Wellbeing notes: Teachings from an ancient flower
31/03/2023 at 9:09 am | Posted in Wellbeing notes | Leave a commentTags: Guidance, inspiration, magnolias, mindfulness, nature, wellbeing, wisdom
There’s a magnolia tree that I know and love. With spring blooms of velvet pink, it brings pleasure to all who view it. But my magnolia is more than just a bunch of gorgeous flowers. Its cup-shaped blossoms tell an ancient story. And if I slow down enough to listen to that story, wellbeing results. Here are a few of magnolia’s insights.
‘Age is relative’
Magnolias have been growing for 20 million years. In comparison, humans are so young. It is believed that we have been on this planet for a mere 300,000 years. We are new-born babes compared with the magnolia tree. Maybe we should cut ourselves some slack. We are still learning, and that’s okay.
‘Think out of the box’
Magnolias evolved long before the arrival of bees. So, they attract a much older insect: flightless beetles, that chomp the sticky nectar. So, next time you’re grappling with a tricky problem, you might think of an alternative, ‘magnolia’ solution.
‘It’s fine to be a late bloomer’
Although my favourite magnolia tree flowers in spring, it likes to have a small, colourful flurry later in the year. And so it is with our own talents and interests. We are never too old to do something new.
‘Plan ahead’
By December, my magnolia will be covered in countless tight buds. The tree will protect them over winter, then enjoy a head start next spring. In the same spirit of looking ahead, what could you prepare today, in order to better use your energy tomorrow?
Wellbeing notes: Farewell, lovely meditations
01/12/2022 at 8:19 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 3 CommentsTags: friendship, Guidance, life skills, meditation, Mind body spirit, Spirituality, wellbeing
For the past 14 years I’ve hosted weekly meditation groups. They’ve brought me masses of pleasure, as I hope they have for countless attendees. But we’re not built to do the same thing all our lives, and this month the doors will close for the last time on our peaceful meetings. To mark the moment, I thought I’d include some memories here, with thanks to all the fabulous souls who participated…
Meditation is not always quiet. The biggest secret about our sessions were that they were a 50/50 mix of chat and silence. The chat always had a theme – and sometimes that theme required a little noise. So let’s hear it for Trevor on the accordion and Kerstie on the Native American flute, not to mention the noisy swarm of bees that once perched on the wild cherry tree outside.
Meditators came from far and wide. We shared quiet times with guests from all over the world. Our youngest meditator was a very new baby. Our furriest attendee was a cat. Our most surprised visitor was the courier who tried to deliver to a room full of people sitting with their eyes closed – at least we weren’t chanting!
Those who meditate are creative – maybe the practice of stilling the mind helps ideas to flow. We have shared paintings, pottery, screen-printing, poetry, glasswork, and many other beautiful creations.
Meditation doesn’t have to take place in one room. During the pandemic, we went online. Other years we enjoyed the local countryside, including sacred Avebury, and neighbouring Somerset. The truth, as we discovered, is that peace, calm and kindness can flourish wherever we choose. And along the way, enduring friendships are made.
Building up your kindness muscles
06/12/2021 at 11:26 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Guidance, happiness, inspiration, kindness, life skills, loving kindness, meditation, Mind body spirit, mindfulness, personal growth, Spirituality, wellbeing
A wise person once said to me, “The most important thing you can learn to do is to forgive.” The act of forgiving has become a life-long lesson. It’s hard to forgive someone who has hurt me personally, or hurt others whom I care about, but there is something freeing about the act.
A useful tool if you wish to become more forgiving is to practise loving kindness meditation. Sometimes called Metta bhavana in the language of early Buddhist texts, or simply ‘Metta meditation’, the concept predates Buddhism, suggesting that kindness is part of our human character.
Try this common form of metta meditation. Close your eyes and think kindly thoughts towards yourself. You might say, silently: “May I be well. May I be happy. May I be safe. May I be peaceful and at ease with myself.”
