September is one of my favourite months. Here in the UK, the frenetic growth of spring and summer has eased and a mellow fullness has taken its place; the sunlight has both a clarity and golden softness to it and never fails to elicit joy and hope. It draws from me a certain type of reflective mood; there is something about September light that taps me into that timeless joy that hums just beneath the surface of everything; we can so often be blind to it, yet it only needs a shift in perspective for us to grasp it. It is deeply nostalgic but in a way that suggests that a happy memory can plug us into that place, but the place itself does not reside in the past, it dwells in an ever-present now.

I have been thinking a good deal about reflection as opposed to reaction, particularly with regard to my own emotional responses. There is a fantastic quote by Pema Chödrön:

You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.’

Pema captures beautifully the notion that we can hold our centre if we connect to that wise observer within, the part of us that witnesses our emotions as they move through us. She reminds us that our emotions are transitory, constantly flowing and changing as they respond to, and reflect, the events of our lives. The emotions are ours but they are not our essence; our essence is wider, deeper; more knowing and in touch with the bigger picture (call it the soul, spirit, or higher self, if you like).

Expressing our emotions is vital; what we feel in any moment communicates so much useful information to us. When we allow ourselves a healthy connection with our emotions, they can tell us what feels right for us, what feels wrong; they can let us know when our boundaries have been violated; what gives us pleasure or pain. They can also show us what needs work, or tender love and care. If we block or suppress them, stagnant, unexpressed emotions can be poisonous for our bodies and our relationships with self, others and the world. But emotions are powerful things and sometimes we can be swept off balance by their intensity; sometimes – just like the extreme weather around the world of late – our emotions can be frightening and destructive. When we lose our emotional footing, it is easy to forget that wise-self and confuse the weather with the sky.

It is a balancing act between the constant flow of emotion and the still reflection required not to lose oneself in a torrent of reactions. I have had moments when I have caught myself experiencing an uncomfortably emotion, gripping on to it and stirring it with obsessional thoughts. Ultimately, I end up dumping on those around me because the building of pent-up emotion has become too much to hold inside. Not good – no fun for anyone.

I have learned the hard and painful way that we must all take responsibility for our feelings. Even if we have received bad treatment from someone, we are presented with our own choices as to what we do with the feelings that such treatment inspires. Do we react blindly, or do we feel the emotion, let it flow through and out of us, at the same time reaching for that still place within where we can take a moment before we act or speak? It has been helpful for me to remind myself that the emotion is merely a moment in time, if we can feel it and then release it. The pain and discomfort come when we hold on to the emotion, when we resist its movement through us; when we make it an obsessional focus that causes a far greater pain to ourselves and those around us than the original emotion. I have been learning to feel my emotions and be mindful of where I am focusing my thoughts.

Reflection is a valuable technique. It gives us the space to see the beauty around us; to uncover the wisdom in the lesson and to connect to both our intuitive selves and our powers of discernment.  When we take a breath and reflect; when we see through the eyes of the calm observer within, we are given the opportunity to both honour and bear witness to our feelings, whilst still being able to make mindful decisions based on kindness and care. Not always an easy task but one that illustrates that we are not helpless reactionary victims but conscious beings gifted with the power of a choice.

I love creating shrines! I have a large main altar in our spare bedroom which I keep decorated to reflect the themes of the seasonal festivals. It is also the place where I honour my own personal deities. As my main shrine, I spend time there every morning meditating, praying and working with tarot or oracle cards; my ‘shrine time’ as I call up, sets up my day. I celebrate the festivals here and perform any major ritual work.

I also have a hearth and home altar in our lounge; it helps me to focus on keeping the energy of my home nurturing and joyful; I light a candle and incense there every evening to show gratitude for our little flat and the comfort and security it gives.

Altar and shrines are a great way of focusing one’s intentions. We can decorate them with items that have deep symbolic value and each time we tend these spaces with our attention, love and prayers these intentions are strengthened and take on life and energy.

