A Year To Remember

As the year draws to an end I sense we are all reeling with the speed that brought us here, and what a year. For me it was a year filled with hope, the feeling of a real sea change with XR coming from nowhere and becoming such a huge voice in the world. 

I have been overwhelmed by the feeling of positivity and change that has been sweeping throughout communities everywhere. The cry to stop destroying our planet and ourselves is beginning to be heard and although it’s just the beginning, I am optimistic.

However, this voice has been temporarily lost here in the UK, stifled by an unfavourable election result, and what the aftermath will mean to so many. It’s time to regroup and make plans that can enable us to move forward positively.

I would like to think that this is where my PIPPA project comes into its own. With the sense that our parliamentary system is so broken and dysfunctional, I feel this is an open invitation for all those with the will and the capacity to step up and take responsibility for our future, to do so now. 

This can only be done if we choose to work together, question and change aspects of the status quo that no longer serve us, starting with corruption and the manipulation of power and the Media.

So, how to begin again with this huge setback; the reinstatement of a government even more entrenched in wanting to uphold these untenable values. 

Where can we start? I always look to what Mother Nature is showing us for answers. When I look out my window I see that everything has gone still on the surface. I know that as she steps into winter and begins drawing the curtain across these ever shortening days, she is starting her journey of breathing in after months of breathing out. Now we are seeing everything dying back and going into hibernation, as prepares and nurtures her energy for spring.

Never before has this seemed so important as we are experiencing this crushing defeat of hope, with the growing wave of politics that has become even more inward looking, manipulated by the shadow side of the Internet. This amazing connecting web we have at our finger tips, has the capacity to bind us together with love or fear; the choice is ours.

So, it is my belief that rather than lashing out in anger in response to our fears of what lies in the future of our country, it is vital that we use this time well. Sagittarius, the archer who sends a fiery bow into the stratosphere in search of the truth, is also the wounded healer, reminding us to be aware of our mortality. It is a significant time, as we journey on our quest to find new answers and also our voice, if we wish to speak of our findings. 

First we must remember that this is possibly the most important time in human history, that we are all just tiny cogs in a huge wheel and that maybe the part we play might not be felt in our lifetimes. Knowing that we are sowing an important seed is like the people who plant trees that won’t bear fruit until their grandchildren are grown. We have to be in this for the long game; the spring we are hoping for maybe many years away, but that doesn’t mean we must give up hope.

On the other hand I am a total optimist and I’m sure we are all aware how quickly time is speeding up for us and who knows what can happen in ten short years. 

As the wounded healer, we are being asked to find our truth. This can be done on an outward, physical journey, a personal pilgrimage, or an inward journey. They are actually the same, one mirroring the other, as we go in, the micro shows us the whole world as it opens up again into the quantum realm. Here we find the whole truth. A door that was opened by Einstein a hundred years ago, but one that we still fear to step through as a culture. This realm informs us that we are all connected and that everything we do has an effect on everything else and is felt by all simultaneously.

Let’s find our voice, speak out against the limitations of fear and hatred, and show love in every communication we encounter. If we meet negative views with negative reactions we just strengthen that emotion and that energy continues to hold power. If we meet the negative energy with compassion the anger dissipates and we can resolve differences and make huge changes. 

I believe we need to come away from technology and meet face to face, where no algorithms can influence us or corrupt our thoughts.

The inner voice is the only voice that stays true, the one connected directly to the heart. It takes dedication to be able to hear it, especially in this noisy world we have created, but it is worth putting in the hours. Finding stillness and listening to Mother Nature is still our best hope.   

Journey to the golden city: The Shadow That Lurks Within

Journey to the golden city: The Shadow That Lurks Within: Never before has the need for us to face our shadow been so great. Never before has our shadow been so present, as if it’s lookin...

The Shadow That Lurks Within

Never before has the need for us to face our shadow been so great. Never before has our shadow been so present, as if it’s looking at us full in the face challenging us to return the gaze. Whether we choose to engage with it or look away, the choice is ours.

I feel like we are poised on the precipice of saving ourselves or plummeting over the edge. But, I am an optimist and I know that we have everything in our capacity to work the magic needed, make the necessary changes and create a new way to shape our future. However, this is not going to come easy, we will have to make difficult choices and perhaps be forced to make huge sacrifices. This comes with the birth of every new age and we have been here before and each time we, or at least some of us, have survived.

I have been watching how, over the last few years, everything has become split apart. It is explicit and implicit, in all aspects of life. The place this most evident is in our Parliamentary system. As the two main parties are breaking into two, the hostility is both in-house and cross party. However, this rancour is appearing everywhere. 

