Be Supported Throughout The Year The further I have journeyed with shamanic practice and flower essences in particular the more I have realised how I am being encouraged to work month by month, in all my personal development work, with what is happening in nature at the time and how this relates to the calendar wheel.
To be fair shamanism is more or less set up for this in any case. The medicine wheel that accompanies shamanic tradition is often talked about in circles of First Nation people. It helps form the symbol associated with this particular spiritual path. It has four directions connected to it, East, South, West and North. These directions can have various meanings attached to them, the colours of gold, red, black and white or the seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter respectively. A fuller understanding of all the meanings and teachings associated with the four directions can take many years of study to become fully competent in. I personally however, seem to be being fast-tracked somewhat towards this knowledge through my association with the flowers and their devas (flower spirits). In a shamanic way they have become my teachers. At times they have been very kind to me, at others, quite severe in the lessons that they have wanted to bring to me, dependent on what has been needed to be taught or learnt at the time. One by one they have introduced themselves to me in this month by month fashion. Starting in March 2019 with the Blackthorn and then offering up Bluebell when moving into April, the Red Campion in May and so on and so forth until the whole year was completed. They were showing me all the time when each flower was appearing in the landscape, why they are located specifically there and how they related to each other and the lunar and solar cycles too. This was before any synchronistic events that might be happening in the world came into being that needed to be considered also in the meaning behind their essences. They would seemingly stop at nothing just to be able to impart the messages that they needed to give me about their particular uniqueness. The wheel pictured above has sixteen equal spokes to it, all centred around a central hub. My flower essence range consists of seventeen different essences that can all be mapped to this particular wheel. The range has four solstice or equinox essences associated with it. The Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice can take up the positions of the four directions, the strongest spokes within the wheel. The other twelve spokes can all be represented by one of the calendar month essences. However, as with the passage of the moon itself in its annual cycle from January 1st to December 31st there is always a thirteen lunar month within any calendar year. The hub itself can represent that thirteenth essence. In the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences. The Red Valarian is the thirteenth essence within the moon cycle, which brings with it the message 'To Thyself Be True'. What better message to have at your core being than that! The hub with its sixteen spokes can all support the outer rail of the wheel, all the qualities that we need to be a whole person in our lifetime. As with the picture above, we can experience the odd broken rail in our wheel as our life unfolds. In taking the respective essence that relates to that portion of the wheel we can restore ourselves to a more healthy state. Once more in all the other parts of the wheel if we choose to take the respective essence for that part too, it can assist us in polishing up that quality within us, giving us a new makeover or lick of paint so we feel all the more better about our complete selves in the process too. This monthly cycle of taking the essences is now influencing my personal development offering as a whole. With any of the healing, coaching or guidance packages I advocate, the practices and exercises need time to soak into your being before they start to enact change. The type of transformation I offer should not be viewed as a quick sticky plaster to be placed on any gaping wound to try and make you feel better immediately, these practices need time to properly heal you. This type of personal development is no short term hit of happiness, for that would be a very superficial way of looking at the way spirit wants to work with us in its many nuances and subtleties in our journey towards wholeness. Not to say that breakthroughs aren't possible, because they very much are, epiphanies and eureka moments can occur at any point in our voyage, we just need to be patient with ourselves as we go along. Any personal development work needs a period of percolation including when working with the essences too. Any particular issue we are going through may require a month, three months, six months, or a year to be properly worked through depending on what divine right timing is necessary according to the higher power in our healing journey. The flowers however and the shamanic teachings are here to help you negotiate that time, and I am too. We wish to assist you through every step of that personal development process. Each month I will work with people on certain themes, bespoke to them, and the time of year that we are dealing with. We will be advised by the essences, investigating what synchronicity that will bring with what is going on in nature at the time and see how that can help you with your own progression. This is truly beautiful work I believe if one is prepared to engage with it and start to turn through the circle of the wheel as per what nature intended us to do. If you are ready to get started, why not check out The Butterfly Journey and The Flower Power Trip now through the links below and let us get this wheel in motion. If you care to comment on this blog with regards to any issues or feelings it brings up for you please feel free to do so below.
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Knowing The Way - Direction. This weekend it feels like the honourable thing to do is to acknowledge the inaugural, pioneering essence of the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences. For on the 6th April 2019 the Blackthorn flower essence was created. At the time, it was a Saturday, it was a new moon, it was the start of the financial year, the Grand National was taking place, and there was no hint of any global pandemic being in the twinkling of Mother Nature's eye, or any other eye for that matter also.
