Sometimes

*Artwork: Stephanie Law

Sometimes a Wild God by Tom Hirons

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.
When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.

He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.

You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.

The dog barks.
The wild god smiles,
Holds out his hand.
The dog licks his wounds
And leads him inside.

The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.

‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.

When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.

The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.

Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.

You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.

The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.

The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exhalts and weeps at once.

The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.

In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.

In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table.
The moon leans in through the window.

The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.

‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’

Listen to them:

The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…

There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.

Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.

Tom Hirons' book of poetry' is a work of art I can totally recommend. 
You can purchase a hardcopy here: http://shop.hedgespoken.org/products/sometimes-a-wild-god

Coming Home to Community, Coming Home to Self

To quote Sobonfu Some, 'there is something important about community and that is why we keep coming back to it.'

My week has been underpinned by a conversation, or lack of conversation about community. I work in an organisation that offers learning experiences within a community. The beauty of community is it can not be forced. It is organic. It is invitational. And everyone moves through and accepts that invitation in their own way, in relation to their own needs. Community is not synonymous with conformity. This week I have seen how community untangles itself when people are invited into experiences that do not serve them or do not meet their needs. The result is disentanglement and a community fraying at the edges and fragmenting. Again I repeat, fraying and fragments is not synonymous with failing, rather it simply highlights or indicates places in which attention is needed to be focused. Tending and mending not fighting or flighting. It's all about perspective here and what story you see to be told.

I pause a moment to notice what I am experiencing and go back to the words of Sobonfu Some, who says, 'In my tradition community is the guiding light behind any being, any person, that helps that person or being achieve their life purpose. Without a community an individual is lost without a place to contribute, without a place where a light can be shone upon them.'

This week my community has carried on in it's practices, ways, structures whilst we notice anomalies, disturbances and interruptions. It's all feedback into the system to use a language of science. People are voting with their feet, electing to be somewhere else, anywhere else but in the place they have been invited. In a community that practices open space this is how it should be. From that perspective all is well. And yet it isn't. The disturbance could potentially put at risk a new venture, a new attempt to create community and a place of learning. It is also causing hurt to some individuals as well as confusion to others. How to be and how to respond in these circumstances is challenging. The invitation from our teachers is to track what is happening and to surrender to what is happening. Letting go into this confusion feels very counter intuitive to me. When all around feels unfocused, ungrounded, without meaning or purpose or a centre the desire to step in and reconfigure some semblance of order is strong. And yet I am learning that force and imposition is not the way either.

What is the gesture, the way to be in these times of confusion and uncertainty, of grief and hurt?
What can I offer?
A loving heart .
A willingness to participate .
A commitment to continue listening and track what is unfolding.
Is this enough I ask?
In my discomfort I recognise I do not have any answers except to know I cannot do this alone.
I need a community to be in community.
I am filled with hireath, saudade, longing and yearning for a HEALTHY community to see me, to see one another so that everyone has a place to contribute and shine.

I pause a moment and return to the words of Sobonfu Some, 'Community basically goes into the real nitty gritty of our human need. It is at the core of our human existence. Upon community becomes relationships. We all know healthy relationships are at the heart of every human life. Without a healthy relationship we will continue to do therapy until we comeback and die again and nothing is going to change. What we are yearning for is basically a place that will give us that home. Not just a physical home. A lot of us have homes and we even have alarms in them. Sometimes we go home and the alarm is still going off and we are looking in the closet in case someone got in there. The home we are really longing for is not something that is outside somewhere. The homes that we are looking for is actually in the heart, in the soul of other people out there. This notion that you cannot go back home is true and it is true the notion that you can go home. ' [PARADOX]

When faced with this paradox, all is well, all is not well, what to do then? How do go home when your community is dysfunctional to some degree (frayed and fragmenting) or not there even? Or maybe I am being too harsh and focusing on the fraying and judging it. Maybe what I need to do is practice gratitude and to bring appreciation of the beauty and joy that is present alongside the grief and chaos.

Sobonfu Some says, 'You can go home to the heart of a people who hold you in, or who have always held a space for you. As long as someone has a space in their heart for you you will always go home. This is why in the Dagara tradition they will say, either we are all going to go home or no one goes home. And that is why people who are homeless help us look at our own homelessness. It's not because we live in a home that we don't feel homeless. We still feel that longing for someone to recognise who we are. This is beyond the need for other people to make us be what they want us to be to make them feel comfortable. It's people who really know there is a spirit in this person. That there is a spirit that has come with a purpose whose gift needs to be seen so they can be freed. IF WE'RE NOT HERE WITH GIFT THEN WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE? The power of a community is to find that gift within the community were we belong. The gift that our community must receive. That is why we are continuously creating clubs. That is why we are continuously looking for one more degree. Hoping that it is now going to give us permission to go out and live our purpose instead of making a living. In a context [a community] where your gifts are valued what you bring is exactly what the community needs. You don't need to make a living. All you need to do is be yourself, live your purpose. That is part of the reason why the government doesn't like artists very much, because we don't conform. Artists will continue to do what they need to do - thank god. If artists don't create art we will all go crazy. Art is what keeps us sane. How do we then create this [community] space? 

Sobonfu Some leaves me there, hanging upside down, with the words 'We'll find out'. At this I smile because she seems to have the humility to recognise that this is where we all find ourselves in our collective earth community today. In a place, stepping into the uncertainty, unknown space of finding out. And for me she points to ways of being ... creative, artistic, non-conformist ways of being to keep myself and my community sane.

