We don't consciously recognise how we are all unique because we see everyone as defined by our own beliefs. E.g we believe that person is feeling unhappy because they have that "unhappy" expression on their face yet the expression they have may not signify unhappiness to them.

If we never have cause to consider something different then the possibility of "more" or "differences" has no reason to exist and arise to expand our world vision.

This is one of the reasons why travel broadens the mind, at least it does if you pay attention to where you are!

Different cultures grow up with their own unique thoughts and observations of their own unique circumstances, so when we immerse ourself into a completely different culture, old thoughts of absolutes are challenged and begin to fade and soften into options and choices.

Living in Finland, even though it is still a western style democracy has pulled me out of a few rigid mindsets. One such instance was noticing how the word for north had the same root as the word for bottom. To my English mind north always points upwards and it just confused me to associate it with bottom.

My partner explained thus, that when we look up at the night sky we can see the north star fixed in the north. Imagine that from where we stand on the earth, the stars are curved around us like dots painted onto the inside of a large bowl surrounding the Earth. At the bottom of that bowl lays the north star!

I have long since given up the arrogant and pompous idea that other peoples' thoughts are preposterous. Instead, in the spirit of real growth, I put myself into their place (as much as I am able) and see things from where they are standing, physically, emotionally, mentally, culturally, socially, energetically, causally, spiritually etc. These instances result in an opening, I don't lose my self, I gain new perspectives and am quicker to recognise our unity rather than our separation.

The gift of stepping into another's shoes has always been mine. It wasn't until I began to realise others didn't have it that I recognised it as a gift. I've also had cause to find it a hindrance too and spend time blocking it out.

The first moment of realisation came when I was about 8 years old. One day at school someone mentioned how I always said something nice about others. I was a shy child so I never said very much to anyone! But this person wasn't saying it as a compliment. That day I learnt how I was different but now had some way to change to fit in with the crowd a bit more.

About 26 years later whilst staying with a friend I would give her a back massage, not because I'd had any training. She loved my back massages because I always knew where to go and what to do. I remarked that was because I could feel it exactly in my own back so all I had to do was follow that - didn't everyone do that? Apparently not!

A few years ago there was a second tragic school shooting in Finland and as I read some of the news on the net I spontaneously dropped into the mind/body of the shooter. I felt his pain, torment, frustration and sadness (sadness isn't a deep enough word to describe what I felt that day, there is no word). I quickly pulled myself out of there. Of course I don't condone shooting anyone but I understand how it came to that. Imagine how much pain someone must be in to believe that shooting all those people was an ok thing to do.

Occasionally a septic spot like that appears on the surface of our society and we quickly rush to apply some ointment and concealer to make it go away. We look to outside forces to determine where it came from. We never seem to consider how its roots lay on the inside, the poison rose to the surface of society from within.

More recently I was visiting in England and by chance happened to be in a large book store at 11am on the 11th November. This is the moment a 2 minute silence is given in honour of what I call victims of war. I hadn't been in the UK for over 2 years and had already felt quite sensitive to the crowding and noise (crowding of auras and noise of thought forms). As I noticing people and escalators slowing to a halt, it dawned on me what was about to happen. All around me people stopped their mind chatter to focus and tune-in on war, grief, soldiers, heroes, loved ones, lost ones, wounds and the sheer enormity of human horror. It did not feel good.

I wish for 2012 that I could just for 1 second touch my hand to the forehead of humanity and show them what I felt and saw. To show the combined perspectives of war from the smallest supposed insignificance to the mass inflicted horrors. Because if you saw/felt/experienced/knew that feeling it would be impossible to inflict pain ever again without feeling.

That time is coming. Our children are coming and they won't be able to stand the noise and infliction. Then the world will change.

For now I remain too afraid to flow in and around people. It hurts too much and I fear it will kill me. But I know that my fear will pass and this long dark night will break into a new dawn.

I also know that we all have the same basic senses.

If you are interested in a healing or spiritual type holiday but would also like something more, something involving getting your hands dirty, then we have just the place for you!!

Welcome to Toivo Biodynamic Farm offering opportunities for working holidays, either full time or part time in conjunction with a Holistic Healing Holidays package or Farm Group Self Healing Retreat.

You can build your own holiday scenario from relaxing at Mairela Retreat to working on the land at Toivo Biodynamic Farm.

The usual Self Healing Group Retreats are also available at Mairela Retreat for 2012 including a new Self Healing Part II Retreat week!

There is something not quite right, something missing in the "usual" energy, a big black mass looming in the west like a vacuum in time and space. It doesn't move, it just sits brooding and menacing, yet like an opportunity waiting to happen, as if the space is unfulfilled. We don't know where we are going. Is this the true nature of new frontiers?

Am I just habitually tuned into the known comfort of my old mindframes, wanting controls, adherences, structures and acknowledgements of systems and outcomes? If I stepped into my truth and expanded beyond my known imagination what expectations could/would I have?

So there is a feeling of unease, we do not know which way we will go, it is unwritten, we have not yet decided, we have no demands. We know we want to move from where we are (or do we?) but we have no solutions. Anything we put together is a mere rehash of the pieces we already have. That isn't true change or expansion, it's an illusion of control, our minds seeking to pacify us rather than live with this consistently empty future waiting to be written. Taking responsibility is scary but we have tried zombified passivity and we don't like it, it doesn't feel good or natural...being based on a concept of separation rather than union.

Whether we recognise the boundaries of our true self or not we are out there amongst our families, friends and fellow Man feeling our way through each torment albeit a torture which only exists at certain levels of expansion.

We know what we have even if we don't know anything! Take heart that knowing nothing allows us the freedom to flow forth into the unknown, leaving old baggage behind. Therein lays the new paradigm.

So gather together physically, emotionally, mentally, energetically and/or consciously. Sit with that feeling for as long as you wish, allow it to be present, we don't need to do anything. The tree doesn't push its leaves away in autumn, or push its sap into the roots in winter, or push it up again in spring, or push the leaves out. The leaves don't need to grab the sun energy.

If we want a new dawn to break we don't need to create it, it will come when the long dark night has ended. We can change our clocks back and forth to mess about with time but still a new dawn only breaks when the darkness lifts.

It is traditional to rest in peace at night or maybe watch the stars showing us the infinite unseen wonders around us. A flaming meteor is wonderful to see in the night sky and its worth recognising how differently we would view its wonder if we shrunk down to stand right in its path!

Stay open, stay expanded, let the new dawn unfold in all its glory, safe and secure in the knowledge that no matter how awesome you imagine a new dawn might be, if you allow it to just Be, it'll unfold way beyond any imagination.

No attachments. Have no demands.

Self Healing Retreat Dates for 2012

The new dates and details including a continuation group can all be found here

All the building blocks of the Universe exist, have always existed and will always exist. How we put those blocks together shapes how we create our world, our lives and our experiences. We group together our own unique blocks in our own unique style!

Just like a toybox filled with Lego bricks, the Universe has building blocks for every sense, every dimension, time, movement, thought, feeling etc. A list of unique components beyond the scope of any mind.

We experience our own unique experience of ourselves through inhabiting the blocks we choose with our conscious awareness. If we inhabit all the blocks that ever were, are or will be then we are the Universe. Then We Are One.

Some of us have done that, albeit fleetingly. We are each of us ever changing as our conscious awareness ebbs and flows, peaks and troughs, expands and contracts throughout our own unique pattern of building blocks.

Sometimes when my conscious awareness is inhabiting the building blocks of my heart i.e. I am connected and in touch with my experiences via a medium beyond the physical, emotional or mental, then I have a very real connection to my sweetheart, even though his physical body has died.

Other times my conscious awareness flows only in my physical, emotional and mental bodies. In those times I experience a loss of my sweetheart because he is no longer occupying a body or mind.

So you see we don't change our building blocks to change our life, we don't have to change our past, we don't even need hard work to build a future. We use our conscious awareness to occupy the areas we choose to experience as our reality. If we are not used to doing this it can be hard at first but just like going to the gym, as we practice exercising this particular muscle it will grow and become easier and stronger.

If we are not used to flowing our conscious awareness through certain areas then the way feels unfamiliar as we step into the unknown.It takes more focus until we create a well trodden path so to speak. We create these conscious awareness pathways much like we create neural pathways in our brain when we repeat behaviours.

Of course old pathways into destructive groupings of building blocks are well worn paths that are easy to slide down when we are not actively focusing our conscious awareness. If we don't even believe we are sentient beings capable of choosing our existence then we don't even acknowledge the possibility of changing or shaping our own world.

This is a hard place to be stuck in. By refusing to believe there may be more and thereby never even entertaining the thought to flow forth we perpetually recreate a self fulfilling prophecy of our own personal hell.

It really is a hard place to be stuck in from the perspective of the person stuck in it! When you feel stuck in a hole and all you can see is the walls of the hole it takes something mind shattering to cause you to imagine that you could climb out of the hole and there might be something different beyond the hole, beyond your sight and beyond your experiences thus far.

I was stuck in that loop for a long time until I eventually created such mental torture and 7 cancerous tumours that my rigid logic and mind structures had to crumble. They couldn't make sense anymore and I began to allow myself to recognise more. I began to let my conscious awareness flow into new areas, occupying new building blocks and creating different experiences which broadened my perspectives.