Although it feels very frightening I am holding my faith in the process, whether it is Newton’s Law of motion: to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction, or the concept of yin and yang and how everything is in perfect balance to create harmony. I know that when we see the darkness growing in our society, then the light must also be present in equal measure. The idea being that when everything is in equal balance, we can then choose to make the necessary breakthrough to rise like the phoenix.

As we are stepping into winter, in astrology, we have come through the learning experience of spring and summer, representing childhood. Virgo prepares us for adulthood, as summer comes to an end, and Libra teaches us, as we step into autumn, that as we learn to live we are also learning to die. To do this properly Pluto, God of the Underworld takes Persephone down into his domain and initiates her, ready for womanhood. This is a vital journey, however, scary it may seem. Pluto, ruler of this archetype, offers the initiation process necessary to become true adults, and discover our inner power, however fearful the journey is.

Unfortunately over the millennia, our culture, has become smaller and smaller in its outlook, so that now we ignore anything beyond the physical world. Our fear of what lies there has led us to lose all the necessary wisdom from our ancient mythology, and in doing so remove important aspects of our development. This has prevented us from growing up in any sense other than our physical growth, the only aspect of life we endorse nowadays. 

So we enter into adulthood as emotional and spiritual children, trying to ignore anything we are too frightened to look at and constantly attempting to prove the non-existence of anything we believe belongs to the ‘Dark Ages’.

The centuries of witch burnings has stopped us from valuing our holistic wisdom and kept us judging each other if we choose to venture into that world. Scientific know-how has enabled this view to hold its place till now. This dark history has been left largely ignored and remains festering in our psyches as we are too scared to own it. 

Now, a hundred years after Einstein opened the door to the quantum world, we are still trying to disown what we have found there, desperately trying to close the door on it. But our efforts have weakened us and we are tiring. The truth will out and if you are still refusing to acknowledge it you will soon become out fo date, like flat Earthers. 

The inter-connectedness of everything will soon be scientific law understood by all. We have, over the centuries, been teaching how we can find the truth by breaking things down to their individual states. Slowly that illusion is being shown for what it is. A truth is being unveiled, that the more we look into the world of the tiny, the more it opens up to the whole and nothing is indivisible. Those that choose to look inwards and see only the separation of all things will soon be standing alone will hopefully want to come in from the cold. 

The discovery that everything is held together by love is quickly now gaining ground. Stepping into love whole-heartedly is sadly much harder than we realise. Generations of learned, conditional love means we judge first and forgive later. Loving each other, however bad we seem to behave is not something we have been taught how to do. Sadly, we only have a few role models, Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King to name a few obvious ones. But the more we see people reacting out of fear and hate, the easier it is choose another way. Accepting without judging those who are not ready to change is vital and if we can’t accept, and still judge others,  then we are still coming from a place of fear. 

We are living in one the most important ages of humanity’s time here on Earth, learning to understand itself and so choosing to evolve. We can only truly grow if we examine every aspect of ourselves, not just the parts we like.

This winter, as the decade draws to a close, I invite you to spend more time looking at your world, how it looks within and so how it looks without. It is important to hold up our hands and admit our mistakes as well as our successes; awareness is the key for change. As the saying reminds us, we are the ones we have been waiting for. Its up to us to rise. 

Becoming Our Own Generals

I am constantly amazed at how the model I have been using for life over the last ten years continues to serve me so beautifully. It is based on an image of the universe as a set of Russian dolls; worlds within worlds; cycles within cycles, all mirroring each other. I have been working with the journey of the seasonal year mirroring our lifetime journey and then adding any others that come along the way. So the lunar cycle fits beautifully as does the journey through the chakras. 

I know many people struggle with astrology but I feel it is the best tool, the best paradigm, through which to view the universe. The holographic view of our world, of every part containing the whole, means we can use anything as a mirror to reflect on ourselves and the millennia of archetypal study that has been woven into this field offers such a rich tapestry to work with, it never seems to fail. 

As I have just returned from London, being a part of the Extinction Rebellion and experiencing its wonderful gathering energy I can’t help but be excited by it. 

In my previous blog I talked of the Virgo archetype being the preparation for adulthood, the end of childhood and the potential we have built up through the summer months. Mother Nature has completed her outward physical journey as we have experienced growth and our understanding of the physical world. 

Now as the leaves are turning, showing us this beautiful colourful display, we are ready to step into adulthood not just learning to live but learning to die; but it is beautiful. As we develop the understanding of growing up emotionally, in our hearts, this means we have to face our mortality and come to terms with building a life that is not just about ourselves but about our community and how it will continue when we are no longer here.

On our long cultural journey away from our spiritual awareness and towards a solely physical interaction with life, we have lost all this wisdom. Mother Nature offers us this visual and emotional reflection of ourselves, all the metaphors built into our exquisite environment, in the hope that we will see and absorb it into our way of being. I feel we have, as a society, come so far from this truth we are at last crying out for a return. Now I finally believe change is on its way and the peaceful rebellion rapidly growing throughout the world comes at the end of a long line of practice runs of former failed rebellions.