As an essence the Blackthorn has proved to be a pioneer in many ways for me. The message it wanted to convey to me on capturing it was 'knowing the way'. Thus it has shown me how to collect an essence, educated me on how spirit wants to communicate messages through its flowers to me and taught me that not everything about an essence can necessarily be revealed at the point of collection. A greater depth of understanding needs to be accumulated about it over a period of time. A year on for instance, we are in very contrasting circumstances to when the essence was collected. Coronavirus has spread across the planet, there are no sporting events taking place and we are all under lockdown. We are also at a very different point in the moon cycle it must be added too, somewhere between a waxing half moon and a full moon. This illustrates that when a 'Mother Essence' is created it is very much born out of the spirit of the moment and cannot be wholly reproduced in the same way ever again. There will always be nuances between essence collections of the same flower. Other distinct scenarios will be playing out within nature and society at the time, new influences will be at work, one could be guided to collect the essence on a totally different day or phase of the moon cycle, the planets themselves will all be aligned differently. This will give a slightly contrasting accent to the language being communicated to the practitioner from the flower itself. Indeed alternative interpretations can be extracted from the initial flower essence collection when more than one practitioner is involved too. When studying at the Chalice Well we would often collect an essence together and each person's understanding of it would be slightly different. There would however be a common theme running throughout the process. Links and connections within the web of information being accumulated would be the same or similar and this would point to an overall knowledge of what the essence was ultimately about. A golden thread of understanding would then eventually come to light. Subtle differences can exist from range to range too when comparing like for like flowers or very similar ones. When I collected the Wild Rose essence last summer solstice and got the quality of 'enthusiasm' from it, it was very reassuring for me to know that when I came into contact with the Wild Rose from the Bach Flower Essences, some time later, that its quality was one of 'enthusiasm' too. This exact match however may not always be the case and our job is then to enquire further as to why such a difference may exist and see where the common ground lies. It is good to approach essence making with what we say in the shamanic tradition is 'beginners mind', i.e. we haven't totally drawn a conclusion at the outset of the essence creation, or the journey thereafter, as to what that essence is wholly about. We endeavour to remain open to other thought processes, inspirations and revelations that might come that are reflective of what is happening with the essence as the process unfolds, layer by layer. We will always then have an opportunity to deepen our understanding of what we are being presented with. That said however, there will always be this overall theme, this golden thread within it, something 'special' about this particular flower and what its purpose is to be upon the planet at this moment in time. This is what the spirit of the plant or flower deva wants to convey to us in allowing us to connect with its unique flower essence in the first place. What I have found in my own journeying with the flower essences, and revisiting them for a second time through the calendar wheel, is that they only want to deepen their connection with us and help us understand the original information given about their essence more intimately. With Blackthorn, its message twelve months prior of 'knowing the way' had been illustrated to me by way of its pioneering spirit breaking new ground with its blossoms in an otherwise barren hedgerow. It was giving all the other plants 'direction' in so doing, as it would give ourselves 'direction' when we connected with its essence also. How then would that message be further ingrained within us in 2020 when visiting with it again? On the Blackthorn Medicine Walk that I completed recently in my own back garden, due to the lockdown regulations, I was able to connect with the original tree I got the essence from again. I asked it the question as to what will give us the opportunity of 'knowing the way' forward given our current very restrictive Coronavirus circumstances? The answer that came back to me seemed to be connected to finding our own inner peace, and then from that place being able to honour all of the other three peaces too, creating peace with others, our community and the planet. We cannot have peace in the world if we have conflict within ourselves. This further message from Blackthorn ties into the message from the Bluebell as mentioned in my previous blog, that of gaining an 'inner-sense' of ourselves, it being the next essence in the sequence of the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences. This further emphasises the connection between the essences as they go through the year. There is a beauty to this unfolding, a poetry, where there is a story to be told which isn't always obvious when each essence is originally collected. I feel that the spirit of Blackthorn in 'knowing the way' is continually with me as I learn more and more about the flowers and their essences, in how they are captured, manufactured and are then to be used at a personal or planetary level. I can always rely on Blackthorn to give me 'direction' throughout my entire essence journey. If you care to comment on this blog with regards to any issues or feelings it brings up for you then please feel free to do so below. Primrose, Blackthorn & Bluebell Are Here To Guide Us Through Covid - 19! I must immediately state that flower essences are not a cure for Coronavirus, but what they are here to do for us is to help support us through these times of the Covid - 19 outbreak. They will aid us with our mental health and emotional wellbeing in order to be able to better deal with the circumstances that we are now facing.