As well have having my two main altar spaces, I occasionally set up temporary mini- shrines. These will often be arranged around something I am working on, or hoping to achieve. As with my larger shrines, I place items there that help me to focus on the issue at hand.

I have two mini-shrines at the moment and they are both Chakra related. Working with the Chakra system has enriched my spiritual practice and has come to my rescue on so many occasions when I have been struggling with issues and seeking a way through. My current mini-shrines have been set up to work more closely and intensely with the energies of the Solar Plexus Chakra: Manipura and the Throat Chakra: Vishuddha.

Manipura is the centre of our personal power; it is linked to our self-esteem and confidence; our sense of our self and our ability to act. The colour of this Chakra is a golden, sunshine yellow; it is our own personal internal sun that fuels and enlivens – it is where we shine.

Having gone through a long period of depression, I have been painfully aware at how low my confidence has become, and so I have decorated my shrine with a golden cloth, covered it with crystals associated with this chakra, such as citrine,  tigers’ eye and pyrite and I light a golden candle there every day and say affirmations that focus on developing a stronger sense of self and building my self-esteem.

Vishuddha is the throat centre , and as one might suspect, it deals with our ability to speak our truth, to be authentic  and confidence in the way we communicate and express ourselves. It is also the place where we listen and  truly hear what others have to say. Its colour is blue and so I have a beautiful blue cloth, covered with butterflies, with blue stones such as Celestite, Blue Calcite, Sodalite and Turquoise . I daily light a blue candle and say affirmations to heal and balance my self-expression.

Our confidence and creative expression are intimately linked. I have always had the urge to create and express myself in writing, music and singing (very throat chakra activities) but my confidence has historically been a little shaky. I muddled through though and still managed to maintain a connection to my ‘voice’, both literally and psychologically speaking.

During the struggles after my father’s death, I developed writer’s block; I couldn’t think straight or seem to organise the words to make sense of it all. When I did write, it didn’t feel authentic and true, I felt like I was going through the motions, all signs that depression had taken hold.

Now that I am coming out the other side of that extraordinary time, I have felt the need to give those parts of myself – my battered confidence and my neglected self-expression – a bit of tender loving care and my shrines are, for me, a wonderful way to reconnect and heal.

If you have anything in your life that needs healing, I highly recommend building a shrine to it. Firstly, it engages you inner child because it is fun to decorate but it also holds a space for you to examine any issue; to see it with a greater clarity and get a deeper sense of how to positively move forward. Altars ground things in the material world and are great tools to help you manifest change. But it doesn’t just have to be about solving problems, we can also set up shrines to celebrate, be grateful and gives thanks on a daily basis – this has a powerful magic all its own.

What shrines and altars ultimately do is make sacred what is being honoured there; they hold a space for it; they help us to acknowledge a thing as important and worthy of mindful attention.  They are places of transformation and when we give to them of ourselves, they open us to a greater healing. These beautifully little sacred spaces that we create with love, open the temple door within us.

Butterfly Wing Detail

This is a guest post of mine I wrote initially for Philip Carr-Gomm’s Blog…

Anyone who has followed a spiritual path for some years will know that at points along the path we can find ourselves in a place of stasis. All those techniques and practices that we once found inspiring can suddenly lose their luster; what once made perfect sense can now feel a little meaningless. It can be a deeply frustrating state but one that I have come to believe is all part of the spiritual journey and offers its own special lessons for our growth.

These strange pauses can range in intensity from a mild ennui to a life-changing dark night of the soul; it is a time when we cannot force a shift; try as we might, the lethargy takes root, the colours fade and we wonder whatever happened to the magical connection we once felt.

If you find yourself in this place of uncomfortable spiritual suspension, do not lose hope (even though losing hope is often a symptom of this condition!). The torpor, as excruciating as it can be, gives us an opportunity to examine our relationship with the notions of patience, surrender and trust.  We have, in effect, entered the chrysalis, and no amount of wriggling will release us until that inner transformation is complete. Just as the caterpillar completely dissolves into a gloopy mass before reshaping itself into a butterfly, our sense of ourselves becomes a kind of psychic soup, worked upon by mysterious alchemical forces within us.

