A Quiet and Graceful Start

I woke up to the sound of rain, the soft soothing summer kind that I love so much and often write about. The grey gloomy sky seemed to wrap itself around my heart and the wind whispered little secrets of the good things set to come as this New Year slowly starts to unfold. I watched the rain through the window for a while, the soft white sheer curtains of my bedroom blowing gently to and fro. This dreamy scene is the first of my wild blessing that I‘ve recorded and placed into my wild blessing box.

I will never understand what it is about this wetness, this greyness and this dreaminess that moves me so. Perhaps it transports me to a space between the veils where magic is alive, Spirit dances and all things are possible. So what can I do other than rest in a place of quiet awe, grateful for the stillness and enchantment?

When the rain died down, I wrapped myself in a white cotton shawl that I bought in the Karoo on our recent trip there, and then went out into the garden to pick some herbs for my morning tea. There are few things more precious than the feel of wet grass under my feet. Or the feeling that comes with connecting the herbs, harvesting leaves and flowers of these plant allies that I’ve been tending to and taking little bits of their medicine into my body. Today, I felt called to draw in the healing energies of red clover flowers, stevia and yarrow.

I draw my first card for the year from my new Little Sage oracle deck. The card that came up was EMERGE. I think it’s a lovely message for today. It speaks of change, transformation and emergence.

“Just like the butterfly that starts its journey in a different form, you too are transitioning and emerging from one period to the next. Change is here and, through this growth, you blossom and grow,” it says.

For some reason I imagined that I’d gone into a cocoon in one form last night and emerged from my slumber in a new form this morning. What a strange thought. One thing is for sure though, the past year has definitely been one of change and transitioning, with me getting to the core of who I am and what it is that my soul aches for. I’ve been pulling away the layers and witnessing the dormant threads of my wild essence return to me. I am curious to see what more of my essence emerges from the dark spiral caves to return to the light as 2015 moves on.

When the kettle boiled and I’d done steeping the herbs for my tea, I grabbed a few star-shaped soetkoekies to have with my tea and hopped back into bed. Soetkoekies are traditional South African biscuits, usually had at Christmas. They are so buttery and delicious. It’s probably not the best thing for me, but I figured I might as well enjoy a few before returning to my sugar free healthy eating plan.

In bed, I sipped my tea and caught up with reading some of my favourite blogs. All the while my husband lay still sleeping and apart from the soft sound of dripping water the world around me lay quiet for a long time too. I kept thinking that these kinds of moments of quiet peace and simplicity are all one could ever ask for on a morning like this.

Thank you Goddess for the blessing of a quiet and graceful new beginning.

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?

Wild Essence Book is here!

There are so many feelings stirring within me right now. Excitement, joy, anxiety, gratitude…but mostly gratitude.

Why? Because the day has arrived!

After months of sweat and toil, months of writing, editing and getting to the nitty-gritty of the publishing process, my book, Wild Essence, is now published and available for purchase.

I am so grateful to be able to share the contents of my heart with you through these pages. Wild Essence is a book about connecting with your true self, the wild and beautiful essence alive within you and releasing what keeps your wild heart domesticated. It’s a spiritual journey about liberating and re-wilding your soul to return to that natural sense of personal peace and freedom.

Since I find so much inspiration and healing from Mother Earth, the book also includes intricately woven threads of wild whispers, insights and analogies from Nature.

As I shared in a blog post a last week, Wild Essence my love letter to the women of the world – women like me – whose souls have been broken in to submission to remind them that they are essentially wild creatures of profound beauty who are meant to be and express all of who they are, not lurk in the shadows.

Wild Essence is available for purchase at Balboa Press, Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.