I am left at the end of this week with a few words as guides in a dark place.

Trust
Simplicity
Surrender
Tracking

Cosmology of Connection

Notes from a short course taught by Drew Dellinger at Schumacher College from 21 - 25 September 2015.

We are considering the Universe Story as proposed by the theologian Father Thomas Berry. He suggests humanity, particularly in the Western world, needs to upgrade its cosmology to regain our sense of connectedness to all things. As E.O.Wilson says, 'To know where you are is to know who you are.' We are standing on a planet shooting through space and it's time we started acting like it. Joseph Campbell said the next myth will need to embrace the whole planet. The Universe Story is an attempt to do just that.

The modern world sits in-between stories. We haven't had a cosmology since the 13th century, unless you count the rise of scientism,

Where do we find the threads of a new story? Through deep listening, reconnection, grief work, creativity ... and the list could go on. Even in our genius we can barely imagine what is to come. It's our imaginal cells that hold the vision.

I am a Russian tailor
I was born from the south of a whale travelling the Chinese seas
A star once followed me for a whole year
Not once did it leave my side
In the mornings I eat 10 juicy Spanish oranges that I grew
Myself on the Steppes of Georgia

I am a Russian tailer
By night I make jackets only for American mice
By day I am a jukebox maker, some call them MP3's
The name keeps changing
I don't much care for names and labels

I am a Russian tailor
With no other name than the sound of wind
One day I will fulfil my dreams
When I build the most magnificent boat
That flies away to magical unseen places

Strangers ask me, 'why?'
And I answer, 'how?'
I smile a rainbow of love and butterflies until
We embrace and become friends
Some say I move too fast
But that's because I am Russian!
Seriously people what did you expect.

Haiku

one day
we will talk
as herons flap their wings

leaves like palms
strike upwards to blue skies
tides follow the moon

please flow
into the
unknown unseen places

patience is the
gift of the black panther
do not look away

Mythology, Cosmology and Story (Martin Shaw)
Mythologists are interested in cosmology, about stories where the earth is speaking through us - the dream tangle. Health is to be founding paradoxes, in the wild land dreaming. A story is more than a map. It does not give us the abc. Story is alive. It is a living wild beast.It is time to move from a shameful darkness to a fruitful darkness. We need to annihilate all our defences against receiving beauty. To restructure and reorientate ourselves in this way requires a lot of whittling away, being opened up even until death comes knocking on our door. A grace from beyond can only enter when everything else has gone.

Who is going to show up for the 'becoming indigenous' tribe?

Stories are psycho-active. They are like stepping into a waking dream. Secret information is waiting to be revealed if the conditions are just right.

WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN YOU KNEW?
Connection and relationship is about trust
You are therefore I am
Martin Buber 'I Thou'
Everything is thou
Everything is living
Life is sacred

Division is transformed into diversity
Divison equals power over and conquering the other
Diversity is about participation and celebration

We connect through love, compassion, service
Friendship, generosity, nurturing and care
Spirituality is all about relationship
It is not about belief

Matter is inside life and consciousness
How do we respond to paradox?
What happens in conflict?
When online sacrifices to another

The mysterious collaboration of life feeding life
Mutuality and reciprocity
Difference is complementary
Polarity is complimentary

It is natural to feel sorrow, sadness at difficult times
And yet we cannot control nature
Can we transform human consciousness?
Live with less attachment
Reward is in the action
Let go of aspiration
Enjoy the way
Know you are special
Everything is special
Stop judging
Be Natural
Be yourself
And don't compare

Kaliedescope

In the myriad kaleidoscope of all the seen and unseen
Can we ever know what truly brings us all into oneness
A brightly coloured toucan soars above
Earthworms keep munching in their darkened moist lair
A peacock struts its stuff feathers proudly on display
Camels kneel front legs then back as humans disembark
The mid-day sun scorches parched ground
As water fall and tumbles below into the lagoon
Monk-jack deer nestle in a glade to sleep
Microbes gather, divide and regenerate
Algae spawn and spread
Oceans swell as the moon circles our blue planet
Hydrogen collides with oxygen
Granite slowly dissolves, erodes and moves cross the surface of rock
Seasons change
Comets blaze and burn their way through the universe
Black holes spiral drawing everything near
Acorns sprout shoots and grow towards the light
The sound of children playing carries down the valley
Rivers flow to the source
Are these connections seen or unseen
Know or unknowable
A beautiful mystery to behold

To thine own self be true, then you can't be false to any men.
With your will activated and fear released our love blossomed and was ready to go into the world.
We are taking the threads and weaving it into expression that can be seen, felt, inspire and impact others. We are born into the gift of life, a body as manifestation and expression of the cosmos. We can't repay that gift in a transactional way. There is no way we can repay the sun for its generosity. And yet there is a way. The way to repay the gift is to be fruitful.

Going back to the circle or wheel of the four directions the cosmology of air, fire, water and earth - things move from the least manifest to the most manifest then disintegrate and start all over again. A endless cycle of death, birth, life, death, birth, life and on and on.

