The Hedge Bindweed Brings The Quality Of Resilience, But Why October? The Hedge Bindweed is the flower that wanted to present itself to me as the next natural Flower Essence Of The Month for the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences last October. With a quality of resilience and a message that 'Persistence Pays' we may have to ask ourselves why in particular this time of year?
The question is a valid one because initially when this flower essence was gathered it soon became obvious that the prime objective for collecting it was its relationship to being able to help alleviate some symptoms of bullying. Indeed, of all the flowers in the range that have come to assist in helping people overcome the effects of bullying to discover their true identity this flower is the flag bearer of that campaign. This is because even though the flower itself can be seen as a bully in the way that it clambers over, suffocates and strangles other plants in the garden, the more it gets cut back the more it comes back stronger. It gives us the power of creating a strong root or centre to our being and indeed embrace the quality of resilience because each time it gets knocked down it gets back up again. Resilience by definition according to Google is 1) the capacity to recover from difficulties, i.e. toughness and 2) the ability of a substance to spring back into shape, i.e. elasticity. So in order to be resilient you need to have both of these qualities combined, that of toughness and elasticity. In October, going by the Celtic calendars, we are about to enter winter, (officially winter starts on November 1st). At this time the majority of the deciduous trees in the Northern Hemisphere are either shedding their leaves or preparing to let them go. The week of Halloween and Bonfire Night sticks fervently in my memory as being the time when the majority of leaves fall from the trees within the year. Nature at this time is preparing to let go of anything that no longer serves it, the trees are readying themselves to go back to their plain wood, their root, trunk, branch and twig and nothing else. This is so they can become more resilient to the frosty mornings and sub zero temperatures of the winter months. They don't carry any baggage with them at this time they tough it out with the bare essentials, so that they can spring back again in March to be in full leaf. So this is why the Hedge Bindweed appears as the Flower Essence Of The Month for October and offers us the quality of resilience, by being persistent we too will navigate the colder months and begin to bloom again in the spring. 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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In the darkness of the forest, in the shadow and the shade.
Where ground is wet and damp, moist within the glade. There’s a silence understood here, understated, stately calm. Where souls are at rest here, and none will come to harm. Trees stood still and stationary, defenders of the deep. Where rays of golden sunshine, pierce doom with wanted seep. For often in the gloominess, there’s only sadness and despair. Of a wish to be connected, but where, there’s no-one there. The search is long and arduous, for the gleam of something red. Fiery in disposition, at our core it is embed. It’s the light that keeps us going, far into the night. Something to be fought for, far beyond the fright. Often we are distracted though, with bewildered, conflicted mind. Lost within the everyday noise, many a voice unkind. Doing us down at every chance, killing our spirit too. Sombre we are with the weariness, of a disease of many a hue. The masks and veils that hide our bright, so thick they are with sin. It takes almighty courage, to beat them back with vim. To form a route, descend on down, to plunge into our debt. To find the hero long within, treasured jewel we’ve always kept. A blur with all our mental thoughts, you cut us to the chase. A beacon of hope lies within, eternal to embrace. Not easy is it to find you though, lodged within our core. The heartwood beyond our outer bark, inner fire lit, forever more. By Simon Blackler Copyright © Simon Blackler 2020 If you care to comment on this poem at all please feel free to do so below. The Synchronistic Messages Behind The Moon And Sun Cycles Little did I know when I first started collecting flower essences of the journey I was about to be taken on in order to understand everything that was needed to be learnt of each individual essence. This included each one's unique quality and message that it wanted to convey to me in order to be shared with the rest of the planet for everyone's benefit.
