Tag: wild essence

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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A Place of Graceful Flowering

Some days I feel so blessed to experience little pieces of wild heaven. Like a moment beneath the linden trees when the wind washes through them and their yellowed leaves flutter in frenzy. Or like the tranquil silence between each leaf dropping to the earth, falling so slowly and gracefully like pretty pieces of soul-touched confetti.

I sat beneath the trees and breathed this heaven in – the stillness, the peace and the soothing whispers in the wind. I breathed in the wildness of quiet trees whose voices land softly on open hearts when they dance in the autumn gusts, and I remembered that the mysterious force that weaves together sacred scenes like this is the very essence that weaves together breath and blood and soul in me, in us all.

I’m amazed sometimes how small moments like this, just sitting with the earth, can be gifts that remind me how to contact the mysterious sacredness within and guide my heart out of tension into a place of graceful flowering.

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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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