So often, we associate times of transition with a good deal of external movement and change but this is only one part of the process. I have found in my own life that momentous external changes – both self-created and that of circumstance – have often been followed by a spiritual slump. It is funny how humans become obsessed with the idea of continual growth and movement. We have an economy based on the idea; it is deeply destructive and doesn’t honour those fallow moments that are vital to the cycles of life.

I have come to believe that on those occasion when the spark has deserted us – despite shaking a fist or two at the gods and bemoaning the fact that our inner compass feels out of whack – this fallow place is the most fertile of voids; our old self – whether we know it or not – is redundant and gradually  dissolving. Any forward movement, no matter how desperately we desire it, will not happen until our new and more authentic shape is fully formed and ready to break out of the fragile boundary of our old being. This all happens in a subtle way beneath our surface; we become like winter soil, still, dark, resting but full of potential.

I have a deep love of the Mineral Kingdom and lately quartz has been teaching me much about this curious pause on the path. As most will know, quartz crystal is transparent, hexagonal in structure and grows to a point. I have been lucky enough to be gifted with a clear quartz and a couple of citrine quartz. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that each of these has the most beautiful phantoms inside them.  Phantoms are wonderful things: at moments in the quartz’s growth it can actually stop growing. A  light sediment of minerals settles upon the surface. When the conditions are right and the quartz begins to grow again, the layer of sediment becomes encased in the crystal and this is seen as a ghost-like shadow of its former self.

My quartz contains five phantoms, very clearly visible and defined; the citrine have several more, some thick bands, some tiny threads that can only be seen if you shift the stone in the light. These phantoms speak so much to me of those spiritual pauses; those resting points between our old shape and our new self waiting to emerge. Phantoms remind me to honour the pause;  like the concentric rings in a tree trunk , they are a record of the many transformations that my spiritual growth has brought along the way.  When looking at them, I get a sense that the moments of my life between the pauses, are indeed like a series of past lives and these layer one upon the other, each the foundation for the next, all of them a part of me. The spiritual pause gives me the chance to examine what has been, to give thanks for it and to open myself with gratitude to the next stage on the journey.

So when you are find yourself feeling stuck and stagnant, when no amount of action seems to cut through the fog, rather than naming it as a spiritual crisis, look at it as a time when the sediment is settling into a beautiful phantom. Not only is it a line that marks the transition from one phase to another, it is an honouring point, a surrendering to the fertile void. When you finally sense the shift into forward movement, that ‘empty’, frustrating time will reveal its deeper beauty.

Examples of Phantoms in Quartz

So chuffed to have my words used by artist Jamie Reid (he of Sex Pistols album cover artwork fame!!) on his poster/flier for his Seed Fling at Hull City of Culture Festival this weekend! The words are actually adapted from the committal piece I wrote for my dad’s funeral – very touched that it will be used for Jamie’s Seed Fling on the banks of the Humber.

Druidcraft Tarot

I’ve been truly feeling the energies of Beltane this year. It is a joyous festival that celebrates love and passion; the natural world explodes into life; the greening and blossoming cracking open our senses.

Traditionally, Beltane honours the ecstatic union of opposites, of goddess and god  – it is about sacred sex and the alchemical transformation that we are offered when we open ourselves to another. This ‘other’ is not limited to a person but can include all elements that live outside of us, and so we can discover this union not only with our lovers but with the world itself. A key word for Beltane is ‘opening’, a process in which we allow ourselves to be deeply touched by the environment outside our perceived boundaries. It helps us to recognize that life is a circuit that flows between self and other and like the blossom that unfurls for the bee, in that contact the potential for something new is born – we are fertilized by life.

Being open takes trust and to truly trust the heart must be free to engage fully and yet when our hearts have been bruised, our natural response is to close down. Initially, this protective mechanism is necessary; if life has dealt us a painful blow, strengthening our boundaries can aid us in catching our breath and re-centering ourselves; it is a part of the healing. Sometimes shutting ourselves away to lick our wounds is all that we are capable of. At those moments we need to show ourselves a little compassion;not judge ourselves so harshly for turning our back on life. However, if the hurt has been profound, we can become stuck, not wanting or feeling able to take down our defenses and let life in.

