Radical, piercing heartbreak
Ripped wide apart Pleading for salvation Kali’s fierce love Uninvited, brutal grace Controls all gone Sluice gates open Expansive dark chasm Do you have? Courage to dare Give up hope Could you face? Being here now Stark present reality On bended knees Begging for mercy The Goddess smiles For She is You Your Sacred Heart Cosmic Mother Womb Pure potentiality awaits Unexpected, welcome miracle Coming from surrender
0 Comments
The sweet and very socially acceptable selves that hitherto have been my way of coping and the way the feminine has been forced to survive, can remain as servants but they need to be underpinned by a stronger and more powerful instinctual Kali, primal voice coming from deep in the belly. They cannot get me or any of us through to the next stages, as we all personally and collectively reach the final minutes before midnight. When I talk of Kali and the fierce feminine, I’m not talking about the feminist voices that are unconscious to their inner patriarchs and full of too much disowned rage. I’m talking about the other side of the pure Virgin Mary, the Black Madonna, that used to be worshipped for millennia and for too long has been denied creating a total split and disconnection from nature, our bodies, sexuality, death and the real nature of the sacred feminine.
I’m talking about how the patriarchal ‘boy’s club’ as Andrew Harvey refers to them as, has painted over the Lady of our Pillar, and made the Black Madonna white in Chartres Cathedra. And apparently all the Black Madonna statues in the vaults of the Vatican likewise have been painted white which shows just how scared patriarchy is of this dark feminine power and the efforts they will go to suppress Her. So, there is no choice but to bring forth the disowned voice of the fierce feminine which has at its core, the instinctual, rebellious inner child who was totally denied and/or annihilated. This voice of course represents a necessary force of healing and power from the Dark Mother, not just in my own personal system but as an antidote to the ravaging and insane forces of patriarchy that have gone berserk destroying the planet at a frightening rate. It is time for the return of the sacred feminine, Mother Earth is dying. With this safety and the roar of the fierce feminine committed to embodied spirituality, the compassion and love that is the basis of the positive light selves can come to the fore. With this shadow awareness and healing, it will become possible to have the tender fierceness that is associated with Tara leadership, so that sacred activism is integrated with the heart and finally becomes a potent and balanced blend of the mystic and warrior both together, working for justice and truth. Whether we have a happy personal or planetary ending is not known or perhaps even relevant if we can live with this level of alignment and truth. The only question for me worth considering right now is ‘can I dare to claim this Kali voice or not’? “I want to be my hunter dog who, like an adventurous and unthinking teenager sees no qualm about dashing off in a moment with her unexpected lover who appears on one of our walks and saying nothing of when she will return. Then after two full nights on the town, orgasmic-ally howling in the distant woods, I am to be ever grateful that she graces me with her presence and crashes on the nearest sofa without a word or a wag. She is beside herself, over-extended but not remotely apologetic about her impersonal and somewhat imposing behaviour. I would like to have her exquisite sense of absolute sovereignty and regal birth-right that does not, for one moment question her instinctual and unique place in the grand scheme of things and knows just how deeply she is loved and valued”.
Gaping black canvas Hiding dark secrets Banished barren tomb Places long forgotten Memories bleached away Waters that bleed I’ve been here Quietly, stoically here I’ve not forgotten You forgot me They told lies Packaged you up Dressed in smiles Playing their games Forgetting your flesh Far from your core Selling your soul But I exist Pressurized birthing space Beneath broken dreams And shattered promises Darkened by loss Carved by time And submerged reminders Of stolen innocence Deep, unfathomable dungeon Speaking in tongues Woven in fabric Delicate , precious strands I bore kids Birth without presence Invisible wet womb Beautiful kids both I did this Never too late Here, arrive now Listen to me Rest a while With no distraction Soften the folds Welcome the juices Command your birth-right Reclaims what’s yours Innocent erotic nature Please, please return Back to me Offer your blessed Grace and mercy Down here please Neglected, empty, alone ‘Re-member’ me now While you can My sacred space Womb heart wisdom Potent feminine cauldron Shakti ecstatic portal Yours to keep Always close by It's your choice Don’t fall asleep Please……. not again Chronic Lyme dis-ease Deadly neuro toxins Crossing the barrier Gut to brain Happens in seconds You can’t imagine….. What a nightmare This really is Like being injected Suddenly with poison There’s no help To be found Cytokine inflammatory flares Raging for hours Intense body pain Shattering the system Close to psychosis Wired and tired I’ve no respite From unbearable symptoms This never ending Hell on earth I can’t escape My tortured brain My broken body My nervous system Dis-regulated from shock Blown to smithereens Tsunami visceral experience Who am I? Where am I? What has happened? I can’t control The negative thoughts They come from Out of nowhere Neuro-toxins for sure Also something more Intertwined, not separate Screaming ancestors invading My private space As they seek To be heard For the nightmare Lives of misery So long endured These enslaved victims Their haunting screams And tortured, deathly Voices within me Their vacant stares Begging for release Praying for salvation From cruel captors My English ancestors Refusing this plea Sadistic and brutal Inflicting maximum pain So that their Addicted pain bodies Can be nourished By intense suffering This misguided craving And moral disassociation Fuelled by trauma Satiated by agony Filling their veins With demonic hatred These distant voices From untold atrocities And normalised genocide Haunt me still Drowning in guilt Overwhelmed by suffering Carrying the legacy That isn’t mine That seeks to Be honoured and Laid to rest “Let me die” “Please have mercy’ Silent, pleading screams Trapped and overwhelmed With no escape Until thankfully, finally Body intelligence wins Fog and confusion Chemicals take over Disassociation as saviour Numbing the system Bailing right out So - in this Blur of reality What is real Me or them? This generational legacy Buried, conveniently forgotten Ghosts of trauma Contagiously passed down Like seeping mists Begging for recognition For deserved honouring Don’t you realise How I suffer Because they suffered? Their stories untold Their wretched lives Because of our Arrogant, misplaced ownership And twisted entitlement? Please I’m tired Carrying so much I need release From this stronghold Showing up as Mystery debilitating illness This self hatred Refuting any pleasure For shame of What took place Biting my lip Unnamed, unspeakable horrors In my life And those before Not yet acknowledged Not yet healed Infectiously passed on In psychic dna This epigenetic truth Please….finally…..now Will you accept An offering, perhaps? Something to appease? My deep bow And devoted reverence For your suffering And lost lives The heartless degradation Of countless betrayals Buried beneath lies What is possible To honour you? And release me? As your descendent.... So that I May live freely In peace as You were not Permitted to do? Please help me I will willingly Create a ritual Offer my gratitude And humble presence Praying for guidance Speaking the truth Being the whistleblower Anything ……to redeem Anything......to prevent This rolling madness Your unresolved pain Unknowingly handed down Sucking in innocents And silently, powerfully Destroying more lives Helpless infant duped with perilous smiles
Paralysing immobility from all that defiles Candyfloss predators, dressed up in peril Instinctual loss, of all that was feral Body parts teased with mischievous intention Masked agendas with conditional attention Crumbs of affection, self serving agendas Pre-verbal abuse, a body that remembers So you’ve taken what you needed Plundered and devoured While I remain hollow, lost and cowered You silently stole - your Vampire’s paradise The baby confused, holding ancestral vice Locked in patterns of self disgust and loathing Worshipping wolves dressed up in sheep’s clothing Imploded grief, terror and rage Paralysed, helpless , trapped in a cage Choked, disgusted dripping with shame Voiceless, gagged, holding all the blame Stranded and putrid, infected by semen Will I ever be free of this Inner Demon? So I won’t trust your sweetness, the Narcissistic seduction I’ll give first attention to cellular eruption To body signals, ingenious sensations Trusting my Temple, its glorious compensations I’m here in my body, antennae finely tuned Learned responses from being well groomed I reconnect to my ‘truth teller’, to my breath and to Home My testament, well endured, MY Sovereign Throne Such a welcome visitor from a distant shore Where have you been midst frantic chores Still, expansive, calm and assured The all knowing presence – God’s spacious reward You are the observer, embodied and whole Wise and intelligent, cosmic, aware soul Alive, vibrating, formless and freeing Re-birthing back, to limitless being You are the truth, the one that’s connected The ease, the pleasure, all loving and protected The one that surrenders, allows and unfolds Stay with me, play with me, ‘till we grow old How insane the world that celebrates form Keeping us trapped in mind as the norm You say very little, think no thought But when I’m with you, I’ve everything I sought She flies free now releasing all pain and suffering
Courage to endure beyond safe holding Only I know what she gave, how bravely she fought Only I am blessed by her very existence, her pure heart For I would not be without her, without her constancy Without her knowing, her tenderness, her belief in the way I am her brave heart, the soldered battered heart That she always believed in, always stayed true She may seem to have failed but don’t believe a word of it The sacred heart battle is forged in the darkness Out of the limelight, quietly working With only a flickering candle to light the way Never underestimate the heart’s way, the power of love The sensitive unfolding that drips slowly onto hardened stone And eventually cracks open the compassion That has been waiting patiently in the dark corner Waiting to blind you with its illumination That by its very presence shatters the illusion And forges a new path, grace that unfolds The alchemy of love that has no teachers but itself Groping Hands, Sinking Sands
Lecherous Stares, Blinding flares Smothering Lips, Cramping Zips Swollen Cocks, Sexual Blocks Mangled Toes, Powerless No’s Invasive Eyes, Probing Spies Clammy Palms, Intensive Farms Enveloping Fat, Is It This or That? Deformed Limbs, Dirge Like Hymns Gagging Smells, Black Magic Spells Intermittent Snores, Blocked Pores Asthmatic Wheezing, Pornographic Sleazing Sucking Parasites, Biting Bed Mites Crawling Ants, Constricting Pants Vampires Hold, Biting Cold Constricted Spaces, Crowded Places Windowless Rooms, Pregnant Wombs Raging Storms, Boundary-less Forms Choking weeds, Force Feeds Pitch Black, Panic Attack Stagnant Water, Cancerous Aorta Relentless rain, Agonising Pain Jammed Locks, Stinking Socks Vaginal forceps, Tight Corsets Telesales Home Calls, Concrete Shopping Malls Haunting Nightmares, Piercing Stares Restricted Exits, Overflowing Cesspits Shared Beds, Migraine Heads Suffocating Mothers, Obsessive Lovers Uninvited Guests, Enormous Sized Breasts Chronic Fixers, Seductive Elixirs Inauthentic Friends, Predictive trends Interrogating Questions, Provocative Suggestions Rigid Controls, Bottomless Holes Punitive Rules, Torturing Tools Fascist Causes, Embarrassing Pauses Childish Power games, Cholesterol Filled Veins Totalitarian Regimes, Frozen Screams Conspiracy Theories, Judgmental Queries Being Defined, Wheelchair Confined Dependent Behaviours, Manipulative Favours Suppressed Rage, Gilded Cage Blocked Expression, Childhood Repression Victim Terror, Perfectionist Error Black Depression, Women’s Oppression Paralysing Fear, Campaign of Smear Mortifying Shame, Obsessive Fame Inflexible Thinking, Addictive Drinking Overwhelming Neediness, Gluttonish Greediness Unplugged Power, Compliments Shower Invalidating Thoughts, A Life Out of Sorts Incessant Chatter, Do I Really Matter? If you think
You dare again Project on me Wounds and scars That you disowned Many years ago So you remain In your power While I carry Your heavy baggage Please think again I won't be A perfect conduit Your dumping ground Easy shame bucket That is yours To clean up And yours alone Invasive chemicals, hazardous waste
In our home, gardens and foods that we taste Toxic combinations causing havoc to our bodies Poly- pharmacy, petrochemicals, these are our hobbies Pharmaceutical monsters now lead the way Most of us guinea pigs without any say Insidious pollution slowly destroying our health So the deadly giants can build up more wealth They irradiate our foods calling it electronic pasteurisation Give us no choice in mass fluoridation Then we frazzle our brains with mobile phones And eat processed foods micro-waved in our homes Aluminium, mercury, lead and arsenic Hidden chemicals silently poisoning us to be sick Add MSG, pure white and brain deadly A dangerous cocktail, a carcinogenic medley Artificial preservatives, colours and flavours Vaccinations that do our children no favours Pesticides, Herbicides, Insecticides too Add genetic fiddling and we’re junked through and through There’s no difference wearing perfume to sniffing glue Sodium Laurel Sulphate I’d rather use down the loo If I put moisturiser on my skin, it has to be good enough to eat And if I’m craving something sweet, Green and Black's the only treat So yes, I filter my water and eat organic foods I’m passionate about nutrition and balancing my moods I take essential fatty acids to supplement my diet Magnesium and B vitamins so I’m stress free and quiet You can say I’m obsessed about freedom of choice But I want natural medicines to have a real voice It’s invasive chemicals that are our environmental plague Wake up to the truth – it doesn’t pay to be vague Driving back to Dolceacqua from the vets, I’m beside myself with grief, choking and desperately trying to extend my out breath as I feel myself dangerously moving into panic. I don’t do endings well, the shocking abandonment always kicks in and I become flooded and over identified with a kind of blind terror, that I know is pre-verbal and without words.