We can find new human meaning by connecting ourselves to this cosmological order. Traditional music is often polyrhythmic and in participating it creates interdependence between the players. there is a subjective beat, a hidden rhythm if you will, a groove, a participatory consciousness. That is what we are now seeking to hear and to be a part of. The universal groove.

In the universal groove everyone plays a part and everyone is welcome. To do that we all need to follow our own unique path, our own bliss within the collective groove. In order to make this change we need to own up to denial and do our grief work. Within the linear, take culture that dominates in the west sits a deep well of sadness and many of us find ourselves at the bottom of this well combing the hair of the dragons asleep on our knees. It is time for the dragons to go.

It doesn't matter if others do not have the same awareness. Devote yourself to a cause that is meaningful too you. There are many to chose from. Shake of the disfunctionality. Awaken your will. Activate the pendulum swinging between being and doing. This is called creativity. Take your creativity seriously. Your life is a poem.

NOW IS THE TIME ... to step up.
I am sitting here and I get a huge blank.
My time now is preoccupied with 'other'.
My generative adult is seeking the wise sage and the wild one
To be with what's needed now and what's coming soon - our son.
Now is the time to turn to home, to our son and welcome him into his manifestation.
Now is the time to prepare ourselves, to be mindful of his coming.
Now is the time to be present to the becoming indigenous programme,
The group, the teachers, the college and my place with in all of that.
Now is the time to BALANCE participation and stillness
So I can feel the creativity of birth, death and transition.
Now is the time for TRANSFORMATION.
It's liminal. It's deeply mysterious and I don't know.
Now is the time to learn to be and to do in liminal transformational energy.
Now is the time to invoke and activate my imagination.
To LET GO of fears no longer serving me or others.
If not now WHEN?
Now is the time to step up onto the field of PLAY.

Four Nations of Ancestors

Notes from a short course taught by Colin Campbell at Schumacher College form 14-18 September 2015.

In indigenous cultures you will often find a major symbol known as the medicine wheel or the four directions. It approximates to the compass of north, south, east and west. From these four points it is possible to create some of the oldest symbols we know, such as the circle and the cross.

The circle reminds us of the reciprocity and connectedness of all things. It is the representation of creation. The cross has been appropriated in more recent history by Christianity.

The motif of four is also a strong motif in many cosmologies. There are 4 seasons, 4 elements (air, fire, water and earth), 4 directions and Jung introduced the 4 archetypes (warrior, magician, sovereign and lover). Why 4 occurs this was is a mystery.

The map of the four directions can be used to create a framework of ancestors, through which we can find ourselves. This is not of the past or history. It is about being in dynamic relationship here and now.

We begin in the West - This is our lineage ancestors, our genetic or blood line. Who is our lineage? How do our lineage relationships work? Modern science has confirmed what traditional cultures have always known, which is genetics plays some part in forming who we are. Our existence is contained within a paradox. Something science does not like, or want to accept, although quantum science is pointing towards an expanding creation story that includes the mythic, the hold of two polarities. It is not an 'either or' duality. Rather an 'and both' understanding of life and the mystery. In this way we are not seeking certainty or coherence. The One can only know itself by making a reflection of itself.

Tides go in and tides go out. The moon waxes and wanes becoming full and becoming new. Now you see it and now you don't. The pendulum swings one way until it reaches it's maximum point before swinging back the other. At the maximum you get the poles. But what connects them? CJ Jung introduce the idea of the transcendent third. Life is a spectrum of polarities. They related to one another through their otherness. The meeting of opposites results in friction, which creates heat, as heat rises it coalesces and this brings the opportunity for unity. In other words, as consciousness emerges through conflict it unifies though the transcendent third. This is also known as the alchemical principle. In this way the quality of the conflict relates to the quality of the reunification.

The above diagram relates the four directions to this unifying effect. If we take the male elements of Air and Fire, they represent progress, spirit, growth and an upward motion or rising of temperatures resulting in Heat. Eventually they meet the feminine elements of Water and Earth which begins a downward motion thus falling temperatures and the soul descends flowing the cycle round again.

[WEST]  Lineage of Ancestors - Air - are those that went before, our parents and grandparents. In the matrix of our blood family an awful lot of who we are can be understood. Family constellations created by Bert Hellinger follows this lineage by offering an alternative therapeutic method drawing on elements of family systems therapy, existential phenomenology and Zulu attitudes to family. The idea is trauma, anxieties, complexes, memories and experiences can be passed down the family line in ways that effect us today, but we may not know from where the traumas come.

Rituals that deal with psychologies and complexes are therefore dealing with the ancestors of air. Breath is given to us by our ancestors, they breath through us. We are the physical form our ancestors carrying on characteristics of blood relatives. Much of this lineage descending down the line can be worked through by the living.

Rituals are tools or practices to engage with the world we live in. We learn most by creating a dynamic interactive space, also known as Play. The Tarot begins with the number 0 and the character of the Fool. As babies we naturally interact dynamically. Through provocation and response relationships emerge and in that way we learn. There is great beauty in possessing a playful nature. It's poetic and poets hold the paradox with no need or desire for resolution. Wilderness is in constant dynamic interaction - a form of play - serious play maybe, and yet Play nevertheless. Play has the quality of allurement. This is the invitation to interact and relationships form and develop. If you look you will notice that allurement is everywhere.

Be playful.

Open windows  and doors in a room and hope the breeze will come in. Chant, sing, make music, drum, dance and hopefully we will meet the divine and we will begin a relationship.

