how do we meet potential?
What happens when we or others find our/their soul purpose? When we know that the reason for us (or them) being here on this planet is clear and obvious.
It’s possible that either way, we meet with fear, anxiety, the need to have others approval thus making the timing of our approach and how words and voices are met and shared a crucial part of the process.
In native and traditional, indigenous teachings the souls purpose is welcomed and honored as soon as it is witnessed. Individuals are given encouragement and are challenged appropriately to master their art and to fulfil their potential.
In our western society it can be frowned upon, not taken seriously, dissuaded from as if it is not important enough and some other path is. Encouraging our youngsters to follow careers of their family’s, peers or education/ organisations approval.
So when youngsters tell us what they know to be their path, career, study period, how will we meet it?
Can we give a total ‘yes’ to what they know is right for them, and trust their decisions, or must we inflict our own desires, wishes and ultimately our own needs towards their growth?
When we discover a true path for ourselves and know the importance of this in our lives, can we stand strong in the face of adversity and believe enough in ourselves to speak out and open our hearts to our true nature?
What does it take to honor the soul and include the passions of our soul purpose as the true growth of our potential?
‘Middle Earth Wisdom’
Caroline Carey
publish date 2017/18
www.middleearthmedicine.com
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Imagination
October 8th
If we tell a child “that is just your imagination” we are sabotaging their natural ability to be able to connect with the world of creativity, to use what is innately their wisdom and way of thinking, feeling and creating story, art and poetry, to be connected to the mystery of life. We rob them of vision and insight and we are guilty of aiding the shut down of those valuable ‘muscles’ that keeps their fantasy world alive and open.
In shamanism we believe that the imagination is a natural portal to the spirit world; we encourage it by giving babies rattles, by singing sweet songs, particularly repetitive ones, little rhymes’ that we speak and sing over and over again as we lull them to sleep and into their dreaming state. We tell stories of wonderful tales read from amazing books by wonderful writers.
But as they get older and those imaginary friends that we do not understand begin to annoy us, and the things they see in the night and the dreams they have, and the visions they say are the truth become lies or untruths or simply an excuse to say “that’s just your imagination” or even “it was just a dream!” think twice, take a breath and a pause. Remember when you could vision in freely, when you trusted what you saw in the games you played. Remember how important it was to be heard and believed and taken seriously.
Believe in your children, yours and others, be curious about what they see and what they dream! Because curiosity and imagination are some of the best ways to keep our minds alive, guiding us amongst the world of soul and spirit and the beauty we can see in nature, not just in the ordinary and mundane life of normality, but in the mystery, the nagual, the spiritual, the soul searching, poetic and energetic realms of the story teller, the seer and the one who knows a little more than what the ordinary eye can see.
Practice yourself to open that third eye, vision in the beauty and the valuable insights that give us much more than ‘make-believe,’ those that, when trusted, can connect us to our wisdom and the insights about who we really are.
Never say “that is just your imagination” to the children or to ourselves, but watch, feel, listen to the story that is unfolding, be curious, take time and learn what it means, once more, to be in connection with you’re own innocence.
Caroline Carey
Middle Earths Origins
Middle Earths Origins
My story
my hands
become the art
of my souls
calling.
No other path
can I follow
Because this is who I am
And only by giving to it
every breath
every dance
every meaning
Can I fulfill
my reason for being here.
My soul
my story
my offering.
And I choose to live by this, to believe it, to nourish it, because my soul knows no other way. I have learnt through living just how it is to bring our soul-purpose to earth. I have watched through my own journey, the flow of energy that has at times tried to burst its way through, sometimes too fast and sometimes without fully knowing why it is there. And I have had to slow down, take deep breaths, be patient for its coming, for its arrival.
The journey of the soul is a timely thing yet it knows no time. But for it to be effective and truly find its way, without bursting into madness, great care must be taken.
I have felt pregnant many times in my life with this energy force, searing at the seams of my desire and daring to show itself as a passionate dancing warrior with a tool bag of medicine, creative objects, bones and feathers of remarkable quality and smells and sensations that fingers love to touch and curl themselves around, seeking stories from every lingering passer by, that visits me in a dream or a shamanic journey.