When I started working with flower essences I had no idea of the journey I was about to be taken on, or what the flowers wanted to teach me about their unique qualities. They had a message for me that they wanted me to bring to the world, both individually and collectively, as I voyaged with them over the course of a year. Firstly, I would learn about how they appeared month by month within nature, then in what place in the landscape that they could be found, how they related to the next flower essence in the sequence and in turn how they could be connected to both the lunar and solar cycles when they were gathered. This was before I was educated in the finer details of how they might also connect to what was going on within the Universe, both in their capture and then when it came to market them a whole twelve months later. Each essence had its own story to tell, its own chapter to write, as if being a part of a bigger book of Allies Of Nature flower essences. Each line, paragraph or page just seemingly wanted to meld into the next as if the flowers were relay runners handing the baton on from essence to essence, in the telling of a collective narrative. This was all the more evident when the cycle began to draw to a close most recently and then begin again, all throughout the days of March. Last week I collected the Primrose flower essence on the Spring Equinox, the final essence, in the sequence of 17. I captured the Wild Daffodil, the previous essence, on 2nd February and all the time in between up to 20th March I was getting hints as to what Primrose was all about even before I placed the bowl of spring water next to the flower itself in order to collect the essence. There has been a lot of renewal in my life recently, a feeling of things coming to a end as well as other things about to come into being. Not only yearly cycles and seasons, but relationships and ways of existing too. When I sat with Primrose, as the day and night became equal in measurement again, the message that came through to me quite strongly was one of 'new beginnings'. 'How does that sum up the Coronavirus situation?' I hear you wonder. Well, it would seem to me that whenever this virus comes to an end the whole world will feel different. Different because of the collective experience we have gone through together and the love and compassion that has been shown to our fellow men and women on all levels of society as a result. Is it even possible to go back now to how we were before, in our more uncaring, busy, busy, busy type of lifestyle? It maybe that the Coronavirus has come along in some way shape or form to wipe the slate clean so we can start again, at our beginning. I would suggest that if the messages that the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences want to bring to us are anything to go by, as one annual cycle starts to overlap the next, that Primrose's herald of 'new beginnings', links directly into Blackthorn's 'knowing the way'. The Blackthorn was the first essence in the range of essences that I created a whole twelve months earlier. It was the March essence, that was actually collected on the new moon in April at the start of the 2019/20 financial year. Its message to me was that it was a pioneer, breaking new ground. Its abundant white flowers and pointed barbs made me think about clarity and direction. It felt to me as if it was guiding other plants in the way of flowering, as it was the first to appear in the otherwise barren springtime hedgerows. I believe that in Primrose's 'renewal' of how to be in the world under Coronavirus lockdown we will find the clarity and direction we need through Blackthorn, but also with the next flower in the range of essences too, the Bluebell. For if we are to believe the collective narrative of the Allies Of Nature then the direction we need to travel from Blackthorn to Bluebell is inward in order to gain a greater understanding of our own inner beauty, our own 'inner-sense'. If you would like to know more about any of these flower essences and how they could best help you why not answer The Call To Adventure and have an introduction session with me or alternatively browse through the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences in the shop to see which one might resonate with you the most to assist you in your own personal development. If you care to comment on this blog with regards to any issues or feelings it brings up for you then please feel free to do so below. A Virus Is A Part Of Nature Just Like You And I. With so much fear apparent within society at the moment concerning the advancement of Coronavirus across the globe, I feel it is time to give it a bit more of a positive spin and approach the subject with an element of love, dealing with it from a more spiritual perspective perhaps.
For arguments sake, I am going to assume at this moment in time that this virus has come into being purely through some act of nature. It is my belief that the conditions upon the planet at this moment in time, be it through global warming or some other factor, have provided the perfect environment for its creation. I also believe that everything in our evolvement as a species upon the planet is indeed always perfect, we experience perfection every day, even in the worst case scenarios, in order to experience what we need to do to move ourselves forward as individuals or as a collective in alignment with the planet. The fact that this virus is here now, in the long term could be considered a gift from nature, a herald, to how we need to be, a call for us to adventure and find our own leadership and to do what is needed. Sure, what is being presented to ourselves at this moment in time is difficult to grasp, as we are being urged to stop what we are doing in no uncertain terms. It may indeed cause a lot of heartache and pain, death and illness even, especially to the elderly and infirm. However, it looks to all intents and purposes to have been sent to make us think differently about how we lead our lives and what is fundamentally wrong with our existence, what is our pain and what we need to do to heal ourselves. My work with my range of flower essences would only point further towards this notion. I am about to create the Primrose Flower Essence this very weekend from my Allies Of Nature range of flower essences, an essence I believe that is very much about 'renewal'. There is no doubt that our society is looking at renewal now. A new way of doing things, perhaps a new way of being and existing. We of course will have our own concerns at this moment in time, I have got my own worries too, as to what will become of us, our houses, our jobs, our businesses, relationships, food, social interactions, all elements of community. However, I believe also that we are being asked to look again, to see what lies within ourselves once we stop. What are our true values? What do we really care about? How will we be towards our neighbour? Will we think only of ourselves in this crisis and stock pile or will we naturally start to think of others and the planet as a whole? In one way shape or form we are being asked to trust the process and see where this journey takes us, knowing that for the majority of us we will be OK. I believe creatively I will need to adjust the way that I do business very quickly and it is almost as if I am being encouraged to do this just now for the benefit of the long term, there are notions and ideas coming to me in this period that perhaps would not have come had this virus not arrived. I am being asked to step up in another way, to evolve and be more resourceful, to write blogs, post videos, do Facebook lives, to help engage more people perhaps for what happens after the storm has passed. In Italy I believe, due to a lack of humanity and busy-ness the once murky waters of Venice are now running clean. The skies and roads are now empty of transport too, our