves and our intuitive knowing. Sofia is dedicated to teaching others of this alchemic truth, that the patriarchal demons have chosen to keep secret in their self serving attempt to keep their citizens enslaved and ensnared. EPILOGUE Sofia and Ardhan are devoted to creating a place of light, safety and peace for other brave souls who have been on a long and heroic journey to the Underworld, with the courage, dedication, responsibility and resilience it takes to come into full sovereignty. The princess had heard a wise man in the Kingdom talk of how true success would come if she kept a beautiful mind, an open heart and a humble spirit so this is what she prayed for daily. Another wise soul had also said that destiny was not a reward but earned every day of your life, one choice at a time. She was particularly fascinated with the noble pathway of the heart, the Sacred Marriage or Hieros Gamos, integrating the sacred feminine and sacred masculine, that offers so many blessings but where only a few brave souls dare to say a full yes, with the radical responsibility for all it entails. This is the soul’s path, our dharma and Rumi says it better than anyone in these few words ‘My father is the transcendent godhead and my mother is the embodied godhead and I am their divine child, dancing for them both on their burning dance floor’. Everyday Sofia asks the oracle to guide her with this and every day she prays to the divine and her unseen allies for ‘gnosis’, in order to see reality as it really is, without distortion and that she comes from a place of light listening to her heart at all times. She knows how her quick mind readily deceives her often and how her own inner troll selves behave badly because she is human like everyone else. She is not enlightened, special or different as the trolls mistakenly taught her. She can still leave her body as a default mechanism. She is both troll and angel, demon and fairy, not one or the other, this has been the great wisdom, the integration possible by her deep descent into the Underworld. She is grateful for all her teachers and in particular to the adversarial ones, the demons who by brutal grace forced her to go on this heroine’s journey to find the alchemic golden treasure , that is available for all with the courage to trust to this surrender and transformational path ‘home’ to the One. Or where fate transforms into destiny because we create with the divine and where the soul finds the purpose for which it had incarnated. Sofia reminds us, that this journey of awakening and finding a new kingdom of shared co-creative humanity, working alongside nature, healing the demons that lie within and reclaiming the sacred feminine in particular, aligning and finding this inner balance, is not for the faint-hearted. And, it is certainly not about being perfect or sorted, since we are all flawed human beings with an unconscious shadow that is hard to acknowledge and fully own. It is, however, about refinement, including and accepting all these hitherto unacceptable parts, speaking the unspeakable and giving up resisting or labelling anything as good or bad. In this respect, it’s also about refinement between the realms of the Higher and Lower Mind or if you like the transcendent and the immanent realities that need to be integrated, because it is not one or the other. We are here in a human body and whilst the higher mind gives us access to what the soul has come to do, the lower mind, the human body plays it out in this existence. Sometimes we have to bear the unbearable and this is where compassion is learnt. Or as the Jewish mystics say, there is nothing, nothing more whole than a broken heart. Beauty is an important link and beauty is what Pozzuolo and this healing sanctuary offers in abundance, to help as the ancients knew so well, to enfold and perfect the journey of the soul. So, if you feel called and are looking for deep, intimate and transparent connection, this shared experience of humanity, daring to surrender and humbly admitting to ‘not knowing’, the princess and her beloved partner, are waiting at the top of their blissful mountain, to welcome you to their beautiful home and magic, healing land. - P.S. Furthermore as a footnote, trolls in angel clothing are forbidden to enter this magic place as there is a secret light force protective faerie ring around this castle in the mountains and anyone with the wrong intention, will immediately be repelled and unable to pass through. This is the ring of protection that ensures safety and peace for all who enter Sofia’s and her wise Lord Ardhan’s kingdom in this far away land. |
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