My souls calling, that Hollow Bone state that follows through my middle earth being, living in this world as a middle earth child. Born on the Winter Solstice, inbetween, the dark the light, the shadow in-between, stretched between the differences ready to bring that same difference to the world and learn to live in that central place of not one or the other but both, to be stretched, always stretched. Yet calmly finding a way to accept, to deeply accept this place of conflict that can be so easily danced with, once we know its mighty force!
And to know its mighty force we must stand in that Vesicus Piscis, invite the dark and the light together, just as we do the masculine and feminine, the yin and the yang and all of the forces of separation that they represent. And knowing then the brightest of lights, we become ‘one’ with all that is, we become the Divine Spirit that only this place can know.
Born a middle child, an older brother and a younger sister, I am in the middle, holding my own, am I male? Sometimes yes, I wear my brothers hand me downs, old jeans and sneakers, I try, yes only try to let him teach me football and rugby, there is at times no other ‘boy’ to play with, so I must. I fail at this sport, this sport I can make no sense of. But he digs up the old bones with me and that will suffice, our little pets that had to be buried, we look beneath the grave and find the oddments and to this day the bones are resurfaced to make medicine tools and creative pieces of wonderment.
Am I female? Sometimes yes, the little girl who came along needs her bigger sister, sometimes, to play those games that only girls will play, and then we find the dolls and the cuddly toys and the dresses and a pram that goes rusty when we leave it in the garden on rainy days, but in it amongst the slugs and snails who take refuge and seek out the crumbs from our picnics, we put our rabbits and our guinea pigs and push them around the garden, singing little songs and donning them with white lacy baby hats tied under their chins. I was introduced to jealousy however, in those days, I felt that curse begin to surface from under my skin, that pretty thing with the long golden hair and mine a strange reddish sort of ginger, my mother called titian blonde. I cut it off once, hers I mean, one day whilst left in the car at a parent teachers meeting outside the school. I found a pair of scissors and that was that. I spent along while in my bedroom, ‘contemplating’ I am told!
Was I a boy or a girl, I could do both it seems, quite well. A useful way to merge in the world, one day doing my ballet classes and then being amongst ponies and horses and another with the boys on motor bikes and leather jackets, my yin and yang developing quite well as I found that pull with how to be correct in my mothers world and wear nice dresses and be good at the all girls public schools I spent my time at, until they told me to leave!
The environment was a nice middle class family, in a nice home with a garden, in the Midlands, the middle of the country I suppose that means? But it was the Midlands and somewhere near the Black Country, where my father worked in factories as a director, an important role, running the family business. The Midlands it seems is a good place to be, it holds many adventures from inner city life to the rural countryside that we eventually escape to. It seemed to hold a good array of interest for me, liking the going between, city and nature, city and nature. I liked the factories with the machinery, loud rhythmical sounds, smell of sacking and oil, the voices of the working classes, they swore a lot, even in jest, I liked that, my mother would never allow such words, I even said a few myself, when she could not hear. I put three-penny bits in the drinks machine and took them all cups or tea and coffee, I loved the smell of that dark rich roast, it looked like it stained their teeth, but it might have been the endless cigarettes they smoked?
And then the countryside, ah sweet nature, the animals and the places to hide, the deep dark tunnels of the stately home we lived in the grounds of, all wrecked and ruined but a wonderful adventure for us all. Trees, old hedgerows, metal gates and a wonderment of elemental experiences. I could be on my own here, but with my animals of course. They understood more than most I felt.
I plunged into adulthood, with not much preparation, no middle ground to ‘practice’ from, to learn more mistakes and make some changes from them, I immersed into it well with many challenges sometimes losing that ground, but having to find it very quickly because of that baby in my belly and my mummy instincts for survival for us both, a necessity for me for him and the blind boyfriend at my side. Pregnancy was a strong teacher for me, as was and is motherhood.
Three boys and three girls, I stand again in the middle of the masculine and feminine, a mandorla of my own making, a balance of yin and yang, holding this youthful energy field as I created and brought human-beings into this world, each one with his or her many gifts and soul offerings. I watched them grow into theirs, knowing they were teaching me about mine, so fully so deeply, so determinedly, so matter of factly, ordinary lives meeting ordinary lives, we had our challenges and struggles, we came through time and time again and we became the poetry of our lives.