carbon emissions have plummeted overnight. Nature is trying to restore itself in our absence to a more natural way of being. We as a species have abused our position upon the planet and raped and pillaged the Earth for all it is worth. We have polluted the air, the water and the ground, fires now rage across the planet too. All the elements are out of balance, life has lost its equilibrium and it is almost as if this virus has been sent to tell us something, that nature ultimately is in control of our existence if we step out of line. It would seem as if it is not too far removed from the plagues of Egypt what we are experiencing now, i.e. natural phenomenon being sent to change our way of thinking, or just make us think, floods, fire, wind, disease, you name it really. In shamanism it is believed that spirit is a part of every living, breathing thing therefore spirit must be a part of Coronavirus, it must have a purpose, it maybe impossible to eradicate it if it has such a purpose, trying to slow it down or stop it spreading so widely is one thing, but if it is meant to be here, ultimately we might just have to learn to live with it. I believe it has its own essence, its own consciousness, its own medicine power, it may well indeed be acting for the greater good of the planet as a whole, in whatever way is deemed fit. For something so very small it seems to have done a pretty good job in stopping us in our tracks just at the minute. With no natural predator for us, maybe it takes a tiny little micro-organism to put up nature's best fight to make us wonder at just how it is to be human in the here and now and start to act in a different way. We may find that this is one of the most creative times in our collective history as we are invited to find new solutions for ourselves the further this isolation and containment goes on. It maybe that come the end of it all our perspective on things has changed significantly. Maybe at home alone we will start to pay more attention to nature and the the flora and fauna around us and begin to love it again and really treasure it for all it is worth and start to place it at the centre of our lives once more now that we have time to experience it more fully. Maybe, just maybe, our lives will be better for it, maybe our businesses, our houses, our family life will improve because of it as we are encouraged to go inward and reconnect with ourselves, our significant others and Mother Earth herself. If you care to comment on this blog with regards to any issues or feelings it brings up for you please feel free to do so below. Dr Edward Bach and Simon Blackler (two of a kind?). Dr Edward Bach was a pioneer in the creation of flower essences. He was one of the first people to understand the relationship between the state of our emotional wellbeing and that of our physical health, believing the two to be inextricably linked.
Dr Bach had the unique ability to be able to place himself in a negative emotional state. He would then walk around his Welsh mountain home sampling various dew drops on different flowers and plants, that were catching the rays of the early morning sun until he was able to decipher which one of them could alleviate the feeling that he was experiencing. He became aware that through the combination of sunlight and water a flower or plant was capable of imprinting its own unique quality or 'essence' into that water for both his and our benefit. Unfortunately for Dr Bach in order to experience this process it meant that he would often spend many days or even weeks in a very unhealthy emotional state until he found the particular remedy he was looking for. However this research, in time, gave him the ability to create his own, now famous, range of 38 Bach Flower Essences. What I have found in my own research, in creating the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences, is that the flowers seem to want to work with me in reverse. Instead of me needing to feel a negative emotional state first and then go out and find the particular flower that can give relief to it, I am presented with a flower, that most obviously wants to be the next essence in the range, before I start to experience all what that flower is about afterwards. It will start to communicate with me, internally, in feelings that I become more aware of that I wasn't experiencing before, or externally, with life circumstances that then start to appear for me. Sometimes the two are linked in order for me to maximise my learning about this particular type of flower. This unfortunately has also meant for me that I too have experienced quite unhealthy emotional states of wellbeing in the process of creating this range of flower essences, especially if the flower in question has wanted me to discover something quite revelatory about its essence. A prime example of this has been in creating one of the most recent flower essences within the range, that of Yarrow. It was an essence that was created on the 20th December but was being conceived from the end of the previous one, Dandelion, on the 26th November, a whole three and a half weeks prior. During this time I began to experience more and more restrictions, regulations, blocks and obstacles to my progression in life and with the business. Externally, this primarily was related to me realising that I had to register my range of flower essences with the Food Standards Agency. I found out on a Food Hygiene Course in early December that flower essences are technically classed as foods and as such need to be registered with the local council. I was unaware up to this point that this was necessary and therefore I was totally unprepared for what came next. Unfortunately, in mentioning the full ingredients of what makes up a flower essence, with the vodka preservative included, I landed myself in a whole load of red tape around whether I needed to have an alcohol license or not in order to be able to produce them. This would take me over 6 weeks to sort out. Internally, this started to play havoc with my mind. My ego and inner critic began to run riot over my soul and I was beside myself as to what had happened in such a short period of time, and how I might have contributed to my own downfall. The elements too were seemingly conspiring against me when it came to collecting the essence. So much so that I wasn't able to capture the Yarrow essence on the day I had first planned, on the 19th December, I had to wait another whole day longer due to adverse weather conditions and travel blockades, problems that just could not be avoided at the time, if I was to listen to my instincts and intuition. To say that I was stressed about all what was happening was a bit of an understatement. However the quality that I had to learn most aptly about the Yarrow flower essence was in fact 'acceptance'. Once I grasped this concept then all of the frustrations, tensions and negativity around my progress all started to subside. It was like as if I had to go through all of that turmoil in order to start to truly understand what Yarrow was all about. On reading this last paragraph back through wave upon wave of spiritual truth has just wanted to wash through me in acknowledgment of this 'acceptance', enough to bring tears to my eyes, to make me weep, in affirmation of this fact. Such is the power of learning what it is to be a true Ally Of Nature, or warrior for a new Earth. All is seemingly necessary, or as the Yarrow would say itself, 'It is what it is!' If you care to comment on this blog with regards to any issues or feelings it brings up for you then please feel free to do so below. Flower Essences Aim To Support Us As Warriors For A New Earth. In creating the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences I believe I have formed a battalion of floral comrades that have all come together at this time to support us in our journey towards becoming warriors for a new Earth.
