Tag: dreams

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

New Worlds and Seed Pod Dreams

What if seeds were dreams? What if they were little gifts born from the hearts of seed pods, like ideas patiently moulded into masterful creations?  

I’ve long know the value of seeds, but I hadn’t given much thought to the pods carrying them until recently. When I gathered a collection of seed pods for my autumnal sacred space, I attuned to their deeply grounding energy in search of wild words to guide me through this season. I was pleasantly surprised by the wealth of wisdom impressed in their tiny brown bodies.

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Story makers, writers, artists and seed pods are very much alike, because all are creators. Seed pods begin empty. They begin open and receptive to an idea and they allow that idea to settle within them, slowly taking form. The pod understands that for a seed to be birthed, it needs a vacant incubator. So, the pod becomes a space of stillness where the creative energy of its heart-inspired idea or dream is transformed into a miraculous creation – a seed.

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The innate wisdom in seed pods knows not to rush the process because patience and stillness are integral to forming new worlds. What seed pods do so effortlessly doesn’t come as naturally for some of us. We don’t always know when to do or work, when to rest or when to allow things the space to unfold at their own pace. The masculine values ingrained in our society encourages us to constantly drive ourselves to breaking point. It’s taken me a long time to find the right kind of balance in my own creative process. When I’m not writing, I still have moments where I feel so unproductive and push myself to work harder or faster. But the reality is that sometimes what my words need in order to take form and come to life is for me to be a silent incubator of wild stories and to allow my ideas the stillness or space required for their evolution. Life Coach/Author, Martha Beck, pinpointed this concept quite aptly when she wrote:

 “During the times we think we’re being “unproductive”, the seeds of new worlds are germinating within us, and they need peace to grow.”

These insights really struck a chord with me. So, I’m letting them sink in. It’s good to have such grounding touchstones anchored somewhere in my consciousness because they become wise guidance for me to draw on when I lose my way.

Sometimes empty seed pod seem so bereft when their seeds have long deserted them to pursue a journey of their own. They reminded me that whether seed pod or person, it isn’t always easy to release dreams that you’ve carried deep inside of you, stories crafted from your own blood and tears. It takes courage to open up and launch these seeds that are so much a part of you into a wild and unknown world. We feel vulnerable. Yet, at the end of the day, our gifts, inner treasures and creations are meant to be shared. Like the seed pods, we have to trust and flow with the process. Each seed has a path and will of its own and when its time has come, the pod has to open up and let go. We have to make peace with our vulnerability and summons our inner strength to launch our creations into the world, and when we do, we are not left feeling bereft because the gift that we share are not lost, but offered. They offerings from a sacred place, from the profound creative force of our souls. So offering something so precious to the world leaves us feeling proud, fulfilled and free.

The seven wild words that I received when I meditated with the seed pods were:

 Release, Trust, Stillness, Incubate, Gifts, Open Up, Share

Following my seasonal practice, I’ve strung them together to create a new mantra to meditate on during this period:

“I allow myself the stillness that I need to incubate wild gifts in my heart. I trust enough to open up and release my gifts into the world because they are meant to be shared.”

Nature never ceases to amaze me. Her wisdom is boundless, her lessons never ending and I’ve discovered so much in a handful of seed pods. This autumn, as I work with my wild word mantra, I am open to the new worlds that the Earth’s vibration may light within me.

Equinox blessings to you. May the shifting seasons light new worlds inside of you too. 

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The Extraordinary Things Your Wild Essence Propels You Towards

“I always wanted to live in Vermont, and because I always get my own way, this is where I settled.  The first thing I did was plant daffodils ~ over a thousand.  The road was impassable, so I carried them in by backpack.  And my rhododendrons I brought in through a foot of snow in a wheelbarrow.”

~ Tasha Tudor

 

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photo by Richard W Brown

What makes a woman carry a thousand bulbs on her back up a snowy cliff to plant a dreamy field of daffodils? And what makes her wheelbarrow loads of rhododendrons through a foot of snow?  

The idea of it takes my breath away, because the vision that inspired her to do so must have been so grant, wild and almost otherworldly.

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Photo by Richard W Brown

Delicate flowers and the wildness of Nature clearly resonated deeply with Tasha Tudor, so much so that she gave them centre stage in her life. Her profound passion strongly influenced her home, the way that she lived and her work as an illustrator. As it turns out the magnificent garden that Tasha Tudor nurtured into being was something quite extraordinary – vast expanses of flowering beauty like a picture straight out of a fairy tale world – and she, the hands and heart behind the master creation was just as extraordinary a person too.

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Photo by Richard W Brown

When I see the pictures of Tasha Tudor’s garden and read about her life, it reminds me just how the wild essence within propels us towards extraordinary things. There are seeds and visions in our hearts so full the big things that are possible. There are yearnings and whispers that pull us towards so many things deemed unimaginable. Too often we dismiss them because they don’t fit the mould of what we’re told is reasonable or acceptable in modern day terms. But is there really any real reason why you cannot allow the pull of your wild soul to propel you towards extraordinary things?

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Photo by Richard W Brown

What would happen if you said yes to planting a thousand hope-filled bulbs in the wild flowering meadow of your own heart soil? How much would be possible if we gave the brave stirrings within even half the chance that we give the voices of doubt?

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Photo by Richard W Brown