In animus cultures everything has life. Thereof everything can be allured and aroused to be present and to be in relationship. The spirit relates to another and joy is born invoking our souls. Our spirits want transcendence. This is from where our hype-maculine culture comes wanting more, bigger, out and above. Our souls want belonging, presence and immersion. The creative principles inherent where conflict exists.

Our present day rituals, our modern indigent has to be dynamic and contain movement. In this way we don't have to re-create rituals exactly as they were practiced in the past. They can be adapted to our modern contexts.

Where there is trauma or a blockage energy can no longer flow and cycle round as nature and the divine intended. When in ritual we make offerings. be mindful of your context. What is a meaningful offering? it could be gold, chocolate, wine, beer, water. Next when you make an invocation you are bringing animation, dynamism, activating a meridian thus accessing and freeing up the flow of energy again. By freeing up energy we can heal our bodies.

Rituals are repeated practices unlike ceremonies which are a one off remarking a transition or event. The more ritual is repeated the stronger it becomes. Sacred ritual carries an intent to connect with the non-visible. When participating in a lineage ritual call in your blood ancestors staring with your mothers family and then your fathers family. Calling them in to be present is the invocation. Then make your offering and make your request or offer your gratitude for some event in your like. Tears are the best offering when making a request. Tell your ancestors your troubles and ask them for help and guidance in resolving these issues. Dawn is the most powerful time to practice such rituals. If the issue is huge then do your ritual before dawn. If you wish to make a ritual of gratitude then offer this at dusk.

This ritual is also called a Patla. Place a cloth over your shoulders, knell down with your head over your knees and between your invocation calling in your ancestors clap your hands twice at the end make your offering and then sing. If the issue is connected with the home an family then patla to your mother's lineage inside the house. If your issue is connected to work, money, reputation then pal to your father's lineage and do so in the garden.

Do not invoke a relative until 2 years after their passing. If you want to get grand you can add in a feast element to the ritual. Always set two extra places at the table for your grandmother and grandfather. Always be open with those you invite to the feast that they are attending a ritual. It
is not a party.

[NORTH] Ancestral Lineage of Those Who Lived on the Land Where You Live - Fire

Some say it takes 10 years to completely belong to a place. By then the ancestors of that land come through you in the food you have been eating grown on that land. In the modern world we now regularly eat food grown or produced in many different lands. What effect this has is unknown. It is not necessarily bad. We are living in a time of breakdown, breakthrough and emergence. Take the metaphor of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly. It is the imaginal cells that contain the vision of the butterfly. What are the imaginal cells of our time? Our indigenous past is cut off from many of us. the books are behind locked doors. Our young civilisations does not have much in terms of maps. Our futures will be dreamt by the present and the past.

Now we have to track our future indigeny with intent. What is it we are looking for? All of nature contains medicine. Animals, plants, rivers, sacred places bring potency, power, medicine that is restorative to humans seeking healing and balance. When traditional cultures would hunt they would first invoke the spirit of the animal they were seeking, using the practice of trance dancing the spirit of the animal is allured to the hunters.

Be Daring

If we allow our indigenous self to become a vessel for spirit to manifest and speak through us then the imaginal cells could become embodied, magical and overtly present to our communities.  Invoking the dream tangle. However, for most of us we push our imaginal cells to one side n the interests of normality, conformity an acceptance in the modern world. And yet there is method in our madness. How can we let our creativity come through and be a vessel for our imaginal cells? How do we bring the mythos present again? When we are a culture and people driven by our intellect and reason this can be difficult. There is nothing inherently wrong with our left-brain reasoning as long as we maintain a connection with our periphery. There are riches at the edges. At the transitions points between land and water, air and fire we can find abundance, diversity and new life.

The periphery is also known as the shadow. If we don't recognise and acknowledge the shadow it will appear in unexpected ways. Shadow spirits want to be part of conscious expression. they will grab our attention. Therefore do not separate the dark. How do we bring the shadow into expression? Here ritual is about bringing what is beyond taboo into view. Jung wrote about modern arrogance denying possession states and reclassifying them as complexes. Possession by spirits still exists.

The types of ritual that relate to ancestors of the soil or fire include pilgrimage. Contemporaries it for yourself to make it relevant for the times in which you live. Travel to lands that your ancestors lived and bring back soil and/or other offerings to the land you now live in. In essence we need to re-dream our relationship to land and the places we live to connect ourselves to those that lived there before us.

[EAST] Ancestral Lineage of Far Off Places - Water

When we drink water we pick up the spirits and energy of those who it has passed through before us. Water and the hydrological cycle connect lands, people, everything. This is similar to the morphic resonance theory developed by Rupert Sheldrake. Water spirits travel fast and can emerge in many places simultaneously. This is where the saying 'don't tell a secret by a river' comes from, for it will travel and be heard by many.

Water moves things around. Commitment is one of the qualities of water because it is uncompromisingly connected to the force of gravity. The ultimate destination of water is the ocean. The ocean represents baseline consciousness, the enlightened self and unified consciousness. It is where we came forenamed where we will return to. Water will get to where it needs to go, as will all beings.

Water purifies by helping us let go and get back to our fundamental nature. Water also has to do with the coherence of community. The circle represents community, water and the human psyche or soul. Solute sin water and it lives in our blood. The elements of Air and Water are polarities on the horizontal axis. Water is connection, it plugs us into things and it heats into air which is vision and understanding, which then cells back into water and round we go.