I have spent the last four years intimately exploring the impact of grief and depression – coming out the other side, I have been pondering the nature of our inner seasons. Of course, the seasons in nature flow endlessly one into the other; we can generally predict the length of time that winter will be with us; we can look forward to the coming of spring. Our emotional seasons are a little less easy to judge. When we find ourselves caught in a harsh emotional winter, the certain return of spring can feel, well, a little less certain.

Depression is a world apart from the expansive energy of Beltane. When we are depressed, nothing truly touches us, we close down – we become numb to the inspiration that contact with ‘other’ can bring. If we use the metaphor of seasons for our emotional states, depression is a painfully harsh winter. It is helpful not to place judgement on whether this season is ‘natural’ or pathological – psychologically speaking – like winter in the natural world, it is a vital part of a cyclical whole. Rather, we must ask ourselves, what is winter’s value, its meaning and its gifts? Winter brings needed rest – a stasis that is actually a pause between the breath of living – its pulse slows and deepens until it can barely be felt. It is a stillness that asks that we turn inward and open to our inner life, to see what dead wood needs to be cleared and released, what treasures lie hidden.

I am a huge fan of Tarot. All through my journey with depression and grief, my personal Tarot spreads were haunted by the Hanged Man card. The Hanged Man in Tarot symbolism is an archetype of surrender. In life, he can represent sacrifice – the giving up of something precious and the trust it takes to surrender to this process, long before hindsight has given you the opportunity to see the deeper meaning of that sacrifice, or the gifts it may have eventually brought.

Rider-Waite

In the traditional Rider-Waite deck, the Hanged Man is hung upside down from his foot and around his head is a halo of light. He is suspended and passive, although not bound – his hands are free and so he could easily untie himself and walk away from that tree. This suggests that something more profound is happening here. There is a purpose to this stasis, to this lack of movement. In fact, there is movement occurring but it is subtle and happens beneath the surface. Being hung from his foot, he is forced to see the world from a completely different angle -not exactly a comfortable thing to do as the blood rushes to his head!

Every time I saw him appear in my spreads, he pissed me off! I wanted him to go away and I could feel this powerful resistance to his presence. But as time went on and I was forced to go inward – to sit patiently with my feelings of sorrow and loss – his presence began to make perfect sense. I was being required to embody that stasis, the crippling lack of emotional movement, the discomfort of it and rather than fighting it, I had to surrender to it, trusting that it wouldn’t destroy me. And in that trust – the kind of trust that has absolutely no guarantees of happier times returning – in that perfect trust, in that act of faith, the path back to my heart appeared.

To open my heart again, I had to surrender to life and trust, and to do that fully I realised it was time to let it all go, let the hurt and pain be taken by gravity as I swung in the breeze, suspended by my foot. I had to go inward, sit, wait, be…

Green Witch tarot

The Hanged Man takes us to a place where we can forgive life for striking the killer blow; where we can forgive others for hurting us; where we can forgive ourselves for not measuring up, and in that forgiveness and non-judgmental acceptance of exactly where we find ourselves, the cracks in our heart start letting in the light and warmth, and that Beltane blossoming begins; there really is no stopping it.

My heart has been opening gradually petal by petal and it is the best feeling! It is a common quote now but one that is still beautiful and poignant,

The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anais Nin

I find myself stood alone on moorland in the depths of winter. The sky is bright with countless stars and the ground glistens with frost. The air is crisp and sharp against my skin. Above me, on a rocky crag I see the glow of a fire and I instinctively walk towards its light. When I reach the summit, sat in the golden circle of fire light is a woman, her face is lined with age, her long silver hair threaded with buzzard and owl feathers. Her dark cloak is dotted with stars as mesmerising as the night sky and around her neck hang circlets of threaded bone. To her left is a staff rooted in the ground, topped with a deer skull and to her right a hunched, leafless tree, weathered and gnarled by countless storms; amongst its branches an owl nestles, its dark eyes as fathomless and watchful as the depths of space.