Then, think of someone you love. Repeat those same kind thoughts: “May you be well. May you be happy. May you be safe. May you be peaceful and at ease with yourself.”
Then, think of someone you feel neutral towards. Cultivate the same feelings of non- judgemental kindness, and repeat the same words: “May you be well…”
And now, think of someone you find difficult, and repeat the process again, as best you can.
Finally, think of all four people together, in the same spirit of loving kindness, and repeat the words: “May we be well. May we be happy. May we be safe. May we be peaceful and at ease with ourselves.”
Wellbeing notes: do these three things every day
01/11/2021 at 11:02 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Guidance, inspiration, meditation, Mind body spirit, personal growth, self-care, self-development, wellbeing
Message from the oracle deck
03/08/2021 at 5:28 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Guidance, healing, inspiration, Intuition, intuitive development, Mind body spirit, oracle, self-care, Spirituality, wellbeing
There is a pack of oracle cards, called the Oracle of Illumination, that was given to me by Vivien, a dear friend whom I met during my training with The Healing Trust. The bag that the cards rest in nowadays was a gift from Judith, a beloved sister of mine. Both women are now in the light, and yet it feels to me as though their kind influence is evident each time I use the cards.
This morning I drew the card, ‘Energiser’. The book that came with the deck was discarded long ago as I am one of those lawless beings who likes to receive impressions directly from an oracle, without reference to the authors’ personal interpretations. Instead, I went for a walk through the local meadows and let the word become a refrain as I strolled. And these were some of the questions in my mind.
How does the word ‘energiser’ figure in your life today? What and who energise you? What and who leave you feeling low in energy?
I realised that walking in green spaces or doing some yoga or writing my current novel can be deeply energising, even if, before the start of those exercises, I was feeling tired. In contrast, sitting still for long periods doing nothing in particular can actually deplete my energy. And although there are necessary, dull tasks in everyone’s day, making sure to include energising activities, whatever that means to you, is essential self-care.
Guidance is simpler than you think
30/10/2018 at 6:55 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 CommentsTags: energy healing, Guidance, healing, inspiration, parenting, special parenting
Twenty years ago, I was struggling with the challenge of parenting a baby with complex health issues. I was also, by no coincidence at all, starting off on my long path to be an energy therapist. In the night, I would dream vividly. The dreams were detailed, emphatic and helpful. I called them ‘Night tuition’. I saw them as a form of guidance. Where they came from, I had no idea. To me, it didn’t matter whether they originated from my own subconscious, or from some infinite dream library to which all beings have access.
What mattered most to me is that, over time, the dreams helped me to navigate the tricky path that I was treading, along with my partner and our tiny, so vulnerable child.
I’d like to share with you the simplest, barest dream that I experienced. It was simple, but it was powerful. It set the tone for all my future parenting. Actually, it set the tone for everything that has happened since, in every single aspect of my life.
In the dream there was just one, single thing to look at: a rectangle. The shape was shown against a plain background. The rectangle and the background were both devoid of colour. The whole scene was greyscale – just varying degrees of light and dark.
“Which is lighter: the rectangle, or the background?” asked a teacher, next to me but invisible.
I looked carefully. It felt for all the world like some kind of eye test.
Truthfully, the rectangle and the background seemed at first to be pretty similar shades of grey. However, as I looked, it seemed to me that the rectangle was shining more brightly. In fact, it was definitely lighter.
“The rectangle,” I replied.
“Good,” said my teacher. And waves of love washed over me.
In that instant, I understood that the rectangle represented a choice that each of us makes countless times. The rectangle represented the choice between love and fear. Love, in this dream example, was lit up, as though a light was shining through it. If I had seen the rectangle as darker than its background, it would have meant that I was viewing life through a fearful lens, programmed to expect the worst. However, by seeing the rectangle as lighter than its background, I was actually viewing life through the lens of love. It meant that on some fundamental level, I had learnt to trust that in the big scheme of things, all is well.
