Janice Turner Salmon

Author: medicinalmeadows

  • Belonging

    I moved house at the beginning of this year so you could argue that I have had plenty of time to get to know my place and my space this year. I did all the usual clearing and cleansing of a new home with incense, sound, clearing the hearth and the modern day ritual of decorating the walls. But something was missing….

    I grow up in this part of the world and you would think that is enough to create a sense of belonging. But industrial towns have a different story. My grandparents like many, came here for work making me the second generation of my family to be born to this town. So you see I don’t have lineage here, so does that make me feel like I belong? How do we create a sense belonging?

    I think it is a complex set of rites that take place over time. This involves relationships not just to people, but to the land. It is an investment of time, connection and emotions. Life experiences foster a sense of relationship at pivotal moments both within ourselves and with a place. The relationship we develop with the land can be the place we go to express those complex emotions, whether that is the physical home, garden or the town. It can be that favourite place where we take a walk that sooths us. A path that we foster comes to be familiar. Just like a meeting of two minds who become friends, the land becomes the friend as we walk a repetitive path. In this communion we take in the land marks, its contours, and changing aspects in the year. As we walk the thoughts, the words, our emotions are expressed inwardly and outwardly as our feet caress the land beneath us.  

    At one time we would have had rites and ceremonies that did this purposefully and we would have held the land in sacred reciprocity. When the land becomes sacred to us then we have reached a sense of belong as we feel a connection and value the communion with the land not just to the land. I feel this is when belonging becomes anchored. The words that come to mind when considering anchoring into a place as home are, “what have you planted here?” Is it a deep connection, energetically, emotionally, historically,…..or in reverence and respect as keeper to the land, place and space?

    To anchor into a state of belonging is when we feel at home to the land and within ourselves. To truly feel like we belong, is to develop the same state of a relationship to our inner selves.

    Belonging is more of a decision to be,

    To be home within and where I Am,

    I Am home.

    For me I feel it is both the internal and external sense of being. One can’t be achieved without the other. Believe me when I say if the outer world is not fitting, the inner one is disturbed. So for me the land and the inner landscape are both important in unison. “What have you planted?” becomes a question of presence of the inner landscape and the outer landscape.

  • Wish You Well

    So when did we stop wishing well with sacred spring water, at waterways and sacred sites? Do the words, I wish you well actually correspond to wish you well with sacred water ?

    In the last 6 months most correspondence both business and personal have begun with the words, “ I hope you are well?” It occurred to me that this term in our beautiful language, “well”, is a word for health and for the place once associated with healing, a water well. When I searched the word “well” in old English, Latin and in Germanic the word refers to “wish well”. So a little play on the words “wishing well”, how wonderful. In the present time that we have been in these challenging times and wishing each other well are we actually wishing each other well with an age old intentional act of wishing you well with healing water? Are the ancestors and the ancient ones right under our nose at this time, referencing us to wells, healing springs and old ways of healing. I believe we are being directed to think about the ground we live on,  the meandering paths we have been walk on and the places that have been bypassed and forgotten….the ways of wishing and healing near sacred waters.

    So my weekend project for the autumnal months is to go and look for some water wells of the land I call home.

    So wish me well as I go exploring……

    Image by Janice Turner Salmon here at Medicinalmeadows taken at Janet’s Foss, Malham, UK. “The name Janet (sometimes Jennet) is believed to refer to a fairy queen held to inhabit a cave at the rear of the fall.[1]Foss is a Nordic word for waterfall, still used in Scandinavia” (www.wikipedia.org).

  • Land, Ancestors and Heritage

    Our connection to the Land brings us to a relationship with our ancestors. It was their settlements and their community that became our towns and cities. We have a responsibility to pass on a place worthy of the ancestors commitment as they weaved their lives into ours. That also includes a responsibility for the challenges they experienced on the Land as well as the trauma. You see our ancestors knew how to be caretakers to honour, cleanse and clear the land of loss and grief. Their rituals have long since withered and the medicine for the Land bypassed.

    Healing can be considered a place of self care but we also have a custodian relationship to the land that is our physical foundation. When we integrate the Land as we heal ourselves we truly known what healing becomes. We are actively responsible for the patterns and vibrations in relation to our locations. Think about remembrance, the last monument we placed for commemorating our ancestors. When did we last lay our thoughts and prayers to ground? When did we last position a plaque in gratitude? When did we grieve on the land? Clear the air with sounds and song, When was the last time we celebrated?

    Healing the ground we live upon doesn’t necessary need to be done with with duplicated rituals and ceremony of old. I feel that oral handed-down traditions were most likely updated to be relevant to the next generation and time of relevance. Key features of gratitude to the ancestors would probably be upheld but the way in which this would be performed would be modified to the present time. Think about music, food and ways of clearing and cleansing would most probably have been meaningful for the community of the moment. It is the act of remembrance, the act of honouring generations past and generations of the future.

    Is it time to recreate Land rites and ceremony? At this time of great loss, great change. Is it a time to honour the Land as Sacred, as Sanctuary? Is it time to clear a way for healing?, a cycle of remembrance so we have a sense of belonging not just to each other but to the place our feet caress every day?