I know this woman…she is as ancient as time and held within her silence is the knowledge of countless ages and generations; of countless lives and deaths – she is the keeper of ancestral memories. I know this woman…Cailleach, Grandmother of stone, of mountain, cliff and cave, and rocky, windswept crag; she is my bedrock of strength and endurance. Ancient Bone Mother, she is the frame upon which our lives take shape. Rugged and timeless, her wildness inspires journeys into the remote and lonely places of our souls, for it is here that we find her, her face bright in the moonless night, her profound winter stillness our sacred song of dark wisdom. She is the starry heavens and the depths of space, the place where life returns after death, the place where all potential dwells. Spinner and weaver, she works the threads of life into complex patterns of beauty and wonder; she sings over our bones and remakes us anew; keen as beak and talon, beautiful as the arching sky that carries her feathered spirit, she is the Ancient Crone of all knowing and in the depths of winter she calls to us.

The above is a meditation I experienced just after the Winter Solstice. I had settled and made myself quiet, not expecting to have an active visualisation but this came without prompting and played out in my mind without any effort or direction on my part. As I sat before this extraordinary Goddess, she showed me a vision of myself. I was being hauled up by a rope through a narrow vertical passage of rock, rising up from deep within the earth. I looked up and the circular opening at the surface was perfectly aligned with the sun. Its light was breathtakingly golden and lit the chamber as I rose up toward it; it was a stunningly beautiful sight, both exhilarating and comforting.

Since then, this Ancient Crone Goddess has occupied my times of contemplation and meditation; she has been opening me up to the energy of the season and the beauty of winter. January can be such a difficult month. Although the light is gradually increasing, here in the Northern Hemisphere winter shows itself in earnest – it can feel very gloomy post the Christmas frenzy and the accumulative lack of sun and light can lower our spirits and leave us lethargic. However, I have felt something very different this year. I have felt incredibly settled and peaceful.

My life over the last three and a half years has been deeply challenging for many different reasons. It had begun to feel like I had taken up permanent residence in the churning cauldron of Ceridwen’s transformative energy. I was suspended in a perpetual Samhain of loss, grief and enforced release and I seemed to be fighting it all the way. Inwardly, I knew that these experiences were asking me to make some profound changes, a relentless confrontation of my shadow self that was urging me on to a more authentic and honest relationship with myself and my life. I was being simmered in the heat, my old self falling away from the bone – it was painful, took a seeming age and brought me moments of deep depression and anger.

This winter has brought a sudden and unexpected peace. It’s not like I don’t have challenging situations still to deal with, and yet something has shifted. My perpetual Samhain has lifted and in finding my own personal wheel moving round to the Winter Solstice, I have had a powerful realisation of the gifts of this season.

In my own experience, the Crone energy of Samhain is incredibly dynamic.  Although the world is dying back, there is intensity in this transformation reflected in the burning colours of autumn. The energy of transition can be a massive challenge and our resistance to it can create a tension that produces its own energy. Samhain brings us to that moment of release, to the pain of loss, to the place of acceptance and letting go but the Winter Solstice and the heart of winter shows us a very different Crone energy. After the intensity of Samhain we come to the peace and stillness. Life sits and waits deep beneath the soil; this is the moment between the exhale and inhale of the year, it is that place where we are given a chance to assimilate all the powerful transformation that the deaths of Samhain have brought us. I have known this intellectually for years but this year, I have felt it in my heart and body.

This ancient Goddess of winter offers us the chance to grasp the bigger picture of our own lives; in her stillness, we can make sense of the patterns and take in the lessons at a cellular level until they are part of us. She is an Ancestral Goddess because these lessons become layered upon the experience of all our ancestors like a rich much that will fuel the future. In the cauldron, we are stripped down to the bone, the bare essentials of who we are, and the Cailleach of Winter tenderly gathers this messy bundle of bones, laying them upon the frozen earth, piece by piece, until our core shape can be seen once more. In the still, lifeless darkness, she dreams the flesh back upon our bones; her strength becomes the fabric of our sinew and as she herself transforms into the fiery Brighid of Imbolc, she will – when the time is right – light the spark of inspiration within us that reanimates our being.