Water tells us where we are and where everything is at. The knowledge of who and where we are resides in our blood. Nothing in an animate world happens by accident. Everything has intent. Whatever polarity or direction you are in the opposite is also present.

[SOUTH] Ancestral Lineage of Animate Nature or Land - Earth

This is about all the animating forces of the natural world which we principally interact with through sacred sites.

This can be done by pilgrimage or vigil.

Many of us are not consciously aware of the separation and disconnection within and without resulting from the industrial world view. Many of us no longer acknowledge or respect sacred sites.

What do I remember out of the dark?

When we vigil we render ourselves vulnerable to the place. In so doing the place seeps into us. We get dreamt by the land. We lay ourselves down. Preparation is key. To communicate with the divine, with the invisible we have to create a natural resonance to be seen. The spirits of nature function at a lower temperature that the seen world. Somehow we need to lower our temperature too. This is why many sacred sites feel cool. Think of Notre Dame. Coolness is experienced internally. When we vigil we need to cool ourselves. This means avoiding behaviours that raise our temperature, such as, sex, menstruation, conflicts and particular foods.

If we go back 13.8 billion years to the point of singularity we would find the temperatures were cool. Then there was a sudden temperature inversion resulting in an explosion of light. Infinite heat is infinite creativity and infinite cold is infinite potential.

A ritual recipe for lineage to earth and sacred sites:

Select a sacred site that you resonate with.
Through visioning and dreaming ask the site how to prepare and what it wants from you.
Pilgrimage to this site on foot as best you can.
Ask your question, present your issue at the site.
Listen
Present your gratitude and make offerings of thanks and appreciation.

Conclusion

If we are going to track our modern indigeny we need to consider 5 things on our journey.

1. We have to know our story, our cosmology.
2. We need to dance to embody the states and expressions that need to move through us.
3. We need to practice sacred rituals to connect us to the unseen and bigger body.
4. We need to resonate and proclaim ourselves through music and song.
5. We need to converse with the divine, the sacred through our own form of prayer.

As the modern world moves into a state of anarchic disintegration, meltdown and breakdown prove all that is new and emergent through experience. The new cosmology, the new story, new rituals, new indigent and traditions is a relational process of emergence and unfolding.

Find ways to express and hold the paradoxes around you in a meaningful way. Experiment, be playful, be dynamic, be daring, pilgrimage, create and practice ritual, listen and track everything that has power and resonance. Do not push too quickly for meaning or understanding. Stay in the overwhelm. Sit in the discomfort. Stay present. Everything changes. All passes through eventually.

Tracking means paying attention. Track your passions. Track what you love.

Becoming Indigenous - Tracking the story

Notes from a course taught by Colin Campbell (14-18 September 2015) at Schumacher College

There is part of us that is young and part of us that is old. The young part of us is post-industrial. The old part is primal. The young has created the LAW. The political and legal structures that now govern us. It defines how we now function and live. Law is based on property ownership. The industrial story says we humans use the natural world as a resource. Our Law apportions up the these resources between us. The old relates to the natural world as a shared existence. This is the LORE. The old part of us knows how to listen and be in relationship with the LORE where everything is connected to everything else.

Part of our natural emergence is to explore SEPARATION. We sit with deep conundrums. The Old Ways cannot be because so much has changed. Going back is not an option. When we use the term indigenous what are we saying? Is it a reference to looking back? Remembering how it was is about taking stock. And yet who we were is no how we are going to be. What indigenous means is a dynamic opportunity. It is an unknown. Is it even appropriate to invoke what was our indigenous nature?

When we speak to those living more traditional or indigenous ways they say, 'When you look at yourself the question is;

How do you  live best?
What does it look like?
Who do you go to when problems don't seem to be solvable?'

In Southern African tribes the first port of call is the maternal Uncle, the paternal Uncle, then grandparents and then the ancestors.

Where do we go when we sit with the problems we face now?

The Young part of us in Western cultures goes to our logical selves, the practical ways.

The Old part of us of us goes to a collective notion of culture, the ancestors, those possibly not on the physical plane any longer. This is very difficult for the Western mind to fathom or relate to. The Western mind tend stop apply its individualistic view. We lose much from the original traditional ways. A lot of what we are seeing is not what it was!

The conditions and contexts we now face are totally new.
We are all in the dark. The old traditional ones and the young industrial ones.

Darkness is providing the conditions for transformation.

We finds ourselves responding to feelings.
We are following a calling.
We are seeing the tensions.
We are open to exploration.

Conflict is dynamic.
It's an alchemical process.
Remember Heat TRANSFORMS.

The essence of the new exists. To get to it we have to remove that which hides it. Thereby revealing the flame. It's no surprise we find ourselves living through experiences and times filled with conflict, we see attraction and feel this as heat. All of which presents the conditions for transformation and change.

Conflict is not therefore in and of itself negative. Conflict is a part of the creative principle.

What do we do now?

WE TRACK THE NEW INTO BEING

Traditional 'old' people say the basis of tracking is to follow the story. We have to track the emergent story. It's a multidimensional process involving our spiritual selves, intuitive selves and our sense.