Firstly I was introduced to how the flowers appeared within the year, month by month, then where they were located within the landscape, next how they related to one another and finally how they connected with synchronistic events that were happening at the time, had occurred in the past or, as it turned out, would be experienced in the future. This was all designed to make me pay more attention to the essences and the level of healing ability they were capable of both for the individual and that of the collective. All the time however I was being subtly shown how they related to the lunar and solar cycles too, which opened me up to a whole new level of learning. My first essence I ever created was the Blackthorn which was gathered on a New Moon at the start of the financial year in 2019. Three weeks later I was being prompted to collect the Bluebell on a Waning Half Moon. It was soon being made obvious to me that there was a pattern of collection for me to follow working with the moon phases, not necessarily in the normal chronological order. I would then be tasked with the sun phases too. This sequence I believe was to help disguise, at first, the depth of meaning held within the particular lunar cycle I was working with and how they were all ultimately connected. This revelation only started to dawn on me towards the end of collecting all of the initial seventeen essence range. Some quite interesting commonalities started to come to light within each individual, New Moon, Waxing Half Moon, Full Moon and Waning Half Moon essence as I began to bring them all together, let alone within the Solstice and Equinox essences also. For instance when analysing all the New Moon essences I began to discover that if the Blackthorn's message was 'Knowing The Way', the Ox-Eye Daisy's was 'Bright Eyes' and the Dandelion's 'Keep The Faith', then together they would be assisting us in 'Knowing Our Purpose'. This is because their individual qualities of direction, vision and trust, when combined, point us towards a new quality of assurance. Similarly if we look at the Waxing Half Moon essences of Foxglove, Hedge Bindweed and Wild Daffodil we begin to discover that these are all essences that bring us more 'Aware Of Boundaries', whether this is guarding our threshold, reaching out beyond it or preventing people encroaching within it. We become more vigilant when the qualities of protection, resilience and discernment are unified. With the Full Moon we combine the essences of Red Campion, Montbretia, Snowdrop and indeed Red Valarian, as the thirteenth flower essence. Their respective qualities of connection, courage, determination and truth give us a new resolve for our life. Here we can 'Search For The Hero' within ourselves, find out 'Where There's A Will' there's a way and thus finally how 'To Thyself Be True'. By all doing this we begin to establish that 'We Are The Campions' and find out that we have discovered 'The Drive Of Our Life'. For the Waning Half Moon it is more about 'Loving Yourself'. When we combine Bluebell's beauty, Nodding Thistle's confidence and Yarrow's acceptance we begin to truly bring the quality of peace to our being where we are able to gain an 'Inner-Sense' of who we are, acknowledge 'It Is What It Is' at the end of the day and thus begin to 'Be The Best Of The Best' as far as we are concerned. As for the Solstices and Equinoxes then the flowers of the Wild Rose, Meadowsweet, Daisy and Primrose begin to bring us 'Fully Present' bringing our attention to every second of every day. They teach us to both seize and enjoy the moment whilst being responsible for it and treating it as if it was our first ever upon this Earth. That way we are able to be happy living our lives in a constant state of renewal, where new beginnings can be initiated forever more. If you wish to experience the Lunar and Solar Essence blends for yourself then why not check out the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences today and begin to live a happier life yourself too. 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. Our Personality Types Can Take Over Our Mind For a couple of weeks up to the end of August and the start of September my mind was not my own, it had been taken over by what I call the Caterpillar Mind.
The Caterpillar Mind is made up of eight different personality types, what I have learnt in my shamanic training to be known as the 'Robes Of Distortion'. They come to distort the mind from what really lies at the very heart of us all, our true nature. These personality types have been employed over the years to safeguard ourselves from the conditions that we regularly encounter in our lives as we grow up, to make us appear small, to get us to disappear or to fit in, none of these behaviours however serve us very well in the long term in fulfilling our true potential. I know these different personality types to be the judge, the superior mind, the indulgent mind, the drama queen, the brain mind, the victim, the ramrod and the workhorse. Respectively, they seek to criticise us, make us believe we are above all of the circumstances that we encounter, distract us into doing things as addictive pleasures (indulgences), make everything we do into a drama, be constantly over analysing things, bring us sadness as we adopt a poor me attitude, become impatient and frustrated with the way things are turning out and also make us appear to be busy, whilst engaging with all the wrong things in order to do so. These personality types work to distract us, to side track us away form our purpose, sometimes they work alone and other times they all gang up to join the same shenanigans. Recently I have encountered both the judge and the indulgent mind in my own life. The judge is one of the most powerful of the personality types sometimes called the inner critic. I have been guilty most recently of going on to social media sites both Facebook and LinkedIn and doing what I call 'compare and despair', comparing my progress through life and my business to that of others and basically doing myself down as a result in my progression. This is the judge at work being critical of my endeavours, this can lead to both depression and sadness. With the indulgent mind too, we are led into temptation, often as a result of the above. We are distracted away from our purpose by sometimes some very attractive propositions but that which take us away from what perhaps we need to be concentrating or focusing on. Our job when we experience these personality types is to start to question what is happening and indeed sit down with that personality type and get to know it better, what it is called, when it appeared in our life, what function it is here to perform, what is its belief, when does it get triggered, and what would make it feel more whole etc. That way we can start to