The first steps always resemble stumbling around in the dark...it wouldn't be the new unknown if you knew where you were going and what it would look or feel like!

Recently I've spoken to many people who have experienced a wider experience after the death of a loved one. They feel connections, they have communications beyond the physical, emotional or mental. Yet they don't take the possibilities of those connections further into their own lives.

Recently I've spoken to many people who have experienced a wider experience after the death of a loved one. They feel connections, they have communications beyond the physical, emotional or mental. Yet they don't take the possibilities of those connections further into their own lives.

To my mind (and I don't pretend to be anything so rigid as absolutely right about this!) if we are able to experience a strong awareness of someone no longer residing in a physical, emotional or mental body there must be a realm or dimension beyond those.

We experience this realm most readily as Love. I use the capital to distinguish it from the use of the word love in such sentences as "I love pizza" or "I love you". Any time we use "I" or "you" we are inevitably limiting our scope or perspective.

When occupying the realm of Love we experience how we cross borders and old restrictions bringing peace into our lives. All the old drama falls away. Many people experience this after the death of a loved one yet we don't all take it forwards into the rest of our lives.

If we could live the rest of our life knowing we can focus our conscious awareness (and thereby our existence and experience) into a group of building blocks whereby all the dramas and traumas of our lives fall away leaving us with strength, poise and peace, why don't we do it?

Actually some of us do. Having recognised that the drama and trauma isn't absolutely real and I can flow within it and beyond it simultaneously it no longer brings me down, I'm no longer sucked into it, it no longer has physical effects of dis-ease on my body or mental torture in my mind.....unless I choose it to.

Now I can dive into my drama just because I choose to! What can I say....I'm a Leo!

The man that I loved most in the world, the only man who made my heart feel safe, accepted warm, secure and loved died holding my hand this year. There is no going back, I have been seen, my darkness is irrelevant, my light shines through and there is nothing more to say. When we let our light shine through the rest becomes irrelevant.

When I trust the divine in others, then I shine. And when I shine others can see the divine in themselves just as I saw the divine in me when Afa just sat and shone.

Yes, it was annoying sometimes, my ego hated it when Afa did his own thing but I can certainly see the beauty of it. It allowed me to readily see myself, all my old and outdated beliefs trying to create love via controls and boundaries, rules and regulations.

Such folly!! Who on earth decided that we needed to create love? Such a ridiculous notion and yet one that we all stick rigidly to, even when it really hurts and creates unbelievable pain and suffering!

As with ALL things that we are desperately seeking, when we stop looking and become still and centred we are in a position to notice that we already have it, we already have everything.

Sometimes we don't recognise what we have because it isn't showing up as we would have imagined. Notice this too! If we have failed to recognise something in our lives we have probably given it an identity based on our own limited beliefs, the very same beliefs which created the notion for our desperate search!!

We don't find truth by rearranging the pieces of the picture puzzle until they fit our image of truth, we find our truth by stepping back and allowing some new pieces of the puzzle to come into view. We find our new expanded truth by simply observing where and how those pieces fit together, we observe and recognise the bigger picture unfolding before us.

In this new unfolding paradigm we recognise our truth and our way by stepping back, by letting go and trusting that the bigger picture is unfolding before us. We don't have to do anything other than observe that which is so. We have no requirements. Just like the recognition of love, the recognition of Mankind arises naturally and organically when we are still and observe that which unfolds before us.

Recognise its beauty and power. Recognise that it has always been so. No exceptions. Everything, without exception, is an integral part of the whole, the bigger picture. No part is less important nor more important.

With that in mind, be at peace.

Even though the weather has remained very mild here in the far North, with my garden still sporting lots of marigold blooms to complement the autumnal hues of the surrounding forest, it is still very much autumn time with multicoloured leaves billowing past my window and coming to rest upon the ground. Once upon the ground the leaves will slowly change form and dissolve into the soil (or my compost!) where they will deposit the energy collected from the summer's sun into a new form that can then be used when the time is right (i.e. next spring) to be the fuel for boosting new growth in the time of new beginnings.

But for now let's not get ahead of ourselves, let us stay in the moment. This is the natural time for letting go.

At this moment my back is extremely painful and stiff, my "old wound" flared up the very day after the autumn equinox! My body, physical, emotional and mental is naturally letting go of old, outdated and inappropriate (no longer serving my intention/purpose) actions, feelings and thoughts. However, as is quite normal for the average human being my egoic mind is running a different agenda based on a different perspective…..the one where my mind believes itself to be the master, the protector and the final border of Who I Really Am.

My ego mind believes it needs to control everything, keeping certain things in check and promoting others etc. My mind has a lot to "do" and is very busy making sure that I appear in the correct manner befitting a "perfect" healer, mother, daughter, sister, lover, widow, employer, employee, hostess etc.

Consequently, as the powerful natural energy of autumn begins to lift away naturally redundant aspects of my psyche my ego mind feels all its defences and controls being lifted off and goes into full scale panic, starting to hold onto them even tighter creating a patchwork of stiff and contracted muscles!

Despite the inconvenience of hobbling around with a stick and getting stuck in some difficult positions I am at least consciously aware enough to recognise the gift of my situation.

Rather than just cursing my luck about my back going again I am seeing a message from my own body that reminds me that I wasn't dealing with the death of my partner quite as well as I had assumed, mostly because I keep trying to deal with it in a certain way that keeps me in control because the alternative of swirling around in that awful despair doesn't seem in the least inviting especially after decades of being in perfect control of everything in my life.

My beautiful partner Afa is gone and there is absolutely nothing I can do about that, nothing. No matter how well connected we are in other ways, in the world where my mind is master, Afa is gone and can never return, can never be touched again, no matter what I do. I am helpless and that's an energy that doesn't sit easy with me.

Herein lays my gift. I have no alternative other than to just "be" with what is arising now, I can't deceive myself for long, no matter how many times I convince myself that I am alright with his passing it always comes back and hits me again that he has physically gone. To my higher or more expanded self he isn't gone and our relationship continues in a new form but to my limited mind (limited by the belief that I begin and end in my body and mind) there is no such comfort.

My ego mind is trying to soldier on as best it can to save me from the pain in my heart but through my own work, meditations and teachings I recognise the way forward lies in allowing that inner aspect of me that is soldiering on to be fully present so that I may love it unconditionally. What it really represents is the young Sara who believes in a world of pain and fear that she faces alone and must try to navigate through to a place of safety. Rather than deriding her for that I can feel compassion for where she is (after all we are one and the same and I feel her fear and know her beliefs), I can hold her when she fears her demons and is lost in that darkness. Then outside of those times I can invite her to sit with me and see/feel/experience an expanded truth of reality, the bigger picture beyond the borders of that which she believes to be true. In that place she is able to recognise that her fears are ultimately illusions borne of the original belief that she is separate from the rest of the Universe, the original belief that she could cease to be whole.

The Universe, as I use the word is the amalgamation of all that ever was, is or will be. It is not possible to step outside of it because it is all that ever was, is and will be. Where else could we be if it is all that ever was, is or will be?

And so my painful back and tense muscles continue to give me an amazing gift, continue to help me make a stronger conscious connection between my expanded spiritual aspect and the old rejected aspects of self left behind in the dark and hidden in the shadows, rejected back in the times when I thought the way home was by cherry picking the "best" bits of me and discarding the rest! That approach could never achieve wholeness regardless of how many systems and controls I had put in place to keep the illusion going!

Now take a look around the world today and recognise how many old systems and beliefs are crashing around us. Those approaches could never have achieved wholeness amongst Mankind regardless of how many systems and controls had been put in place to keep the illusion going. When things become so painful and unbearable and we see no way forward then the truth begins to dawn, the pain begins to wake us up from our unconsciousness and we start to recognise the truth of Who We Really Are. Then we live that truth.

We Are Man and We Are One.

Life can be viewed from an endless multitude of angles. For example, my life is viewed from a white European, middle class, British, English, slightly Finnish, Christian, London, all girls school, 3 siblings, non-divorced parents, 2 divorces, 3 children, I've had cancer, the love of my life just died of cancer, point of view. It's extremely unlikely that anyone else would share exactly the same life view, especially when you consider that the examples quoted are but a mere fleck of this lifetime.

My collection of experiences, which are shaping my conscious awareness in this lifetime are no better than any other and no worse for that matter. They are just different; they are the cause creating the effect of how I view the world/Universe.

Even within myself I have many different views of the world. It all depends where you are standing doesn't it? When I'm standing in a very strong mother of a young girl place I do react and see things differently than when I am running a healing course. Neither is a better perspective, one fits more in line with spiritual teachings but that just makes it different, not better.

As humans we tend to focus on the differences between us rather than the similarities. Mankind may use different words or stand in different places but we are all looking at, being part of and experiencing, the same world.

I don't personally subscribe to any one particular mode of healing or spiritual advancement or lifestyle. Throughout my life there have been many times when I recognise the words of one teacher or system reflecting the thoughts of quite another, like fitting two giant pieces of a jigsaw together. This must be how the bigger picture comes together!

Those who don't have any particular requirement to have their god as the one true, excluding all others type god are readily able to recognise the similarities between all our gods and to recognise the common themes. Those who have no vested interest in a particular social structure can see the common threads woven through them all.