Ardhan puts his hand on my knee, he recognises that I’m absolutely distraught but is thankfully able to let me make gut wrenching sounds, as I find myself releasing a tsunami of grief that has been building these last months. Everything is jumbled up all together, previous un-grieved losses aching for an outlet and one in particular that has haunted me for a lifetime. Last week as I prepared myself for Misha's sad ending, I touched down into this trauma and the grief and rage was so overwhelming, I literally thought I would die in the process of doing a breath work session but I kept on going, allowed the emotions to finally have a say and came out the other side. Here and now with Misha dead in the back of our car, no going back, another layer, the intense grief and shock of my mother killing my first dog when I was about 11 years of age and coming home from school to an empty house without her there. The silence, the lack of discussion, my beloved angel gone, taken from me without my permission and annihilated. Now, I’m gasping for air, the shock of Misha's sudden death is too intense, rage is nearby as I feel the instinctual wish to kill, finally 50 years later this suppressed energy needing an outlet and triggered by the loss of my beloved dog. I’m flooded and I can’t believe she is wrapped up dead on the back seat, that there is nothing we can do to reverse this choice and situation. The worst thing is that I feel guilty and these thoughts send me into a horrific spiral downwards. Could we have tried harder, should we have waited another week or so before making the fateful decision, especially since today she seemed so peaceful and able to walk from the house to the outside grass, even managing to pee and eat her food without so much difficulty? Ardhan reminds me that we chose this together and I am immensely grateful of how much closer we are together and how amazing he is being with the whole process. Knowing how I default to self doubting, I asked him to reassure me when necessary, that her condition could not improve given her intolerance of the drugs for Leishmaniosis and with her debilitated state from this parasitic infection, she cannot have the two more operations on her back legs which are essential given her critical problem with both knees. ltimately, without the operation she is crippled and with the operations she is stressed and weakened, whilst already suffering from a deadly sickness that is also putting our dog Chammy and both of us at risk. Leishmaniosis is a cruel and slow killer but it's also a human problem. It isn’t transmitted dog to dog or dog to human but the sand fly and pappataci can bite Misha and then infect all of us which is a deep concern. She might have had a week or two more without going downhill but today she is happy and before going in for the anaesthetic, had a wonderful time with Ardhan sniffing and checking out other dog smells. Let’s face it, there is never a good time. Taking a dog to the vet to be put down, to go through euthanasia is one of the most brutal choices you have to make, but you do it out of love. The idea of not seeing Misha again, not hearing her different barks to be let in the outside gate or her pushy demand for food or her crazed yelping around the mountainside feels unbearable. It feels impossible to imagine that I won’t be able to stroke her silky ears or look in her dark brown eyes as I did saying the Hoonapoona prayer right to the end, so much gratitude for all she has taught me, for the love that will never end, regardless of her physical body giving out. We are burying her at the top on our new rose terracing, where she can soar over the mountain and remind us always of her orgasmic howls and wild, free spirit. I promised her in those last moments that I would honour these missing qualities in myself and that every time I touch into them, I will feel her spirit in particular, the gratitude overflowing for the transmission she gifted me/us with. I feel all my dogs in my heart, their wonderful personalities locked deep inside me, as I tune back into the qualities they transferred onto me, each and every one. Suddenly, with no warning, I ask my partner to turn right across Dolceacqua bridge. Intuitively, I know I have to go to the church. It might be closed but I stagger out of the car door, sobbing uncontrollably, snot ridden tissues clutched in my hand. I make my way for the church. The door is closed but I turn the handle and thankfully it opens. I run fast, falling towards the altar, collapsing prostrate at the foot of a tall statue of Christ begging for forgiveness, first in English and then in Italian with ‘perdonami’. I cannot stop, wailing so loudly and with huge force, I’m amazed that someone doesn’t enter and tell me to ‘pull myself together’. I haven’t set foot in this church for years. I have no idea how I found myself at the foot of this Christ statue, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been taken over, pulled towards Him. Something in me knows that this is a process I must surrender and go through and that grace will ensure I'm not disturbed. I look up at Christ and my hands are drawn to His hands, the red blood, touching over the stigmata and feeling this profound connection and peace. I look into His eyes and as I stay longer than a few seconds, the statue transfigures and becomes Christ’s human face. I’m stunned, transfixed. He is so beautiful, dark skinned and radiating. Suddenly in that same moment, I'm shot back at the foot of the Cross, one of Magdalene’s sisters, followers of Christ, looking up at my Beloved Master. I feel the absolute heart break, the agony as He suffers, as I suffer watching it all. I am powerless to do anything about it. Impotent and afraid, I am beside myself with grief. I beg for mercy again. The words just pour out of me as I seek redemption, recognise my separation from Him, for eons. Guilty that I know in this present state, this life I have chosen, I have forsaken Him, forgotten His teachings and given up on the Truth. Still His face softens as He tenderly gazes upon me and I see the merging of a female face, Magdalene and Christ together as one, this Hieros Gamos sacred marriage of masculine and feminine overlaid together, indistinguishable. Somehow the feminine face of Christ is also looking down on me with such tenderness, love and compassion. I am motionless, gazing back two thousand years, feeling that penetration that is breaking me apart with remembrance and deep inner knowing. I cannot believe how stunningly beautiful He is, the translucent nature of His suntanned skin, the stillness and safety I experience staying totally focussed on the love pouring through His eyes. I ask for guidance, beg to be shown how to stay with the Light of His teachings, how to not lose connection with the Way again, to re-member always what I knew so deeply all those years ago. Everything becomes clear, the breaking open of my shell as a result of so many things collapsing around me, the devastating suffering and losses I have experienced for so many long years and the agony of Misha's sudden and unexpected demise. This afternoon to make yet another heart wrenching decision, it felt too much, I wanted out the pain was so intense In the car I say to my partner, I want to join Misha in the hole he dug this morning. I'm exhausted from feeling like I'm being punished, the endless shocks and blocks that are excruciatingly painful and beyond my comprehension. I know I wouldn't do it but the pain is excruciating and it helps just to believe I have some semblance of control and choice in this unbearable pain. Then I remember the word ROSE and how only two days before the words came to me of what it represents. ’Restore our Sacred Essence’, the red Rose as the symbol of Magdalene and Mary, the Rose child who can open Her heart to hold the agony and the ecstasy. The wounds are the gift and blessing just as Jesus said for Thomas to feel into his stigmata in order to believe. I feel so grounded and present from the energy surge but also completely shaken and enlivened by this experience. Eventually after maybe fifteen minutes, I leave after taking a photograph and promising myself I can return at any time to be re-charged with this transmission. Energy is pulsating through my body, I feel in an altered state and I know that this grace will continue to act through me for some time. I return to the car with Misha wrapped up on the back seat and Ardhan asks if I want to share. I am speechless for a while while the vibrations settle, the cramps in my feet continuing for ten minutes but something I know to accept and allow. As we turn towards our road up to our house, I ask Ardhan if we can stop and get my post which I’ve left for a while. He hands me a few envelopes and I see one that has my handwriting on the front, immediately realising the synchronicity and timing, that this is the letter I wrote from my Higher Self, while on the April breath training in Rome, perfectly timed for me to open now. I ask Ardhan to wait a moment, while I read it out loud to him and I feel myself viscerally drop into embodiment, chilled to the bone with the grace of my words and the final sentence in particular which asks me to 'please accept the sacred invitation'. I know they are also His words, I am not alone. I know this is the radical commitment I am being asked to make at a soul level and that has just been confirmed by Christ in our local church and secondly by the magical timing of this letter only five minutes after this divine transmission. I know as my shaman says , that most people are not actually dead but but they are not fully alive or as David Whyte the poet writes so powerfully, they are living' lives of quiet desperation'. With my own trauma and losing a twin brother in the womb, I have always had one foot in this world and one in the other and I recognise it’s time for me to fully arrive and play my part here on Earth. Most of us are not saying a full Yes for one reason or another (often with early developmental and/or inter-generational trauma), because to feel deeply, facing reality instead of shutting down or opting for illusion and distraction, requires immense self compassion and an equal dose of courage. We have all been fragmented as a way to manage overwhelm and trauma and have lost our sacred connection, becoming numbed out and disassociated, splitting off in so many ways we don’t even realise. It is agony to feel so deeply in a culture that seeks to deny our emotions but as Kahlil Gibran says, joy and grief are bedfellows, there is no half measure. Whilst this healing process is not for the faint-hearted, the