ascertain what it is about and how we can perhaps redeploy it if we wish to, to perform another task for us and make it work for us as a friend or ally rather than a foe. That is basically what I did two weeks ago I sat down with both the judge and the indulgent mind and got to to know them better, their reason for appearing and their purpose and since that time I have started to rediscover what has been going on at the very core of me and, through meditation, discover where it has wanted to take me. I can't describe it really but I feel a lot more peace about me now and have a realisation about just what has been going on with me internally and now have a real idea as to what is going to work for me going forward, where I can get both the judge and the superior mind to start to perform new tasks for me. When we truly get in touch with our 'Diamond Of Consciousness', what is going on at our very centre, our Butterfly Mind, we are able to replace all the fear generated by the robes and the Caterpillar Mind and are able to transform ourselves into pure love, thus our individual essence begins to shine through. If you wish to start to investigate your own Caterpillar Mind and Robes Of Distortion why not contact me and we can set up an introduction into my work, by witnessing 'The Call To Adventure' and begin to discover for yourself where you are at on The Butterfly Journey metamorphosing towards a far brighter future, from caterpillar, to wandering, to chrysalis, to emergence and eventually finding yourself as the imago you were always meant to be. I look forward to hearing from you today. 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 daytime hours are balanced, equal to the night.
Dawn and dusk form bridges, between darkness and the light. Two realms exist in parity, two sides exactly, just the same. Past and future blended, all present, in life’s moment game. Half way between the solstices, not spring but autumn view. Where leaves begin to turn, from green to gold on cue. Rusted, oldie, mouldiness, decay comes to the nose. The sweetness of the meadow though, lifts mood of summer doze. A pause upon the turning wheel, a choice of happy sad. To enter mood of ecstasy, or agony, good or bad. For now we can just journey, opt for kingdom to be tread. Where one can dance with living, the past life or the dead. Stood upon the fulcrum, we’re centred, in control. Aware of our responsibility, of ego and of soul. Now it’s all the territory, that is known and understood. Where we can enter decadence, or purity if we should. Consequence laid bare, of actions, or non commit. Bygone mews and ensuing dreams, all held, with me they sit. To contemplate the either or, of memory and of lust. To step towards our destiny, come home to that of trust. Back upon the link we share, between zone and space and grid. We know how much to run amok, or keep upon our lid. It’s connection one and all, that we have come to crave. Attention's all that's needed, from now onward to the grave. By Simon Blackler Copyright © Simon Blackler 2020 If you care to comment on this poem at all please feel free to do so below. Each Flower Essence Will Both Have A Negative & A Positive Indication To It. When Dr Edward Bach created his now famous range of Bach Flower Essences he dealt mainly with negative indications, poor emotional states of mind that he would encounter before finding the particular quality he was looking for from the plants he was dealing with, in order to restore himself to a state of parity from that malaise. It is no different for the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences too.
Here, my own essences are designed to help you overcome bullying to discover your true identity. Thus, it goes without saying that each individual essence, from the eighteen in total, will highlight a negative indication that you will have felt within a bullying type scenario. It will also make you aware of the positive indication that you require in order to counteract this and help you come back into a state of balance. Bullying can be a very debilitating circumstance to deal with in your life and also to be able to evolve from without help. If we are bullied, we can feel lost, unloved, unsure of our purpose, be vulnerable and feel very apathetic towards life. These are just a handful of negative indications that we can be suffering from that I have selected from the first five essences in the Allies Of Nature range, the Blackthorn, Bluebell, Red Campion, Foxglove and Wild Rose to illustrate the point. The same could be said of the other essences in the range too had I gone through the other thirteen bottles and their negative indications also. The negative indication is the thing that we most recognise that we need help with, it maybe for instance that we are not happy with the way that our life is progressing at this moment in time, we maybe coming up against all sorts of rules, regulations and restrictions, all elements that we might be encountering under a Covid - 19 bullying set of circumstances from our government. The ideal flower essence to counteract that negative indication from my range would be Yarrow, for it deals with all of those feelings of frustration with the positive quality of acceptance. Once we learn to accept this scenario we soon find we can carry on with our life as per normal as 'It Is What It Is' at the end of the day. Similarly we might be feeling a degree of despair within our life, having a feeling of loss or separation, being distant from others. Both Coronavirus and bullying can do this to us, to make us go inward. This is the negative indication associated with the flower essence Montbretia. This flower encourages us to 'Search For The Hero' inside of ourselves and to rediscover our courage, connecting us with our own inner fire and lighting a beacon within not only for ourselves to follow but others too possibly. I maintain if one is prepared to follow the whole calendar wheel of flower essences with myself and the Allies Of Nature range you will gradually bring yourself back into a state of wholeness by adding each individual quality that you maybe lacking, or need work on, from month to month. That's if you truly wish to be able to become the best person you can possibly be. So my advice to you, if you have ever suffered from any bullying before is to look at my range of flower essences in my online shop to see how best the flowers can help you with the negative indication that you might be feeling at this moment in time and let the essences start to work their magic on you. Then, together with my other shamanic practices we can take you on a journey to help you be the person you were always destined to be in your life. The true adult butterfly. 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. A thistle that looks up to no-one, nobody is his peer.