Even my experiences as a management accountant come into my healing perspective when I recognise the importance of my business plan and my mission statement….or setting my intention as we called it at the Energy Healing School.

We are all in relationship with each other, some in more obvious ways than others but there is always some relationship, or common theme amongst Mankind. From the strongest and most obvious such as lover or mother right through fellow management accountants, reiki healers, farmers/gardeners, writers, photographers all the way through to the recognition that we are all human. None better than any other, just all standing in different places and therefore having different perspectives on the world.

This relationship exists whether we recognise it or not just the same as my left foot exists and is in relationship to me whether I recognise it or not! When we consciously recognise and see our relationship to all things, especially other people we become more powerful.

When a large group stood together and announced their recognition of wanting a fairer, less biased media in the UK recently they were powerful and something wonderful happened, something life enhancing.

When large groups formed even more recently and focused on their differences and started name calling something powerful and destructive happened.

When your neighbour does something so destructive, so different to your ideals, why not keep in mind your relationship to them. Remember that you are both human, then wonder what perspective they might have which would cause them to act as they do when it really doesn't make any sense to you….because clearly it makes sense to them or they wouldn't be doing it.

We are all looking into and being part of the same world. We are all seeing it differently because we are all standing in different places. Some of us are more blinkered than others. In some parts of the world all we see is darkness even when others standing in different places see only light.

We don't need to fight for our view, it will always exist whether we fight for it or not. But when we are fighting our view is lost to us because we are focused elsewhere. When we believe we have to fight to maintain our view we become a self fulfilling prophecy. If we fight to keep "our" world intact we destroy it anyway by forgetting and not seeing our connections whilst being fearful of, rather than celebrating our differences.

Lead by example….or as Ghandi said, be the change you wish to see in the world. If you subscribe to the notion that you have a successful and therefore happy life by acquiring material items then don't be so surprised when your unhappy neighbour takes those items in an attempt to better his life. When we subscribe to a culture which ranks our worth by the size of our plasma TV or the newness of our mobile phone don't be surprised if that is what we create!

And finally, if you don't understand your neighbour but you would like to…go stand in his shoes for a while and see how they fit.

Imagine 1,000,000 energy particles, the same particles which make up the entire Universe. The Universe being all that ever is, was and will be……what we sometimes refer to as God.

If these particles are vibrating slowly they don't move so much and therefore their grouping is quite dense. This is the type of grouping which would appear to be solid to us, this is a physical manifestation. When the particles vibrate a little faster their volume expands, they create something less dense, not quite physical but still fairly tangible like an emotion. For example when someone you love dies it literally does feel like your heart breaks.

As the vibrational frequency of the same 1,000,000 energy particles rises the "object" they represent becomes increasingly less dense and therefore more expanded, finer but wider. For example they would manifest as a thought, we can definitely feel a thought but it isn't dense enough to create a physical presence at that level of vibration.

And so on this grouping of 1,000,000 energy particles continues, as its vibrational frequency increases it becomes less dense and therefore it takes up more space, it expands.

So far this example is a very structured, very male energy look at the make up of the Universe from the very limited confines of my human mind. Inhabiting these energy particles is consciousness, the loving flow of the Universal energy which cannot be described adequately in words but which we all recognise to one extent or another. This is the feminine aspect, the creative flow which brings the energy particles to life.

There is no fight between the Masculine and Feminine, they come together in a glorious synergetic dance which in turn creates the beautiful abundance of the Universe, now and forever more in limitless forms. The Masculine and Feminine together give birth to the Child, the manifestation of their union. The creative consciousness lighting the energy particles in whichever particular vibrational frequency they are occupying creates a unique creation, trees, planets, solar systems, anger, sorrow, joy, poems, art, dance, song and all the nameless creations beyond the human mind. These are all Children of the Universe, we are Children of the Universe.

We are all at once, by virtue of our very make up, the Mother, Father and Child of the Universe. We are the Holy Trinity!!

My pain showed me the way to this truth. The pain of loss and sorrow in the physical is overwhelming, threatening to crush my chest and leave me in pieces, such is the density of my energy particles in a physical body. Emotionally it is less dense but still sorrow and pain loom over me like an engulfing wave that will swallow me up and wipe me from existence.

But when I am expanded and occupying a higher vibrational state such as I might achieve during quiet reflection or meditation I am able to see the pain as a part of my overall world. When I am expanded, in a higher vibrational state I see further because I occupy a larger area because I am less dense. There is therefore more room in the overall outlook for something other than just my pain and sorrow. I am seeing a bigger picture and within that picture my pain isn't so overwhelming and confusing.

Here is a simple exercise on the physical level to show just how this works.

I am always free to slow down my vibration again and completely squeeze myself back into a denser physical body. It's a wonderful way to experience intense pain! Squeeze your boundless consciousness into a very dense state, so dense that it creates a physical form, squeeze it in so tight that you cut yourself off (like the dead leg you get when you momentarily cut off the blood supply) from the rest of your consciousness and so you forget that this physical manifestation isn't all of you, you forget how light and expanded you are free to be as and when you desire.

In this state all you know and remember is a physical presence and this is wonderful for creating experiences of pain and suffering. In this state it appears that when your body begins to fall apart it means that you are literally falling into pieces and it seems inevitable that you will cease to exist when you die. The very thought of ceasing to exist creates an intense unending grief, pain and suffering.

As you can see from the exercise given above there is the possibility to inhabit the physical body but without believing it to be the be all and end all of life itself. When we expand, our physical body doesn't disappear, we still inhabit it, we still have a physical consciousness and presence but we also have a greater consciousness. We are able to remember and recognise that we are more than a grouping of particles, we are more than a consciousness, we are the Child of the Universe, We are the Expression.

We are the expression of life, my cries of pain and sorrow are part of my unique and beautiful song, they are part of my expression of Love. They don't create Love or define it or grow it. There is no need to create or define Love because Love just is. However, I have the beautiful honour and ability to be a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual expression of Love through my very existence in whichever form I choose……and so do You.

Looking metaphysically at my ovarian cancer there was an obvious imbalance and non-acceptance of feminine energy which culminated in the destruction of my feminine body. This was of course all subconscious until my cancer shook my very foundations and awakened me to the truth of my self created reality. The following decade saw me recognising and accepting how I had dismissed the feminine as weak and how I had sought to avoid any association with femininity.....unless it could be used as a weapon for gaining power via sexuality.

I've learnt over the past 11 years not only that full health and peace lie in a balance of both masculine and feminine energies but that my perception of feminine weakness was mistaken (derived from a skewed perspective and an incomplete outlook). I came to recognise how the graceful flexibility of the feminine allowed me to be open to all experiences flowing to and through me, that when I bent with the wind and went with the flow I didn't break and I didn't need to try and be anything. When the wind blows hard and it appears that it may knock you down or snap you, feeling the strength of your roots in the earth and the suppleness (non rigidity) of your form allows you to recognise that there never is any need to fear.

In fact it is only when we fear we may snap in the wind that we begin to stiffen our stance and contract our muscles ready for a fight.....and then it is this stiffness and rigidity which makes us vulnerable to snapping and breaking.....we become a self fulfilling prophecy.

I was recently in Malta visiting some ancient temple sites (oldest approx. 7,000 years old) and tuning into the feminine energy there. At one site I was physically pulled aside and so I sat down to meditate and allow the energy to flow through me. This in turn caused a very physical reaction in a very feminine body part! Not a particularly pleasant reaction but I didn't panic because I recognised the cleansing effect. All expulsions from the body are cleansing!! When we are sick the body expels toxins via coughing, vomiting, sweating, defecating, rashes, runny noses etc. When we stop these reactions because we think of them as the sickness rather than the symptoms we stop our innate healing mechanisms and effectively trap the toxins inside our body wherein they can do most harm. But I digress...

I also visited some very beautiful catholic churches, one on the island of Gozo is known as the Miracle church. We only had a brief 10 minute stop there and once again I felt myself guided through the church to sit up by the altar where I felt a very strong presence of the modern day feminine energy in the form of the Mother Mary. Mary has appeared just a few times in my own healings over the years but I recognise the energy.

Then in St John's cathedral on Malta there was a prayer room closed to tourists but I asked if I would be permitted to go and pray in there and was told of course! I was a bit worried that I'm not catholic and don't pray in the traditional sense but I figured that just sitting quietly and conversing was my own form of pray and wouldn't offend anyone! As I stepped into the chapel the energy was tangible, there was no need for communication as I was sat in the midst of the most concentrated form of feminine power I have ever experienced!!

The trip has changed me so fundamentally that I cannot even recognise what has changed, as if my entire background wallpaper beyond my consciousness has been completely stripped and renewed! I knew that I had been working towards incorporating the feminine principal into my consciousness and taking that beautiful grace and strength forwards in combination and synergy with my masculine energies and now it seems that a huge step forward (or a vast expansion) has been undertaken.

It puts me in mind of one of my favourite pieces of "healing" music, Holy Harmony by Jonathan Goldman.

The chanting of YHSVH (Yod, Hey, Shin, Vav, Hey) takes the sacred name of God YHVH (Yahway) and puts Shin into the middle, the Eternal Flame, the Third mother Letter, the Root of Fire. This is like the bridge between Heaven and Earth, the energy of spirit descended into matter representing the personal transformation from human into superhuman, from earthly to heavenly, from body to spirit via "crucifixion" on the "cross of space and time".