And now to learn why this all matters, and why it sculpts in to who I am now and why I must see this as my souls offering to humanity and beyond.
If we were all to look deeply into our lives and our history, what might we discover about our own souls calling?
from Hollow Bone; Middle Earth Medicine Ways © To be published 2017
Caroline Carey
https://middleearthmedicine.com/the-hollow-bone-medicine-ways/
The Creative Journey
Posted on July 6th by Caroline Carey
Faced once more with a new creative project, I find myself bursting at the seams, excitement looming and wanting to get it down, manifest it, get my hands dirty in the soil and creativity of it.
Stitch and sew it into being. Always time weighs heavy on the side of caution, to ensure it can be all it needs to be and does not fly too soon into the world of misinterpretation, but can ride with me close to my heart, where I will protect it and carefully acknowledge every detail. Bringing to life it’s archetypal energy in its own way. For it is its mothers child and has learnt the art of ‘doing things her way!’
Impulse is strong and holding back not an option, too late in life to sit on the fence and ponder, the time is now, before it is too late, age is not timeless, age creeps in and says “do it now.” This grandmother is a feisty one, she knows, sometimes too much, but she knows the order and the timing of manifestation and just how to use that galloping horse energy deep in the cells of her own desire!
Caroline Carey
Hollow Bone, stages of soul work
Do you ever get that feeling that something is changing in your life! You have an idea what it is, but how it will unfold is still a mystery? We might get frustrated at these moments, needing to rush ahead and make these changes happen, to find meaning and purpose within them. We might try to force the change and start to shift things before they are actually ready to ‘be’ changed.
I can feel a sense of this right now, I know what is happening for me and I also know that I must be patient and allow it to unfold gradually and gently, so that I do not miss the most important fine details of it coming together.
This change in my life is leading me down the ‘Hollow Bone’ pathway, to a new way of offering my work and it is very exciting!
There are new possibilities opening up and the time feels absolutely perfect. What I do know is that I am being guided to see the soul potential of my work and what is landing in the here and now.It is very clear to me that one of our reasons for being born is to find out ‘why we are here’ and ‘what our soul purpose is?’ We are on a journey, opening our crown in wonderment and awe of the possibility.
We are hunters, for most of our lives, seeking that purpose, trying to find out who we are. It is a quest to find ourselves and some times it can drive us a little crazy as we go from task to task, from one belief to another and generally uprooting ourselves time and time again, in this hunter stage of our lives.
And then something happens. We literally drop-in and a little further down into the body, we meet with the earth and all she holds for us. We feel it in our solar-plexus, a heat, the sensation of grief and joy all at once. We remember – and suddenly all fits into place. There is a sense of belonging and the hunting is over, but this can be painful for we can no longer be invisible to who we really are.
We must show ourselves and that can be frightening as we have no idea what others will think about us. There may be strong judgements! People may want us to stay the same as we were before because it is familiar to them and safe. We may feel loss, as we have to let go of other ways we have lived because they no longer serve us. Once we truly begin, we become much more visible.
The next stage is to become the container for our work, the belly of our soul-offerings, to begin to manifest it and show ourselves. Our solar plexus is now filled with light and we step out. There is a huge amount of joy in our hearts, it is a truly ecstatic experience! Because the soul arrives home and shines its light right through our body. There are no more fears or worries about judgements, there is no place for this, because we simply know what it is we are here to do. No one can tell us otherwise and we have no doubts. We relax deeply into who we are.
It does not mean we never have any more struggles, depending on the work we are doing, but we do it with more ease, being patient with ourselves and understanding the core process that is happening. There is nothing to rush, we relax deeply into our being and we protect this light that has landed in our hearts.
And then we feel into our roots, we know their connection to the earth, we can feel that deep rooted sensation as they feed on the nourishment of the soil and we are received home, we are connected, as a channel between the earth and the sky.The work of our soul begins to flow from this moment on. There is no need to worry about success or decision making, it is done and we can laugh at any idea of imperfections. Of course this Journey takes time and must be completed in all of its stages, all of its shape-shifting, theater of the human condition. It needs its ritual and its ceremony in order for us to be able to say ‘here I truly am.’
I am interested in your journey, what is the story of your souls home-coming, at what stage are you?