The Sand people would say, first invoke the spirit of the animal within yourself. [TLOU]

What does it mean to invoke the spirit of my indigenousness?
Invocation has practices.
The spirit will tell you what to do.
What do you do when tracks disappear?
You change channels.
Move from spirit, to intuition, to your senses.
Keep moving until you can pick up the track again and continue to follow the story.

Tracks will come and go.

When in the mystery we don't always know rationally what is happening and yet we will know when we know in all our other ways of being, doing and knowing.

For Colin Campbell his wild indigenousness relates to wild unmanaged lands. I am on the tracks of my own wild lands.

Excentuate, regenerate and relate to the wilds within and the wilds without.

To begin the tracking we invite everyones voices to be heard. A spiralling inwards for our group. Time for the practice of Council.

Coming Home to An Animate World

The Listener
Heron appears and I am drawn in, captivated
Heron invites stillness by the flowing river
Heron brings me joy

Track and observe the patterns
You don't have to know the meaning
The answer is never the answer
What's really interesting is the Mystery

Coming home is coming alive
Resistance and judgement show up
The conditioning to be right
Leads to the suffocation of judgement
Like chains tying my hands together
Constricting my ability to touch the world

Being lost is an achievement
Where any direction leads to surprise
Disorientation shifts my perceptions
Leading to the possibility of the liminal,
the imaginal, inviting in dream states

The Westernised mind emphasise thinking and sensing
Feeling and imagination are dangerous
to the establishment, they don't like it!

If we fall in love with the earth community
We can discover our souls, our unique and precious gifts.
Our greatest strength is our greatest weakness
we are the only life form we know
who is not capable of naturally occupying
it's own niche in the world.

Through our souls we connect with the rest of life
Through our souls we become relational and dynamic beings
Our bodies are always in conversation whether
We are conscious or not
Everyones place in the world matters
I matter
You matter
We all matter
Mary says, 'Let the soft animal of our bodies
love what it loves'

Let your body feel before you mind thinks
Feel yourself touched as well as touching
Seen as well as seeing
Heard as well as hearing
Let your animal self out to play, to be, to relate
Be a visionary artisan of cultural change
Antonio says, 'What have you done to the garden entrusted to you?'

When big emotions get stirred up
Are they ours?
Are they our ancestors?
Are they transpersonal?
Are we tapping into a bigger well of grief?
Grief resonates from our longing to participate
When we honour the dead we enliven the world

Ceremony allows us to participate in the world
As if it mattered

What do the bones say?

We gathered as a near complete group on the Sunday evening to arrive together and meet one another in circle and then around fire. Colin described Becoming Indigenous as a 'connection and remembering of the wild'. This brought me some peace and an alignment with my earlier feelings about the programme. The following morning we walked up to the Elmhirst Centre via the 2000 year old Yew tree to honour and acknowledge this ancient ancestor among us, to mark our presence and the beginnings of our journey together. Colin Campbell held a reading of the Bones. This ritual, a first for me, is from the African continent. Colin has memorised over 600 or more poems out of a pantheon of 6000+. These poems are visionary and metaphoric insights into the communications from the patterns the bones have made in their fallen state.

In Colin's tradition diviners hear the lore. The lore seldom gives easy answers. It will be cryptic, metaphoric and paradoxical. In the opposing forces between the modern and traditional ways a heat is created. The key is holding this heat between the ambiguity and antagonistic forces. Undertaking a reading of the bones invokes the ancestors, human and more than human. We thus click into the greater nature of things. The divining comes from a collective culture. An individual universe culture like we find in the West is ontologically different to a collective universe or culture.  Collective culture or consciousness is mythic, whereas an individual consciousness is cognitive. The latter contains the ego. The modern disease of self consciousness inhibits our capacity and freedom of expression. The ego believes the self is vulnerable. Alternatively in a healthy collective culture the notion of separation does not exist. Therefore the need for personal protection does not exist, it makes no sense. Differentiation is a modern phenomenon.

Much of the modern disease comes from the awareness of attrition, heat and tension arising within us  from the old ancient ways and the new individual ways coming up against one another. If we understand that randomness does not exist, that we don't live in a hapless universe born from a chance event. Rather everything has a place and everything is related to everything else, then multiplicity exists. It doesn't matter what we look at, be it leaves blowing on the forest floor, the entrails of an animal we come across or tea leaves in the bottom of a cup - whatever it is - the universes is constantly communicating and conversing. It's up to us to discern what is meaningful at anytime. It's up to us to tune in and listen. And it is up to us to decide how and in what way to respond.

We are pick up information all the time in many ways and we are constantly giving out signals. This creates a relational process. Humans are sense-making animals. It is our way to interpret sense and meaning from the information, conversations and communications we encounter.

Divination is the art of applying meaning in what we encounter - in what we see.

From the Bones that morning Colin shared with us two poems.

1. Tearing Apart - 'The Time Between'

The separation of one from another creates space for something else to move in. This is about fundamental change.

Q: How much of what you cherish of whey are can you pull apart anklet go, leave and move on?

This is the opposite of accumulation. This is about emptying out. The fear of loss this invokes is deep. Change for many of us is associated with loss.

Invitation: To trust no matter how much the disillusionment that what is needed will remain and sustain.

2. Cutting - 'Severe and Separate'

Invitation: leave behind what is cut.