Put simply, now that I'm consciously aware of my deep roots into the body of the Earth (Mother Earth eternally holding me in love) and my flexibility and grace borne of no longer fearing to be all that I am whether or not that is understood by others, I don't need to be spending all my time "trying" to be a certain something (because anything goes) therefore all that freed up energy is channelled into the ever expanding conscious awareness of Who I Really Am. Simply, the even bigger picture has emerged and a lot more makes sense now. Life goes on just as before but I am entering a new age of serenity and miracles. Amen!

To anyone else out there being pulled by an unknown energy, just trust yourself and let go, let yourself be in the flow without fear and be open to wherever it may take you. This isn't something you can plan because it takes you beyond your wildest dreams!

Program includes:

Daily meditation practice covering various techniques to enhance awareness in many areas

Receive an attunement to awaken your own abilities to learn how to connect with your own healing energy

Healing practice as a group

Intention setting

A look at our defences - the attitudes which produce our walls and boundaries to keep us from pain but which also stop the life force flowing and strangle our joy

No previous experience is required

Lots of free time to spend in the beautiful natural surroundings

Use of lake and rowing boat

Traditional sauna

Airport transfer available

Full board (breakfast, lunch & dinner) Guests help share with meal preparation including collection of produce from the organic garden/forest

Campfire

Maximum 5 places

Accommodation is shared in the retreat cottage and house

Flights from London stansted to Tampere via Ryan Air start from around £120 return (if booked early)

Flights from London Heathrow to Helsinki via Blue1 start from around £170 return

Testimonials from previous guests....

Dear Sara, you are so welcoming & there is such love here. The difference in me in 5 days is amazing! This is the most beautiful place. I will take back so many wonderful memories....You have been so kind. Your love and healing has helped me see so much and within such a warm & comforting environment. It has felt so natural & I have felt so held. I thank you & this beautiful place.

Victoria (student)

I have had just the best time ever, with the best people and animals in the most beautiful and peaceful place I have ever seen. I feel different...better different and safe..like there is nothing I can't do.

Sandra (book keeper/mum)

Wow! What a perfect holiday and to think I was worried about coming on holiday on my own! Thank you, thank you for holding my hand in this marvellous, special and fantabulous place and allowing me to be me and deal with process and let go of lots of stuff. You're all fab and even as I leave I can't wait to return.

Tina (teacher)

Summer retreat Sunday 31st July 2011 - Sunday 7th August 2011
Note: the first day is for folk to arrive and settle, therefore the program begins on the Monday

A retreat week that rides along on the full light energy of the Northern lands that creates a safe place for us to shine and be ourselves. Sunshine, sauna and swimming!!

Autumn retreat Sunday 25th Septemeber 2011 - Sunday 2nd October 2011
Note: the first day is for folk to arrive and settle, therefore the program begins on the Monday

A retreat week which taps directly into the autumnal energy of letting go, as we release old parts of our self which no longer serve our purpose.

Letting them fall away like leaves from the tree to provide fertilizer for the new growth to come the following Spring.

The Earth energy at Mairela Retreat is most tangible at this time of year making it a very grounded place for shifting our old comfort zones!

I feel the darkness within me and instead of rejecting it and expelling it I embrace it and accept it as an integral part of Who I Really Am. When I'm not using my energy to fight against darkness (which in fact is an impossible paradoxical struggle with myself) I have peace and stillness allowing me to remain expanded and maintain a self embrace of love and holding encompassing the whole of me (dark/light, good/bad, beautiful/ugly, happy/sad, up/down, black/white, alpha/omega, yin/yang etc.). Experiencing my darkness and pain through the eyes, thoughts and feelings of a self holding embrace of love and light is what embues me with my power, my soft and flexible feminine power which further empowers my holding of others as a healer.

I'm not really "healing" others, merely standing with them in their pain (via empathy) and letting my strong, loving feminine light shine so they too can recognise their own pain as a part of the whole of Who They Really Are and thus drop the constant struggle against it, thereby freeing up energy to shine their light too. A truly dark place is hard to figure out and understand because it is so dark, it's much easier to find reason when someone throws a little light into the dark so that patterns begin to emerge. It's much easier to stand and examine our fears when someone strong and loving is stood next to us holding our hand

I couldn't be a strong loving and holding presence if I feared the dark or ran from pain or avoided suffering. I couldn't do this if I didn't recognise my true feminine power derives from my openness, allowing all aspects of me to be present knowing (with Divine certainty) that when and where my light shines fear has no power over me.

My "job" at Mairela is to give others the opportunity to experience for themselves how we can all embrace and live with our own darkness, pain or suffering by allowing our light to shine on it.

We learn about our fears by facing them and understanding them, recognising who or what they really are. When we begin recognising them as aspects of our own frightened inner child searching for love and acceptance we begin our our own unique self healing journey through self love and self acceptance. That is what's so beautiful about this recognition, it doesn't need weird courses or complicated skills to create our own healing, it requires only love and we are all extremely capable of love as it is our Essential nature.

The experiences at Mairela healing retreat are thus incorporated into our daily lives. Our experience of facing our fears, our recognition that they arise and are enhanced by ourselves through our own fearful inner child aspect searching for love, warmth, safety and acceptance gives rise to an emergence of nurturing strength and power based on our own self love and acceptance.

We recognise that when our energy shines from our heart fuelled by self love and acceptance our inner child experiences the love, warmth, acceptance and holding they were searching for and thus their fears subside. When the source of this love, warmth and holding is recognised as the same source of our inner child all desperate searches for love stop and effortlessly disappear taking their created pain and suffering with them.

There is no magic or secret formula to inner peace and strength. When we allow ourselves to expand so that our consciousness inhabits all aspects of Who We Really Are everything is experienced and recognised at the same time. The previously seemingly separate pieces come together to form a new picture, a new mindset so to speak and we begin to act differently, we see things differently, we make different choices based on bigger (more encompassing) and different beliefs.

The old isn't lost but just becomes a part of the bigger picture and as such its truthful reality is clearer to see. From this place we continue to grow in a naturally increasing (expanding) circle like the ripples across a lake after the first tumultuous splash from a rock. The bigger the rock we can stand to throw in, the bigger the splash and the stronger and further reaching the ripples....

However, there is no gold medal for throwing the biggest rock, after all if it causes us to sink and panic then we have only succeeded in creating more fear! Small pebbles and gravel produce beautiful ripples and movement too!

The lake at Mairela is always ready and waiting for another rock to be tossed in.......

I like that I can take a long walk around the block in the winter returning home over the lake. Walking on water every winter is one amazing experience which helps to shake off old thought patterns of rigid realities. Sometimes when it snows a lot the weight of the snow creates pressure and consequently new flows and currents in the water below the ice, sometimes bringing slightly warmer water from the bottom up to the top in a fountain which in turn creates a hole in the ice and the lake water bubbles out over the top of the ice. When this happens I have to find my old path created by the compacted snow of my footsteps in order for me to get home without wet feet! This winter we had a lot of snow and when I lost the path I found myself in water past the top of my boots!

It also takes some experiential mind training to not be panicked by your foot going through the surface into water when you know that you are walking on a frozen lake! Another unique experience to give my body some slightly different world views!

Of course sometimes the wind blows and the snow drifts neatly filling in my footsteps and obscuring my well trodden path. Then I need to look carefully and recognise the subtle differences in the snow patterns signifying where I will find my compacted path and thus keep my feet dry!

When walking in the dark Finns usually have some kind of reflector on their clothes so that drivers can spot them more easily in the dark. I don't always have anything with me when I go walking in the early dark mornings with my dog but I feel safe so long as I remember that the person driving towards me cannot see me and I make myself responsible for my safety. This strategy had worked well for years but twice this year I found flaws in my plan!

The first time there was a forest machine collecting logs. These machines are huge with powerful lights over them and massive wheels taller than me covered in chains to assist them driving right through the forest collecting felled timber. Normally I step off the road when something is coming but it suddenly occurred to me that this machine didn't necessarily have to stick to the road and could actually just drive right over me and the driver wouldn't even feel a bump! Scary moment but obviously I didn't get run down.

Another morning as I heard a vehicle approaching me from behind I stepped right to the very edge of the road with my dog to wait for the vehicle to pass us by but I kept getting a nagging tapping on my head from my angels so I turned round to see what was the problem and found the problem was that a large truck with a snow plough attached to the front was heading down the road towards me and of course the plough went right to the very edge of the road and would have swept me up very easily if I'd stayed where I was. I grabbed the dog, ran across the other side of the road and thanked my angels for their help!

Something had happened to the tap in my kitchen, it developed a leak and because my water is pumped in from my well the leak meant the pump was constantly going off. I created an easily accessible switch for the pump, effectively stopping the constantly running tap, and waited for the plumber....and waited and waited. It has been almost 2 months now that I have waited....it seems that plumbers the world over are fairly similar, promising to turn up, not showing up and then ignoring all your phone calls! You quickly get used to going downstairs to switch on the pump, going to the loo and then going back downstairs to switch off the pump again once the cistern has refilled. Then the temperature drops to -30 and the water pipes to the loo freeze up and so you can't flush it anyway but it's ok because the pipes to the shower still work so you can fill a bucket of water (once you've run downstairs to switch on the pump!) and flush the toilet with that.