more we shut down on grief, the more we cannot access the full abundance and depth of joy that is truly possible. To heal from Lyme, I know I have no choice, it’s about coming into right relationship with myself, to move from inner apology to inner authority, seeing how this is mirrored in my own immune system, in order to heal and therefore be of real service to others. This is my path as a wounded healer, this ‘forgetting’ is what I and so many of us have done in order to survive but which is now untenable. This is the deeper ache, the longing for reconnection with myself, with my sacred essence, with others and with life itself. This is what Misha has catapulted me into, this is the power of grief as a way to force us kicking and screaming into spiritual embodiment, this path that for eons has been forbidden and denied. The word demori comes to mind which means 'I remain', the slogan that the surviving Cathars used during their horrific genocide by the church. This is my personal path and this is the return of the Sacred Feminine, and whether we are religious or not, which I am not, the light of the Christ consciousness is available to us all, if we want to step into this re-membrance of who we really are. The truth of the divine that remains within us as Jesus originally taught, in our own hearts, not outside of us as the church deliberately misinformed and enslaved us. So this is the letter, my soul words : “Sofia : It’s time to show up, to make sure you are fully available and to SHINE your hard earned wisdom, courage and beauty. You have so many gifts and unique qualities that come from your life experiences and the depths of what you have had to navigate, to strip away at what doesn’t serve in order to find your truth. This clarity and discernment needs to be shared to others with the tenderness, compassion, humility and grace which is yours and yours alone to offer. The world needs you to sprinkle the fairy dust that is both delicate and potent, desperately needed. Please accept the sacred invitation”. Each morning after Misha is gone, I wake and there is a devastating silence in the house without her, a dread about going downstairs with the emptiness. Chammy our other dog is frighteningly depressed as well. Yesterday I grieved all day, did a long, deep breath work session with my partner honouring Misha but today I know I need to take physical action on my land helping the newly planted roses, as I so easily fall into the well of suffering. I must remember the promise I made to my sweet dog, to myself. I ask Chammy to come with me on the walk, trusting that together we at least can do this even without Misha. She comes reluctantly and then shortly after, turns back to go home. I feel the pang of grief again, wondering the point of walking alone, noticing my control issues kick in with some anger that Chammy is not supporting me right now. Then I get it. I CHOOSE to go on the walk alone. Regardless. I can choose life even if I am fully in grief, I can still say a YES taking one step at a time. I walk down the mountain doing the Heart Coherence breath, counting on each hand. Five in, five out. Repeating the affirmation 'I flower and thrive', in and out with the breath. Staying focussed and determined, building up speed as I walk down the mountain road feeling stabilised and stronger. Returning back I am surprised and delighted to see Chammy coming around the corner some twenty minutes later. I know by grace, she is mirroring this divine invitation for me to walk just for myself, that this is enough, just as Gerald Manley Hopkins said 'for this reason I came'. We walk home together, happy, autonomous beings and yet in sacred union. I feel Misha with us, her spirit flying high and me carrying her teachings of how to live with this spontaneous, instinctive, curious, rebellious, wild, free energy that was her precious gift to me. In the words of Mary Oliver, her beautiful poem reminds me of how crucial it is to 'save the only life worth saving'. And to sit as Rumi said in one of his writings and trust that what I want, also wants me, is longing for that connection, if I can only be with myself, patiently trusting this mystical and co-creative secret, that has the capacity to totally transform every aspect of my life. I would have you stop fighting
I would have you stop and listen I would have you deep breathe Deep into the belly of your soul I would have you return to the Mother Return to the dark space The womb that holds everything I would have you know my power I would have you respect my power I would have you embrace my power And walk your talk Stand your ground Express your truth Expand your knowing Light your solar fire Blaze your trail Arise from the ashes And go forth with honour With me at your side Championing you every step of the way Cheering my child of the Light My child who bravely stepped through the flames To be transmuted As the phoenix No more excuses No more delays You are ripe You are ready KALI-EH-SWAAHA 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. 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. Below are the original statements I bought into, the false believes and underneath in italics, the new reality and perception that is my current truth:
I’m bad, the problem, it’s my fault, I have to be responsible for everything. I deserve it Seeing how I’ve carried all the unresolved baggage in family/culture/religion (and as woman) I have no skin, my boundaries are non-existent, anything can come in even if uninvited Nothing has permission unless I say so...my body is my own......'my dragon's fire fucking burns anyone who violates my boundaries' (these boundaries of steel that are the marker for those with the most self compassion) I’m a woman, second rate citizen, here to serve men, not have needs (inner patriarch) To give up this martyrdom, enslavement and prostitution that has gone on for millennia - standing for return of sacred feminine to save Mother Earth, nature, the human species that has been split Head, intelligence, control, omnipotence Body has the wisdom, this intuitive and implicit wisdom ('body holds the score' book by Bessel Von Kolk) Outside authority knows it all, they have the answers and way for me Realisation how many are deluded, psychotic, living in dark ages and often evil (like big Pharma and Monsanto), they do not have my best interests…..staying with my own spiritual truth and wisdom, knowing I am my own saviour Separation, doing it solo, needing no-one, individual power, competition/power games, co-dependency Conscious Relationship as fuel for growth. Inclusion, diversity, equality, mutuality, resonant community, no-one is separate or above/below. Shaman’s way. Surrendering to more space….the sacred, allowing in GRACE, this higher power and divine wisdom to guide and support. Sacred marriage - intimate and authentic relating with commitment to evolving Fill up the day with over-doing, never ending lists, too many people and their stories, scattered and over stimulated.......because emptiness feels dangerous and, scary. Abandonment, inability to self soothe, no way to create Emptiness, new possibilities from space and embodied 'not knowing' - the Goddess to enter, hold, self care. Containment and boundaries. Writing as a lifeline…creative gifts. Sacred relationships carefully chosen Living in black and white polarities, standing on one foot, I’m right, they are wrong, I’m sorted and healed as finish line Seeing greys….knowing opposites in myself, learning to self love, accepting all of it (all the paradox), being compassionate and therefore including more of humanity without judgment. Straddling opposites, dancing with power and vulnerability. Shadow work to avoid hurting self and others as responsibility grows with more awareness Job Titles that crucify me like killer inner critic, scapegoat, victim, saviour/rescuer..... Reclaiming disowned and blind selves. Having primary selves grow up to do real, soul jobs ie critic becomes discerning judge, scapegoat becomes whistleblower, victim becomes compassionate advocate and rescuer becomes emissary/light worker/wounded healer for others….selves like the witness who came out to see bigger picture Surviving awful experiences, trauma and challenges - life is unfair, I’m at the mercy of whatever happens, imploded trauma, nothing will change, it’s misery, hopeless and doomed. I am powerless. Understanding nature of trauma which is huge for everyone but misunderstood. Bringing suffering back from exile, reclaiming the sacred feminine. Recognising this as initiation, the forging of resilience, wisdom, humility, compassion - this alchemic truth of 'holy brokenness', in order to awaken and do life work. Being in Service, this the real destination. Heart opening. Being moulded…post traumatic injury to post traumatic growth. Helping others by sharing journey, holding a lantern in their darkness. Standing as light-bearer, owning this light, recognising power as huge responsibility. You are fundamentally evil, sinned and are beyond redemption. Needing priest or holy person to transcend Connecting to self as sacred and part of God/Goddess. No middle man is needed, separation is over, all is forgiven. Coming back to the body - going down to the womb, to Spiritual Embodiment. Sacred Marriage within myself. There is no good/bad, it is all energy wanting to come home to the light…..to love it all is key. Until she was 39 years old, she was totally programmed, conditioned, adapted to serve others with no connection to herself whatsoever. She knew nothing different. She didn’t see this as a power game or as slavery that takes place in families and globally, everywhere on the planet. She was compliant, totally asleep, easily manipulated having given her power away from the beginning. Energetically it was an absolute ‘take over’. She was anaesthetised with no sense of self. She did not know anger and she had cried perhaps once in ten years. At age 60, after 20 years with mystery illness and journeying to the Underworld, she now understands the victim, prostitute, saboteur, servant and slave archetypes. She knows what it is to be objectified, to have no rights, to be a belonging but not to belong. She knows very well, the masks of primary selves (ways of coping) that cover these hopeless, unworthy, un-redeemable parts such as the good girl, pleaser, super achiever, perfectionist, heroine, care-taker, the activist, the revolutionary…… all with the hidden and unconscious sentence really saying “If I do enough for you, if I’m good enough, if I change the world and save you, will I matter, can you be there for me, will you love me then?”.
