Rain drops sound on leaves
Like musical notes rehearsed
For a spring concert
Author: medicinalmeadows
-
Night Stairs
The Night Stairs The Night Stairs. This is Furness Abbey, Our Lady of Furness, the Vale of Nightshade. To me it is a tranquil and peaceful land with streams on both sides singing into the atmosphere.
These are the recently reconstructed night stairs. My imaginal space creates the picture of gentle harmonics of chanting monks, with lanterns descending the night stairs for 2am prayers. The chanting undulates through the stone walls, spirals upwards through the vale carried by the winds of the north west coastal landscape. The melodies are transported over the waters, the intentions of the prayers flow through mists to shores and over the fields and mountains. The ascending prayers cascade down the mountain streams to all the earth, infused with the hums, the vibrations, the prayer intentions for all humanity, from the monks of the vale of Furness Abbey.
#furnessabbey
#englishheritage
#cistercianmonks
#bernardofclairvaux
#nightprayers
#cumbriatourism
#visitcumbria
#lakedistrict
#valeofnightshade
#stmarysoffurnessabbey
Ourladyoffurness -
Healers
Today’s guidance reminds me that we are all healers. Our words flow to others as frequencies of comfort and our bodies restore and heal as we dream at night. We are born healers, with these immortal treasures within our very essence, within our body and spirit.
Sometimes we need to turn our healer energies, our skills and our language inwards. Self talk or body talk can ripple through our bodies just like healing rays of light. And if we are feeling depleted or empty we have the choice and will to ask another healer to help with the inward turning light. Sometimes another healer can subtly direct a frequency towards us, from a request, a mantra, an intention, an energy healing to a massage session or a healer’s sacred space.
Today I am reminded of the simple elements that assist me, Water. Water cleanses, refreshes and calms. My request to water I drink is to replenish me.
Have a healing weekend.
#intuitive #guidance #energyworkers #waterelements #healers #energyhealing #kuanyinoracle #alanafairchild #zenghao -
Iris Floriography
Gifts from the soil.
Not all that is buried is gone. The earth teaches us that within the dirt there remains life.
In the richness of the underworld is a medicine that comes to us with a reminder of newness and joy.
This garden continues to reach into my sorrow. It is a comfort to feel that the dirt and soil can hold my emotions and sustain my process of change.
The history of the iris can be traced back to the #Monet and #Vangogh. It is also a symbol known as the #FleurdeLis and #Medival messages hidden in plain sight of the bloodline of European royalty. It is a reminder of the continued faith throughout the ages, a lineage of connection and a message of our own sovereignty found deep within.
The message from Iris is we are all from a deep rooted lineage, an eternal bond. The depth of the earth, the soil in your hand is ancestral. We are always standing with our beloved beneath our feet.
#Life #grief #intuitive #guidance #spiritualcoaching #prayers #goddess #gaia #earthmother #ancestors #cottagegarden #cottagelife #plantlife #iris #irisgoodnewsmessenger #fleurdelis #medivalfloriography #MaryMagdalene #faithalive #trust #floriography -
Prayer Intentions
In my connections I am hearing a need for prayer. I am aware of the pull for spring, of dreaming and yearning for life from behind the walls of winter. This yearning I feel is an invitation to reflect on the root of our desires for seeding our intentions.
What is it we are all praying for? In recent weeks I have received messages asking for me to pray. This is a beautiful request and with it some perplexity, as I am a novice, not a fully formed anchoress in the orchestration of a prayer intention. Maybe it is the repeated practice of #sundaynightcandlelight on my social media @medicinalmeadows and Instagram @janice_bridginglight that sees me in the light of Abbess of this hashtag. This practice of contemplative prayer first began in the days of great need for prayer in 2020 and now continues into 2024.
My inquiry is, what is needed to formulate a prayer intention? The requests I have received in recent weeks are for prayers for loved ones, prayers for healing, prayers for times ahead. It seems our desire is to chiseling out a verse of prose, to write the prayer with poetic roots that soothe the deepest need to be aired into life. Seeds to root, to spring forth, require wording, the spelling is intentional.
So how do I create a prayer that has roots and strength of meaning for me? I have a need to be on point, truthful and reflective. This piece of artistic composition has a need to convey momentum that sends my request into the unseen, cosmology, in the fullness of Light.
The formulation came to me today as a sudden inspired idea that the scribing of the prayer lies with this, it comes from a need. The need for ease, for comfort, the need is the key. The same need for comfort, for ease, peace of mind also applies for a desire for a new car! You see this morning on this misty start, the light came through and it occurred to me that the intention for the prayer Is the need. The pure intention lies atthe root of the prayer, this is where the composition can begin. As we identify the need, the intention take on a matrix from our singular need to the collective needs, to make “our life, our will as one” (Lord’s Prayer, Rev Dale Allen Hofffman). As we pray for our earthly need whatever that need is, material or ethereal, the transcendence of the prayer translates from the core need for oneself into a collective need. We are starting wheels of prayer for All. Ease gives us Peace. Peace within us creates a ripple of Peace around us.
