Artwork by Roberto Weigand
Follow Your Soul
This week we’ve had another beautiful full moon, along with a lunar eclipse, and now it’s the autumn equinox – the time of balance and harvest. After a long wet spring and summer, with weather the reporters are calling ”mist and murk” it’s been such a relief to bask all week in soft, mellow sunlight.
All week I’ve been hearing the call to simplicity, stillness and silence – the call of Soul. It’s a desire to throw off all distractions, to leave behind raw edges and turbulence, and to sink into the joy and natural creative flow of solitude.
Create Your Own Soul Sanctuary Spaces as You Go
I’ve been thinking about how I’ve created safe and free spaces for myself – and then extending these to others – all my life, ever since I was a young child.
My family environment was unpredictable and traumatic with unexpected eruptions of anger, arguments and violence. My safe space was my imagination. I lost myself in adventure books, wrote stories and peopled my own world through imaginative play. These activities seemed to weave a cocoon around me in which I felt safe and free.
When I was 20, I began to take long rambles through the countryside – ten, sometimes twenty miles most weekends, with a companion and later alone, through the hills and valleys, mountains and beaches, parklands and woodlands, villages and cities, of England, Wales and Scotland, I walked. The movement of my body combined with the fresh air and beauty of the land, freed my creative mind and released me into a stream of consciousness which inspired, nourished and liberated me from the confinement of life’s problems.
At 29, I went to live alone in the first of many dilapidated country cottages where I discovered the bliss of solitude and the excitement of writing poetry. For me, solitude is like walking through a doorway into a room I have forgotten only to discover it again and again; each time is a homecoming and each time is new. I love connecting with people, but in solitude I find my connection with All That is, and I feel completely free to go my own way.
Open to Receive the Abundance that is Always Here
Without explicitly naming it as such, my life has been a quest for soul sanctuary and my quest has been rewarded with abundance. So much so, that abundance has become one of my guiding values – when I ask questions that are vitally important to me, answers come in abundance. When I risk everything and set off on the quest for truth and beauty, I am showered with abundance. It has nothing to do with money or possessions or conventional ideas of success. It’s more like an inner wellspring of joy and gratitude. I have been so blessed to have found and created sanctuary in all sorts of places and situations – in my flat in a busy city, on the edges of wild elemental landscapes in North West Scotland, on the far side of the world in New Zealand, in the Sangha of spiritual practice and community, in creative conversations with soul friends, in the deep discovery of intentional groups, in the labour of birthing a book, in the kindness of a garden filled with nodding flowers – this is where I have found connection, wholeness and fulfillment.
When I left Aotearoa- New Zealand in 2015 and returned to the UK, I thought I had been steeped long enough in the startling, bright light of the Land of the Awakening Dawn, that I would always carry it within me. And I do. Similarly, after 16 years of intense meditation practice and diverse spiritual teachings, I knew there was something within me I could always rely on. And there is. It’s true, the bliss of stillness and the freedom of creative flow are always here within. Only now, they seem harder to reach.
It Isn’t Always Easy – That’s Why You Need to Practice
In my late 30’s I took apart the life I had created and took off to the Highlands of Scotland and I felt I had “escaped from the Mistaken Time.” When I migrated to New Zealand I saw it as a haven outside the madness of the world. Now, I know there is no escape from the world and there is nowhere to live “outside” the folly and suffering of human nature. I am connected cell to cell with every other being on Planet Earth. Collective consciousness here in the UK is denser than in the less populated parts of the world I’ve favoured and our destiny as a nation cannot be unravelled from our neighbours’ interests. We are all in this life-death drama together. Within the tinder box of nations competing for resources and power and individuals striving to keep body, heart and soul together, my soul sanctuary practice has become more challenging.
Even in the sleepy Welsh seaside village where I live there are intrusions and distractions. Right now, I am sitting in my garden as the sun rises above the hill and the last of the crocosmia are glowing bright golden amidst their vivid translucent green leaves. Then, my writing reverie is interrupted by the loud banging of a hammer on the roof of a nearby house. I am finding it harder to tolerate intrusions, whether it’s different forms of noise pollution or the unmindful behaviour of drivers on our narrow roads. I become more easily stressed. And stress slams the door of my sanctuary leaving me to begin again my journey back to stillness, silence and simplicity.
I don’t know if I’m feeling less tolerant and more easily stressed because I’m older, or because the world is at such a delicate balancing point, or because there is so much stress in the collective consciousness, or because I won’t allow myself to escape into delusion, I guess it’s a mixture of all these causes. Because I know how hard it can be to live a soulful life in a world in trouble, and because I know what the rewards can be of doing just this, and how important it is, that I’m spending a lot of my time these days gathering together and upgrading the resources I’ve created over the years to support this Soul Journey adventure.
None of Us Can Do This Alone.
Our vital connection to inner freedom and fulfilment can seem elusive and fragile, like a mirage appearing and disappearing. Simple daily practices are essential.
I’d like to share with you a meditation I made on Stillness and the Natural Arising of Creative Flow. I hope you enjoy it.
Wishing you a peaceful Autumn equinox.
If you’d like some simple daily practices to support you to find inner peace, purpose and fulfilment, take a look here:
If you would like to participate in a group practice, go here:
The Tribe in Transition Transformational Practice Community