But we don't focus on the awkward toilet facilities because the scenery outside is absolutely stunning.....another lesson for the mind! The weather got warmer and hit a fairly tropical -3. Then we had some strange freezing rain! It was like everything got sprayed in a very thin but very strong plastic coating! The trees and their snowy branches got coated adding to the weighty burden they already carried. My car got coated and it took ages to scrape it off before I could get in my car and drive home. I couldn't leave it because it was like trying to see to drive through frosted glass!

As the burden on the trees continued with additional snowfalls we awoke one morning last week to find many trees had bent over during the night creating tunnels along the roads. It all looked very pretty but unfortunately the trees bending over at the side of the road (because there were no other trees to hold then up) took down a lot of power lines that also run along the edge of the road. So most of us didn't have any electricity for a day...or in some cases for several days!

I had been especially delighted to have been reminded by my angels that my cesspit was almost full! I dug through the metre of snow making a little path to the opening and checked inside.....the angels were correct, perfect timing! I sent a message to the poo man as I call him (but not when I speak to him!) and rejoiced in my efficiency.

Then I got a message back that because of the electricity cuts the local council weren't accepted any waste for a few days. Enter a new phase of bucket use in the toilet! At least I have the outside toilet too even if it isn't always so convenient in the middle of the night being 200 metres away from the house! But the scenery is lovely!

I became accustomed to the fairly mild weather around -5 for a week so that one morning when it was -24 I realised I would have to heat my car for a while before heading off to my work experience place (part of learning Finnish plan!). I plugged in the usual attachment which heats the oil which in turn protects the engine but I thought I should also give the battery some help too.

I usually plug in a fan heater and stick it under the bonnet for a while to warm the battery but that particular morning I found that the entire bonnet was iced shut...of course I could have run the engine to defrost the bonnet but I couldn't start the engine without warming the battery, doh!

Things which are iced together may as well be cemented together for those who don't know but if you give them a sharp tap for some reason they will part. So I spent 10 minutes bouncing up and down around the edges of my bonnet trying to free it. I would surely get some strange looks if I lived in suburbia but then I would also probably have a nice heated garage and wouldn't have this problem in the first place!

One morning I set my car running to warm it up before heading off and then I got a phone call to tell me I wasn't needed that day. Three hours later I remembered my car was still running! Whoops!

Having said all that I love and fully appreciate the fact that the very same weather which creates problems for me in the wintertime is also the same weather which brings me awesome scenery, stunning sunrises and sunsets, magical moonlit landscapes, pure fresh air and months of calm stillness for inner reflection before I emerge into the Spring and begin my next period of growth and expansion.

I choose my point of focus wisely.

It really has been a very long time since these pages have been visited.

This time has been taken up by many journeys through darkness both physical and mental.

The new energies of the Earth are strengthening and their power is pulling us all into a new space wherein the rigid blocks of old habits cannot follow and we feel the pain of separation as these habits and energies either fall away or we struggle even harder to maintain them and our old facade.

For me there is comfort in recognising we are all currently in the same dark space because that means we can stretch out our arms and touch our neighbours, we are more driven to connect with each other and in doing so will create Union on Earth.

Here are some of my thoughts from these past 10 weeks.

My double bind!

I spend a lot of time lamenting the notion that I am not seen and I am not heard.

Then when someone stops to look and listen for a while I notice that they really are seeing and hearing me as I actually am. Then I really panic!! I drive them away or retreat back into my darkness wherein I feel safe once more, no longer in danger of anyone finding out how awful I really am and not at all like the perfect image I would like to be and try to project.

Then after some time in the dark I feel isolated and resent being unseen and unheard......and so the cycle continues.....

Observation In The Dark

At this time of year we all spend a lot of time in the dark, seemingly at times with no chance of reprieve in sight as we head towards the shortest day.

This year has been no different for me except that I have kept a firmer footing in the space which remembers that no matter how dark the night gets, dawn will always come, that no matter how long the Winter of darkness lasts Spring will always follow.

I need make no effort to bring light, its arrival is implicit.

From this place I have observed myself in the darkness without being totally immersed in it as if it were the entirety of my Universe.

This has allowed me to observe, understand and hold my frightened inner child as she struggles to find love as if it were something she must earn or discover.

I have been on hand to hold her so that she experiences the love that is always surrounding her even when she is too busy panicking to notice or recognise it.

Little Sara has taught me much about conditional and unconditional love this autumn. I am grateful for these experiences.

Painful!

I've spent my life analysing every detail, finding out what works and what doesn't, who looks happy and why that might be, who looks rejected and why that might be. How to avoid pain and how to find love.

Having analysed it all I find that the way to a peaceful life of unconditional love is to stop analysing everything!!

This Autumn has also brought me experiences from the other side of the cancer situation as my beautiful love explores and experiences his mesothelioma. The practice of unconditional love creates a safe space for the both of us to be just as we are, sometimes holding and loving, sometimes scared and rejecting yet still maintaining a wider field of love that holds and encompasses all in a loving soft hug. When I run away he trusts I will return and when he is absent I trust this is exactly what needs to happen, we both trust in angels guiding us and we both trust the intrinsic loving nature of the Universe/God.

When faced with painful situations it's hard for me not to revert to trying to be wonderfully saint like and perfect all the time but I have learnt to recognise how that doesn't really help to bring peace or love as it creates stress for me and defines my love as a "victim", a role which doesn't serve a useful purpose for anyone.

One day as I allowed the darkness to come this was my experience.....

As I descended into the darkness, indeed a dark night of the soul, I saw it, I felt it. The implicit nature of Spring following Midwinter, the cycle of life. There was peace and calm even in the swirling blackness, a rosy border of love like the first sign of sunset. Goethe's words were present and holding. " Trust yourself and you will know how to be" and then I saw your hand in mine my love.

We are strong,

We are holding,

We are.

We are trusting the process,

We are trusting life, love and all.

We are holding each other

And the strength is beyond my comprehension,

Indescribable indeed!

Yet safe and warm and permanent.

We are laughing as we dance,

Eyes shining bright,

I see you and you see me,

As we truly are,

And the wave continues.......

I Am Blessed, We Are Blessed, Blessed Be.

Throughout my book "Thoughts From My Gift of Cancer" I tell how my pursuit of love through the perceived adoration of being a saint drove me to almost destroy myself with the relentless self analysis and identification with image. Even after all this time that identification with an inner image of perfection remains and I can still slip into defences and rigidity when I forget myself. Sometimes I am still to be found defending against unseen monsters.

Bless me!

I study on my Finnish language course (what a complicated language!) and also practice awareness so that I may recognise and remain mindful of my true choices.

My choices range between creating perfectly constructed and grammatically correct sentences which would enhance my inner image of so called perfection OR to communicate and express myself in Finnish in order to connect with folk.

The two are not actually mutually exclusive but if I spend all my time constructing perfection, checking it again and again until I am absolutely sure I haven't made any mistakes so that it lives up to my inner image of utopia then I am completely absorbed and sucked in by the pursuit of effortful perfection i.e. I believe 100% in a world wherein I can fail!

Of course that would be my choice because I choose and construct the world I live in. But is that the world I am really still choosing to construct after all I've recognised this past decade?

No, it's not but I do recognise the feathery strands and roots of that original belief and thought have run deep and spread holographically throughout all. Awareness is a key factor enabling me to step out of the spreading roots before they strangle me.

It's easy to get caught up in roots and strands which pervade everything and then start fighting with them and against them, trying to slash them in order to break free.

This creates a cosmic struggle wherein we are fighting against ourselves, destroying ourselves unknowingly whilst believing we are saving ourselves from unknown and random roots invading and pervading our space.

Without awareness we don't recognise who created the roots and strands. Without awareness we don't recognise the roots and strands as a self created defence mechanism.

Without awareness we don't recognise our own defence mechanisms will strengthen and grow when they are attacked. Without awareness we don't recognise how attack confirms the beliefs that defences are needed!

Without awareness we don't see we are both attacker and defender locked in a battle which can never be won. Such is the cosmic struggle of many of us.

Without awareness it appears we are offered no choices.

When an "enemy" knocks on the door, instead of attacking them, invite them in for a cup of tea. Sit down and get to know them. Discover what they represent. Unmask them. When we take the time to recognise, explore, hear, see, acknowledge and understand our "enemy" we recognise our enemy is ourself.

When we sit quietly and unmask our enemy only to recognise that it is our own self would we continue to fight and try to destroy it?

Whilst I defended so hard against not being perfect I erroneously and unknowingly destroyed those parts of myself I considered "not good enough". When you eat yourself up like that it manifests as the physical form we know as "cancer" Not knowing any better all those years ago I set about trying to destroy the cancer as if it were some random and chance event unconnected to my thoughts and beliefs.

Eventually I recognised my cancer as a gift starkly showing me the darkness to remind me to bring light into my life. I began sitting down with my "enemies" and explored my reasons for creating such defences and unobtainable images of perfection. My "enemy" was always defending out of fear and I had always attacked back out of fear.

When I recognised my "enemy" as me and my cancer as my physically manifested defence I turned to love. Love begets love. When all is loved and accepted I have no reason to defend and with no reason to defend I have no need of defences. With no defences I have no cancer.

