Medicinalmeadows

THE PLACE WITHIN


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The world wide web #sundaynightcandlelight 8th – 9th June

Nothing exists in itself or by itself, for the world is a vast tapestry woven of relations.

Not even the smallest strand in this web can be tugged without affecting all the myriad strands and interdependencies to which it is connected, and of which it is composed.

This is true of matter and it is also true of the nature of the human body and the psyche that animates it.

“All that is born, all that is created, all the elements of nature are interwoven and united with each other.”

Jean Yves Leloup, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.


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Blessings, Contemplation for #sundaynightcandlelight 1st – 2nd June

Blessed be the longing that brought you here and quickens your soul with wonder.
May you have courage to listen to the voice of desire that disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.
May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease to discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.
May the forms of your being – in love, creativity and friendship  be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.
May the one you long for long for you.
May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.
May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.
May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.
May your heart never be haunted by ghost- structures of old damage.
May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.
#Benedictus A book of blessings by
#JohnODonohue

#contemplation #bridginglight #prayer #radicalprayer #abbeyofbridginglight


Contemplation for #sundaynightcandlelight


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Inner Temple

This picture reminds me of the inner temple, this space we have within, always available, always attainable.
The journey towards a feeling of stillness is rarely a place outside of ourselves. It is within. How did we ever forget that peacefulness is inside,
and our body is the temple!
I am reminded that when seeking calm and restoration, the seeking is a state of realisation,  a remembrance, that what I am searching for is right here already.
The key is remembering how to access this state within myself, not outside myself.
A picture like this reminds me to turn the view around because the place where I was standing taking this picture was within the chapel.
A chapel is a space, not a building.
I just need to, turn around, turn within, to Begin.
#innertemple #calm #guidance #energyworkers #mindfulness #centringprayer #furnessabbey


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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


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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


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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 


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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


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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?