We can get impatient for Imbolc in the depths of the dark and cold days, but that is missing out on a gift. This Ancient Crone teaches us the mysteries of suspension. When I think of her, my thoughts are drawn to the Hanged Man in Tarot, an archetypal experience that, on one level, can be deeply frustrating, particularly when we have the urge to move forward. However, he is often portrayed with a halo of light and a peaceful expression because he is essentially about surrendering to stillness, going inward for the purposes of Gnosis. Winter can do this for us; we can allow it to teach us to patiently wait, and in the waiting – as the dust of the year settles upon a barren earth – we can begin to truly see in a new way, from a new perspective, all that we have learnt, each lesson that has become a part of who we are. This Goddess brings us clarity – she asks that we be honest and authentic in our review of what works in our lives and what hinders but she also dwells in our envisioning; she is the flight of the mind and imagination; the architect of our future.

The Ancient Lady of winter brings us peace after the storm; still waters after the churning. Her enduring love, deep knowing and wisdom, brings us to that place of hope of joy. That place where the dark stillness explodes into star light. For we are each a burning star born in her dark and infinite womb; we are each an expression of hope and new vision born of endings and release. We are each a Solstice sun.

This winter, don’t be too hasty for spring; revel in those frosty mornings and feel her clarity in its bite. See her take shape in the fog of your breath; turn inward and find her there; know that she has the power to birth new life from death, warmth from cold. She is your faithful guide, your sacred strength and vision. From the soil of the earth and the dust of the stars she has shaped you.

Carolyn Hillyer

Art work by the wonderful Carolyn Hillyer – her website can be found here.
Photo source 

The Autumn Equinox is here again. As the sun’s path lowers in the sky and the season changes, the light changes also; it becomes a paradoxical mixture of clarity and softness; there is a kind of sweet melancholy in it, but also a joy. These seemingly contradictory states lead me to reflect on the themes of this festival, and as we honour the time of equal night and day, my thoughts turn to the subject of balance.

Balance is often equated with stillness and yet when I stand on one leg, I am aware that in order to stay still and not topple, my body is going through a series of subtle muscles adjustments. This suggests to me that balance is actually quite active – we put effort in to achieving that centred, rooted place. I think this is true for all areas where we seek equilibrium, right from our emotional selves to our health and working lives, we constantly have to adjust our balance to settle, and it’s not hard to realise when we are off kilter  – we feel it in the symptoms of unease, worry, illness and discord. But even these are not a problem because such emotions and conditions communicate that it is time to adjust our footing and regain balance. The trick is to stay aware and keep actively engaged with the process.

I have been drawn to work with the Egyptian Goddess Ma’at recently as part of a wider practice of honouring the lunar cycle. I have chosen a series of Goddesses who, to  me, express certain energies of the moon’s phases and I have been meditating with each Goddess and journaling on how each of their energies are currently playing out in my being and my wider life.  I am focusing on the Maiden, Lover, Mother/Queen, Wise Women/Priestess and Crone Energies at the waxing crescent, waxing gibbous, full, waning crescent and dark moon respectively, with the goddess Bast, Hathor, Isis, Nepthys and Sekhmet.

I had felt the need to reconnect with the moon cycle because I had been struggling to maintain balance in my own life, upended by difficult changes, struggling with depression and realising that I had become stuck and stagnant in my energy and focus. Recognising how much I was resisting change, I thought that working with the mutable cycles of the moon would be both helpful in breaking the dam and going with the flow.

Ma’at came into the equation because I was reminded by my own experience that the ever-moving cycle of birth, expansion, fullness, harvest, release and death is governed by a harmonising principle; this constant adjusting to maintain the balance is what keeps creation functioning; every part of the cycle is vital to the harmony of the whole.