I feel that each of my bottles of goodness contain a leadership quality, something that we need to be our own leader, or help return ourselves to a place of balance at this point in our planet's history. Here we are able to more fully embrace the legacy of our ancestors gone before us and understand our own life purpose as a result. When I create an essence, I pick up 'in the field' what it is all about and what needs to be conveyed to our community through this flower. I am then able to transcribe that information into an essence description. This is very much collected in the moment, but can be related to any amount of experiences that have contributed to that essence coming into being from the initial intention to create it. In our journey as warriors we will experience many hurdles and obstacles that will need to be overcome, trials and tribulations given us along the way that expose our core wounds. We will have to find some way of healing these wounds in our passage towards wholeness. The flowers can help us with this process. My own voyage has been one very much connected to being bullied. I have had to strive to overcome all of the naysayers in my life, all the people that have wished to control my own outcomes, if I let them. For a great many years I did just that, allowed them to rule my life, until such a time as I have been able to start to push back against the tide. I have noticed in a lot of the essences I have created recently there have been many qualities given to me that have been connected to getting beyond this place of struggle and hardship. One of which has been that of Hedge Bindweed, bringing me the quality of resilience. Hedge Bindweed I gathered as an essence within sight of the house I grew up in from the age of 13 to 31 and where a lot of my bullying issues manifested themselves. They culminated in me receiving death threats at the age of 16 in the run up to the end of school. The Hedge Bindweed used to grow upon our tennis court at the time and now its rhizomes stretch out far and wide 200 yards down the road beyond our former household. It is a very tenacious plant, if you cut it back or chop it down as a gardener it will reform that much stronger, it keeps coming back, getting back up again and will continue to clamber over the more precious, ornate plants in the flower beds. It has an amazing core strength and greater resilience. When I was collecting the essence I was reminded of the film The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise and in particular a scene where he, as the imprisoned US Captain Nathan Algren, is taken off to a Japanese Samurai village. He befriends one of the children there whom he is staying with, ironically, the son of the warrior he has killed in battle and he gets involved in a play fight with kendo sticks with him. A supreme warrior of the village spots what is going on and takes the stick away from the boy and sets about administering a beating to Captain Algren. Algren is in no way a match for such a warlord and as the rain descends ever more heavily on the duel so the more the Captain is beaten, bashed, bruised and bullied into the muddy river that is now forming at his feet. However, despite the odds, he continues to get back up again. He has no skills to match this warrior, only his heart, stubbornness, belief in himself, grit and determination. He knows he is going to get beaten and beaten, again and again until all that is left is his own will. The very fact however that he keeps getting back up again begins to earn him respect within all that are watching on, even the titan that is administering his annihilation. Algren all the while is learning one of the key qualities it takes to be a warrior, a true Ally Of Nature, resilience. To never give up, to get knocked down but to keep getting back up again is an admirable quality in life. We will all get there in the end, if we lose the battle it is not necessarily like losing the war. We can all still be victorious, especially if we follow the example of the Hedge Bindweed. If you care to comment on this blog with regards to any issues or feelings it brings up for you then please feel free to do so below. The Swallowtail Butterfly I don't know when exactly it was that I first became aware of the true nature of butterflies, possibly when chasing them around the garden at home with my little yellow net, when I was barely able to walk, let alone run, at the age of two. When I felt free. When I was trying to catch the cabbage white, its lime green and black caterpillar having eaten up all of next door's greens. The adult butterfly having emerged from its chrysalis used to flock to our garden resting itself on our dahlia heads or rose bushes in our flower packed beds.