She knows what it’s like to push herself to be perfect, to feel she cannot have flaws, to believe there is some place where she will be sorted and healed. A place where illness and pain doesn’t exist, this exhaustive and illusory path that is not realistic or viable but which drives her always forward. She knows what it’s like to feel she has to be perfect to justify her existence, to feel that she matters and has something to offer. She knows the devastation of falling back to feeling suicidal and wanting out, identifying herself as a total failure and not giving herself permission to be vulnerable, sick or needing help. She knows how she can push herself to an early grave, this inner slave driver who is brutal and unrelenting. She knows the nectar of what it’s like to receive a different perception that ‘perfect women are not real and real women are not perfect’, to realise that we are here to keep rising, again and again or be like the rocket that went to the moon and yet was 98% off course. She knows how important it is to give herself permission to rest and play, this balance and deservedness being the hardest thing of all in her life. She knows how damaging it can be when she still chooses inappropriate people whether friends, suppliers or healers, who cannot hear or see her, where she defaults to over trusting, where she somehow takes on their projections…how new it is for her to stop this, see the signs, step away and say no. She knows the confusion and double bind terror of not recognising the danger signals, not knowing who or what to trust, feeling this lack of safety with herself and life. This implosion and paralysis, the inability to stand and fight as freezing takes over. She knows what it’s like, the terror of not trusting herself or the choices she would make and of having to relearn this skill because her boundaries and sense of self was shattered so early on. So with this hard earned wisdom, she finally knows the joy of making good decisions trusting her body’s implicit wisdom and seeing how the universe responds to her strong and clear energy, this manifestation process, that finally is happening. This return to the sacred feminine that flows in her veins and is unstoppable. Breaking out from these chains, the vows and promises she has made………she knows how others are challenged as she changes and refuses to follow their dictate whether in family, work or society. She knows the scapegoat well, what it is to be the problem, to take on all the responsibility that others cannot or will not own. She knows the dark night’s of the soul when all light has gone out and there is nothing to hold onto, no programme that makes any sense. She knows what it is to be excommunicated from family and society and to loathe and hate her body in the same brutal way. To not fit anymore, to have spoken the unforgivable truth that they cannot accept, the sins of the fathers, this no-man’s land of standing totally on your own with no external reference points. She knows how nature, animals, writing, prayer and a few special souls changed her for ever, were her life line during these long years in the wilderness. She learnt how to self soothe, to return to her body and hold her wounds, these tiny forbidden and banished inner children who needed love and healthy parenting. She knows about magic, miracles and the power of grace that comes in many disguises, how it has always kept her going in ways that are still incomprehensible. She is finally beginning to know how her sacred connection sustains her above all else, is always there and will never leave. She knows how the adversary challenges so often ended up to be the brutal grace that woke her up even if it was kicking and screaming. The mystery illness that doctors didn’t have a clue about, that caused her to crash and forced her to be with herself as she couldn’t do anything else…..years of this torture……coming back to her body with all it’s memories and terrifying symptoms, all its repressed rage and imploded grief. All the trauma that she was marinated in, that dis-regulated her nervous system causing her to live disassociated, out of her body, unable to return, literally shocked out of her skin. She knows what it means to be 'beside herself' with fear, to have that much abject terror making it impossible to sit still and not distract herself in some way. She knows the joy of releasing this stuck energy and reclaiming her life force so that she could find who she was…her soul’s calling, her sovereignty, her mission and the reason she incarnated. She was not born to be a slave and object for others but she needed to know this programme in order to understand the dynamic playing out everywhere on our planet. This was the initiation so that she would know it first hand, feel this betrayal in every cell of her body. She knows how these betrayals broke her heart but also helped her to see where it had been broken before, to heal these original wounds perpetrated by those who were supposed to care for her. She knows that despite everything, her heart has never been destroyed….the cracks are where the light gets in as Leonard Cohen said in his beautiful song, it’s the fuel for our greatest gifts to come forth. She knows from her long journey to the Underworld, that the alchemic, soul’s journey is about being forged, it’s an initiation that is designed to bring forth resilience, endurance, courage, strength, compassion, wisdom, humility and grace in order that we are prepared for our real life purpose. She is ready for this now. She knows the value of doing years of work on herself, the enforced periods of rest due to illness where she grew and opened up psycho-spiritually, releasing self limiting beliefs and negative energies coming from all dimensions but mostly as a result of her inner programming. She knows the universe takes us at our own estimate which now makes sense, how it is entirely impersonal so that we ultimately can choose our way. She knows the ancestors are calling on the telephone needing her/our attention, desperate for healing and honouring. She knows how at some level she chose to heal her ancestral line inter-generationally, first to see where unresolved demonic energies were bringing her down due to her low vibrations and lack of boundaries and then for the whole family system. She knows that ultimately it’s all energy and vibration, the parasites in all dimensions sucking her life force and literally ‘under her skin’ as she continues to clear chronic neurological Lyme and mould illness. She knows about her inability to say no, the mirror of her immune system that had no protection and no power to fight back, the instinct injury that was deep in her body from early abuse. She knows what it means to release trauma and heal the gaping hole that addictions used to fill, she’s done the work, it’s not for the faint-hearted and yet returning to the body is her ongoing priority....to come fully 'home'. She also knows how easily she can disassociate as a default, to go out of her body and how lost she feels when this happens like walking around as a zombie on the wrong planet. Sharing emotional truth, even when totally broken or fired up with rage, helps her come home as she dares to express whatever is happening. This is emotional alchemy. She wishes to bless those brave, precious souls who can sit with this part of her, allow all of her, because then post traumatic injury moves to post traumatic growth. Magic and miracles take place in this mutuality and shared humanity. This is the ‘Welcoming Home to the Tribe’ that she offers others, this missing piece of connecting to the family and community, and of knowing that the 'war of childhood' is finally over, as Karla McLaren speaks of, in the full healing of trauma. After years stripping back layers to find herself, she finally knows she can influence her own reality….every choice has powerful consequences, how to stay close to the sacred, praying for guidance and support. She’s not sorted or fixed, her light is as a result of her wounds. They will never go, that’s not what it’s about. She still self abandons, over-extends falls in the hole and gets over-identified with old ways and patterns of behaviour, that’s inevitable. But she has extensive resources as a result of straddling many extreme places, she’s dug deep and more importantly knows how to rise , each and every time more resilient and wise. She knows that breaking through the pain of the wound, accepting it all instead of resisting it, she can miraculously find herself held by the Goddess, held by HER in a sense of oneness and expansion. She’s a resilient survivor, she can bear the unbearable and in this surrender ironically lies the bliss that is intimately close to the pain as Kahil Gibran so beautifully describes. They are bedfellows, the joy and the suffering. Mostly, she knows how to look after her inner children and stay connected rather than splitting off. And, these days, she is usually able to shift her vibration so that light/love replaces fear and confusion……healing inter-generational unresolved trauma (seven generations before and after)……..choosing supportive, intimate and nourishing friends who have her back, even if only a small number…….and more importantly turning first to herself and her higher truth. She knows herself better now, her feelings, her needs and her longing which is to be of service, to share her story to be an inspiration for others, to shine a light in their darkness. Changing the job title of rescuer (this unconscious need for safety and validation) to Emissary of Light or Light worker…....being a compassionate witness and advocate for others, holding space above all, to be a spiritually embodied ambassador always checking in, this self awareness and reference being vital to avoid losing herself again. Years of self work making this possible, to face the shadow in herself as an ongoing process for life, in order to know how to heal and shift whatever arises, accepting it all as light, all as the One. She knows now how to get out of her own way, surrendering her life to a Higher Power, to the Goddess and allowing grace to offer the magic and miracles that make life worth living. She simply prays in the words of Caroline Myss ‘hover over me Lord, I’m about to do something stupid, guide and support me through this process……..give me your grace, strength and clarity to make healthy choices.......’ I’m remembering today the horse trainer who some 20 years ago, explained why one stallion was incapable of joining in with the other horses frolicking in the fields, throwing themselves into gay abandon as they rolled in the damp grass and he just stood and watched. Motionless and disconnected. I felt so upset about this horse, that I asked the trainer why he wasn’t enjoying being in the field with the other horses. She said this stallion had been broken into racing too young and programmed before it was ready, so he had forgotten his natural way. I remember my heart dropping to my stomach and my breathing stopped when she said these words, tears in my eyes as I felt such empathy with this beautiful, lost horse. This is my story and why I felt so upset. Our body is wise. We get triggered with what resonates and this helps us to uncover our own stories, even if we don’t know them at a cognitive level. Our bodies and felt sense speak to us if we listen. I’ve been that stallion, taken over and at the mercy of others, their programming and agendas. Like the stallion I felt like I was always watching life and not participating in it. I became a disembodied, anaesthetised, super woman, just as this horse became a champion stallion racer. I collected trophies for my mother and was a swimming champion from an early age, desperately trying to re-live the life she was never given. I did not grow up as a child with the divine right to BE which is essential to belong and which then leads to becoming. I was objectified and ‘taken over’. I was a belonging just like the stallion and I lost my will and way. Perfectionism killed my creativity and authenticity, since on auto-pilot, all that mattered was staying safe and getting ‘it’ right. I became an adapted clone, a walking zombie who did what she was told, totally invested in pleasing others. I saw this desperate emptiness, the gaping hole inside me, when I would go as a parent to my daughter’s school and hear how the teachers adored and couldn’t stop praising my daughter as an inspired, gifted and free child. Their response delighted and was a relief to me but it wasn’t until I would sit in the car to go home, that I would be overcome with a deep, heart wrenching pain, finding myself wailing uncontrollably for at least half an hour. I didn’t know that I yearned to have this same freedom, this spontaneity and vitality, I just felt broken hearted and beside myself with grief. Then I would pull myself together, put on a brave face and go home to tell the good news to my husband and later to praise my daughter for her results. I didn’t know what else to do. I felt like this empty child pretending to be a mother, going through the motions like I had never grown up. I said and did the right things. I was determined not to push and pressurise my daughter, to give her the space to be herself but the ancestral wounding was still not cleared. Years later I realised I had given birth to two beautiful children without even knowing I had a womb or where it was. I didn’t know I had soul rape, that I had been betrayed and used for the narcissistic agenda of others. I appeared to have everything. Our family was ‘nice’ and middle class just as Alice Miller discusses in her book ‘The Drama of a Gifted Child’. I had the nickname of ‘golden girl’, with spun gold locks to match and I never put a foot wrong. I even married a man with the surname Knight and we adored each other. I couldn’t share my confusion with anyone, it didn’t make sense back then, the programme was still intact. I felt like I was going mad when the intense feelings would flood in for no apparent reason, like during a parent’s meeting, so I quickly shoved them back down again and got on with business as normal. If I was totally focussed externally on the ‘other’, making sure they were happy, everything was fine. I didn't know I was a chronic co-dependent with no self reference. I rarely made a mistake and therefore no-one complained. On the very few occasions when my cover was exposed, like at my daughter’s school, I was suddenly floored and thrown off quilter, shot back in time. I had no footing and whilst I had the capacity to separate out and not project my own sadness explicitly on my daughter, the aching hole inside of me was never filled. I know now my daughter suffered as a result because in truth, we try to hide things but it doesn’t work. The 'mother wound' as it is now known with the teachings of Bethany Webster explains this much better than I can here. The energy is still felt, the Emperor is still wearing no clothes and even with the best of intentions, we end up passing on the same ancestral patterns down the line. However hard I tried to self improve or achieve anything, nothing filled this unconscious, gaping hole, the sense of not deserving to exist and not mattering. When things began to unravel, the crippling shame and unworthiness would take me over, I couldn’t even speak to know what my feelings were or that I had any needs. I didn’t ever belong and I had no idea that my body belonged to me or that I had rights. ROLES and MASKS Perfectionism is about roles, masks and pretences. My role was to serve and to give, this made sense. I knew the rules, they were programmed early on and woe betide if I failed to live up to them because then my internal pusher and killer critic teamed up with a vicious inner patriarch were always close by. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake. I had seen what happened with my brother’s rebellion, so I ticked off my brownie list to be sure I did what everyone wanted of me and then I could rest more easily. Years later, as I continued this way of behaving, if others were happy with how I served, whether this was my husband, parents, children or boss, then I was happy and safe. I’ve been that stallion watching the other horses and feeling the disconnection of what to do, the shame of not knowing how to play and as a human, covering it with control, orchestrating play, so it seemed like I knew the rules. In reality, I never knew the rules because since I had no self reference, they always lay outside of myself and were therefore constantly changing. Shapeshifting and adaptation was the norm and with my antennae I was a master at working out how I needed to be. And alcohol helped, it softened the edges with other people when socialising. I could be larger than life, championing, organising and networking for friends, family and at work and people later told me they were amazed at what I could achieve and manage, the dinner parties I would throw weekly on top of a full week’s work and how masterful I was at most things. The reality was that I could always handle emergency situations, this was my default mode and the reason for the statement ‘give the extra job to the busiest person’. I didn’t know how to say no, that word didn’t exist in my dictionary. My job as Conference Director was made for me, it fit like a glove, constant stress and drama of organising 200 or more guests for a perfectly laid out event somewhere in the Caribbean or Europe. The reality is that I had never cried until I was 39 and never had any anger until my forties. I was compliant and with a huge sense of inner apology covered up by perfectionism. Just like the stallion, people saw what they wanted to, we were the perfect family and apparently faultless. Culture and programming showed me how to play out an archetype energy that could endlessly over-extend but inside there was a deeply buried and desperate wretch. Back then, I didn’t know how my boundaries had been severely shattered as a tiny one. Going through the healing process with nightmares, flashbacks and body sensations of every kind is another book in itself and not for here. The truth is that I was adapted from such a young age that I never learnt what it was to be at ease in my body and with life itself. I had no connection with my breath at all, I lived outside of myself without realising it. My nervous system was dis-regulated and leaving by disassociating was part of my body’s deeply intelligent, safety mechanism. I had no idea this was a marker for trauma, checking out is just what I did, becoming immobile and freezing was deeply engrained and a way I functioned when things became overwhelming. Protective masks were all I had and they were extremely polished and strong. Underneath these, I didn’t exist and when some of these masks like my rational self were stripped away in cathartic workshops years later, (in my attempt to find the reasons why I was so chronically ill and debilitated), I was left dangerously at risk because I had no core sense of self. Immediately after this, I spent one year alone in our Devonshire house trying to manage with a different persona, as I felt like I had been stripped of a key part of me and without it I felt naked and intensely vulnerable. Our protections are there for a reason and we need to be gentle in how we unmask ourselves, so I’m grateful that these more radical treatments are recognised to be harmful and often re-traumatising as they were for me. Even though it isn’t yet widely discussed, research is showing that we all have early development trauma, as well as collective trauma passed down to us and we are all playing out a variety of roles to one degree or another. Most people are walking around with a number of main primary selves such as pleaser, achiever, good girl or rebel, skeptic and bad boy, thinking this is who they are, having no idea of the adaptation that has happened, the loss of authentic relating to themselves and others. We need to have compassion for the ways we have had to survive, these are intelligent processes that often saved our lives , even if in our adult years they no longer serve. Nevertheless, we also pay a heavy price for walking around with all these defences and covers, that block any intimacy or real heart connection. My masks were so strongly in place that to wake up, I had to crash out of the blue, at age 39 in Waitrose Supermarket, where I was suddenly paralysed and unable to pay the cashier. I believe this was a drastic, soul cry for help in the only way I knew, so I would be brought back home to myself, albeit kicking and screaming. Being stuck in bed unable to do anything was hell on earth. I couldn’t even read I was so ill, the curtains had to be closed because I was too sensitive to manage light of any kind. My nervous system was completely blown. I was carried home, my parents moved in for two years to look after my children and my world ended overnight. Every role I had was stripped away, as I found myself with a mystery illness that debilitated and destroyed everything I knew. Doctors had no cure other than anti-depressants. No-one knew about M.E. back then and those that did, believed it was all in the mind. Even my own brother as a doctor. I was on my own and worse still, apparently according to doctors at this time, I was faking was what happening. I felt like a fraud, totally confused and lost and then I was labelled as one, to add insult to injury. Going to the bathroom was my daily challenge, I couldn’t read, eat or hold my children, let alone see friends or continue my old life. This is another story in itself, years of being bedridden, a divorce and many other shocks and losses along the way, as I stripped back layers of deep conditioning and abuse to find my core self. SELF ABANDONMENT - Facing the Wretch What I know and what hurts, is that I’ve tried so hard to be a good person, to get ‘it’ right only to find myself lost and alone with a life and health in ruins. Ultimately what I see is that to survive, I controlled myself and everyone but was never able to tolerate intimacy with myself or others. I had no idea that I had complex trauma issues with a nervous system that was totally dis-regulated, making sense of so many of my digestive and other symptoms and until Dr. Gabor Mate came along, I had never heard that trauma invariably underpinned all mystery illness. I couldn’t face the distraught and damaged child within me. I kept self abandoning because I found her too repulsive and too demanding. My body was my greatest enemy and I avoided it like the plague and I had so many addictive tendencies which I could hide because they were not based on alcohol or drug abuse. I was however a workaholic and perfectionist, acting like a slave driver and consistently taking myself to an early grave. I was fine cooking lavish meals for my family and friends but any self focus and I’d resort to the quickest and easiest thing, often forgetting and not noticing what I needed. Whilst there was significant betrayal by those I should have trusted that planted the seeds, from the earliest beginning, in reality years later I see that the greatest betrayal and self abandonment is what I have done to myself as an adult. I didn’t know how to mother myself, to self care and nourish. There was no programme for this and I did to myself what was done to me, this is how we learn. I treated my body like an object and I found it an annoying waste of time when it came to the basics like self care. Trauma wasn't the buzz word it is now, it was reserved only for war veterans and rape victims, no-one understood about early development trauma (A.C.E. and attachment theory) and how this changes the brain for example. Boundaries are a pre-requisite for healthy relationships. I didn’t have any as mine were shattered from a young age. I literally didn’t have a skin and I couldn’t read the signals because I wasn’t in my body. My family was enmeshed and co-dependent, having separate feelings was not allowed so merging was the norm. We are social beings and yet like many traumatised souls, people have terrified me because I didn't know where I began and they ended. I was also so busy being perfect for most of my life, living in emergency mode, I didn't notice anything that was happening, in my attempt to be a 'good girl'. In my conference and marriage days, I would wear an imaginary t-shirt saying on the front ‘how are you doing’ and on the back ‘try harder’. This was the total focus, noticing my own feelings, needs or body sensations just didn't come into it. I was either overwhelmed by people or they would be overwhelmed by me but no-one said anything as we were all playing out our particular patterns. Containment is still my greatest challenge, finding this alignment and core within, how to hold onto my ‘stuff’ and not let it spill out onto others inappropriately and also how to say no when my limits are reached. The breath is the answer for me, staying connected with myself and therefore being able to modulate what is happening with me and any other person. This helps me stay aligned with myself when triggered and prevents me over-identifying with falling in the black hole of others projections or labelling myself as a total failure or both. Breath also helps me not be held hostage by trauma and over-arousal, the chemical cascade that blocks my ability to be present and at peace. There is some separation finally years on and now, I exist in my own right. All I had was words to protect me and now years on, it is this writing that is my creative lifeline. When I see a finished poem or piece of writing, it's like I can feel myself existing, the safety in going back to re-read it as something solid. I couldn’t feel myself without the words, speaking was the only connection and the only boundary I had. It was a way to keep people out, to stay in control and to feel like I existed. It wasn’t safe to receive and yet I needed the outside world to define me, to tell me who I was, to be the loving parent and give me validation at every turn because I was incapable of self reference and any kind of self soothing. My life was about these constant double binds, feeling between the devil and the deep blue sea, rarely able to feel any sense of safety or rest. If the outside world was unhappy with me, I had no ground to stand on. Panic would set in and I’d adapt and try harder. If the outside world was withholding or silent, I had no inner authority or safety, nothing to hold onto. Treading on eggshells was my default programme where I saw myself as always being the problem and desperately would try to make things better. Worse than this the excruciating shame would near on kill me, with punishing shame spirals that would go on for weeks on end, until I began to recognise what was happening with the help of the 12 step programme, years of counselling, incredible books and dialogues and later experiential work with inter-generational, collective trauma. HERO’S JOURNEY In desperation for freedom at some soul level, I’ve been that instinct injured bird (like my first budgerigar) that took it’s chances, it’s bid for flight, with absolute conviction and unbridled passion, only to realise fatally, that it was without safety and protection at the mercy of the outside world. Ultimately, however, we are not meant to be caged and trapped in slavery and prostitution, so some part of me was screaming to live on my own terms. Illusion and fantasy kept me safe from facing the truth, it was a necessary survival mechanism at the time but in latter years it's caused me no end of unnecessary drama and pain. Our body is supremely intelligent, we do what we can to survive and authentic parts of us become exiled and fragmented well out of sight. That’s what happened here in Italy, my soul led me here to the beauty of this isolated, olive farm but also backwards in time and deep into the underworld. It’s been the making of me in many ways but as Russell Brandt said recently, I’ve also been fighting crocodiles in a swamp, literally and metaphorically. Italy is a great teacher. A Kali teacher, the Dark Goddess that takes no prisoners and it’s only now with discernment finally in place, that I can see clearly what I’ve been up against and how valiantly in fact I have come through the initiation and out the other side. I can