To the ancient Egyptians, Ma’at was Divine Universal Balance that functioned both at the Macrocosm of the Cosmos and Nature and the Microcosm of Society and the human individual. To them, it was crucial to the well-being of the whole – be it nature, community or person – to seek balance and harmony between all the constituent parts. Without Ma’at, there is chaos, discord and imbalance, the interconnected flow of the cycle is broken and trouble ensues.

The Egyptians recognised that maintaining the balance of Ma’at was active and ongoing; building a relationship with Ma’at was a job for life. We see how destructive ignoring the function of Ma’at is when we look at the environmental problems we face, where the harmony and interconnectedness of life has been disregarded and is causing a terrible imbalance with dreadful consequences. At the Micro level, my lunar journey has helped me to see the painful results of ignoring Ma’at in my own life; getting stuck in the intense shedding and shadow work of the waning and dark moon, whilst forgetting the renewal, joy and expansion of the waxing phases, has led to complete burn out for me, both physically and emotionally. Working with and fully engaging with every phase has widened my focus and I feel much lighter and brighter for it.

What working with Ma’at has taught me is that we are each active participants in our own well-being; that we have choices in our responses to life and that we are constantly guided back to that place of equilibrium if we listen to our intuition and act for our own highest good and the highest good of others. It is heartening to think that being out of balance contains its own lessons for growth and in itself holds the key to regaining our footing.

Ma’at demands that we honour and engage with all the parts of ourselves and our lives; that we embrace and stay present in each phase of the cycle, always mindful of its relationship to the whole. In this season of the Equinox, take time to reflect on your own balancing act; honour all that you are, every experience; take heed of any discomfort you might feel and let it speak to you about how you can come back into alignment with yourself. In truth, balance is not total stillness, it’s a dance.

I have recently had a couple of wonderful Rahanni healing sessions with Georgie from Brighter Future. As well as giving Rahanni healing, Georgie offers Reiki, Life-Coaching, Holistic Theraphy and Meditation; I met her when I attended a meditation evening held by her at my local crystal shop Waves of Inspiration. During the meditation, Georgie gave me some Rahanni healing; I have received energy healing before in the past but never as strongly felt as this. I experienced tangible, physical sensations and instinctively knew that I should book a session with her.

The last five years have been a time of intense transition for me; many major life changes – everything from separation and divorce to new love and bereavement – and after the death of my dad three years ago, the immense changes took their toll and I began to slip into depression.

When I think of that time, it leads me to recall that amazing opening line from Dante’s Divine Comedy:

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost…

Dante’s famous quote sums up beautifully those times in our life that are often called ‘dark nights of the soul’. I have come to believe that those challenging moments – when all of our dependable signposts on the path seemingly disappear – are actually a vital part of the process of living and growing (more on this in a future post). Of course, that feels like cold comfort when you are struggling and after an extended period of feeling incredibly low and hopeless, I came to recognise that I had become a little stuck in that ‘dark wood’, holding on to the hurt and the grief in ways that were self-destructive.

After realising I needed some help, I initially took the conventional route of anti-depressants and CBT counselling, both of which were useful. However, the pills were hellish to withdraw from and it became clear that it would be easy to become dependent on their weirdly numbing and unreal euphoria for ever – plenty of people do.

I appreciate that the Doctor’s who helped me, tried their best with the time and resources available, but what is so apparent when you visit healers such as Georgie, is that there is a vital element missing in the conventional treatment of emotional and psychological pain. For me, that missing element is a spiritual dimension.  I have come to believe that we are energetic beings and how we manage that energy will shape how we feel and act.

The first session with Georgie was very emotional for me because she created and held such a loving and compassionate space to begin releasing and healing. That spiritual aspect of my being was included and welcomed. I felt totally heard; Georgie listened without judgement and made me feel utterly safe and at ease. She gave me some wonderful practical advise and the Rahanni healing had a powerful impact on me. My second session was joyful – I felt like giggling the entire way though! – and left me absolutely buzzing. In both sessions, the healing seemed to draw to the surface insights and realisations, openings in my psyche that have continued to widen as the weeks have passed. It has made me realise that I need to reengage with my creative self, with the things I love doing – writing here on my blog being one of them – reconnecting to and healing my sense of self. I can also see that I need to forgive and trust life again.