I used to get into all sorts of trouble rushing about trying to catch these dull looking, elusive creatures, a plain white butterfly with the odd black spot on the tips of its wings. I would take swipe after swipe with my ready made trap as I pursued them across open grassland and vegetable patch, doing more damage to the poor flowers and growing harvest than the butterflies themselves had ever done in my attempts to avenge the atrocities their former selves had administered to the plants over the fence. My parents were far from pleased with my antics. One day, having pulled the wings off my umpteenth leaf and petal pest, suddenly something happened to change all that. A wonderful swallowtail butterfly fluttered over the top of the hedge from below our house and danced magically for a few moments throughout the shrubbery bringing with it a new felt warmth into the garden as if it carried with it the sunlight itself. Its brightly coloured coat of yellow, cyan, magenta and black held me in awe of its own unique identity, shining well beyond mine. I would not wish to capture such a creature but just watch it, let it pitch and glide and wonder at it blissfully, as it made its passage through my life and be thankful for the time it had graced me with its presence. In later life I was to learn that this was indeed a rare sight and this experience was well and truly special. Swallowtails are scarce, hardly ever being seen in South West England more commonly being witnessed on the European mainland, although inevitably in decline with habitat loss. Had this one got lost? I wondered. Were they more common at the time? It's hard to believe these days that I actually saw it. Maybe I dreamt it? It certainly left a lasting impression on me. Perhaps it had brought a subliminal message from spirit that I wouldn't truly know the meaning of until experiencing another synchronistic moment like it some 30 years later. This is what I have come to believe in any case. I realized instantly from seeing it, that it was high time I put my net down, no longer to be used as a weapon of mass destruction against my fellow creature. I would celebrate the winged one for all it was, even the cabbage white, who in hindsight I thought had done its level best to emerge from its own destructive past into a much higher being. Who was I to condemn it for that? No, that would be a lesson for me in later life, a teaching about my own ability to transform, one in which I now hope to help others with too, including yourself, in learning what it takes to become a butterfly or a true ally of nature. If you care to comment on this blog with regards to any issues or feelings it brings up for you please feel free to do so below. My Medicine Shield Back in August 2018 I came to the end of my Three Year Shamanic Training, the culmination of which saw me produce this Medicine Shield, designed to truly depict who I am, even though at the time I didn't wholly realise what this meant. However there were enough clues in the imagery and my final Vision Quest to suggest what it could be hinting at. As I have journeyed in the weeks and months since, the shield has given me much greater clarity, proving to be a great teacher in its own right.
Whereas in the past I have run companies in graphic design, branding and personal development and always chosen logos that in some way shape or form related to nature, there was always something missing, most likely because I wasn't really sure of my own unique identity behind the brand, my own true self. However, this shield truly represents me and my recent journey, it holds all of my medicine power. I know it and love it deeply because it has come from a truly intimate place within my soul, each element being spelt out to me within nature as an essential part of who I am. I shall now carry this image with me, quite literally, for the rest of my life. This I believe is the strength of shamanic training and working with spirit in this way. It gives you this essence of who you are, this understanding, this knowledge, by giving you riddles along the way for you to solve in divine right timing. I had been drawn to include flowers in the motif, for what reason I did not really know but they had been very much a part of every ceremony I had done in nature. I knew this was seemingly a very feminine thing that I had to depict within any would be warrior shield but I just knew they had to be in there somewhere, intuitively, instinctively, they wished to have their presence known. There were the Foxgloves that had stood as guardians in the darkness of a Devon forest, protecting me on one scary, lone vigil night, as I was being introduced to my first power animal, the black panther, representative of all my feminine qualities that had dominated my life to that point. Then again that same flower had stood tall in the full glare of sunlight in a Druid Welsh valley where I received a dream as vivid as you could imagine of my second power animal, the red stag, who started to bring forth my masculine side, so sadly missing from my previous existence. The two animals together would give me the balance that I so desperately needed. Here in the shield too was the Thistle whose seeds had blown continuously through the 'Shedding Of The Skin' ceremony that I had completed within the first 12 months of my training where I left my past behind me to witness my full power blowing on the wind spreading its potency as far as the eye could see. Then there was the Wild Rose itself, which I was still yet to discover its true meaning until only this past week. For this summer solstice I was guided to create my latest flower essence, the Wild Rose. One of the things that I had been given from my last deep immersion in nature in the final days of my training was the fact that I could in time start to work with flowers and flower essences in particular, little realising then how much I was going to love this voyage of discovery once dipping my toe in the water. Signing up to the Chalice Well Flower Essence Practitioner Course back in March is seemingly the best thing that I have ever done. I believe the flowers have heightened my connection to nature and spirit, they have been continually calling me to make essences from them, to understand spirit better through them, so as to frame all of my other work and build a brand to help my fellow 'Allies Of Nature'. Creating my own essences of Blackthorn, Bluebell, Red Campion, Foxglove and now Wild Rose a story has begun to be told of how they all link together and the beauty held within each one of them in their individual qualities. The Wild Rose speaking most highly of a return to source, it