So my reflection for today on prayer and intention is rooted in the realisation that when we pray for our own intention we are also rippling that desired outcome to the All, to everyone. No matter what the prayer, it is rooted in a Need.
The words and the creation of this poetic intention are first seeded with a need. “I have a need for” are the words of the Ongo Practice and the Needs Wheel (Ongo book by Cadden and Wien) that can assist in finding the heart’s desire. The root of the prayer creates a blessing, first for me and for you and then the prayer carries the intention to the All of creation.
Take a took at the Needs Wheel and feel into the words that come to you as a blessing for your life, “I have a Need for….”
Here is my prayer for myself today,
“Dear God of the Universe, I pray for rest after times of challenge and grief. I have a need for ease, for nurturance and love right now. Please create a container of ease for me today, Amen.”
I pray that your needs become seeds
planted in fertile soil
that welcomes the rain, as well as the sun
that your seeds of desire
grow strong, rooted, full blossoming
created for One and for All
I
-
Embodiment of the Menopausal Mystic
Artwork by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman @shewhois Lately I have been trying to extrapolate the words that describe overwhelm, anxiety and exhaustion. This all weaves into my 50 life as menopause. But on a deeper exploration, these words that are often spelled-out towards me just seem to be off centre. You know, like an arrow shooting off to the side…that sense of not landing!
You see I had what I will call an overspilling of tears last week and I didn’t feel anxious beforehand, or let me put it a bit more accurately, I didn’t think anxious thoughts, I didn’t have worries in my mind. What happened was a bodily response to the situation I was in. It was biological not mental or emotional stress I was experiencing. I was embodying a sense, not thinking one.
This overspilling today has circled me back round to the 50 life. And here is my story for today. My body is experiencing a 50 year old life, my biology is taking me on a journey exploring the world with a new perception of the macro and the micro, the inner and the outer field of my soul as I learn from it all.
My biology has danced a wheel of hormones from my teenager years. It has been delighted in summer and been restful in winter. My biology is nature and my cycle is natural. This change takes my exuberance in a proliferative spring like energy and oestrogen productivity into a decline. My body is looking for the spring and summer phase, for the dancing to begin, for the days and nights of energetic pulses to regain a sense desire, excitement and focus. Like long summer nights of activity and the enthusiasm for diving into the pools of that which lights me up.
Today I am sitting with the body longing for the light of my passion. My body may well be grieving the loss of these phases that rise of the oestrogen that gives life to energetic delights.
So where do I now find my oestrogen-like joy? That ecstasy of life when the follicular phases has left. The oestrogen has wanned so where can I find the fullness of the moon without the bright light of the ovum to bring creativity into this world? In my 50th year what am I looking for that has the power and potential of a fertile egg to resurrect my entire being into a new life?
What has this world to offer in the current climate of birthing and creative and weaving together with all those who have sat in life’s journey so far?
What wisdom is missing from a world where creating life is at the core?
Where can I replicate my passion in the winter of age and what appears to be winter of all seasons on earth?
-
Express Yourself
This is the cat that lives with us. His name is Raphael, he was about 8 years old when he came to our home. I am very careful with my words here, he is not my cat. You see he came from a loving home and is a bit of a feral character. He is strong very confident and came here with all his ways of being, habits and traits. It has taken a while for us to get into our stream of togetherness as there are little ways he finds his comfort that are his fullness of expression of self.
He likes to take his seat, anywhere! And like all cats, he has different meows and ways of communicating his needs. I feel I am a good listener, so I have been trying to get to know his voice, his sound and his tone. You see, I have been listening, practicing and developing in a listening environment called circle practice over the last 4 years. This goes back to indigenous circle gatherings, and if you think Zoom etiquette is a new thing, think again.
You see there is a way of gathering, of speaking in circle, it is a practice. It is a way that we connect to be heard. We have a speaking voice, and we have the voice of the circle which I will try to explain. You see this is why I have introduced the cat, Raphael. He is a very good example. He has different voices that mean different things and while, I would love to say I know cat language, what I am actually saying is, I listen deeply to the things around what is being communicated. Circle practice is a bit like this, we develop, we tune in, to what is being said, what is spoken and we tune in to what is not said but which is also communicated. By sitting in circle we start to connect in our other senses, our inner perceptions and as well as our physical hearing become attuned. These perceptions come from being completely immersed, in time and space to others and we start to listen to only the person with the talking stick, or the one not muted, on Zoom. We then become totally aware of what they communicate, as well as what they are saying, we listen to their multi-dimensional being. When we become accustomed to this, from circle practice , we have an awareness of the self in relation to the multi-dimensional being in a multi-dimensional space. We empathise, and when we attune to this space of group empathy, we develop a body awareness and we connect to the emotions that are then able to be released through our physical form, so we release.
This releasing is healing, it is healing for ourselves from physically held or blocked emotions and it is healing for the person speaking into the space because they see that they are heard and witnessed and that releases them. This expression first in their words and then in their connection to others and then by feeling in a congruent space and being seen as fully accepted and fully recognised. When we feel that safe space developing we are then able to fully sound, voice, mourn, keen, laugh…..express that feeling, that has been block, and to know it is ok to do so. When it is sounded outside of ourselves, is it released. And here is the thing, the cat Raphael, is able to do that because, he doesn’t give a hoot, about what emotions are going to sound like! The problem is when the mind thinks of all the ways that sound may seem like or squeal like, it gets pushed back, blocked, held and solidified in the body. The cat, doesn’t solidify his voice of discontent, or content, he just does it.