Caroline
To take part in the Hollow Bone syllabus and the 5 stages of soul please go to https://middleearthmedicine.com/the-hollow-bone-medicine-ways-of-movement/
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Soul Action – Awaken Your Dancer – Empower Your Soul – Embody Your Purpose in Life!
themselves. It can take soul retrieval to gain back what was once lost. During the moment of trauma, part of our soul leaves the body and takes itself away to safety. We learn to forget. This is to protect that innocent part of us so that it can return fully intact when it is safe enough to do so, usually when the mature adult feels able to receive it back or to ‘re-member’ and has adequate support for this, either in oneself or from a therapist or support group. This can be after a time of intense reprogramming, setting up new beliefs about oneself and doing the healing work necessary to become more whole. This sometimes, but not always, involves remembering the original trauma. This is often a challenging time for the adult. Sometimes it takes many years of therapy or counseling to reveal these old memories, thus giving the survivor a chance to look at what occurred all those years ago, to experience the feelings that went with that and to deal with the hurt and anger that was never expressed. It would most likely have been impossible to express what was needed then and so these emotions lie locked inside the body. The child is often very confused why this is happening and whether it is ‘normal’ or
not. The soul part continues its journey separately in the astral plains obtaining knowledge and wisdom in the spiritual world. This can often make the abused appear spaced out, away with the fairies, not quite all here. She/he literally is not all here; part of their psyche is missing, awaiting the right time to return to them or to remember deep within. When that part has the right conditions to come back into the body, the survivor can experience traumatic feelings and emotions that could not be felt at the time of the actual abuse or trauma all those years ago. That person is then extra sensitive and takes time to accustom him or herself to having the whole (or part of the whole) self back again; fitting that soul part into its old skin. This takes time and patience.
Swan Song
Some time ago Ben and I found a dead and decaying swan. It wasn’t in our own country I hasten to add, before anyone alerts the queen! (as we know all swans in England belong to the queen!) In fact we found two dead swans and on further examination we realised they had been shot. We were quite mortified that this could have happened and deeply saddened by it. We sat there and drummed and spoke with the swans, offering our support for their continued soul journey.
Why on earth would anyone shoot such beautiful creatures and then leave them on the ground? This has puzzled us immensely, but then I only have to look around at our human race regards animals and birds to know we are pretty ignorant in that department. But what to do in this moment? Back in England it was very customary of us to pick up road kill and any findings we had and honoring the animal or bird by giving new life to it through shamanic ritual and ceremony. We often keep wings or skin or bones with the deepest respect to the animal, inviting its medicine into our hearts and home.
So our new found meeting would be the same, but only one set of wings as our suitcase was not of the largest kind. To cut a long story and traveling experience short, we arrived back home with a beautiful set of wings that were treated and decorated in a most special way. On route we also discovered the bullet that had killed her as it hit the vein in her neck. I made a small pouch for it, wanting to also in some way honor the way she had died. I wore this small bullet in the pouch around my own neck.
It then came a time to take these wings to ceremony where we would be dancing and honoring our own dreams. The wings came with me and lay in the center of the room, representing ether, and the journey from earth to sky, from the south to the north.
As time went on, I met with part of my own journey within the dance. A moment where I had to question a story from my past. A time of being locked away, because I was ‘too’ much for my mother. Screaming and shouting as a four year old, wanting her own way, I stretched up for the golden door handle that I could not reach. My arms not long enough to take that door knob in my hand and release myself from that cold bedroom where I felt so alone.
I began to turn that energy in on myself, afraid of being locked away if i was at all unreasonable, if I dared to be different, outspoken or becoming unmanageable, I chose to be introverted and shy, nervous of speaking out particularly in groups of people. I knew that that needed to change and it did over the years, as I became a teacher of what I loved and began to share it with others, creating my own business, Alchemy In Movement, and stepping up into a leadership role. But I always knew there was more!
There is always more work to be done, no matter who, where or how we are in our life. I knew there was so much more in me and I was acting on around 46% of the energy I really had in my work and my ability. My childhood trauma was able to keep that in place and I knew there was a tough journey ahead to fully step up and move on.