being the original rose where all roses have arguably come from, getting back to the real essence of what it is to be who you truly are. Then to live from that place, with a strong heart, seizing the moment, seizing the day, carpé diem, in how you live your life for the rest of your existence. This is what the shield most represents to me I feel that solstice moment of the full sun in the background, being at its height, its zenith, with the masculine stag in the middle ground with all its power and might, and the flowers in the foreground representing the warrior, guardian, protector, with the strong heart. From here comes the pure joy of the swallow, dancing in the sky, and ultimately the swallowtail butterfly itself behind it all, unseen, who helps form the brand of 'Allies Of Nature'. So there we are, that is me, in all my glory. As this shield becomes more ingrained within my psyche and I devote more of my time to be able to work in my element, sure of who I am now. I hope this will begin to reap rewards not only for myself, but for all the people that I am lucky enough to come into contact with to assist in their own personal development and for the rest of the planet also. If you care to comment on this blog with regards to any issues or feelings it brings up for you please feel free to do so below. Bluebell - Inner Sense These past few months have seen a shift in what I am now to offer through Allies Of Nature. When I completed my shamanic training last year I knew from what I had conceived upon my Medicine Shield that flowers in some way shape or form were going to be a part of my future. The animals and birds had introduced me to The Shamanic Path and had helped me travel along it thus far, but it was the beautiful petal headed plants, ever present in all my Vision Quests that seemingly, more fervently, wanted to take me on the next step of my journey.
Over the last couple of years in particular I have become more aware of the abundance of flowers within nature. As our countryside has become less cultivated, had less pesticide put upon it, had more areas set aside for wilderness and less verges cut on a regular basis due to county council cost savings, so the wild flowers and blossoms have returned to our hedges and roadsides, like which I cannot remember. It is this, or spirit in its many guises has just wanted me to pay more attention to it and become more aligned again with nature, in order for me to truly understand it as a real ally in our everyday existence. For once we start to discover what is at the very essence of every living piece of flora or fauna alive on the planet today, its unique identity, and realise how we can benefit from that mammal, bird, insect or plant with what it wants to bestow upon us, absorbing that essence into us in one way shape or form, then the real healing of our planet can begin. The game changer upon the Earth today is when we start to understand that the animals and flowers that exist around us are here for own personal development and journey towards wholeness. When we begin to grasp this concept is when we start to open up to the great mystery of life. Provided of course that we are able to leave enough space for nature and allow all these great species to stick around long enough to be able to teach us all of their ways. That way, we will not make them extinct simply through our own ignorance and unconscious expansion. This is what essence work and indeed animal spirit work is all about I believe. Not only the flower essences that I am now beginning to offer people but the essence of every living creature on the planet too. What is it that makes a tiger a tiger, an elephant an elephant and a Bluebell a Bluebell? What special thing does it do that no other entity can do upon the planet? What way of being does it want to communicate to us that we can learn from and amalgamate into our own existence for our own benefit once we know how? This can only be communicated to us when we become still, quiet, and just listen to all what is going on around us, then spirit begins to percolate the message through to us that we desperately need to hear for our own health and wellbeing. To capture an essence of a flower one ventures out into the woodland, hedgerow or grassy meadow, the environment where that plant exists, and then sets down a bowl of holy spring water next to it. The vibration from that flower then radiates in the direction of the cut glass vessel and is captured in the water, like that of its own reflection, an imprint of what it is to be that particular child of Mother Earth herself. What comes to us in the witnessing of that process, what nature wants to tell us is going on at that time, helps form an impression of what that essence is all about and the quality of that plant that it wishes to communicate to us. In taking of those waters, that quality can then in turn be transferred to ourselves, where we can start to heal as individuals and indeed excel, helping us to become all that we wish to be. We work in a similar way with the animals but in an ever more spiritual context. As you will appreciate it is a lot harder to keep an animal still long enough to capture its essence, so as a shamanic practitioner or animal essence provider you have to invite the spirit of that animal to work with you in a similar way to that of the flowers. That way there is no need to restrain the animal itself, or god forbid harm it in any way in order to capture its essence, no need to consume or acquire a particular body part to gain its quality, the essence of that animal can simply be infused into a healing remedy or potion in a similar way to the flowers through the holy water. In a recent trip to a woodland in South Devon to capture the essence of Bluebell, I was first given the word innocent, as all flora and fauna are innocent upon this planet and deserve to be treated that way. However me being me, as the particular wordsmith that I am, working in conjunction with spirit I felt that word evolve into 'inner - sense'. So if I am to learn anything from the true power of Bluebell it is to gain an understanding of one's own true inner beauty, my own 'inner - sense' of who I truly am. In essence!! If you care to comment on this blog with regards to any issues or feelings it brings up for you please feel free to do so below. The Question We Now All Need To Ask Ourselves! At the Royal Wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex the Most Reverend Michael Curry talked about the Power Of Love being a transformative, redemptive force within the world once people embraced the understanding of what this truly meant, for both themselves and the planet.
