Category: Nature + Moon + Tea

The Cedar’s Wisdom – You have a Right to Be Here

The gusty breeze whips through the trees around me. I brush my hand over the hardy herbs who’ve managed to weather the winter and I take in the pungent aroma of the rosemary and sage. It feels good to breathe in and smell them after a week away exploring the southern Cape coast.

Overhead a small folk of mouse birds dart across the quiet afternoon sky. Somewhere around me I hear wild whispers.

 “Breathe deep and proud breaths,” they say. “You have a right to be here.”

It must have been the cedar. Perhaps I am getting better at listening to the wisdom soaked wild whispers that he offers.

For several months now, the cedar’s essence has drifted in and out of my awareness.  On the surface, he appears young and short. But something tells me that beneath the soil, his old and wise roots grow deeper than he lets on. If you look closely, you’ll see that he must have been cut down at some stage. Yet, resilient as ever, still he grows. Most trees carry their stories in their wooded trunks, their rings scribed like pages in a memoir. This cedar’s wisdom and stories are buried beneath the earth’s soils in its knotty roots.

Sitting near the cedar makes me think about how we can be at times. We play small. We feel inferior and unworthy, yet beneath the surface lies a wealth of spirit, love and wisdom. The cedar’s essence reminds me look at myself through my spiritual eyes because they see the true nature and magnitude of who I am, who each of us are.  The cedar reminds me to reach into the space beyond fear and illusion to touch the real essence of life – the love, truth and magic that the small-minded ego often disguises in a cloak of negativity, harshness or limitation. When he was cut down (I assume this was probably when my place was being built) I doubt he ever felt  that he’d no right to exist in this space the way I do when I feel cut or rejected sometimes. No, he just continued to breathe and grow. So, I take this cedar wisdom into my heart, mindfully, because it teaches me how to own my space a bit more and let myself breathe in life and spirit fully, remembering that I have a place in this world.

These are the small moments in my day that patch the broken pieces of my being back together, the moments that direct me back to wholeness so that I learn to see that I was never really broken at all. The mysterious force that lies within remains whole even when one has been wounded by life.

Sometimes I just need little nudges and wild whispers to remember that.

What reminds you of your own wholeness? What teaches you to breathe deeper and reminds you of your place in the world? What helps you feel that you have a right to be here?

Lean into that for it will guide you back to wholeness.

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Spiritual Awakenings: Many Paths to Connection

What guides you to a place of healing? What leads you to a deeper connection with life and with yourself? There are many paths to a centred spiritual life and to healing. How has your path unfolded?

In my work, I always share that Nature is one of the things that’s played a key role in my personal journey. So when Angela Raspass began collecting stories about the many paths to connection a couple of years back, she offered me an opportunity to share my experiences. Angela has since curated the collection of personal essays into an anthology called Spiritual Awakenings, a book packed with beautiful and diverse stories of woman from different places around the world.

Writing my contribution was an important exercise for me. For one, it’s a personal and honest piece about things I’ve had difficulty sharing most of my life. And secondly, writing it helped me to hone in on the kinds of messages and lessons I want to share with the world. It cemented the courage to begin writing my first book, Wild Essence.

This week, the Spiritual Awakenings – Many Paths to Connection anthology is free to download on Amazon Kindle.  So you can follow the link to download and read this precious collection….Click Here for the Spiritual Awakenings – Many Paths to Connection anthology.    

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How Can You Rise & Set Yourself Free?

The new moon tip-toed in like a silent dream gathering winter’s cold breath under her cloak and lulled the earth deeper into slumber. The days are mostly sunny and warm, but come late afternoon, I light candles, burn cinnamon and sweet orange scents and I throw a blanket over my knees to stay warm as I write at my desk.

A few days ago, I was breathing the morning light in with a cup of steaming tea when I looked at the flower pot on my coffee table. I noticed how the cyclamen buds rise like swans from the soil and then turn and spread their petals upward like feathered wings in flight. They seemed like a secret poem, an ode to the mystery of flight, quietly reminding us to spread our own wings and soar.

Cyclamen swans

Their faint whispers inspired two questions that I’ve carried with me lately: How can you set yourself free just a little bit more today? How can you rise above the obstacles in your path and fly closer to your dreams?

Sometimes the answers are not easy ones. Like when setting myself free means that I have face my fear of confrontation to stand my ground. Other times they’ve offered simpler options than I’d have imagined, like putting on some music to dance with my husband at the end of a difficult day instead of allowing myself to wallow in negativity because of the little things that pricked up my sensitive soul. Either way, I like that asking these questions have given me the opportunity to shift my thinking, deal with situations that I generally tend to avoid and take small liberating steps forward.

This is probably why I drew inspiration from the cyclamen flowers to string together my wild word mantra this week.

The Cyclamen Inspired Wild Words: Rise, Fly, Wings, Adventure, Expand

The Mantra: I am willing to rise above self-limitations that keep me trapped in negative cycles. I choose to spread my wings and fly. I am ready for new adventures that help me to soar and allow my soul to expand.

Cyclamen wild words mantra