And then something did happen, in that ceremony, that moment of being asked to call the part of ourselves that had the ability to destroy. ‘Destroy what?’ I remember thinking. Then I was called to look at that old story of 50 years ago, and suddenly the energy that had been held within my body, since those very early days shifted and as I stood amongst my peers, with all my heart, I spoke out some of the words I had never dared speak before. I felt like a bullet, searing through thin air, as my muscles contracted and that enormous energy was born into the atmosphere that I had created all around me. A moment in time so profound it almost knocked me over. My own wings expanded and I felt reborn. I touched that little pouch that I wore around my neck, my throat, the bullet that some how reflected this shift in my own energy and I thanked that swan medicine for supporting me and guiding me.
Later during our ceremony, I had the desire to sing a song that had found its way to me once while sitting in nature, as I danced in that ceremony its last verse dropped in, it was a verse for the swan, the words very clearly sang through me, “Sacred Swan, help me sing the song that I was born to bring to earth” and I stepped up to do so, but time was short and I was losing my will to give my voice that space. Suddenly from the area where I had been sitting, my song-stick, the one that traveled with me as I wrote my songs, fell or moved, I don’t know how and dropped next to a lighted candle, it began to burn before it was rescued by a dear fellow dancer. I knew in that moment I had to sing, for that song-stick reminded me, ‘sing or burn, sing or burn’….I found my voice, I sang my song I called that swan to sing through me with my own energy, the energy I was born to bring to earth.
And not until later did I realise that of course, the swan only sings when it dies!! I had let go of an old story, something had died inside me and I was singing the song of its passing. It had surely died and I was ready now to step up and claim the rest of the 54% of my own energy, to empower what was true for me and not to allow this old story to hold me back any more.
I reached for that golden knob of a door handle, stretching my body my heart and my spirit, I reached for that golden ball of light and called back the soul-part that had been hidden away, filling myself with its light, I was covered in warmth, sensuality and a strong sense of belonging. My song, my voice was here in its fullness…. By the will of nature, the medicine of grace and knowing, I was reborn.
Caroline Carey
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Is your voice a hidden mystery to you?
I remember when my mother asked me what I wanted from Father Christmas, I said I wanted a really big poetry book. Christmas morning it arrived on the end of my bed. It was quite big, considering I was only about four or five at the time. It’s a little worse for wear now and some what coffee stained, but it still has a pride of place on my book shelf.
And inspired by this book, I began to write my own poetry. Some of it very simple and then writing words that turned into teenage ramblings and pubescent dramas.
Poetry and prose, ramblings and stories flowed and children were born and mothering took over and then one rainy day I stopped awhile…… and began to write my own autobiography.
The poetry of course had to weave its way between the pages and it all fitted so well, finding its own wings then into the world of novels, non-fiction, people’s lives and the story books of life. Seeing my first book, Ms’Guided Angel, on a shelf in Waterstones was a very proud moment for me.
‘Reclaimed Innocence‘ followed and the book I had always wanted to write since childhood, my very own poetry book took its place next to The Golden Treasury, my own golden treasure, ‘SHE has a Voice’ that I had carried for 50 odd years.
Reclaiming our Soul, really is reclaiming our innocence and being who we truly are in the world, without judgement or criticism and any thought of having to do some one else’s way!
My mother’s song for me was a Frank Sinatra version of ‘I did it my way’ Where she used to sing to me ‘She did it her way’. She used to laugh about it even though she still tried to get me to do things the way the school wanted!
I do now love auto correct on my iPad that Ben bought me for my birthday. I could never spell very well and grammar, at least grammar as is ‘meant’ to be as in the Queens English kind of grammar, was not my fortay. I much prefered my own tapestry of grammar and wordsmith kind of ways, as it fitted so much better with the way I spoke and the way I thought and saw life in general.
Now I am muddling my way through the fourth book, editing out what it really does not need and trying very hard to spot the spelling and grammar mistakes, because if I don’t the publishers wont be too happy and the books may never get the wings I would like them to have. I want them to fly, into the world, to touch hearts and to encourage others to find their own voices, to tell their stories and above all find the potential they were born with to simply be themselves!
In my occasional writing groups, I so love to hear the voices of others, find their own territory and learning to leave behind the schooled ways of society, even if just for a moment, to play with their words. To invite those sentences to dance on pages and find their own merry way of forming into a paragraph, poetically or otherwise.