This is a transition phase. A period of letting go. Like the child being separated forth mother. It may appear brutal and yet it is vitally necessary to survival. This is the paradox experienced during this time. Now we have to find another way. Evolutionarily we are programmed to find another way. Like the caterpillar turning into the butterfly. That which was known is cut off and taken away.

Q: How do we find meaning, find a navigational tool in this process?

Like the baby leaving the mother who looses the umbilical cord. The 'How' is in recognising the process of change and being with the happening in itself. Remembering that which sustains us will find another way. That which does not sustain us no longer serves and has to go. This is terrifying. The fundamental change happening has little interest in the terror. We have to hold the crisis of loss alongside the process of change.

The degree to which we allow the dissolution to occur is what will serve is now. Try to reduce and or remove resistance. And remember we are not in control of the cutting. The cutting happening is done to us. It's how we respond and react whilst the cutting is happening that counts. Ironically, paradoxically everything we have accumulated up to this pointing our lives does not serves us now.

The two poems of Tearing Apart and Cutting relate to Death.

Sit and be with these poems.

Let them begin the dismemberment and dissolution process and allow the fall as if I am the fool setting out of my journey.

Thirteen Moons

Over the first weekend of September around 400 women from tribes of four, if not more, continents gathered at Lower Merripit Farm, Dartmoor. Lead by the amazing Carolyn Hillyer we pilgrimaged, sang, drummed, crafted, ate, travelled, made friends, changed old patterns, created new stories and weaved ourselves deeper into the mystery.

Ceremony and council are ancient practices humans have been undertaking for thousands of years. It seems essential to now remember these ways and share them more openly and widely. We are in conversation with everything all the time. If only we listened more. Dedicating time to stop and listen more intently is beautiful and sacred.

There were solemn, reflective moments in the story sharing. There were humorous, riotous moments too. Stepping into this charged and empowered space, women can remember this rebalancing of their role and contribution to community and to one another.

Thirteen Moons Festival was an incredible experience. Thank You to Carolyn Hillyer and all the Kindling sisters who made it happen.

Becoming Indigenous - Rewilding

Brasilian Portuguese has a well used word 'saudade' that is not simple to translate directly into English, however, it is easy to translate into Welsh 'hiraeth'. It variously means longing, homesickness, yearning. The translation websites then take the meaning to another place 'nostalgia' and this is where we take a wrong term in my opinion because it harks to the past. Moving between languages and cultures can reach a boundary of understanding.

There are languages that still carry words to describe this feeling of coming home or longing for home that English does not describe in a single word. That in itself is interesting to me. Why does the English language not have a hireath or a saudade?

A hiraerth or saudade for what? That is where I find myself today. I'm asking what does this feeling of longing and yearning have to do with people living in the modern world? For me it suggests that modernity is missing something or ailing in some way. That deep inside people are waking up to this notion of separation within themselves, from life, from Gaia and the cosmos.

It is said that Indigenous peoples have kept this connection, this flame of transcendence alive. Indigenous people use ritual, ceremony and rites of passage to maintain and build their relationship of deep belonging and connection to all that is.

I have been on this path, that I call the heart path for quite a  number of years now. Nevertheless, from September I am taking a deep and intentional dive into becoming indigenous. Will I be claimed by the land, animals, trees and plants of this place in which I now live? Will I discover new worlds? How will I be shaped and changed by this experience? I cannot say until I live into each moment. I guess this is not so much a place of destination as a reordering of perspectives. Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.

What I don't want is a mimic of other cultures or a misappropriation of ways from other lands. This would represent another form of exploitation and theft upon which much of my ancestral inheritance is based. If nothing else a certain humility, respect and etiquette needs to emerge from this experience if it is to be different from the modern path I have been brought up in and that predominates around me. I live in a taking culture, a  linear world that feeds a story of competition, scarcity and lack. All of this breeds enormous amounts of fear and anxiety. That results in hierarchy and separation. 

To live from a place of connection, relationship, wholeness, cyclicality, reverence and love would be counter cultural. To learn how to give now that would be different, and to uncover what my gifts are that I am meant to give back into my community, now that would be good to know.

I like to think of this process I am going through as 'Rewilding'. The word 'Wild' in English has resonance and energy. Wild acknowledges that we humans are not in control of everything nor are we at the top of the chain of evolution. Wild indicates to me that I share in common with all forms a life a sense of togetherness in process and with purpose.

  

Say yes to boredom

I remember as a kid being so bored on Sunday afternoons. Especially so in the winter months when it was cold, dark and rainy outside making it next to impossible to be outdoors. From behind the window looking out on the world there seemed very little to do besides wait for Monday and school which was a tad more interesting than nothing.

Boredom is not the preserve of the bone idle. Even if it was it would venerate idleness to greater heights. Learning to be bored is a life lesson. Boredom is a state of being we are meant to believe is indicative of a lack of imagination.

I'd like to offer a counter view. Boredom is in fact the road to wisdom. By embracing a state of nothingness we potentially embark on an inner journey of self discovery.

Boredom is the doorway to new insights.

In the last few days I have been able to slow down for the first time this year. By slow down I mean I have no where to be and mostly nothing to do. No plans have been made. There is nothing readily available to occupy me except for myself. When I have been on the life/work treadmill for a long period of time I get out of the practice of simply being. My transition from doing to being is mediated by a period of boredom. This lasts until I can adjust myself. Until my imagination fires up. Until I listen to what I love and get myself together to reconnect with what matters to me in that moment.