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  • Medicinalmeadows….Home, Heritage and Healing

    Medicinalmeadows?… people often ask about the name..

    The term medicinal means “all that becomes healed”. For me that is a step towards the state of equilibrium, towards the centre and a place we identify as home. It is a “sense” of place, rather than a physical place. Our divine sense of self becomes the inner and outer aspects of Home.

    Meadows is a conscious picture of peacefulness. The place I was brought into this life was a lush meadowland. It was also called Meadowlands for real! So you see the picturesque form of a peaceful place is my integration of a meadowland within.

    So the sacred space I create here in this present moment, as a service, is Medicinalmeadows. It is a place to create healing of the inner self, of a home within and to consciously create your own Presence. This creation acts as your inner compass and foundation. In short Medicinalmeadows is the creation of your own peaceful presence….

    Image: Janice Turner Salmon, Medicinalmeadows, Cumbria

  • Morning Practice

    My morning practice has served me well for a number of years. A little rosary, it takes it’s own unique form (check out The Way of the Rose book for a full energy download). I love crystals, meditation some oracles cards and I am good to go. Sets me up for the day ahead!

    In a discussion group yesterday we touched on how we have been on a long pilgrimage of self healing modalities. It was a surprise to talk about these practices which I identify with as a 10 year process of rock bottom to coming out of the mud. But talking through the journey of life’s adventures of practices we realized we have been searching and uncovering these rituals all our days. From early Sunday schools, childhood group initiations with bobbled hats, to yoga, meditation, light codes, ley lines, yew trees….

    As I look at the list it is like a walk back in time through our ancestors. A stepping further and further back through our DNA, the cellular memory codes to our ancient inner self. After all aren’t we just the inherited codes of our native origins.

    If I continue to follow my memories, the symbolic breadcrumbs, what rituals am I uncovering? They say we lost our heritage as it was an oral tradition and our deep rooted path of our ancestors can never be truly known. But what if we do know, from a memory embedded within us? What if all we need to do is look inward to remember…

  • Transformation

    As the season changes so can you. As your body restarts a new cycle every month this is a great time to give yourself permission to transform. Change when viewed as growth is a positive act of self care and drives us ahead to dream and to reestablish our goals. As the season changes and we enter autumn we can take lessons from the natural world. As the trees shed their leaves we can view this time as our time to release some outdated practices and lighten our load. To take up a new perspective and channel our inner goddess to some well deserved self care routines for the month ahead.

    My head chatter has always got the better of me. So this month I am going to make a conscious effort to push in some gratitude thoughts over the self doubt. My aim is to write down my successes and achievements because when we look, really look, we can achieve new goals every day just by welcoming in a new thought with a positive perspective. Even if that thought is to ask a friend for help or advice, or write a self love note. “You did good today you had that coffee and took 10 minutes to yourself!”

    What can you allow to fall away that no longer served you?

    What transformation will you make that gives you greater joy?

    What new cycle can you set in motion?

  • Menstrual Cycles

    I have cycled for 35 years. What else in life do we repeat this many times? It is still a topic of conversation not mentioned so much. Compare it to films, food or work. This repetitive experience doesn’t get much air time does it!

    We are all aware of the stories of red tents and lodges within our ancestral history. Women gathered, they talked, they shared, they would bleed and be supported . And I imagine they laughed and they cried…..together. These are now just that, stories, the inter-generational support, the experience and wisdom from Grandmothers is no longer passed down. Our ancestral roots and rituals of women gathering as family, community and tribe are lost.

    What does this silence repeat to our younger generations? What does the silence do to our bodies? What patterns get repeated?

    How would visibility around menstruation change the nature of womanhood? Imagine a culture of cycle awareness and respect for women in their bleed time. It would possible look something like this, flexibility in the workplace and receiving space to nurture your body and emotions as you bleed. Imagine a generation of elder women supporting you and answering all your questions about your bleed.

    So my question is, how does our next generation benefit from our silence?

  • And so she shines…

  • Red Tent Journaling

    Do you journal your bleed time? This is when those nuggets of wisdom appear on the pages. I find it is a time of cleansing and resting as I nest myself. Yes, nesting is necessary, an hour or three is good, doesn’t need to be days, although could you imagine?

    Our bleed is a call to the inner cave, to our intuition. It may be a whispering or a shout to come inward. Listening within can be priceless as here is where the treasure lies. As we delve inwards we can start with two questions. What can be cleansed and cleared away from this last cycle? And what can be taken away and seeded for the future?

    Reflecting on the last cycle can bring awareness of where we have been overwhelmed and worn by life’s pressures. Evaluating the last month can be a silent retreat into any tension experienced that can be cleanse away after some analysis. (This isn’t all work by the way! This is also nap time and favourite pjs!).

    What we can take from our last cycle are the seeds, the accomplishments, that celebrate ourselves. By nurturing these seeds and clearing what has past brings in the energy of the new cycle. We start over, cleansed, nourished and insightful. (after a ceremonial nap).

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  • Edge of Summer – FOTD

    Edge of Summer