Our own real voices can often remain a mystery to us, until we take the courage to step out, or sing out, with own uniqueness and wonderment at the soul who exists beneath the covers of the heavy duvet, made from the materials of conforming to another persons standards.
Trying to hang onto my own way, yet allow my to work to be understood as best as is possible, I continue to write, to observe the words and play with the possibilities of letting ‘my’ voice out, in what ever way it wants to flow.
She-Wolf
She wolf
Alpha being
No need for others approval
She is
Who she is
No need for affirmations
No need for the right to be
She leads the hunt
Walks through the gate first
Fiercely independent
A seer for all
She knows herself fully
Inside and out
Limitations and fears
There are few
She licks her own wounds
As they bleed on the ground
Feeds herself first and takes care of her needs
The balancing act
Of those at her tit
She’s the mother and lover
Aloof when it suits her
Dismissing the needs of a victim in tow
Indifferent when it pleases her so
She knows when she’s needed
For survival of all
And what really matters
To strengthen them all
Contained in self wisdom
Pride in her howl
The voice of authority
Prepared to endow
Rarely speaks out
But stands strong in herself
She sees through the mask
Of endulgence and lies
Ready to fight for the needs of her clan
For no shadow escapes
from those predator eyes
she listens she waits
awakened to life
Wild in her nature
she is the lone wolf,
the female,
the wild the primal
historic
Quietly standing
aside of it all
yet knowing the landscape
sure-footed and tall
Awaiting the moment
That time will tell
Integral and patient
Aligning her self
With nature
With love
With the right to be free!
Caroline Carey from The Phoenix Retreat 2014 Photo.. Ben Cole
The Embodied Shamanic Journey
Recently I was asked to write an article for the Sesame Journal about the Shamanic Journey.
I called it ‘The Embodied Shamanic Journey’ as for me the most profound journeys happen when I am dancing! Thus they include my body, my heart, my mind, soul and spirit. Nothing is left out. It is what I share with others and when studied deeply and profoundly, the journey is heightened to new levels of consciousness rarely experienced in other ways, at least not by myself!
In this article I have covered the use of different brain waves and why it is so important to understand the use of brain patterns and the beats of music that create repetitive movement. I have also included some of my own personal experience of dance and its healing power. For me it is part of my own Movement Medicine practice and what I combine in my own teachings of this work, as always sharing from my own experience.
If you are interested in shamanism and its use ecstatically with dance, turn to page 15 in this article. I’d be happy to hear your comments.
Page 15 on …..
More info https://middleearthmedicine.com
Is it time to be consciously guilty?
Guilt and shame. Two very powerful emotions that we often and usually try to avoid. Guilt can mean that we have done something wrong. Shame means we feel there is something wrong with us.
Ok so we get that. But how necessary is it for us to feel these emotions as a concern for the way we live on this planet? We often hear talks about how to eradicate these feelings, let them go and move on. But actually if the human race took more notice of these emotions and related to their inner conscious in a healthy and connected way, we could actually be much more effective in making changes in the world. How do we awaken the consciousness of the planet? How do we learn to be more gracious and grateful for what we have here and what the earth gives to us, rather than keeping on taking it for granted?
Fact is we are guilty!
For example, if we actually felt guilty for buying and eating meat that had come from an extremely abused animal, could we bare to indulge in it. If we knew fully the suffering that an animal had undergone, would we consider eating free range, organic meat that had not spent the last weeks of its life suffocating and dying of thirst in the back of a lorry.
If we really took our time to understand the harmful effects of factory farming, deforestation, polluted waters, fur trade, over fishing, fracking, massive oil consumption, rape of the land, the list goes on and on…..would we stop for a few moments and ask ourselves ‘what is my part in this and am I responsible?
‘
Guilt and shame could actually be the saving of many lives!
If we woke up our own innate consciousness, that we all have whoever we are, reminded ourselves we are all guilty and even adopt a little shame over what we are doing, then so long as we ACT on this we could make a significant change in what we do.
We can empower ourselves to be responsible. We can then be responsible enough to live the dream of being authentic humane, human beings with integrity. Living the dream we live in harmony with the planet. Individual consciousness, leads to community consciousness, leads to the effective realization that is needed to heal ourselves and our attitudes to the world.