see the bigger picture of what has taken place. I’ve slowed down and am listening to what needs to happen. My foundations are finally in place, my feet firmly on the ground. I’m ready to receive, to move from intensity to intimacy and with awareness, wisdom and much courage, to go where the door is open. After ten months of repairing the three massive landslides here on the land, cement armoured walls finally in place, I’m also here in my body somewhat battered and bruised but with my core intact and my soul and passion still on fire. Like the mountain I’m held up, a bit messy but more fortified than before. I thought I was totally spent but that’s what it’s like when you turn to goo in the caterpillar darkness, you have no idea of what is to come. It's impossible to imagine the butterfly wings but along the way, I’ve learnt what it means to shape shift and be creative. I know the darkness well. I know the terror of ‘not knowing’ and having to surrender to the Great Unknown, to the womb of potentiality. I’m less naive, more realistic and definitely more discerning. I’m more resilient, despite all the shocks and setbacks and in this meltdown process, I forgot to see just how strong and courageous I really was. The mountain is teaching me, her repaired belly as a mirror to mine, more foundations in place and built from the bottom upwards, with lots of clear drainage to avoid future flooding. It’s a great metaphor and I am not immune to the soul message. I see the alchemy and magic of the forging process, of how we are all initiated by life circumstances and in particular by brutal grace. I know the territory. I was forced to slow down because I wouldn't listen, pushing and trying to stay in control without humility or surrender. I've walked in the moccasins and as such, I can also be an enlightened witness to others still stuck in their darkness. I’m not apologetic about spending years digesting what happened and facing the truth, instead of burying my head in the sand and continuing as if everything was normal while the Titanic was sinking or alternatively going out while my shadow stuff was still running the show. With no cure for mystery illness, often crippled and unable to walk which went on for years, this solo journey inwards was necessary. The more I uncovered, the more I saw the connection to trans-generational trauma and it was no coincidence that I found myself in large groups clearing doing shamanic ritual family constellation work. Now we see that this collective trauma is passed down such that we end up carrying symptoms and falling into what is termed a Spiritual Emergency. Secrets and lies was my family’s way and it’s what we have been doing globally, that is clearly untenable. We are all being required to clean up our individual and collective wounds that before could not be processed. Transparency and clearing the field is what I believe in because it is the only way that I have managed to heal. Now, I prefer to look at the truth in my body and in the world, exposing when the Emperor is clearly wearing no clothes. I know that I have needed a backbone in order to do this and I know that with this resilience, I’m ready to begin my true soul’s mission, provided I balance this with self care and finding my co-creative tribe. I’m done doing everything solo, this is the old programme of separation and divide that has to go. I’ve also seen that happiness without vision is empty, vision without emptiness is a recipe for burn out and having had three of these, I’m opting for vision and happiness to go together, arm in arm. I might be 61 years of age but I finally get that it’s my birthright to be happy, I am not here to suffer and survive. Each time I self abandoned too far, I had no choice but to step up and keep re-inventing myself because the alternative was unthinkable. Each time it’s always about more embodied self care and self love with gratitude as the main ingredient on the menu. That's why yoga mudras have taken off, women desperately need to rest and digest their overworked nervous systems. I see this is the only way to truly be in sacred service, we are not meant to be ill as martyrs in the process, this is the pathological co-dependency that is so rife on our planet and where women have self sacrificed at a huge price. As we move away from the church dogma, it’s time for sin and suffering as the model of humanity to give way to more positive emotions of joy and happiness. It’s true I’ve lived my life with the disastrous questions that Matt Kahn says most of us live life, which are, ‘I hope this doesn’t happen’ or ‘I hope this does happen’. I’ve controlled and tried to avoid problems only to have one shock after the other. After failing miserably and seeing that most of the best things happened when I got out of my own way and allowed grace to come in, with some trepidation I must admit, I am endeavouring to let life be, to say ‘I accept whatever happens in life, ………bring it on’. I've let go of believing there is a demonic god and that I am sinned beyond redemption, this deeply held belief that has carved it’s way down my ancestral lineage for too long and that the early Christian church deliberately propagated. The Magdalene hidden gospels confirm Jesus's real teachings that sin was simply a forgetting of our eternal nature, nothing more. My daily breathing mantra is now ‘grace surrounds me now’, as I bring to mind my beloved daemon dog, aptly named ‘Rambo’ who somehow magically arrived to protect and live with me on my isolated mountainside here in Liguria. Amazing grace has kept me going for sure, as my anchor and my north star. THE DOOR MARKED ‘HEAVEN’ I remember the question asked in the 12 step programme to newcomers which always amused me and was “ There are two doors. One is marked ‘Heaven’, the other is marked ‘Discussion on Heaven’. Which one do you open?” For years it was clear. I always wanted to go to the door marked discussion and most others in the 12 step were the same. Life had not been safe, opening the door of heaven was unknown, early attachment issues were always at the root of this. I had no reference for a space or place of safety, this healthy attachment was not met in my early development and as such it has been easier to discuss and analyse everything, rather than surrender to trust. I needed to learn how to live with my own inner authority and agenda, to regain this trust first with my body to avoid losing myself with other people. Now these teachings are being offered with wonderful teachers like Irene Lyon showing how trauma is not a medical problem but a lifestyle as when people everywhere have traumatic stress in their physiology, it comes out in conditions like fibromyalgia, auto-immune, mental illness and much else. Separation is a symptom of the collective trauma we live in as a culture. So I’ve spent years in this place, learning what it means to be truly human, working out my own rules, releasing blocked and frozen trauma, recognising the ancestral legacy and coming back to my body and felt sense. And in the process, navigating 23 years of chronic illness with what was first mis-diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue (M.E.) and then later as Chronic Neurological Lyme with fibromyalgia and arthritis. My spiritual fascist tells me I've failed. But perhaps mystery illness with trauma, has and is my particular portal for awakening and in particular for returning to self compassion. What I know without doubt, is that I will always be passionate about awakening until I die, it’s in my blood now. I want to know where I’m not awake, where I am not being real with my blind spots. I'm devoted to shadow work because staying in victim mentality is the reason we have such a dire collective shadow right now. I’m in my body with my nervous system more regulated and finally I'm living life on my terms. It’s rare for me to have trouble with my legs, I can ‘stand my ground’ now. I’m listening and staying present rather than running fast. This is radical. The body is intelligent and I know that touching into love will bring up everything that is not love itself, so I need to be strong and resilient taking it easy as I open up. I'm strengthening my body with quantum health exercises and breath to create this en-core-ment and safety. I am a mover and shaker but I want to do it with presence this time. I’m glad for the years spent discussing about heaven, I've needed to ask questions, to check out the facts, to intuit and listen to my GPS guidance system which rarely fails me now. At least now I know what heaven is not and the fact that most of the shadow issues like my entitlement and negative thinking, can be resolved by starting at home with me. I want to bring heaven here on earth and this is a spiritually embodied process, it’s not about transcending and leaving, which is a default that is second nature to me. I need to remind myself that this ’heaven on earth’ process includes me and my body, to really get this fact and as a woman, to really honour the process of rest and self care. It’s not just my body that has been defiled, ignored, suppressed and violated, it’s the body of the sacred feminine and it will take some time before we realise that our female bodies can safely be included in the overall picture. Women of my age, we are the bridge generation, we carved the way for our children, particularly our daughters to be much freer than before, but we still struggle with this whole process and need a lot of healthy, safe support to remind us when we feel alone, self hating and lost. The sisterhood has not been safe and women do not realise the extent of their inner patriarch conditioning, how we are culturally caught in an era, where is still a lot of competition and harsh judgement for stepping out of the toxic male paradigm. SPIRITUAL EMBODIMENT To be a feminine, spiritual warrior, there are no bells and whistles, no certificates for being fierce and standing one's ground or for going down to the underworld and falling apart, to learn the qualities of humility, wisdom, grace and compassion. There are no awards for integrating fierce power with tender vulnerability which I believe is the way forward now, if we are all to find our heart's way. Certainly here in Italy women truly are not welcomed for stepping up into their authority and power, I'm surprised just how backward Liguria in particular is. No-one except Brene Brown will tell you that the most self compassionate people are the ones with boundaries of steel and how hard fought this is when you are a woman. All of us, men and women, we are caught up in a matrix of slavery within a traumatised culture, with mass moral disassociation, where we are not encouraged to wake up. Healing trauma is a lifestyle to build up greater capacity and regulation, it's in the details. It’s up to us to ‘real-eyes’ what is happening on our planet and at the same time, to see our own blind and unconscious places within ourselves. We are not rewarded for healing our individual and collective trauma or for embarking on healing our shadow nor perhaps to step into our sovereignty and those closest to us in our families, will often tell us to get back to our old worlds and start being ‘normal’ again. It’s hard to step away from the crowd, to do things differently from the culture around especially when trauma is normalised and the water we are all swimming in.. It’s hard to see that the Emperor is wearing no clothes and harder still to say it out loud, so others can hear. And, there are no qualifications or overt celebrations for being spiritually embodied which is our toughest task of all, for being in touch with our emotional landscape and yet it’s the most important thing we can do for ourselves, our children and our planet right now. Spiritual bypassing has to be challenged, it’s another avoidance of dealing with vulnerability, pain and trauma. There's been far too much talk of enlightenment and much too little about en-darkenment, this coming home to living in our bodies and honouring Mother Earth and the dark womb of the sacred feminine as part of this. Unhealthy attachment issues are now seen to be the reason for poor regulation of our nervous systems and this collective trauma and lack of embodiment is widespread on our planet, though sorely under recognised. Spiritual embodiment is needed for healthy regulation in all areas of our lives, and particularly globally, whether it’s with 5G technology or over use of Glysophate pesticides, we need to come back into more balance, to learn what it means to self soothe and regulate, if we are to avoid pushing ourselves to the edge of extinction. So we need to wake up individually and globally, but also to recognise that the nervous system and body is a slower medium, it needs time to digest food, insights and new beliefs. We need to be gentle and compassionate with ourselves above all else, as we try to step into new quantum realities and change deep outmoded ways of being. Finally, I’m honouring this process and as a sensitive empath, also trying to limit being over-stimulated with downloads of information and energy that I constantly pick up. Also because with Lyme and auto-immune illnesses generally, the retro-viruses involved, are hugely stimulated by working in electro-magnetic fields (EMFs, ) so I try to avoid having Wifi in my environment as much as possible. Processing and healing ourselves, clearing collective trauma is tiring and my mind wants to race forward when my body needs more time, the way nature works in cycles, resting and restoring Herself. I can’t catch up lost years for when I was a robot. As I heal and come out of survival it's inevitable that the huge losses need to be grieved fully in order to move on. I can’t change the past or make it all better for my children who had such a sick mother for most of their growing years. I'm deeply sad that I have not had a programme to be an earth, loving mother and how I've passed on ancestral wounds despite trying my hardest to be different. I can only console myself that I did my absolute best, nothing more was possible. The children always came first and I'm grateful that the life we chose in Devon, allowed