This was an important lesson for me. It helped me to understand that my love as a mother could be a powerful force in my son’s life. It enabled me to see that my partner’s love as a father could be as protective as mountains. And it taught me that fear would weaken that parental strength and power. So the dream reinforced my innate wish to choose love rather than fear.
The powerful need to think for ourselves
27/01/2017 at 1:57 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 3 CommentsTags: Guidance, life skills, personal development
There’s a footpath that passes close to where I live. It’s a direct route between local communities. It’s as old as you care to think. In places, it runs adjacent to a busy main road which no doubt is just as ancient in origin.
Go back far enough in time, and the footpath and the road were probably equal partners. Each would have been wide enough for humans and animals to travel along. However, over centuries, one became a busy thoroughfare, and the other remained a quirky, winding path. But they each get you to your destination.
A society’s collective thinking is very like those routes. It makes sense for us to put things and people into categories – to put ideas into highways of collective thought, as it were.
It’s easier to say “I am Christian/Jewish/Muslim” for example, than it is to think exactly what your personal, unique experience of spirituality might be.
It’s easier to say, “Science is always right” for example, than it is to think about those countless times that scientific research is bent towards the commercial concerns that fund experiments.
And it’s easier to believe that we vote freely than it is to delve into the murky waters of psychometric social media advertising that can suppress or encourage votes for the benefit of a particular party or individual.
Well-trodden highways are practical in many ways. I’d rather use my car when I’m in a hurry than put on my boots and walk the fields. But it absolutely behoves us to think for ourselves – to be willing to walk the less travelled route, at least some of the time. That way, I believe, we are more likely to be able to look into the hearts and motives of others, and understand for ourselves our own best direction.
An extended version of this post can be found at The Huffington Post.
What an ice mountain can tell you
30/07/2016 at 8:52 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 CommentTags: Guidance, healing, insight, inspiration, meditation, nature, personal development, sacred site, travel
Some places feel special, in ways we don’t fully understand. One such I visited recently is Snaefellsjokull. This ice-capped volcanic mountain rises from a remote Western peninsula in Iceland. Its name translates as ‘Snow-fell glacier’.
Perhaps it feels remarkable because of the near-Arctic juxtaposition of ancient fire and eternal ice, enhanced by the mystery of ocean clouds.
Or maybe it’s because the myriad volcanic peaks in this region take on their own fierce presence in a stark landscape created by the slow separation of two major continental plates.
On the slopes of the glacier itself, the sense of presence grows stronger, along with a distinct chill. It’s easy to see why Jules Verne chose Snaefellsjokull as the entrance to the earth’s core in his novel, Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
There’s a purity and absolute freshness to the air, as though all human preconceptions have been frozen or blasted away.
The ancient volcano brings gifts to the watchful. My daughter found a piece of obsidian – black fire glass. And I discovered what I fancied to be the subtle, changing image of a fire sprite on a smooth piece of basalt.
Snaefellsjokull is said to be one of the sacred centres of the earth, a portal to other realms.
Standing on the glacier, it’s possible to see things differently… to recognise the true landscape of our own lives.
An ice mountain can tell you much about yourself.
Each of us carries within us the qualities of Snaefellsjokull: the ice and fire, the mystery and the deep, all held within a shimmering equilibrium that is subject to disruption when inner or outer forces overturn the state of balance.
Witnessing this in nature is to witness it in ourselves. We can open up to these qualities, and allow them to flow through the meridians, our own subtle energy channels.
There are four burning questions an ice mountain draws out of us:
• What in you is ready to be expressed?
• Look deeper now. What are you suppressing?
• Do you always recognise your own inner promptings towards action?
• And, above all, do you honour the passions and visions that ignite you?
Take time to answer these questions. They are a recipe for life-long wellbeing.