With no defences everything is open to the light and when the light shines through there is no place for dark.

Not easy but simple.

Imagine yourself balanced on a beam, poised and still, all parts working effortlessly together to create a serene harmony of elegance and grace. This is our true balanced nature.

Then something goes out of balance for some reason and what happens?

We begin to oscillate back and forth, left and right, as we are thrown off balance.

What next?

Maybe we use conscious effort to bring ourselves back to the original position, regain our focus and become balanced again just as we were. Maybe the violent tipping frightened us and our new focus is now not quite so relaxed as before, maybe now we are left with a fear of tipping.

Or sometimes we oscillate so violently that we crash to the floor and lay broken in pieces in a completely different space.

Sometimes we may try and rebuild and climb back up to where we were before - if our previous status seems so important to us.

Or sometimes we allow ourselves to recognise how easily and effortlessly we are held by the Earth. When we recognise the holding we have we find a new beginning, a firm foundation on which our rebuild finds balance. A new balance which incorporates the insights gained from our previous crashes.

We learnt to walk and cycle.

There is no reason this approach needs to change just because we are "grown up".

Sometimes when we lose balance and crash we find our landing place isn't very stable either and we continue to unbalance and crash.

Sometimes it appears we may never stop crashing downwards but we always do eventually come to a firm grounding at some point.

When we crash back to Mother Earth and shatter into a thousand pieces we are ready for our most beautiful rebuild into an effortlessly balanced Being of Light, firmly rooted into the beautiful foundations of Mother Earth enabling us to soar effortlessly through the heights of our Father Sky and thus we become a true Child of the Universe.

We Are Always Held

Pain Shows The Way Home

When exploring the roots of my cancer I came to consciously accept that I didn't trust anyone. At first this was a big shock as to the outside world I appeared to be an overly trusting person, giving away my thoughts and heart as easily as candy. Yet my inner depths were locked away from sight whilst I merely ran a contrived and controlled world on the surface as I sought the grand prize of love through acceptance.

I wanted to create change in my life because if we keep doing the same things we will keep getting the same results….and I had had cancer.

In order to change anything in my life I first had to accept that I had it!

And I recognised the same truth of course applied to myself. If I required nothing of myself to show up in a particular way or play a certain role then I had no reason to not trust how I was.

I had spent so many decades trying to be all things to all people in a vain effort to receive accolade and acceptance which I erroneously believed would equate to unconditional love and now I recognised the impossibility of such a task. Trying to get all the other 6 billion people to really like you is exhausting!

Trying to get others to like me limited and bound me so much I created my own dis-ease and in turn limited all others.

Now I have no requirement for any part of myself to change, now I accept all parts however they show up, now I have complete trust in all things.

In Essence I don't even really have trust, what I have is the absence of anything which would create experiences of non-trust.

Just like some folk say that God forgives but in Essence there is no forgiveness because there was never any judgement in the first place.

I've come to recognise over the years how the framework for my healing work matches the framework of my current consciousness. In previous years I explored my shadow, meeting monsters and demons and resuscitating my lost inner child, releasing redundant thought forms no longer aligned with my new purpose and recognising my inner depths and glorious heights as I walked through the valley of the shadow of death on my way to heaven on earth.

Having spent so much time working in such an area I came to recognise the monsters and demons as illusions, not useless illusions for they had been the very instruments bringing to the glorious place I currently reside in but illusions nevertheless.

Having lived and worked with the beasts and demons for a few years I understand them and by understanding them and how they came to be created I naturally view them with compassion for they were all created by me as ways and means of achieving love, warmth and safety. Albeit mistakenly created for I had not yet seen the truth of Creation.

When we view a beast with compassion and understanding we naturally step into unconditional love and then the real magic happens. When we stand before our beasts experiencing them unconditionally and lovingly we consciously experience our own self generated love, warmth and safety and therefore our beasts are no longer required and they simply melt away.

The more I embody this unconditional love the further reaching the effects of the melting become.

There is a true holistic healing as the positive effects of unconditional love flows freely throughout my physical body with each new opening building on the last and creating the next. The same is happening in my emotional body and my mind as the freedom given by understanding and compassion allows all things to be seen and heard and experienced without fear, guilt or shame. With this approach there is no requirement to be anything other than Who I Really Am in each and every unique unfolding moment. This is how we achieve true peace and thereby experience love, warmth and safety.

This year has seen the emergence of unconditional love into all of my healing work. In fact it can barely be called healing work anymore as guests come and receive love and recognition of Who They Really Are without any thought or action towards that which they are not.

The journey forwards requires nothing more than awareness of Who I Really Am. When I am consciously aware of Who I Really Am I naturally recognise my freedom to choose my experiences. I naturally recognise the voice of my mind when it grows out of balance because I experience pain, stress, tension and frustration.

When I consciously recognise any of these as being present I naturally know I have momentarily forgotten Who I Really Am and I have become a little lopsided because my mental energy is shouting and disrupting the balance and harmony. Maybe old wounds have arisen like old splinters making their way to the surface and I forget myself as I zoom in on the pain or become frightened by their presence.

To achieve love, warmth and safety I embody love, warmth and safety. To embody them I bring to mind all the understanding and compassion of where I have been and my own experiences. When all of those are present I cannot fail to be unconditionally loving because I see the path which led me to pain.

When I am unconditionally loving I have no requirement to hold onto anything and all that naturally arises to pass and be released can do so.

So you see that embodying love doesn't mean that I don't have old mind holdings arising and threatening to pull me once more into illusion and drama. The healing path is never about eliminating or rejecting any part of who we are, instead we grow ourselves to reveal our power and our choices, we expand our horizons so that when old monsters rear up they are a small part of Who We Really Are and we are peacefully able to recognise them as an integral piece of our experience, a vital part of our song and their true meaning is revealed by their place in our song.

All parts of the song are there for a reason. If we look at any of them in isolation they lose their true meaning but when we put it all together in harmony it is beautifully awesome.

Embodying love enables us to sing our song because we love ourselves no matter what note we hit. Embodying love allows our song to be seen and recognised because we don't care what songs we sing and we are not afraid to be heard because the approval of others is no longer the place we look to for love. We have no need to search for love anymore when we are embodying it ourselves.

Thoughts From My Gift of Cancer

A Journey of Recognition and Self Acceptance:

Having spent a lifetime emulating sainthood in order to feel acceptable and loved, the grand illusion of health and serenity was finally shattered by the discovery of cancer. From Management Accountant in the MOD to Holistic Healer in the forest Sara claimed her life back by taking responsibility for creating her own dis-ease albeit unknowingly. So began the work of uncovering and untangling old, distorted and limiting beliefs blocking her life force to ultimately unveil the truth of Who She Really Is.

We are all powerful beings of light whether we recognise it or not. Some of us are sitting amidst the greatest gift ever created and have no idea of its existence, in fact would fight tooth and nail to deny its very existence. When I remember I am a powerful being of light I remember that nothing can affect me. How could I possibly be this powerful and yet be subject to a virus or food poisoning etc? So why am I?

There is then one thing equally powerful as me as a light being and that is of course me. When my mind creates a world it does not recognise all of Who I Really Am and creates from the physical levels it knows, understands and believes it controls. The light power behind these thoughts is still there assisting that creation but as all things are equal and perfect when viewed as the whole there is nothing or nobody stepping in to tell the mind of its illusions. Our light being aspect helping us to create this reality recognises all things can and do exist in perfect harmony at the highest level and therefore has no need to step in and "rescue" us from illusionary pain and suffering.

The aspect of me creating this physical world is a child of the universe, playing with experience and getting very mucky with it. If I spend all my life living as this immature child with no other presence I begin to become the child (I begin to have no conscious awareness elsewhere) and suddenly this playground of mucky games becomes my reality. If I forget the place where I can step out of all this (or equally reside within), the physical world all becomes very real and absolute, it becomes my reality and the playing stops. Suddenly it's not so funny anymore. This is not a nice place to feel stuck in.

One moment I was a child experiencing a different aspect feeling safe and secure with my higher self observing and holding me, the next I dropped into the physical reality and lost my connection, suddenly it all became real and I could only vaguely remember the safe, loving holding of acceptance. Panic set in and I began to scrabble round to find the place where that safe, loving, warm acceptance lay.

Instead of recognising it to be already there and sitting quietly until I tuned into it again, I recognised and evaluated the looks of happiness and peace in other people's face and attitudes and energy fields (although I was not consciously aware I was reading them) and I began trying to emulate and reconstruct the situations which created those attitudes in others. When I felt and experienced anger, hatred, grief and sadness I took note of the circumstances surrounding these experiences and made controls and defences to ensure these types of experiences were never allowed to arise again.

This was the old energy. After so many traumatic years in that playpen I made myself so ill and stressed from all the effort to find peace, love, warmth and acceptance that I collapsed dis-eased. When I no longer had the strength to continue trying to create utopia I let go of some of my walls of defence and began to espy angels through the cracks. Literally when I began to crack I could see through to the other side and it was marvellous!

Thus began the work of understanding my walled defences so that I might begin to take them down without inducing any more fear.

These days I observe my child playing in her new lighter and expanded pen. Yes it is still a pen, the walls have been reconstructed at a more expanded level to create a vaster pen and one day even those walls may feel too restrictive but for now I continue to feel safe in my explorations.