them to live freely within nature, on a beautiful estuary rowing their boats and being free which was a godsend. Now, my children are fully grown and able to care for themselves and whilst its strange, it's necessary that I change the focus from creating a healing centre, to first committing to self care and rest. The vision I have will happen but the overall timing is important and for now I've been halted for good reason. It is about RESTORATION, of my body and of the land here.. After years of work on severe abandonment issues where I couldn’t be alone and without some project to keep me busy 24/7, I’m more able to be at peace with myself, spending days on my own in inner contemplation and writing. So as I let go and surrender with no demands, and as my body strengthens more and more, trauma memories are revealing themselves, as I slow down and stop filling my life with some drama or project. Also as Irene Lyon reminded me recently, as we find ourselves more stable and resilient, ironically this is when our intrinsic knowing often surfaces another deeper layer of hidden trauma that needs to be brought back from exile and fully accepted with love, just like stripping away at layers of an onion. Healing from trauma is not a linear and straightforward path, it's often deeply painful challenging us to our limits. At an ego level, this frustrates me hugely but I see the incredible intelligence of the nervous system, in how it knows to release and complete the energy that was too overwhelming to deal with at the time. I see clearly that I need to change my negative mindset, to work much more with the quantum reality and what is truly possible for this blank canvas that is my life possibility now, so I'm invested in spiritual practices and breath work that is about changing survival emotions and mind states that have become embedded, default patterns. It's about taking charge of these habitual patterns that no longer serve, changing from an old personality that self sabotages and creating a new personal reality ('personality') by tapping into this quantum field and accessing the divine capacities and new neural pathways, science is showing us is now possible. I do have shame about not having the energy or wellbeing right now to be of great service, but just as when travelling on an aircraft, I need to put on my own lifejacket first, because three burns outs is enough, this time I have to take it seriously. The land here is my teacher in this respect, fig trees that take a year off when required, something I may have to do myself in due course, even while my inner spiritual voices scream at me to do something more. What I do know for sure, is that just like the budgerigar, I have the right to flap my wings and fly free, more able to protect and safe guard myself in the big outside world and like the stallion to enjoy and play with others as an essential ingredient to existing and belonging. Justification, this feminine preoccupation, must end because I/we don 't have to prove ourselves anymore. Perhaps like so many women, this is my soul mission, to learn about self care and self worth as top priority, resting my nervous system above all else? Happiness and joy is our birthright as John Lennon told his teacher at school, these feelings really are what constitutes a spiritual life. My longing is to serve but first I must take care of myself in a way I haven’t managed to do so before. I feel tender like a new kid on the block, unsure of the rules but this time, I’m tuning into myself, trusting my own innate wisdom. I’m ready to play authentically with others in this shared humanity, to build some intimacy and learn how to live instead of just surviving and achieving. Daring to step up into my sovereignty, to take up more space, taking the initiative, setting up groups online. I’m crying as I write this. I’m home at last, it’s been a long, exhaustive journey to this self trust, but I never gave up the fight and I kept on believing in my own fairy tale. My foundations really are in place as my mentor reminded me yesterday and referring to the metaphor of the mountain, this 'mission impossible'. Now I really understand about belonging and becoming, which Thomas Huebl says are the two basic human needs we all have. We really do have to belong to ourselves first and foremost and so many of us with the 'Economy of Love', gave up on this way of being and opted to get love and attention by being a saviour, mediator or helper too early. Saying that it is too late for me as I am 61 years of age, has been my unconscious motto for these last few years, as mystery illness and debilitating symptoms, together with menopause that aggravated Lyme hugely, got the better of me and hormone imbalances and depression set in. I got ill at 39 and suddenly I feel like I'm catapulted into being old and this has hit me so hard, like missing 20 years in between. Equally as I pass through trauma and find myself more embodied and present I am consistently feeling self compassion and an inner goodness that just feels like love. Pure and simple with me as part of it and joy/bliss states becoming more under my conscious control. The neurological symptoms have been the worst, the cytokine inflammatory flares shocking when they kick in but at least I get a deep insight into what it feels like to have mental illness, as well as physical symptoms like gut dysbiosis. I use the breathing to help me change my internal states and it really does work and digging deep in this respect has been an empowering process. I also am able to see how all these symptoms have a deep connection to trauma that is coming out of my body so if I don't resist the process, using Breathwork and other modalities I come through much more easily. My levels of compassion has soared as a result of what I have experienced and I fully know what spiritual emergency means in all its dimensions and how I can best help other sufferers as a result. After an agonising year with the landslide where the stress hit me very hard, I am feeling this new sense of belonging in my body like Barbara Marx Hubbard said, this raison d'être that is beyond child bearing and where I can serve as an 'elder'. My breath and 'felt sense' practice has been a radical game changer, It's hard to put this in words but it feels like I'm here for the first time. Like I exist and matter for all I've gone through and more importantly, that I know how to navigate the ups and downs, rather than leaving my body and bailing out. In summary, I have made a promise to carve out the word ‘demori’ which means 'I remain', on the huge rock in the front of my landslide. It does represent my survival given early developmental and collective trauma that has taken me a lifetime to uncover. It feels so significant, a statement to myself, the return to my 'guts' and for the belly of the sacred feminine, for the earth Herself. It was the word the French Cathars wrote on every tree or stone, before they were all brutally wiped out in one of the most shocking genocides by the early Christian church. Everything starts now and it’s my choice, this is the radical responsibility and YES I commit to shift into. I survived, my twin brother did not. I've faced this reality finally and let him go, grieved this aching loss which kept me in limbo between the worlds. Now I'm here. There is no-one coming. I am the change I’ve been waiting for, my own saviour, my own 'mission impossible'. My original occult healer once said to me that I would do my soul work, when I no longer cared what other people thought of me and whilst I'm still a work in progress on this, I'm a long way on from those dark, bedridden days. I know it's about soul esteem, this mystic journey and bigger picture of what I really came to do on the planet. With focussed intent and vigilant, self discipline, I am making my happiness and healing my new priority and programme, to ensure it goes hand in hand with any visioning and service I offer. I know I'm here to help spread the word and support others with individual and collective trauma, this is my sacred path now. And, since I truly cannot do this journey solo without more burn out, I am taking it seriously to change my personality and workaholism as well as finally manifesting a new family and tribe of resonant, co-creative and heart centred souls, who want to travel with me, on this deep, magical and mystery tour of awakening. AT THE TATE GALLERY
“What am I supposed to do with this?” From Scapegoat to Whistleblower The other day my partner Ardhan was going out to feed the cats and I handed him an elastic band to close the cat food bag. He looked at me astonished and said ‘what am I supposed to do with this?’ and I burst out laughing realising the ridiculousness of what I had done. I’m not practical like him and clearly the elastic band would not have worked but what I was laughing at was a much earlier memory that shot into my mind, from when I was married in the UK. My ex husband was a partner at a top accountant firm and he was hosting an important night at the Tate Gallery in London with Ken Clarke speaking as the finance minister. It was an elegant affair with all the top CEOs, we were both dressed in full evening clothes, me in a sparkling blue long dress and my ex in his white tuxedo. The four course dinner finished and Ken Clarke began his speech during the coffee, which seemed to go on and on such that I found myself in need of the toilet. I had already held myself for some minutes in the hope that the speech would end but when this didn’t happen, I gently nudged my husband’s arm to let him know that I needed to go to the toilet. He on the other hand, made it abundantly clear that it wasn’t acceptable for me to leave the room while Ken Clarke was in full flow. So I waited some more minutes until desperation set in, nudging him again to express this extreme need. My husband then did a strange thing and I can remember the shock to this day, the sense that my basic needs could not be allowed at any level. He quickly shoved a couple of table napkins into my hand, saying nothing but clearly thinking this would do the trick. I can recall the overwhelm of that moment, with the same sense of confusion and a silent statement which would have said, as Ardhan did, ‘what am I supposed to do with this?’ So much was happening all at once, time seemed to stop still with the intense pain and urgency of needing to urinate, the napkins my ex had shoved into my hand, Ken Clarke still speaking and at the same time trying to work out how I could discretely leave the room against my husband’s wishes. In the end I had to leave. I intuitively knew at some primal level that I couldn’t just shove the napkins up my dress and let it absorb the urine, in the middle of the room with all the guests all around me. Plus I don’t know about you, but my flow is way more than two napkins worth and then where would I be, with crippling shame, a wet dress and a puddle at the table with high ranking guests only feet away? So I dashed quietly to the door and found myself running like a mad woman. Half way down the gallery I had to stop abruptly to cross my legs tightly, as the urgency to release was so intense, I was scared I would make a puddle right at the foot of one of the beautiful paintings, a Leonardo or Tintoretto I don’t remember. There was no-one in sight, just long galleries in front of me and I ran and ran like crazy, despite the restriction of my tight long dress around my ankles. Suddenly like grace showering down upon me, a toilet block appeared from no-where and I flew through the door crouching down to release a flood with such force it was like Niagara Falls. The relief was incredible but still I felt the guilt, shame and panic, like somehow I had failed and was ‘bad’ for having to leave the room. Adrenaline was rushing through my body, my killer critic was going crazy in my head saying I should have known better, my timing was wrong, the least I could have done was hold it and much else. I always felt that my body let me down, it wasn’t able to be perfect at every moment however hard I pushed it and this time I was angry at myself for having such a basic need. Back then, it never occurred to me that my husband might have been unreasonable and dare I say it, even crazy in that moment, to say no to my need to pee and to think that table napkins were a possible solution. It never crossed my mind that my husband in his desperate need to be the perfect host, was acting insanely for handing me the napkins infantilising my predicament with some kind of make shift nappy. I’ve never questioned him about this even to this day, I would always blame myself as the first port of call. Always without fail. The only thing that mattered was that I controlled my body and hadn’t wet myself. So I made it back through the long galleries and stood at the dining hall double doors. I can’t remember if I waited before re-entering or whether Ken Clarke was still prattling on about finances. I was so self consciousness and unsure what was the best thing to do, to avoid causing upset and disturbance, clearly letting down my husband and displeasing him. REFLECTIONS TODAY What I’m left with today, is the sorrow that I spent my life always questioning my rights, feeling excruciatingly insecure and in fear as to what I was allowed to do or not, even down to basics like needing to go to the toilet or eat. This very basic and primal need to release, the knife edge story of who had the power in my life. I know this story is a memory that is only the tip of the iceberg to many previous incidents but it shows in particular the level of adaptation that had taken place, as well as the dis-regulation of my nervous system as a result of trauma. I was always hyper alert and on guard but that’s another story and not for here. The reality however, is that I could only ever get acceptance for my existence from outside. I had no self reference and no connection with my body wisdom, such that I would always override the signals it gave me. That’s part of the reason I had such urgency during the speech because in my usual disconnected way, chatting and over indulging with food and