He stands tall, refined and proud, a warrior without fear. Pollinator for butterfly, magnet for honey bee. Carrying with him all the nectar, for me to be the best of me. Looking out across the skyline, between margin of sea and land. Gatekeeper to a higher realm, key-holder to elite band. A regal head of purple, instils confidence through and through. From here is ushered greatness, none more vibrant in his hue. Stood upon the slanted ridge, updrafts spiral high. Kestrels hover, buzzards soar, well beyond magpie. Raven comes to raptor fight, seagulls glide on by. Aerial combatants strive to be, masters of the sky. Of the flowers down below, supremacy is more assured. There is no match for this top gun, a status long endured. A maverick amongst his prickled tribe, of nettle and of gorse. His seeds scatter far and wide, of potent masculine force. No place there is for the defeated, the criticised or controlled. With this ally by your side, every maiden will be bowled. Virility oozes from this plant, sexuality here in spades. He is the master of his field, his legacy never fades. By Simon Blackler Copyright © Simon Blackler 2020 If you care to comment on this poem at all please feel free to do so below. The shaman stands a warrior, bandana on his head.
Knowing just what’s needed, no words are to be said. His drum now does his talking, a beat that echoes voice. Hide stretched taut with sinew, red stag pelt of choice. Air quite thick and smudge filled, pungent from the sage. Gratitude placed in abundance, tobacco off the gauge. Ground is splashed with water, holy from the well. Sacred space is granted, healing awaits the bell. Body draped in blanket, turned to face the altar. Sprit guide and panther, strain upon the halter. Feathers from the condor quiver, soar round wounded being. Sifting life from death, bad energy gone a-fleeing. Persistent blocks and leakages, require needle and the thread. Plus deft touch of a surgeon, bringing addict off the med. Cock pheasant and rabbit paw, grace wand of shining gleam. The shake and shake of rattle, brings patient back from dream. Chief rises proud completed, hand gripped upon his staff. A crook of finest heritage, adorned with peacock laugh. His shield of sun and swallows, of pink and purple flowers. The essence that of which, just heighten all his powers. These skills of his fine tuned, to that of soul intention. All fuel to the fire of his, too many tools to mention. By Simon Blackler Copyright © Simon Blackler 2020 If you care to comment on this poem at all please feel free to do so below. Have You Got The Sense That All Is Not Well? The reason why you are here (reading this blog) is because you know you are different. You know something that others don’t, or they're too scared to admit to.