The Libra archetype teaches us that when we step into our hearts and open them completely, miracles are truly possible. We can build a beautiful world that is just and fair. 

If, however, we try to step into our hearts but our hearts are closed then the leadership is taken over by our heads. We become cruel to ourselves with internal battles and play that out on our world around us. We build societies that are unjust with hierarchies which make us all poor. The Libran playing out its shadow side becomes the general that sends its foot soldiers - the Aries warrior, its opposite sign - into battle for them. This is exactly what we have now, leaders that are willing to send their people to their deaths for their treasures of war. 

I was amazed when I heard the Veterans for Peace speak. It occurred to me that our soldiers are trained to suffer the very extreme of our cultural mindset. They are taught that everyone else is worthless, even the next battalion, that they are the best, the top dog. However, to keep them in control, to shut them off from any feelings of empathy towards others, they have to be stopped from thinking, like factory workers, they are given only their slice of the story. This piece work mentality has shown us how we are suppressed in life in so many areas. This blinkered view is so important to the generals that want to keep us in line, but is detrimental to our mental wellbeing. Eventually any person with any heart will rebel and these veterans who have dared to stand up and question their world are the real heroes, I believe. 

Before we step into our hearts, the chakra journey takes us through the Solar Plexus, our energy centre where our personal power can be found. This mirrors our adolescence on our lifetime journey, where we have grown physically but not yet emotionally developed. It is the teenage years and the astrological Leo when in its power is shining. However, in its shadow it is self-obsessed and self-centred. It is a time of great conflict on our journey through life, trying on our personal power in the world but not having the emotional awareness to put it into play with a true understanding of ourselves or the world.

I believe this is where we, as a society, have become stuck. I believe our culture upholds the shadow side of the teenage mindset; a complete loss of humour, black and white thinking, extreme anxiety, and self obsession to name a few. 

The spiritual wisdom, from which we have become disconnected, is still available to all, should we put down our phones long enough to tune in. But while we remain lost and cast adrift form Mother Mature’s guiding hand, we have become spiritual children. 

However, if we choose to listen to the movement that is growing faster than I could have imagined in the last year, then we can step up and become generals ourselves, leaders in a peace movement like never before, where we all walk together, no one in front or behind. 

The purpose of the astrological wheel is to find balance and bring all the archetypes into play. We tend, in our ego centric lives, to just concentrate on our sun sign and maybe one or two others. The real purpose is to engage with all twelve of our personality types and balance all the archetypes, especially the oppositions. So here we learn to become the generals and the foot soldiers walking together towards love. To me, this is the true meaning of anarchy; (see note) people taking full responsibility for their lives in a community that reflects this back, a community based on love and not fear. This is the Leo archetype shining, all of us together, in balance within its opposition Aquarius (the age we are moving into) the sign that deals with the community.

For five-hundred years we have been in an age led by science and this has brought us many gifts. However, a hundred years ago and amazing scientists opened the door onto the next age, the quantum age. To move into this new world we have to engage with information which is so mind-blowing a hundred years later we are still terrified of stepping through. The issue is that we can only step through if we open our hearts, our heads can never lead the way. The past hundred years has been a gathering of pace and learning for this moment, are we now ready to engage with a new paradigm that can, if we choose, blast our old world apart? I can’t wait…..

Note. Original definition: without a ruler.  But as we have lost sight of how to to be self-governing, it has come to mean: lawless, confusion and disorder.

Preparing for Graduation

This month we are looking at our potential, personally and as a community. Our new scientific understanding informs us that these two states are inseparable, as indeed nothing is. So, when we observe something in our world that we feel is not working then we must remember to look within ourselves too, at what is lurking there unresolved. 

When I look at the state of our political parliamentary system I am caught between two emotions. First I feel shame. I feel like our country has become a laughing stock, a shining example of how not to hang your dirty washing out in public. Not that I’ve ever worried what others think but it’s just I feel we deserve so much better as a community, and we are so much better.

Second, I feel it gives me hope - two polarised emotions, mirroring what’s going on in our world perfectly. It is showing me what I have always believed, that our political system is not fit for practice. I have always believed it which is why I always kept it at arm’s length. For generations we have silently acquiesced, and so been complicit in letting it continue without question. Now as the cracks become ever more evident, the chance for something new to grow up through the old paradigm and blossom is ripe.

This is the terrain we find ourselves in, and I am constantly asking myself where can I be of best use. The answer is, I don’t know, but that doesn’t stop me from keeping on and pointing my compass in the direction I believe I am meant to be headed. My life is quite unique as I don’t have to keep my head down in a career,  but I also know there are many others like me, willing to turn their energies and engage in a new way. 