wine, I had failed to notice I needed to go to the toilet before. Up until this point in my life, I didn’t have permission in my system to make my own choice, I always deferred and had to check with my husband, especially since this was his ‘special’ night. I moved in with my husband immediately after moving out from my parents, so I never experienced any sense of autonomy or living alone. Occasionally I would have strong moments of clarity like when I confronted my parents about moving in with my husband before we were married but this was a rare occurrence. Sometimes at work if I was asked to do something seriously outside of my integrity, as then I would put my foot down but otherwise I was a super achiever programmed to help everyone I could. The only thing I’m grateful for in recalling this story, is that this strong part of me knew to leave the dining room, regardless of my husband’s reaction. However scared I was, this more disowned power was still remarkably intact, even with my more familiar up-front pleaser/Aphrodite/good girl selves having primary roles that night. The reality is that however much shame I was experiencing for wanting to do something so normal, I didn’t put the table napkins to the test. I did take a stand and leave. The shock that is with me now as I’ve turned 60 years of age, is, how many years I played second fiddle and prostituted myself because I didn’t realise I had rights or that I mattered. I was masterful at being perfect for everyone in my life be it my husband, children, boss, parents or friends. If I went to bed having ticked off my list of activities in order to please everyone, then I was happy. That night, clearly I failed and in such scenarios I would blame myself and my body for having any needs. To explain the extent of this disconnection, at age 39 I found myself unable to walk at the supermarket only to be carried home to bed where I crashed for years on end with a mystery illness, that clearly was a soul wake up call and a unconscious, desperate cry for help. Chronic illness and recovering from PTSD has been a heroine’s journey and initiation for over twenty years to reconnect me back to myself, to life, to nature and to the sacred. As painful as it has been, it has taken me on an alchemic journey, since with my habitual patterns of self abandonment, it has never let me off the hook. When I do not self care, when I let my boundaries be trashed or ignore my special, healthy diet, my symptoms and problems flare up, so I am forced to stay close to ‘home’ in every sense of the word. MIRROR OF ITALY and NEW STORY Now as I stand against certain crazy situations here in Italy where the professionals attempt to project their shame and incompetence on me and I refuse to accept it anymore, I see just how far I have come. I am still standing for myself however difficult it gets, though sometimes I crash back with raging inflammation, which shows me that I’m not able to allow my fire full expression externally. It still hurts to be blamed unfairly when the problem isn’t me but I least I don’t take it on in the same way. There is still a fall out and some implosion but it’s less extreme plus what’s new, is that I surrender and take it all to prayer, to the sacred. I see the bigger picture of how it’s a journey through the Italian officialdom that triggers so much of my past, the story of alpha male domination and how to navigate my way through in this male controlled, patriarchal culture when their reaction to shame is so shocking. My challenge is how to stay IN my body, to be with what arises and not take it personally, putting up boundaries so the other person hopefully will stay in contact and not just throw in the towel and leave. Non violent communication is very useful but also sometimes to get what I need as a woman, it’s necessary to shape shift and take the easiest route to avoid unnecessary and exhaustive confrontation. At least here in Italy that is. This sense of sovereignty has been so hard fought, in many ways I’m exhausted but that’s only because of how far away I was from ‘home’, from myself and where I continue to self abandon and not stand in my personal power. I have always been baffled and confused about what the rules are, because with no self reference, obviously they would constantly change according to who I was with. I was deeply programmed, a dis-embodied and anaesthetised superwoman with no real identity, so I have had to strip away layer on layer to get back to some sense of my own identity, embodiment and self worth. It is therefore a slow transition from where I see bad things happening that feel like God punishing me, to slowly putting up boundaries, feeling the Divine within and noticing the transformation taking place. It has been a long journey, navigated step by step over years, often having to titrate what was uncovered to avoid re-traumatisation and overwhelm. Often my critic berates me that I’m still ill and not ‘sorted’ but that’s when I see how I’ve bought into a cultural belief that being sick or vulnerable means I'm somehow failing. This is the real madness that exists in our patriarchal culture that denies the body, the feminine, emotions, sexuality, death and the earth itself. So often I would default to seeing the other person’s viewpoint and self blaming but more and more I’m moving to recognise some sense of outrage. instead of imploding it back causing severe inflammation and chronic illness in my body. The importance of expressing the emotions is well understood, managing it without an internal backlash from my critic is another thing but nevertheless it’s my task in this life, so that I can remain grounded and strong, saying when something is not acceptable and refusing to let people trample over my boundaries or project their baggage onto me. SCAPEGOAT RENAMED TO WHISTLEBLOWER Within all of this, what I see now is that I am giving my scapegoat a different and more elevated job title. She is now called a Whistle-blower. Whistle blowers in our culture do not get treated well which is tragic because they are speaking the truth that has been deliberately hidden in order to betray and dupe the general public. I’ve always seen where there are elephants in the room or if the Emperor is wearing no clothes but whenever I would express this, often innocently, I would be in serious trouble. Now I understand why. I see it isn’t because I’m the problem, it’s what I am exposing that is the issue. This part of me has suffered enough carrying what does not belong to her and as a shadow dancer she is more capable of seeing the power games that go on, refusing to submit any longer. It’s not easy. Shame based people and narcissists do not want exposure and they will stop at nothing to project it back on others, if they are willing or able to take it. Italy is a mirror to what I experienced as a child but thankfully I recognise this as a soul learning opportunity, how to find a creative and healthy way through the challenges, instead of falling back into the old victim and scapegoat role or alternatively battling head on with resistance which equally does not work. People who have been sexually abused and what they call ‘instinct injured’ in particular, are easy targets, their boundaries having been shattered so early on, they don’t recognise boundary invasions as this was normalised from the very beginning. Research now shows how the brain is changed as a result of being marinated with complex trauma so the wires become literally crossed. When there is incest and sexual abuse within the family by your closest caregivers, love and abuse/danger are intertwined. Nothing is clear since the water that the fish are swimming in is dark and murky from festering secrets and lies as well as mind fucking double binds and mixed messages. It's normal to leave the body and find ways to disassociate and split off in order to survive the continuous onslaught and pain. The role I took on unconsciously for my family and ancestors was to be the emotional scapegoat, the bucket for unexpressed ‘baggage’ (the sins of the fathers), without realising and it’s taken years to give myself permission to finally put up a sign that says ‘no entry’. So, the challenge always for me, is to see the shame dumping and to hand it back and refuse to be a receptacle for what is not mine to carry. Better still, to not get involved in the first place with shame based souls but that’s not always possible living in Italy and in the patriarchal world that lives by these dysfunctional, perfectionist and black/white standards where vulnerability is seen as a deadly sin. Sometimes it’s safer and necessary to walk away rather than to confront a serious narcissist but if a drama does erupt, the most important issue is that my critic no longer beats me up as being the problem. It takes two to tango, even as an empath, I’m not responsible for the whole bloody lot, that old pattern has gone, despite the fact that pre-verbal terror lives with me still. I grew up with severe narcissism so inner healthy parenting with strong boundary setting is vital and non-negotiable. This radical self care is paramount when we step up to make a stand, especially as women now as we come into our fierce feminine and refuse to be infantilised and collude as a way to stay safe. My truth, this fierce feminine path, is not always welcome but it’s necessary, it’s bigger than my personal story, and it needs to come out for the good of the whole. I’m more able to see the bigger picture and self care each time I dare to speak out, consciously making healthier choices with my thoughts, beliefs and actions. And, with my rebel more intact, if I need to shit, cough, pee, fart, vomit or spit, I will do what my body needs. Stoicism is a form of madness and connecting to feelings and our bodies is the only way to come into alignment, so we are living life with our minds in service to our hearts. I’m a work in progress of course, destiny is a life long journey but with this story as a metaphor, I will not be silenced by napkins in my mouth or up my fanny. This is about Soul Esteem and what I’ve come here to do karmically. I know that I’ve felt gagged by my ancestry, by the ‘sins of the fathers’, kept for too long hidden in the closet but finally being exposed from incest, murder to slavery. This is the legacy I signed up to, as Malidome Some the African shaman says, the ancestors are ringing on the telephone and we need to reconnect with them, since we cannot do this generational healing alone. It’s not easy work but we are living in the time where this is now possible and indeed essential. Recently, I once said to my shaman in my ritual training group, that I felt like I was losing it from every orifice, like I couldn’t hold onto it anymore. It was scary as hell in truth, I was falling apart or so it seemed. He replied to me in front of my 60 fellow colleagues that when I finally lose all types of fluid from every orifice possible, I will be healed. I felt this permission deep inside, the longing to let go and surrender, trusting that holding on and over trying has never worked. I think he’s right. Like so many, I’ve held in so much for so long and it has nearly killed me. As women, it’s time that our rage is put OUT there, the OUT-RAGE that needs a voice, because we’ve suppressed and squashed this immense power that flows in our veins and needs now to be in service to Mother Earth, as we face this global crisis and honour the return of the sacred feminine. So, even if I’m not popular with speaking out, I do believe as Jesus said that ‘the truth will set us free’. It might not be about having a ‘happy ending’ with a perfect solution at a personal level. As the distorted patriarchy falls they are fighting for their lives and it isn’t a pretty sight. Ultimately it’s a soul and destiny decision not an ego and fate one. Moving beyond my own protection and safety, what I pray to do, is to turn my story into something that will help others, to transform the personal into an alchemic offering. I pray for guidance daily, to see reality as it really is and for the grace and courage to know how to handle it because I cannot do this alone. We need access to the sacred and to know it doesn’t live outside of us but is a part of who we are as well as what links us all together as One. That something bigger than us has our back, that we are working for the light forces and absolutely not alone. We need enlightened witnesses, people who have navigated the dark night’s of the soul and dared to confront their own shadow behaviour instead of arrogant and apparently enlightened healers caught in another ego trap. We need shared, resonant and supportive community around us, this ‘welcoming home’ tribe who can honour and validate us allowing our feelings without dismissing, belittling, patronising or judging them. Strong, compassionate souls who can sit in the fire with us, not seeking to change, heal or rally the forces too soon to find meaning… just being present with ‘what is’ and trusting to the greater magic and miracles that can then take place. MY SACRED COMMITMENT I was once given the name ‘Golden Chalice of the Rising Phoenix’ yet I feel I have much more holy work before I am worthy of such a sacred name. In honour of my own pre-verbal inner child with her exquisite and raw sensitivity, my promise is that I will speak the unspeakable and be a voice for the voiceless. She has no words, only implicit body memories, this evidence that speaks volumes as the 'body holds the score' (Bessell) even if it would not hold up in a patriarchal court of law. No matter. I speak for her now as I will speak for others who need an enlightened witness to move beyond self hatred and self doubt. I vow to be a witness for souls who need help to see the madness that they have accepted as the norm, help them return ‘home’ to their bodies, to believe and validate what they have endured and survived. I will hold a lantern and help others where necessary, to question things and come back to their own inner truths and to their sovereignty, so that they too can hand back the insane projections saying confidently……… ‘what am I supposed to do with this?’ |
Categories |