To be a gardener of the mind
05/05/2016 at 10:17 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Guidance, life skills, meditation, mindfulness, nature, personal growth, s
The Studio garden is warming up. Wild cherry blossoms are opening in the sunlight. Cowslips and primroses are mingling with bluebells and forget-me-nots. There’s plenty of gardening to do, even in this semi-wild space. The earth always brings new insights into nature and human nature.
Today I’m removing weeds to create space for cultivated plants. Weeds are ok. Many are edible: dandelions, bramble, chickweed and nettle are harvested elsewhere in the garden for herbal teas, salads, pies and the cooking pot. Others are beautiful: bindweed throws white trumpet flowers over the hedgerow that separates garden from field.
But I’m not letting any wild plants take over the entire garden. I am choosing where they can thrive, and where they cannot.
This choosing of what may grow and what may not is very like the way we tend our minds.
Thoughts we think habitually are like plants with long, tenacious roots.
Thoughts that are more transient are like annual plants, with shallow roots.
The annual plants are easy to pull up, should we wish to. Chickweed pretty well lives on the surface, and can be scooped up for salads. Annual plants resemble topics that grab our attention for a season, and then vanish.
The most established perennial plants, however, are deeply entrenched. Bindweed and bramble have roots that travel horizontally long distances underground. Horsetail has roots that can grow a full two metres deep. These can be likened to long-held family beliefs that have been handed down through many generations.
We can choose to be gardeners of the mind by doing these three things:
• Become aware of our thoughts and beliefs, through techniques such as mindfulness, meditation, and gardening.
• Witness these thoughts with non-judgmental loving kindness.
• Cultivate the thoughts that make sense, that support and nourish us; let go of the thoughts that don’t.
And then we need to keep doing these things, season after season. That’s how we become gardeners of the mind.
Breathing mindfully the ocean way
08/04/2016 at 6:04 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Guidance, happiness, inspiration, meditation, mindfulness, nature, wellbeing
I stood on a bumpy shore in Galway, Ireland and breathed in salty cool Atlantic air. Suddenly, my lungs were filled with fresh ocean breezes. Each in-breath came with an excitement of Atlantic energy. Each out-breath took with it a thousand everyday stresses.
In a situation like that, you can’t help but be fully present. My mind wasn’t about to wander, because the experience was so vivid.
All my senses were engaged with savouring this moment. I could taste the salt in the air, feel the wind speed-weaving my hair into maritime knots, see the sunlight dancing through fast moving clouds, breathe in the tangy scent of seaweed, and hear the waves lapping against pebbles. Additionally, the wind was chilling!
The challenge is to breathe equally mindfully in familiar situations – in our everyday life. In fact, this is one of the very best meditations to practise regularly. Simply sit in silence once a day – first thing in the morning is perfect – and focus on your breathing for 20 minutes or so. And notice what you notice.
Here are three techniques that can be helpful.
1. Treat every mindful breathing session as though it’s the first time. You are a traveller, newly arrived at this shoreline of your breathing. Witness the air entering you as though it’s the most amazing newcomer in your life. Witness it leaving you like the life-long friend it is.
2. Focus on a particular point: such as the nostrils, the lungs or the abdomen. Notice the sensation of the air as it enters and leaves you. Witness how your muscles expand and contract rhythmically. Mindfulness pioneer Jon Kabat-Zinn suggests focusing on the belly, and likens it to the deeper, slower moving currents of the ocean: “When we focus on our breathing down in the belly,” he writes in Full Catastrophe Living, “we are tuning into a region of the body that is far from the head and thus far below the agitations of our thinking mind. It is intrinsically calmer.”
3. At intervals during your day, whenever you remember to, briefly observe your breathing. When you next feel stressed, make a point of noticing what is happening to your breath. Focus on the belly, as it rises with the in-breath and falls with the out-breath. Sometimes this movement is subtle. In the time you take to witness it, the stress or surface agitation has often lessened. It’s as if that pause creates a tiny gap in the stressfully woven fabric of your life, and loosens every thing up so new options can emerge.
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Suzanne Askham 