Can you feel it? the energies of the solstice where high vibe people. On the 14th of December I experienced so many synchronicities it was like magic had landed on the planet. I feel I am now searching for a deeper meaning and understanding to this world of ours, this Oneness we hold as the earth beneath our feet. I feel like a new name is growing. I understand that Mother Earth and Gaia are names that have been used and I like them, but I feel Grandmother Earth is coming up as an appropriate relationship description. Yes, I said, relationship. If we hold our Earth our Planet in sacred reciprocity isn’t this Earth a Wise Elder after all?
For as long as I can remember I have always been connected to water. I have lived by the sea I have needed water to stabilise and return to my inner self as well as to clear my energy. It is more than just a ritual to hydrate and cleanse. As women we carry water, birth through water, sing to the water.
We are going through an energy clearing and water is appearing as an element of change. The cellular memory tells me that throughout the ages water has been sacred.
We flow we move we change,
We flow we move we change.
As we allow the energy of flow at this time we find a deeper connection from the chaos around us. The water is a reminder of surrender, withdraw if needed, and return when pulled. As we move through another energetic new moon phase and an eclipse we are thrown up to face the change of us all. The movement is happening, change is here, like the sea there are waves causing us to question our values. The mirror, or her reflection is prominent. The mirror has been up against our view to see our shadow, our collective shadow and now the mirror is changing to be the window into the soul. We are that soul, and we are that which is now looking.
Going to the edge is a courageous journey. It is part of a deeper existence to be seen, witnesses and maybe, to be experience…. you decide. On the winter solstice there are many women in the UK going to their local water ways. The intention is to let go of what once was and allow what is to come. If you feel the call, venture to your own edge and sing freely your own song of surrender.
There is time for everything and everything has its time…..
Into this place I send my soul song streaming and the elements return the sound into my own. I am here without time and in no place. I have space between the particles of my being and my bones.
Can you feel it, this shift in spirit? I see our forms as energy all thinking, dreaming, perceiving, doing, projecting. I see all those projections as cords, the unaware.
Within my own space, what am I projecting, what have I perceived?
Much of this is not my own, so who am I? I see my form, looking back at me and what do I see?
The perceptions of myself have dropped away, who am I Now? In this moment, there is just my form looking back at me, this is ending, dying, birthing….this is New.
Big energies levelling off with this potent moon. I feel it growling into existence. Like a dominant force of animal energy pleased to see the inside instead of the outer shell.
The inner home is in need of “getting ready” the old just won’t do….boldness is required.
What if my thoughts on land energy clearing are not on point? What if there is a fault in my thinking? What if some places have energy clearing all adhered to through spirit?
You see certain places have an energy keeper the “Spirit of Place”. This is spirit that is a guardian, to be Keeper of the Land Place and Space. Maybe we should be calling upon “Spirit of Place” before we enter into any rituals or ceremony, out of good intention, but maybe we ask first?! Maybe this way we get connected, reconnected to that Keeper.
My thoughts recently have been that we have a duty to clear spaces on the land, our natural spaces, our sacred spaces so that energies are not held on the land, and yes, we are talking land trauma here. But what if this is not always necessary? What if rituals and ceremony, specially in sacred ancient sites is already taken care of by the other realms, the unseen.
I recognise that some places have that “feeling” right? This makes me think that land is like clearing any space. You know when a room it just needs a clearing of energy, that dense feeling after a tense meeting or a building after a trauma event, so why is an outside space any different! Do we have a responsibility to take care of the energies in just the same way? And on that note, do we recognise that the same respect for energy to flow is also a clearing we need to respect within ourselves, the body. After all a spirit resides within us too, we are the Keeper of our body.
So my point here is do we seek consent? Do we ask for consent and listen, inwardly and outwardly? We may just connect to the Spirit of Place if we do.
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.
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).
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