Knowing I am not alone in my endeavours gives me comfort, but knowing this can only be done as community is vital. 

I feel it is very important, at this stage, to make it clear that it is my intention not to pass any judgement, good or bad, on those who are or who are not appearing to prepare for change. It is important to remember that we are a collective, moving towards this new world as one and everyone is playing their part, seen or unseen.  In every walk of life there are people who may seem to be working towards a better world and those who don’t, but I believe its important not to look at everything at face value.

I am just doing what I am doing because I understand I have been brought to this point. I feel in a place of great privilege and so it makes perfect sense for me to put my energy here. My life has been a blessed one and I feel very lucky to be able start my new journey into a world of activism and politics. 

This, however, doesn’t mean any of it may have any value or any level of success but i am going to attempt it anyway. It certainly holds no more value than those who are working hard and maybe bringing up a family and grounding our much needed heart energy and love into the next stage of our development.

What I’m trying to say is, it is my continued intention to attempt to view the world with a different perspective; to remove judgement, see the potential in everything and stop myself from thinking anyone is better than anyone else.

Last month I attended a wonderful Campfire Convention weekend (a wonderful gathering of a couple fo hundred people, with speakers, music and lots of sharing) and heard some very interesting stories. They taught me how there as many people in corporations trying to respond positively to the crises we are facing in our world as there are people bringing about our demise. I also realised there are as many trying to make changes from the grass roots level with hate and judgement in their hearts as there are those choosing love as a way forward.

Once we truly understand that everyone is doing the very best they can with the tools they have, then we can learn to love and respect each other without condition and begin the process of graduation, which is what we have all come here to do.  

Our potential is huge, let’s celebrate that and nurture it.

Learning to Shine

This month has felt like a proper August month. Some days have been real scorchers with exceptional temperatures, we had an amazing storm, and it wouldn’t be right to have a British summer these days without some flooding. We should never under estimate the power of the weather, its tempestuous nature and ability to cause immense destruction. Then again neither should we underestimate the power in ourselves.

We are, as humans, incredible beings, our bodies and our minds, with such great potential. Sadly, however, I truly believe we are vastly under utilising all of this. Isn’t it a known fact that we only use ten per cent of our brains? In that way we probably use even less of our hearts, especially as few people really understand its emotional power let alone the fact that “the heart's electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain” (HeartMath Institute)

I am constantly amazed at the upside down nature of the way our minds work. As a culture we know how amazing we are. We fully believe that we are extremely sophisticated in our understanding of the world and how we utilise and control it to our advantage. And yet we also completely aware of how out of kilter we are. 

I do believe that if we stopped trying to control our environment and started to collaborate with it; understand our relationship within this connection rather wanting to have a power over it, then we could exceed all our expectations.

The archetype pertaining to this month explains it very simply. We have, at our core an intelligence, we call it gut reaction. Scientifically there has been some study into the cells in our gut being like brain cells. The Eastern traditions link this power to our solar plexus, our 'power centre’, where we can connect to a deep understanding of our purpose and place in the world. When we open this inner conversation with ourselves we gain a sense of inner strength, like the lion in the jungle, king of his domain. With this strong sense of self-worth comes the knowledge that we are totally supported by the Universal energy and have no need to prove anything to anyone else. This is because, here we discover that we are all, in ourselves, enough. The pride turns to humility when we recognise we are all the same, all kings of our own universe, working together as individuals, in a larger body or community.

This sun-like energy is shown to us in the image of the sunflower, that comes out at this time, standing larger, taller and stronger than most other single flowers, the perfect reflection of the sun, here on Earth, shining in its own glory. This is an invitation for us all.

Marianne Williamson said it perfectly in her book A Return to Love and Nelson Mandela quoted her in his inauguration speech,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us….We are all meant to shine, as children do… And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

Now Marianne Williamson is doing just that in her presidential campaign; she is standing up and speaking her truth. It’s so powerful that much of the media in America is at a loss as to know how to deal with her. She is ahead of her time and we can only hope she will, just by her gentle ability to stand and shine, give others permission to join her in her campaign to stand for love. This might take some time to come to fruition, but I am confident that this is all about the perfect timing.

It is time to find our individual power, to stop giving it away to others who believe they have it. For it is those that assume power when they don’t understand its true meaning who then abuse that power, as it is not meant for wielding over others. 

We will only be able to harness a new way of being when we free ourselves from the bonds of self-created slavery, stop giving our power to those we think know better or we believe have claimed their right to it.

It is time to make a stand, reclaim our rights as equals and remember exactly who we are.

We are here to shine.

Journey to the golden city: Going Home

Journey to the golden city: Going Home: This month we are slipping into the ‘sweet spot’ of the summer and slowing our step as we feel the sun grind to a halt at the summer sol...