The ship that we have decided to board to take us to our desired destination in life is not going to get us there, it's ill fated, not all of us will make it. You may well have questioned this boat’s viability as soon as you stepped on to the gang-plank or it may have only dawned on you the further that we have sailed away from port. Not that you may have had any choice in the matter, your parents may well have bullied you into making this voyage by buying you your ticket well in advance, or society may well have reserved you your berth as soon as you emerged onto the planet. You yourself may well have believed initially this was the only way to travel in the 21st century and willingly put the money down for your fare out of your own hard earned coffers, that’s if your peers didn’t actively persuade you to take the passage with them, thinking there was no real alternative. This however is a huge wrought iron ship with four funnels. It has engines that burn away day and night, hungrily eating up all the fossil fuels onboard. It scythes through the ocean like there is no tomorrow notching up the highest of speeds on this its maiden voyage with no thought to the wildlife that it leaves behind in its wake that choke on its fumes and feed on the litter being dropped over the railings from high above. This is the capitalist good ship RMS Titanic, it is deemed unsinkable and is due in New York in record time in a matter of days, it is just a case of continuing to stoke the boilers and we will be there in good time, no problem. Call it being psychic or what I don’t know, but you've just got this feeling that not all is going to go to plan on this voyage. Maybe you are concerned about the speed in which we are travelling, how much smoke continues to pour from the chimney stacks creating the smog above the vessel? Maybe you wonder whether the lookout in the Crows Nest can see the waves breaking on the bergs ahead moving as fast as we are? There is less of them now due to climate change but there is still enough of a risk. You wonder what safety measures are in place, how many lifeboats there are on deck for the millions of people onboard and if there is any back up plan or other ships sailing in the vicinity to the route we are heading on? You feel an urgent wish to wail at the officers in charge upon the bridge just to slow down, pay attention, take it easy, conserve energy and look to the horizon, steady as she goes. You lie awake at night listening to the sound of the propellor churning away at the back of the boat, concerned that it will be still rotating come morning as we hurtle away into the dead of the night. Not that others haven’t raised concerns before, they have, they have just been reassured by the captain that all is OK, all is well and everything is on schedule. Those people have left their question in the question pile and gone back to partying at the captain’s table, fine dining in the restaurant, gathering around the piano, listening to the orchestra out on the deck, locking away their insecurities deep into their psyche, forgetting about what their instincts have been telling them all along. I am onboard too and I share your sentiments exactly, I’ve not felt at home on this vessel from the start, I’ve searched high and low for a way off this ship but it is just too darn big and the drop to the sea level too much of a jump on one’s own. If there was anything ever to happen to this boat, some major collaboration would have to take place in order to get as many survivors off this vessel as is possible. These are the thoughts that pass through our minds, as our eyelids begin to close and we go off to sleep once again. And then it happens, the juddering in the darkness we have all feared, of bolts and girders buckling and water spraying everywhere. We’ve hit something, be it peak oil, a rise of 2 degrees centigrade in global temperature, the 8 billionth person to be born upon the planet, the loss of the Northern White Rhino or the outbreak of Covid - 19. There is panic in the midships and the captain cries out from the bridge ‘All Stop!’ An immediate reconnaissance is carried out aboard ship to assess the damage, temptation is to restart the engines again almost immediately and to plough on regardless, but enough of us now know the real fate of this vessel and it is time to plan our exit if we are to have any chance of a more meaningful life at all. Fortunately for us there are some skilled seamen and women aboard, capable of piloting a lifeboat with the intentional communities, sustainable development centres and Transition Towns that we already have in place across the planet but we realistically need an entire new vessel to be able to save this amount of people and a mayday has only just been raised to the RMS Carpathia some miles away. Can that boat possibly reach us in time? Is there anything that we can do to save ourselves and keep ourselves afloat before then? Is there another outcome to this story? Perhaps we can change the way that we look at life before it is all too late? That is why it is imperative that we overcome any bullying we have encountered in our own lifetime to date, so that we can make the right choice as regards to what vessel we wish to be traveling on, finding our true identity in the process because such circumstances depict that we all need to be operating to the best of our ability now and going forwards if we are to transition from one boat to another. 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. With you there is no hiding place, I have to sit full view.
Totally exposed, approachable, to the many, not the few. On Main Street, within pavement crack, in tarmac, next to kerb. Surrounded by the every day noise, busy-ness, chaotic blurb. No bushel here to keep me under, no shadow to disappear. Only full sun, bright and constant, plain visible and just clear. Witness to every speeding car, beacon to passer by. Stood as a signpost in the air, reaching for the sky. Screeching from the tree tops, of just who I really am. Standing tall so viewable, from elderly to the pram. Here I state my territory, piss up against the wall. Leave my scent on wooden fence, usher clarion call. Sirens whirl and engines roar, motorised deafening din. Throttle down, no breaking power, all to the maximum, not the min. Grinding out the daily tasks, front and centre all the way. No ducking, no diving, opting out, forever in the fray. Called upon to service, clock strikes time enough. Seconds out the bell has gone, to strip down to the buff. No place for shame or guilt there is, no falsehood to be won. Only to thyself be true, of shining bright and keeping shone. By Simon Blackler Copyright © Simon Blackler 2020 If you care to comment on this poem at all please feel free to do so below. |
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