There are many things we would not do if we allowed ourselves to be truly guilty and ashamed, and we cannot really begin to celebrate our lives until we can honestly say, ‘I am not guilty for any part in the wrong doings of mankind.’
Where do we begin?
How do we Find Our Own Body of Work…?
Many years ago I used to wonder if I would ever find what some would call ‘my own work’ and if I did what would it be. I mean by this, the work that would not just be my own style or my own approach, but something specific that I created myself from my own journey. I’ve been teaching movement work now for many years and although I do most definitely have my own style and ways of creating and holding a space for others to work in, it has never actually felt like ‘my own body of work’. Despite being a dance and movement teacher, and now working and teaching Movement Medicine which is a profound and wonderful way of working with the dance and I absolutely love with a passion, I knew there was a few key elements I needed to offer of my own.
Until a few years ago, when quite accidentally and without any searching or planning for it at that time….. It found me!
In fact the biggest realisation was that I had actually been living this ‘work’ most of my life and it was as much a part of me, as I was of it.
Of course it had not come easily, in fact it was the absolute biggest challenge in my life. It included my home life, my working life, my children and their fathers and all the ins and outs of daily living and working things out. It was about who I had become and all the energy I carried to enable me to be who I was in the world.
And it had all been choreographed quite beautifully to form a constellation process that I could add to my dancing warrior path. It would in time develop into a magical process that transformed people’s lives and opened up new door ways of deep enquiry into their own human-being.
The Magic of Mandorla had been crafted from my life and many of my experiences into one neatly packaged piece of shamanic theatre work, and all I had to do to find it, was quite literally ‘live it!’
Over the last few years it has begun to show me exactly what it is about. Each time I hold its process, new and different pieces of its puzzle present itself to me and the work just gets deeper and deeper.
I had been witness to many others work and enjoyed my time taking part and experiencing their art and healing potentials. I knew it was all influencing my own ways of working and would in time be part of the small seeds that influenced the work I offered to the world.
But discovering my own Mandorla work came through the pain I felt at having to follow a life time of passion on the dance floor as well as love and raise my six wonderful and deeply loved children within the restrictions that family and home life can create. Some of those years I simply had to put the work I loved ‘on the shelf’ feeling the pain that went with that and some of those years I had to juggle both my passion and my child-care, with the conflicts that lay between them, but with the focus and attention that both deserved and I was able to give. I loved both, most importantly of course my children and my passion could not be forced onto them, they would find their own in time.
This was me right in the center of my own Mandorla, empowering myself with the energy it created. Without any knowledge of what the Mandorla actually was.
Within a dream that connected me to two fire places and then finding those two fire places in real life, I knew I was on to something. I was literally being shown what to pay attention to through my dreaming and through being in nature.
The dream maker appears as a Station Master, old and grey, he seemed somewhat saddened. He took me to an old house, it was very dark and damp, there were thick cobwebs in every corner. As I entered the room I saw that there were two empty fire places, neither had any sign of a flame or coal ready to be burned, they looked like they had been left for many years to collect dust and webs. Why were there two fireplaces here, maybe once it had been two rooms?*
*
It is known as the most powerful of religious experiences we can have in life. Mandorla is the place of poetry “where the fire and the rose are one!” (four quartets; T.S Eliot)
There is a tension that is created at an evolutionary level. The Mandorla is the almond shape where two circles partly overlap, it is the Italian word for almond. Where the circles merge, this place symbolises the sacred place in which balance and reconciliation are birthed. There is a generative power available within the tension of opposites as in heaven and earth, light and dark, masculine and feminine, loyalty and betrayal, to name but a few. Mandorla is the sacred space of our soul work; it is where beauty and terror exist together. There has been a split and these two circles become united together. The curse is the pain it can inflict but with the greatest potential to heal.
At a time when our differences, our needs and desires, gender, culture, politics, faith traditions, etc threaten to divide us, the Mandorla provides a bridge that can deepen this experience with relationships and empower the right action. There is no way to depict the Mandorlas brightness, except by darkness. If we stand in the place of the Mandorla, that meeting place of two opposites, then we can use the energy of that particular conflict to provide a vital spark which can lead to a deeper understanding of what is occurring and to enable us to make clear decisions and feel into the power this gives us.
