What is your heart calling you towards?

Hello dear wild and gentle heart,

I hope that my words find you in a space of peace. I’d like to invite you into a moment of stillness and deep breathing.

Look at the ocean picture below and breathe in its wild healing.

Relax and be open to following the ocean’s wisdom. Does it have anything to teach you? Let your breath and heart synchronise to the rhythm of the waves…deep, slow and steady.

Listen to what it is telling you.

Which part of yourself to do see a reflection of when you watch the waves? What place inside of you does the immense ocean mirror?

What does that part of you need right now? And how can you draw the medicine of the sea into your body and soul?

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Spending the last few weeks of the year (2015) at the coast made me feel that I want to be like to ocean, because no matter how far it stretches out venturing over the shores, it always washes back and returns home to itself in the next breath.

Do you know what it feels like to come home to your own full heart over and over again? To be held in its grace?

I think we all do in some way. I want to feel the thrill of that reunion in a much bigger way, though. I want to rush back into my own arms and be fully immersed in my centre, my essence, in a more complete and accepting way than I’ve always struggled to. Don’t you?

Right now, the old tides of time have washed out to sea and are long gone. New waves are slowly washing in like soft laps upon a calm shore, a New Year full of hope and beauty. And of course this newness is stirring wild dreams within, awakening visions of what I hope the year ahead will bring. These dreams are still seeds, settling into the soil of my heart and slowly taking root. I’m allowing these stirrings to unfold at the pace that they need to, trying not to rush into giving voice to them. Slow beginnings are good. They make for authentic and solid foundations on which to build.

So tell me dear friend, what is your heart calling you to this year? May these wild dreams of yours be washed in love and light.

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Land and Sky: A Deep Listening Exercise

“Each landscape asks the same question, I am watching myself in you–are you watching yourself in me?” ~ Laurence Durrell

Sit quietly. Listen to the land, to the sky (in this picture or in a nature space where you are).

Breathe it in and listen.

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What do you hear? When you reach into its essence and touch its sacredness, peace and stillness, what do you feel? What stories do you find in the midst of its light and shadows? Which parts of yourself do the land and sky mirror back to you? What do they have to teach you?

Listen. Look deeper. Sense beyond the surface.

The wild Earth is always whispering something, a story, a poem, a deep soul healing wisdom.

And if stories are what you are looking for, then it is worth checking out Sarah Elwell’s new storybook collection, The Coracle Sky. This wild sky writer’s stories are so intertwined with the energy of land, sea and sky. I’m enjoying what I’ve read so far and with The Coracle Sky loaded in my e-book reader as I prepare to journey to the coast this coming week, I know that my soul will be fed with magic and mystery.

May you always find ways to listen to the wise and healing wild whispers of the Earth.

 

We were Rain Dancers

These days the gods rumble in the dark wild sky, but no rain comes. Flashes of light cut through the swollen black clouds, but still wet days are few and far between. The afternoon sky is often a picture of wasted potential. Clouds gather like herds and swell, but they do not fall.

Perhaps they are in love, these masses of droplets leaning into each other, their hearts fused as one, so they do not want to part from one another. Or perhaps they do not love the great Mother Earth as they once did, no longer intent on falling to her feet to wet her soft body. The Earth doesn’t seem to cry about this. Instead, she rests in quiet presence and moves through moment to moment at her usual pace, seemingly content as slowly things in her midst begin to wilt and wither in a time when they should be lush and full.

It’s said to be our worst drought in almost three decades, and I’ve been hearing old songs of the land with new ears, ones that call to wild and ancient gods in the sky to send us rain. Drought is a humbling experience because it’s a time when the Earth reminds us mere mortals that we are not as in control as we’d like to delude ourselves into believing.

On days when I’m are fortunate enough for the heavens soak my heart with blessings, I walk in the garden and let the light touch of faint rain cleanse my body or I sit by the window to watch the showers fall. I take it all in, hold on to its preciousness like a forgotten piece of my soul and I think to myself – We were once rain dancers. Why don’t we dance for the rain anymore?

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