I want to bring that Power Of Love into this blog whilst writing about what some of the paradoxes are of being a human in this day and age and what it is to live my own life as a consequence at this moment in time also. For when the Power Of Love is referred to at a Royal Wedding, as one pundit quite rightly picked up on, there is normally at least one dear aunt amongst the congregation that will inevitably want to start to talk about children and when one son or daughter might appear on the horizon, perhaps with the aspiration that many more will follow on behind, to represent what traditionally one might believe to be a happy, healthy, abundant family. This has been one of the most fundamental questions one would ask a fellow human being for many generations almost as soon as the confetti has hit the ground. However, perhaps now the question that more pertinently needs to be asked is ‘how many children are you planning on having?’ Today one of the paradoxes of being a human is the fact that in order to continue to exist and sustain ourselves as a species we need to reproduce the next generation. However given the population size we now are at, with no natural predator, if we continue to reproduce without consciousness, we inadvertently bring harm to ourselves and the rest of the planet in our expansion. When we solely think about our own selves and how many children we desire on having we don’t necessarily think of all the other offspring of the Earth, all the other inhabitants of the planet too, and the balance required for all to be able to survive and thrive in their own habitats. I would suggest that given a relatively equal split of males to females alive on the planet today within the human population (105 to 100 at birth according to the World Health Organisation) that merely 2 children per woman per lifetime is enough for us to aspire to having in order to keep our population at a more sustainable level. Here the offspring natur-ally replace the parents within one life cycle. This is with the caveat that the mean number of generations alive on the Earth at any one time stays at roughly 3 and doesn't extend to 4 with increased health and life expectancy. When commenting on any population growth issues I do so from a perspective of being fully aware of the impact my own family has had on society throughout the last century. I'm sure when my grandparents decided to give birth to 9 children 90 years ago they had very little thought as to what impact this would have on the population as a whole if everyone behaved in the same way. Growing up I was blissfully unaware of how many extra houses would need to be created in order to accommodate my rapidly expanding family, and how much nature would have to be sacrificed as a result. I was somewhat oblivious to the situation when enjoying countless family parties as one of 22 cousins. From just my grandparents alive in 1928 there are now 66 extra people in existence here on Earth purely amongst my own relatives (not including spouses). Sir David Attenborough, a patron of Population Matters has stated that he has ‘never seen an environmental problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people on the planet, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more.’ I believe if we are to truly embrace the Power Of Love now, we need to do so in a global context and realise what effect we have on the rest of our world with the choices we make, for there is a collective consciousness at work between us all that states whether an action is acceptable or not when truly tuned in and properly aligned to that of all creation. This collective consciousness I believe is now saying to us, ‘Time's up, reign yourselves back in and realign, treasure all around you, flora and fauna alike, whilst considering the amount of children you have, reducing it to two and maybe even one for the benefit of all.’ Any one of any influence and power within our society in my book has to take their own fair share of responsibility to be seen to be having the right amount of children. This is because a large part of society look up to them and model themselves upon them and believe consciously or subconsciously it is OK to follow suit. The very fact that the groom's brother and sister in law, the Duke and Duchess Of Cambridge, have now just recently given birth to their third child, the Queen and Prince Phillip before them having had four in their own lifetime, David and Victoria Beckham having also had four and other aspirational celebrities like Kim Kardashian having had a similar amount, tends to send a certain message out to the masses. I just wonder if having as many children as you like is giving the right indication to the rest of society as to what is OK to do in our modern day existence? My intention here is not to point the finger and bring blame or shame upon anyone who has chosen to have any more than two children, for what is done is done and we are all culpable as I have previously mentioned. It is just purely to bring awareness of how many children we are having and what effect this has as a consequence on the rest of the planet and our environment around us when we choose to do so. It does however bring a pang of sorrow to my heart whenever I hear of this having occurred due purely to my love for nature. How many environmental activists I wonder march on Downing Street and the like chaining themselves to the lampposts or sitting prone in Parliament Square with 4 or 5 kids in tow? They complain about the environmental impact of climate change when creating more and more children arguably is the major contributory factor. If we elect to have more than two children in any one family, at the very least we need to be living a carbon zero lifestyle, being greener than green and endeavouring to live with as little or no human impact upon the Earth as is possible. This is the true Power Of Love that is needed today, the love for the planet itself and all of the other inhabitants that share our world alongside us in order to create the right relationship to it again and bring ourselves back into balance. If you care to comment on this blog with regards to any issues or feelings it brings up for you please feel free to do so below. |
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