Not only is Georgie a gifted energy healer, she also gently guides you to a greater understanding of where you are and to how you can find a more positive route back to well-being and happiness. With Georgie’s help, I have felt that knot of tangled and stuck mental, emotional and physical energy gradually unraveling and shifting; the stagnancy and apathy of depression  washed through with a lightness and vibrancy that feels deeply cleansing and uplifting. I know there is still work to do, but it definitely feels like the ice is melting and the river is starting to flow. Thank you Georgie! Your help and understanding are priceless gifts.

I highly recommend working with Georgie, particularly if you are grieving, or finding it hard to move on and let go of hurt and loss. She is a beautiful, kind and empathetic soul, a wonderful healer and a fabulous meditation teacher. Her Facebook page Brighter Future can be found here.

Samhain is upon us and I have been feeling strongly the energies of release this year. At this festival, we think about our connections to the Ancestors and to all those we have loved in this life who have now passed over. I have been moving through my own grieving process having lost my dad a couple of years ago. It has been a long and difficult journey but there comes a point when we arrive at a place of acceptance within ourselves. Letting go of those who mean so much to us has its own time span; it is something that cannot be forced or faked; we must feel those painful feelings of loss that the absence of loved ones can bring. Eventually, something shifts. It is not that we ever let go completely, for those dear ones are never very far away, however, there does come a moment when we can surrender up our grief, handing it tenderly over to the Divine. As the trees prepare to shed, I feel that I find myself willing to offer up my own grief in order to move on.

Samhain is a gateway, a door to be walked through between two places. Physical death is a threshold between one state of existence and another; we can grasp the truth of this in a psychological sense through the many experiences of our lives when we are confronted with endings. Of course, not all ending are unwelcome; some are easier to move through but all endings bring us to that threshold and, to truly pass through it, we must eventually surrender what was, in order to embrace the potential of what will be.

I recently bought myself a decorative gift box – I had read somewhere the idea of having a ‘Let go and Let Goddess/God’ box. This would be a container where I could place all those issues or situations in my life that I was holding on to, to the detriment of moving on. I would write on slips of paper, anything that I felt I was struggling to release. This very simple act of writing down and placing inside the box with the intension of giving over to the Divine, has been for me a wonderfully helpful experience. It has felt like an emotional fist inside me – my rigid psychological grip around all those hurts and struggle – has been relaxed and opened, transformed into a hand ready to receive.

Surrender is intimately linked to our capacity to trust. When we accept and let go, we place our trust in the Divine, in ourselves, in life and in the healing power of Divine Grace. It is a powerfully magical act that brings with it an enormous sense of peace and relief. Not only that, it is the first step that we take over the threshold and into another life .We leave behind what needs to be shed but we take with us the wisdom and the hope that wisdom brings.

Samhain has many layers. One of them is undoubtedly the pain of loss and grief – the Dark Goddess and God with scythe in hand whose initiations can leave us feeling like our entire lives have been dismantled. But this is only a part of the process. For me, the deepest mysteries of this festival are found in the profound transformation that comes at the moment of surrender. The dark expressions of the Divine that brings us our most challenging life experiences, soften into the deepest compassion at the moment of true release. It is at that moment that we can fully understand the paradox that each ending is in fact a new beginning.

I dream of my dad often and feel his love as strongly as ever but I now realise that I can let go of the pain and loss, and in doing so, embrace the love. Loss is like the alchemist’s alembic; it holds us within its often unbearable intensity until we are distilled into a more potent version of ourselves. It is the Goddess’ cauldron that we all enter, surrendering to her all that we are in order to become all that we could be. As I cross over the threshold this Samhain – as I let go; as I trust in the power of release – the sweet, dark, softening peace of surrender will hold me.