Category: Soul + Grace + Comfort

Closing Ceremony: Celebrating and Releasing the Year that has Been

How are you spending the last few days of 2014?

The last few days of the year are precious. I’ve learnt to spend them in an introspective space because it is a time to review what has been, to release the old and make room for the new.

As usual, Leonie Dawson’s Create Your Shining Life 2015 workbook is my companion at this time. It’s the perfect resource with which to review how 2014 has unfolded for you. The first section of the workbook includes a 2014 Closing Ceremony that I love because it’s a great way of taking stock of the blessings or achievements you have to celebrate, as well as what you need to release as the year comes to close.

In reviewing my own journey, there are a few experiences and lessons that stand out to me.

The spiritual lessons that I’m heeding: The lesson that I’ve been learning over and over again is to Surrender. Trust…and Flow. These three things have cropped up in all kinds of ways in the experiences and situations have have entered my life during the course of the year. Both my writing life and my conception journey have required my to relinquish my notions of control and to surrender, trust and flow instead. This wasn’t always easy to do, but each time I gave in to the reality of my situation and allowed Divine Spirit, Goddess and my wild essence to steer my forward, magic happened and new insights were uncovered.

The lowest low that I’m releasing: I’ve come to terms with my lowest low, which is having a miscarriage. It’s the most painful thing I’ve been through in a long while. It’s taken several months to reach a place of acceptance and to get back to the natural balance and joy of my inner essence. Anyone who’s battled with infertility knows that it isn’t easy. I’ve tried to keep my mind focused positivity on the fact that I actually got pregnant, which is a good sign that the health efforts and spiritual work I’ve been doing is working on some level. I just need to stick at it for a little longer and remember to keep getting out of my own way. I always go off track with my healthy eating and exercise routine in December, but today I am easing back onto the right path and I feel in my heart that my little miracles are coming my way pretty soon. So a ceremony of sorts is definitely in order to let it all go and to invite the possibility of fertility and childbearing in 2015.

Achievements I’m celebrating: Of course, my year has not passed without cause for celebration either.The thing that I’m most proud of is that this year I gave myself permission to focus more fully on my writing life. Doing so has opened so many incredible doors, all of which have reinforced that writing is a major part of what I’m meant to be doing with my life. After years of coming up with ideas and shelving files of half written stories and pieces, I’ve finally completed and published my book – Wild Essence. I’m blown away by the positive feedback I’ve been getting for the book too. I can’t explain how having this life long dream come into being has shaken my world. And I know there is so much more to come. That aside, I’ve done more freelance writing, guest posts and magazine articles this year too. One of the things that I wrote in my work book at the start of the year was to “get published in more anthologies”. Would you believe that this is exactly what happened? I’ve been included in two anthologies – one is Wild+Precious, which was compiled by Wild Sister Magazine, the other is called Spiritual Awakenings and will be launched soon.

How has 2014 treated you? And what are you celebrating and releasing as the year comes to a close? workbook

Solstice Blessings

Happy Solstice to you all.

How are you honouring this transition of light and season?

Summer is in full swing here in the South, with its long sunlit hours, heatwaves and thunderstorms. There is something in the warm starry nights that wash waves of nostalgia over me. They trigger memories of a childhood filled with wonder. And I begin to crave the seaside so, for that is where I grew up. I suppose that the soul always craves the healing balms that it remembers.

This past week I’ve been fortunate to travel to the Cape with my husband and inlaws. So I’m grateful to spend this precious time and to have been able to get my fix of healing ocean, mountain and desert vibes. Rich in beauty and the vibrations of Spirit, these places stoke the fires of me wild essence so. My heart danced with joy when I walked the soft sandy shores and felt the waves rush over my feet. Right now I feel nourished, relaxed and in the mood to celebrate the fruits of 2014’s labour. And as the craziness and chaos of  family and festivities set in, I am reminded once more of the true importance of staying grounded in your heartspace, feeding your own soul and stoking your inner fires to remain nourished and whole during these times.

So I send blessings your way and hope that you will find ways to be nurtured, soothed and to lean into what your wild essence calls you to do to stoke those inner fires.

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Only Peace…

All my life what I’ve craved most is peace.

Peace away from the violent conflict of my home life while growing up. Peace away from the bullies who tormented me at school. Peace away from toxic work environments and bosses that I seemed to keep attracting. The peace to breathe. The quietude to hear my own thoughts and to listen to the soft wild whispers of my heart.

It’s little wonder that was so prone to depression in my teens and early twenties. Except for when I was fortunate enough to escape to the wild comfort of Nature, peace seemed hard to come by. I didn’t know how to find it back then. It seemed rare, and fleeting and difficult to find for so long.

Although I still do fall into dark and melancholic depths when my thoughts are locked in negativity and the past, I’ve noticed something in recent months. Peace is finding its way to me more and more. I had to just take a moment to be fully aware of this fact. To notice it and to appreciate it….Peace is finding me in so many beautiful ways. Not just when I am out in Nature, but in simple moments throughout my days. And it doesn’t come when I’m searching, striving and struggling to hold on to it.

If “hope is a thing with feathers” as Emily Dickinson said, then peace is a thing that wraps its soft and delicate presence around me when I release the trying, the needing and the wanting it so much.

There is no searching in sitting by the window to watch the glistening beads of rain drip from the tree leaves. Only peace.

There is no striving when I give myself the space to read poetry or write the words embedded in my soul. Only peace.

There is no trying while brushing my hands through the yarrow, lemon verbena and rose geranium in the mornings, revelling in their fragrant beauty. Only peace.

There is no struggling in lighting tea light candles to fill my home with a warm glow on a gloomy afternoon when the sky is grey and stormy. Only peace.

There is no needing in strolling around the garden under the moonlight, breathing in the cool night air. Only peace.

Of all the lessons and blessings that I’ve uncovered over the last few years since I began more actively unshackling myself of things that don’t serve me and since I’ve devoted myself to a more spiritually inclined authentic path, learning to understand the nature of peace and what it means to me personally has been one of my most cherished lessons.

I am grateful to spend my days leaning into peace with ease, allowing it to find me in each breathe and in the simple ways of daily life.

What does peace mean to you? How do you lean into it?

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