Sometimes when my inner child, little Sara feels very afraid I wrap her up in a lovely warm blanket so that she feels secure, warm, held, loved and accepted but I don't keep her wrapped in the blanket all the time just to avoid ever feeling those feelings of fear.

Wrapping up in a secure blanket is a neutral matter, the meaning and what we create all stem from our intention. Do we intend to explore further when we are all ready and no aspect gets left behind feeling afraid rejected and abandoned? Or are we so afraid of some unknown monster that we reject and hide based on our limited experiences of a world of fear and isolation?

The other advantage of this observation point is that the stuff which previously took 100% of your focus and appeared to create your entire world is now viewed from a higher perspective and can actually appear as a fairly insignificant dot on the horizon of the bigger picture.

We find our unique higher place in stillness, peace and serenity. We can't get to the higher place in the midst of turmoil if we haven't ever practiced being there outside of drama therefore regular meditative practice is extremely beneficial, but doesn't need to be the old fashioned view of meditation wherein you chant "ohm" or contemplate your navel (although you could do).

Meditative practice is quiet time spent alone with yourself to observe yourself impartially and unconditionally thereby allowing the full picture to emerge.

When the full picture emerges everything begins to make effortless sense and "trying" becomes a thing of the past taking with it stress, attachment, suffering and pain.

Reading this and nodding sagely won't achieve that. Incorporate spending time alone with yourself into your life. Use time alone to recognise yourself and learn to understand yourself with compassion. Then see what happens. The world will change. Money back guarantee if it doesn't!

I seem to be surrounded by world wide controversies whichever way I turn these days watching folk get caught up fighting over who is right or wrong about a certain issue. GM food and global warming are two such topics which have the public and scientists disagreeing amongst themselves.

It's hard to know who to believe when there is just so much information out there. Sometimes information is deliberately misleading because the originator has their eye on a different target and is doing the best they can to achieve that end. Sometimes information is incomplete because the originator truly believes they have seen the whole picture when their world is actually limited and skewed in outlook.

The old parable of truth springs to mind. Six blind men all describing different parts of an elephant to each other and disagreeing over who is really speaking the truth because their descriptions are all different, one describes the trunk, another the tusk, another an ear, another a leg, another the tail and another the body.

If we get caught up in arguing about who has the "right" answer we don't even allow room for the experience of stepping back. It seems that we're not actually interested in discovering the reality of elephant, our energy is more invested in being right!

There is nothing wrong with investing all our energy in being "right" if that is what we choose, after all we are all free to choose our life experiences. Only I sometimes observe we haven't quite sat still and quiet for long enough to recognise exactly what our particular choice is bringing us and we certainly haven't been aware enough to recognise which master our intention is serving.

We are all free to choose our own intention and purpose yet when we don't step back to take in the bigger picture we often mistakenly choose a path which takes us further from where we thought we'd like to go.

If you can accept all experiences arising without need to change them, improve them, control them, hide from them or deny them then you have true peace. From true peace safety and security are implicit. The idea of accepting all experiences seems alien and threatening because we are caught up with our own piece of the elephant, that piece represents our own world that we've built around us to create safety and security so we're not going to let anyone come along and pull it down. Anyone challenging our world is seen as hostile and defended against. A world based on separation principals can only recognise "this" or "that" rather than the stepping back to the space wherein both are present naturally creating an enhanced view of reality.

The bigger picture shows more thereby revealing a greater truth of reality.

Scientists truly believe they are helping to save Man by creating GM foods to produce bigger harvests etc but they haven't stepped back to recognise greater truth such as recognising Mother Earth as a system in totality. The devastating effects of deforestation have been known to Man for a long time now. When we remove the trees their roots no longer bind the earth together and erosion takes place. When we remove the trees their shading effect is lost and the ground is hard baked. When we remove trees the water and minerals pulled up by their roots is lost to our soil.

Empty food arrives in our shops (never mind the unknown and unseen effects of fiddling with genes) and we consume these unnatural products. Our bodies don't recognise what we ingest and hide it all away throughout our bodies to keep our vital organs safe.

Startled by the rise in sick people scientists get to work on tablets and potions to improve our health and so on the ever destructive cycle continues spiralling down. When all you see is the human side of sickness and disease it seems to make sense to fiddle with genes and produce "super" plants to combat our problems….but the knowledge base of those producing the "super" foods is the same knowledge base which has failed to recognise the destructive effects of deforestation (to name just one).

We argue and fight over what is affecting the planet's weather patterns, we argue and fight over whether the weather has even been affected. One thing I observe is that it's mightily hard to recognise the true nature of a system when you are an integral piece of the system with no capacity to step outside it or consciously recognise yourself as the whole of it. We actually do have that ability but few recognise it or make use of it.

One thing seems fairly obvious to me. We breathe in oxygen and breathe out CO2, plants take in the CO2 and expel oxygen. The biggest plants which create the largest amounts of our oxygen are….you guessed it, the trees.

We are growing more people in turn producing more CO2 both from the people and their habits. To make room and food for these people we are cutting down the trees. More people using oxygen and producing CO2 plus less trees using CO2 and making oxygen. It's not hard to see where that is going.

Additionally oxygen fills up the atmosphere from the bottom up like water in a bucket and we live at the bottom of the bucket so when we begin to notice the lack of oxygen we are already long past crisis point. I'm certain scientists are already very aware of what is happening but clearly it would create wide spread panic if discussed publically (it's not as if Man has been encouraged in free thinking).

We are always free to choose our own experience, always. Only sometimes we haven't stepped back so very far and what appears to be our choice is in fact the choices of others being surreptitiously fed to us.

From the moment of birth we're trying to get into the good schools to get the good education so we can get the good job so we can buy the best house in the best area so our children will go to the best school to get the best education etc. We're so busy running blind with that agenda we haven't the time or energy to notice or care about trees.

I have nothing more to add to that.

When we are home we run with the flow because we are the flow, we recognise the Universe and it expresses through us because we are the song of the Universe just like everything else around us. Even now we are expressing the Universe and singing its song but as we don't step back we don't see the rest of the orchestra or the rest of the notes in the song therefore it just doesn't sound harmonious.

None of the notes in a song are more or less important and none show their true quality when observed individually. Join the chorus and feel the difference….or don't, it's your choice, always.

It's very easy and natural to contract in fear and cold when entering a cold lake. Muscles contract to preserve heat in the inner core of the body and the very action of contraction sends a fear signal coursing through the body. Consequently it can very quickly lead to fear overload.

I feel cold and contract, I feel the contraction and feel fearful, I feel fearful and contract.

The colder and more contracted I feel the more I focus on cold and contraction, thus my consciousness in that moment resides more and more in cold, contraction and fear. In the lake feeling cold I remember how contracted muscles restrict lungs which in turn causes the body to sink. Consequently my fear is increased via fear of drowning….and so on it goes…each new energy of fear whether physical, emotional or mental creates a fertile breeding ground for yet more fear, growing exponentially out of control and thus confirming all those old fears about not stepping into a cold lake!

This step in my mind prevents the accelerating and diminishing spiral into fear and contraction if the expanded focus of self observation is maintained. Some days it just isn't and I spiral. Personally I stay expanded by staying out of my mind (perfectly true when folk say you have to be out of your mind to dip in an ice hole!) because I recognise my mind is filled with terrible images, thoughts and feelings associated with cold, fear and contraction. I won't bother listing mine here because we all have our own personal arsenal of haunting images to paralyze ourselves with.

Those haunting images are used to warn us away from "dangerous" situations but it is only through observation of situations we can explore which are actually really "dangerous" to us. At first my contraction in cold water was so overwhelming on the purely physical front it took me years to dip into my lake. Even though I recognised I would be afraid because I did "drown" in this lake when I was 3 years old it took me a long time to connect the overwhelming cold with the fear from the drowning incident.

Exploring this concept using the very obviously physical forms of a cold lake on my body I gained a useful experience, insight and tool for other situations arising in life wherein fear grips me and sends me spiralling into contraction when I lose my focus.

Whatever the situation, when feeling any signs of fear, step back, breathe deeply and shift consciousness to take in the bigger picture. Through practising calm observation of the bigger picture we begin to understand long forgotten reasons for our behaviour and create new opportunities to change our mind.

I relived my "drowning" incident a few years ago with the aid of the UK School of Energy Healing and in that new found calm observation I recognised other things happening to me at the time.

I felt the soft and protective energy around my mouth and nose preventing me from taking in water. I recognised the presence protecting me then, since, now and always. Little wonder I felt drawn to this place after my cancer when this was the place I had met such a safe and lovingly protective presence.

Now after years of self observation I recognise the loving presence continually holding me in unconditional love is me. Recognition comes by consciously choosing to recognise it.

With the arrival of consistently warmer weather over the past week the melting of winter has begun in earnest here at Mairela. The majestically beautiful landscapes of the winter are receding yet before the new growth emerges there is a transition period.

If it rains the transition occurs more quickly. For example on the forest roads water appears on top of the ice formed from compacted snow and gradually melts the snow and ice beneath. This water then sit on top of the still frozen road until the road defrosts and then the road becomes a quagmire until the deeper ground melts sufficiently to allow the water to drain away!