My definition of circle practice is emotional bathing, connecting to my multi-dimensional self.
A remembrance that we are here to connect.
If you like my posts and want to buy me a coffee, you can donate here! thank you for your sharing! may all the flow of the universal bless you!
-
Oak and Ancestors
Today we have acorns. I am reminded by spirit that the oak was once a legendary sacred tree that has been in many storylines of our ancestors. Once upon a time the acorn was revered as a magic gift for rebirth from the strong family of the forest. An opportunity to start weaving in new experiences that continue the lineage of the family.
What traits or talents can I develop that are within my bones?
What gifts do my ancestors wish to see reborn in me?
What wisdom is being communicated?
Where can I plant my roots?
What is being seeded right now?
What direction are my ancestors pointing out?#doulas #redtent #carers #energyworkers #landrites #wisdomkeepers #ancestors #guidance #intuitive #spiritualcoaching #natureasoracle
#oak #acorns
-
Sacral Centre
Autumnal colours are my favourite! I love the red and brown hues of earthy colours. Autumn reflects the sacral centre, and all that it carries, all the emotions and nature creates a beauty lesson in change, and letting go.
It is a great time to let things fall, if they need to. To allow for a deep listening into the sacral space and be discerning about things that can no longer be held, dragged and weighed down.
The sacred red of the seasonal colours have me reflecting on the words of Mary, What unhealthy patterns need to go? What is pulling me out of balance? What is blocking me? What has me looking over my shoulder? What am I clinging on to?
Can I let go, free myself….
#gospelofmary #whatbindsmeisslain
#gospels
#marymagdalene
#marymagdaleneswisdom
#7powers -
The Way
Most of you know I have a prayer practice, a daily routine, a trust in this infinite thing called the unseen. I believe it is an ancient, the first in fact, mystical practice humans used to connect to everything. My belief is that prayer is not a religious practice, or part of an institution, but goes back to an instinct of a higher power and something bigger than ourselves.
My belief comes from my imaginal space that I have known since, well, forever. I remember at school I would be gazing out the window and in my mind I would talk to the vision of the comforting person near me, have a conversation, discuss something bothering me. As I developed a spiritual practice 10 years ago I began to understand that way of seeing. I had been given a key to unlocking the door to the unseen realms around me. But that’s a story for another day. Today I wanted to tell you about my current purpose.
After struggling to build a spiritual practice I have been called to write about my experiences of the spiritual field as I perceive it. My story starts with utter exhaustion and collapse. This instigated my quest for meaning, and I found I already had the key to the door within me. I found that my calling and my career couldn’t compress. I had to leave my nursing career due to exhaustion, the mix of spirituality and energy work and a busy hospital job was too much on my physical health. On my days off I would sleep the whole day, feeling cold and strung out on anxiety. At work I would be witnessing the movements of the unseen helpers and have subtle messages to pass on, but I didn’t know how to convey it all! I guess these days you would call it medical mediumship, but this was then and not now.
I left to build my spiritual practice as a reiki practitioner but struggled to get clients and ended up seeing an advert that took me to the role as reiki practitioner in a hospice. My sense of spiritual guides, my team if you like, were sending me on a path of schooling. When I first walked up the path to the hospice in my imaginal space, my third eye, I was seeing the sphinx with pyramids, from this I knew, my guides were communicating that this experience was a mystery school teaching. During my years at the hospice I witnessed guides, and healers of the imaginal realms. I received insights to healing energies, watched as the energies weaved in relationships, activated teachings and so much more.
The most frequent of the spiritual teachers that came to me was a Pink light describing herself as the Pink Ray. She came overtime, until it was clear She was the Teacher that had lead me to this school. She gradually introduced more about herself. She was first the Pink Light then Pink Ray, describing healers of the old ways in forms of colour energies, such as the blue rays, the pink and green and purple, if you know angelic rays and archangel frequencies you know what I mean. She then gave me a name which sounded like Hannah, which later came in as a very soft “H” to Anna.
The Pink ray introducing herself over time as Anna, was a woman from Christianity that many will recognise as Grandmother of Jesus and Saint Anne. This introduction was just the beginning, I was later introduced to other energies in this realm that are connected to this earth and still wish to be in relationship to healing, “abridging” to those who wish to call on them. I now know them as “The Way” you may know them as Jesus, Mary, Mother Mary, Saint Anne, (to me H-Anna), Mattais, John, Elizabeth, Susannah, Johanna, Salome. More commonly know as the Disciples. I received not only their messages but their images. I began to sketch their faces as they appeared to me, a form of spiritual artwork.
They are present, and they wait to be called, in relationship, in prayer, in healing practices or just for a conversation, they listen…..and they connect.
This is why I have developed a prayer practice because I trust the Christ Light abridging the earth as the Way. If you feel called to talk, they are listening, this talking….I call prayer…