In my own case my mothering and my ever-emerging soul-craft conflicted with each other. I became more aware of these two opposites as I explored them. I held two very strong levels of soul work. One was the rearing of six children; the other was my work in the world. They were both equally as important to me. I was stretched unbelievably between the two. For years I experienced deep anguish and pain as I juggled these roles and found ways to combine both of them in my life.
‘I felt that tension growing in me, the tearing apart of what I needed to do, pulled in all directions. My own tension was growing inside me, a creature going crazy feeling the madness of it all. My own heat rising in my belly, the curse of the mountain lion, the puma, sharpening her claws, what was going on inside me, what was happening to the child I wanted to protect from wounding. I raged with agony to be in both places. One voice saying ‘go home to your daughters, be a ‘good’ mother.’ Another voice saying ‘let her be, this is her journey she needs to experience this’ Another voice recognising the importance of the work I was undertaking and how it may affect hundreds of other beings in years to come, as well as helping me very deeply to connect with my own strongly emerging mytho-poetic identity.’
The Mandorla work was exploring me, just as I was exploring it. Now I had a ‘name’ for what I had experienced so much in my adult life. I began to see so many other Mandorlas, every day I could see where this energy field could be created and made use of.
If we look at any spiritual imagery, like Jesus or Mary, if we look at images of angels or fairies, we will see that golden light that surrounds, illuminating what is around them. This
is called the Vesica Piscis or the Aurola. It depicts sacred moments, transcending time and space, its brightness shines out through the darkness that it emerges from. The energy we feel in the moment of conflict or the power of the polarities creates this luminosity, it shows us what it is we need to be aware of in that moment.
Where there is conflict there is light, there is energy and there is massive healing potential in that moment. We need to stand in its center, be still within it, feel into its energy and create that light. The light will illuminate the shadows of our habits and personalities, showing us where we might need to make changes in our lives. As we engage with the circles around our own Mandorla process we get to see what has been hidden and what is really going on that has not been made clear before.
After a time of exploring my own Mandorla process, I found a way to help me become clearer on how I could work with it more effectively. It meant using creativity, artistic tools that helped me to tap into my more innocent self, my curious self and to put what I was feeling outside myself with this art work, so that I could ‘see’ it.
I invited others to experience this work in my small garden yurt, and when a friend from the Netherlands heard me talking about it, she was keen to experience it and so arranged for me to share it with her own community. It began to grow and I realised that this piece of work wanted its own journey in the world. It has stretched as far as South Africa where its energy has touched others individually and collectively. It is preparing to expand, to touch into as many communities as possible. Sometimes I am completely in awe at its power, something that has surprised me at times and left me in wonder at its magic.
So I feel the calling of this wonder and with the support of my organisers and my dear friends whom I am ever grateful to, ‘The Magic Of Mandorla’ has been rocking around the world entering into the hearts of many and collectively rocking our boats, stirring up the hidden truths and bringing to light what needs to change, for only by seeing what is hidden in the dark, can we truly manifest abundant and lasting change in the world.
So if ever I am asked, “how do I find my own body of work?” Of “how do I find what my own offering is?”
I often just say, ‘live it! Watch what is happening through your life and document it, learn from it and see what is being asked of you’
We have to know this work like the back of our hand, we need to embody it and find its truth. We cannot make something up or take anything from another’s work. We can imitate and work with the processes of others until we come to that place, when we know there is something quite unique to ourselves and we manifest the tools to offer it in our own unique way. This all takes time and cannot and should not be rushed.
The Mandorla of course is nothing new and is thousands of years old and is used widely around the world as well as taught, written about and mused over. There are umpteen diagrams and paintings of it. But what was offered to me in my own process was how I needed to work with it, which was something I had not experienced any where else in the world, but came from my own way of working. This is how I came to find my own unique little piece of a dream I held to offer my own unique piece of work.
More of my own story can be found in my second book ‘Reclaimed Innocence’ Published by MyVoice Publishing
To take part in The Magic of Mandorla please see https://middleearthmedicine.com/index.php/journeys-out/magic-of-mandorla/