Now there will be some reading this who will say, just flip the switch - why does it take time to go from doing to being? And I'd say, most people conflate doing what they want with 'being'. Without transitioning through a state of boredom or awareness I don't think doing what you want is 'being'. It is another form of busyness.

Busyness is a distracted state of doing what we think is expected of us, seeking approval or wanting to please others, of buying into a story of acquisition and/or aspiration.

Knowing yourself sufficiently to be in a state of being takes more than a recognition of external influences. It requires a deep relationship, listening and dialogue with the soul. That doesn't come easily. Hence in my case the meeting of boredom first.

From this perspective boredom is to be welcomed as it is the precursor to something more mysterious, deep and life enhancing than a linear experience of busyness and doing.

This is why I say yes to boredom.

Jesus to Shesus

This is a photograph of a postcard of a huge stained glass window I found myself sat before this afternoon. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take your own photographs of the window. I have always found this enormous vibrantly coloured image of Jesus an impressive sight. When I visit Buckfast Abbey I am often drawn to the quiet room at the far end of the main building to sit in front of this window.

Today I am reminded of a presentation by Sean Kelly given at Schumacher College in 2010. I remember asking Sean why Jesus was born a man and not a woman? His reply, which to this day still startles me, was, 'No one would have listen to what he came to say if he was born a woman'.

What Sean seemed to be saying is that great thinkers, philosophers, theologians and spiritual teachers come in the male form so that we will pay them more credence.

I know we live in a patriarchal world, but nevertheless, OUCH!

As one half of the world that happens to be born into a woman's body, to be told by someone purporting to be a liberal progressive thinker, that by being a woman the world will not listen to what you have to say no matter how wise - these are harsh and demoralising if not offensive words indeed. And when I stop to reflect I can name woman whose words have made a difference; Mother Theresa, Hildegarde of Bingen, Maya Angelou, Joan of Arc to name a few. But that's simply it, they are a few when balanced against the predominant avalanche of patriarchal voices history and contemporaneous times presents us.

When will the human species be ready for Shesus?

At the centre of the modern story is the idea of Gaia, a whole system supporting life on planet Earth. No Gaia, no life and more specifically no human beings. Gaia is a female goddess. Thus we are presenting Earth and her life supporting systems as generative, life giving and female. Gaia is speaking to us constantly and whether we be a listening scientist, consumer, gardener, nurse, priest or poet many of us are hearing a similar message ... "our ecological systems are changing to such an extent that temperatures will rise to levels that will no longer support human life (and many other forms of life hence the 6th mass extinction we are now experiencing), as temperatures rise we will experience sea levels rising, floods, droughts and other climatic events. All of which add up to a big ole hollering from Mama Gaia to say mind your ways homo sapiens, if you're not carefully you'll unwittingly dismantle the conditions that support life on earth.

Granted this earthly message from Gaia is not coming in a readily digestible movie, TV broadcast or book. It is coming through in more naturalistic languages.

My question to Sean Kelly and his like is, will we hear her voice in the babbling brooks and the reshaping of rocks, in the cries of the animals, birds and fish, in the shifting and swaying seasons, will we hear it this time when it comes in non-human form and yet in a projected feminine voice?

I ask because it would appear we humans don't listen to woman, human or otherwise?

Can we change?

Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that the Dalai Lama will not be reincarnated as a person but as a community. Now that is a radical thought. When you think that all, if not most, of the primary spiritual and religious leaders of the last 3000 years have been male would it not be as radical if the next spiritual voice was female and non-human. Gaia. Now that is possibly even more radical. Not only is she here and speaking to us, she has always been here and always been speaking to us. We are born of her and go back to her in our death. You could say the bigger body is trying to communicate with her billions of little bodies.

Can we hear her speak to us?

Being a Sensitive Person

I remember painful times when I have been told I am hyper-sensitive. The implication being I am too sensitive and basically it is perceived as a weakness, failing or pain in the ass by others. The end result can be attempts to hide the sensitivity, avoid certain people or situations for fear of judgement or to simply turn the feelings on myself. None of which makes a sensitive person feel particularly good.

My culture does not like to emote so much. Disconnecting head from heart is in the long run from my own experience a coping mechanism that can have some nasty physical and mental consequences. I would not recommend this strategy.

I want to say to all those sensitive people out there, and apparently according to some random unreferenced statistic I read we make up to 15-20% of the population, be courageous and continue to live from your authentic truth. That means embrace your sensitivity and see the positivity and gift that it offers you and your community.

The biggest lesson for sensitive people is to not let others who might not understand our gift change us. It is often easier to hide our sensitive side than to be judged by it. Continue to live your truth and be proud of your sensitive nature. It is who we are, and the Universe needs us to share it. Doing so will create a more loving, kind and peaceful world.

Always remember being sensitive is a gift and even the greatest gifts can be a burden at times. Remember these lessons to keep you grounded in your true nature while honoring yourself and those your gift serves.

Finally because we feel things deeply doesn't mean we always have to respond, jump in or try and intervene. This can be very disempowering for others who need to go through though times and come out the other side. The world does not need fixing or saving. Nevertheless an occasional hug or gentle smile to someone in need does not go amiss.

Blame

Click the link below for a funny and yet incisive short animated film opening up my awareness of the corrosive effects of blame.

Brene Brown on Blame