During the winter freeze the ground has expanded due to the water content and it is only when spring arrives that any shifting is recognised. On the tarmac road going into town there are now several sharp peaks which may disappear if they are merely caused by one part of the ground defrosting quicker than another or the effect may be permanent and have to be reworked.

In the garden it can seem as if the snow isn't melting at all because everything remains white until one day something begins to poke through the whiteness and you realise it's the top of a birdtable or an old bucket that went missing in December! These old objects give perspective to the places I'm walking in. I believe I am walking along my normal path when I'm still a good 10 cms above it!

Everything seems a little chaotic in the transition, even our physical bodies spin and react.

Now is the time to remain mindful of what the melting chaos represents, that without this transition period we cannot arrive in spring and without moving into spring we aren't placed for new growth. The chaotic transition belies spring is coming and the shifting quagmire is loosening the earth to receive seed.

As we peacefully remain mindful of where we are going (new beginnings) we cannot but notice spring is implicit and always has been! Nobody would ever think to try holding onto summer to prevent autumn coming or pushing winter forwards to get to spring sooner. We all recognise we cannot pull at a tulip bulb to get the tulips to come out quicker!

Yet we try pushing and pulling with our minds!

It is hard to put down those burdensome boxes which contain all our old defence systems, we've grown accustomed to life with them and long forgotten how things really are. Until the snow melts I forget I am walking way above the ground, I don't realise I'm not actually even on my path.

If we didn't keep in mind the recognition of the approaching new beginnings and our preparation of the space for this new growth by letting the old fall away, we would probably never let go anything.

Recognise the spring for what it is really showing us….and recognise it isn't just showing us something abstract because we are within the spring, we are a piece of the action. Let all the old stuff fall away as nature intended thus creating space for the new to arrive and remember the new will arrive whether we know it or not.

We can be ready for it with fresh hope and energy or we can arrive exhausted from battling against the melting of our old comfortable landscapes.

Being much further North I'm sat here in the midst of the chaos and as always celebrating what the chaos really means, the breaking down of old structures to allow the new beginnings to be seen and recognised.

Rather than sitting round bemoaning the downfall and melting I recognise the few signs of what is approaching, the furry willow buds stark against the dark spruce trees, the trumpeting swans flying overhead heralding the new times and the peaceful observation of my rigid inner image of acceptance recoiling in horror at its exposure.

When we lose our fear of chaos we allow the snow in our mind to melt and thus reveal things we had long buried and forgotten which nevertheless were cluttering up our mind. Once we have revealed our clutter we have the opportunity to sort through it and choose what serves us and what doesn't…then we have the choice of tossing it aside.

There is a deeper joy to taking pictures beyond the physical realms of admiring the results. Walking around with a camera with the intention of capturing a magical scene or moment places us in a space where we are open to seeing the magical scenery and moments unfolding around us.

Too often in life we are hurrying along from A to B in order to accomplish C and as such are lives are driven by what we don't seem to have and our intention becomes amassing things in the vain hope one of these things will stave the flow of dissatisfaction.

Only when we stop this full on drive to find the Holy Grail are we quiet and still enough to recognise we were always surrounded by beauty and abundance and recognising it was merely a matter of adjusting our focus.

I first began taking pictures when I came to Mairela because I was so inspired by the beauty I saw. I wondered if the skies in the UK weren't just as wonderful but my life was different back then and I just hadn't taken the time to stop and notice the beauty. Having a camera started me noticing and absorbing the different types of beauty I recognised from the smallest pieces of frost to the multicoloured spring and autumn landscapes.

One day I realised I didn't have to keep taking pictures of every stunning scene or sunset instead I could just give myself permission to sit and experience the beauty for absolutely no reason at all except to notice it and allow it to become a conscious part of my world.

To my mind the beauty of photography lies in being a stepping stone from the hurried world where we feel we need to acquire something to be happy to the world where we sit quietly recognising what we already have and consequently Who We Really Are.

Viewing a beautiful photograph also allows us to sink into the soft energy of beauty and inspiration as each photo carries the energy of intention of the photographer. We can recognise the difference between a shot taken to show a particular tree against a shot capturing the essence of tree. Who knows exactly what it is about a particular scene which makes it beautiful or thought provoking. If we stripped each picture down to its constituent parts we wouldn't be able to isolate the "beautiful" part anymore than we can find the beauty in life by separating all the pieces.

When we create a great photograph we are recreating a stepping stone to a beautiful experience without words and therein lies the power of the picture. When there are no words explaining it our thinking minds don't need to get involved and therefore each picture can mean something unique to every person looking at it.

Likewise we could all look out into the world and see our own unique variety of beauty without need of fighting with our neighbour over which of us has seen the "right" one or the "better" one.

The pictures and the camera are the stepping stones showing us more of the beauty around us but to take the experience deeper we put the camera down and step into the picture ourselves, living it fully, experientially and consciously from inside

The long bouts of unusually cold temperatures have been felt right across Europe this winter. Some countries are better prepared than others because it is a more usual occurrence but even so this has been the coldest winter I've experienced since moving to Finland 7 winters ago.

The thing about walking in temperatures of minus 20 and lower is that you do become accustomed to it within a few days. I've read that a layer of fat is laid down under the skin on your face to help insulate you….better than a botox injection any day!

What struck me was how hot and stuffy I felt when the temperature rose back to a mere minus 4 degrees after a week. It made me realise just how relative our experiences are and how different they appear depending on your perspective.

Fairly obviously I'll feel cold in minus 4 if I've just arrived from a tropical island and equally obviously I'll feel warm in minus 4 if I've just arrived from the North Pole. Problems only arise when we try to label certain temperatures as absolutes with no reference to context or perspective.

Life in the East looks completely different and therefore weird to some Westerners and equally life in the West appears to be different and therefore bizarre to some Easterners. The fact that they are different is natural and wonderful and if we would place ourselves into the different culture and experience the totality of the experience suddenly the reasons for the differences become understandable and usually fairly obvious.

Those who decide differences are unacceptable and must be eliminated have given into fear. They fear losing their comfortable world by the appearance of something which doesn't fit into their beliefs. Instead of widening their beliefs to incorporate something different under the same umbrella, to those in fear it seems the only option is elimination.

This is something we all do on a daily basis with our individual thoughts and processes, noting something new which doesn't fit our image of how the world should be and trying to eliminate it by denial or deletion.

Angry thoughts didn't fit my old mind image of perfection therefore any rising to mind would be stifled and hidden away, dismissed as unacceptable. Hiding away all those unacceptable thoughts and emotions never once brought me any closer to my perfect image of security and peace and ultimately created such a pool of toxic poison inside me my health was depleted and cancer manifested.

Trying to create peace and love by eliminating anything different or unacceptable never works. All time and effort is spent on policing thoughts (or countries) to ensure only acceptable ones are consciously acknowledged whilst stuffing the rest out of sight with dozens of defences over the top to ensure nobody knows they are there. That doesn't create peace it creates exhaustion!

Painting an image of peace and security only creates an image of peace and security!

After my cancer I came to recognise peace and security only come by embracing our differences, noticing what makes us uncomfortable and exploring the real reasons behind our discomfort. Instead of trying to eliminate anything which makes us uncomfortable why not explore it to understand why it is there.

Instead of two people fighting over whether minus 4 degrees is warm or cold why not both expand their limited perspectives to include a wider view wherein the possibility of viewing minus 4 degrees as something different is allowed to be present. The perceived need for fighting vanishes, nobody had lost anything or given anything away and we are left with two people with enhanced views of the bigger picture thereby allowing them both the possibility of recognising yet more truth about life.

Unification leads to peace because we all have a single purpose…..to recognise and accept all parts as pieces of the whole.

Each time something seemingly unacceptable arose in my life my aim became understanding it until I could find its place in my view of the bigger picture even if it meant expanding my bigger picture out into hazy places I wasn't completely sure of.

Imagine the Universe (all things in existence in all directions of time) as a continual mass of energy moving in accordance to Universal laws of movement, ebbing, flowing, contracting and expanding through peaks and troughs of energy waves in a cycloid spiral space curve. This basic energy has a consciousness making the universe a living system of eternally creative intelligence.

This energy is experienced differently depending on the particular group of consciousness, or the particular grouping of consciousness. One such grouping of consciousness could be what we recognise as Mother Earth with some of us recognising more within that particular consciousness grouping than others do but that is just because we also are a particular grouping of energy consciousness.

There are no right or wrong ways to experience these differing groups of consciousness, each are just a part of the whole. My physical body is a grouping of a particular consciousness, which is in turn a part of a larger grouping of consciousness which some call the human energy field which is in turn a part of the Universe. Any grouping in any direction creates a unique experience of existence which appears to be creating something new. In one way it is a new creation because that particular grouping may never have been consciously experienced before yet it still remains an integral piece of the whole. It is new even though it was always in existence because it wasn't consciously experienced before.

There are parts within my physical body which we call cells, each cell has consciousness and although I can connect to that particular piece of consciousness I cannot bring the entire experience back with me into my human mind because it has no framework to be viewed in, like a file which can't be opened and read because it only contains code which means nothing without a programme to run it within.

Yet if all the individual cells suddenly disappeared or behaved unnaturally then there is a very tangible effect to my physical human body…it too would cease to exist as that particular form! Individually the cell seems unimportant but when viewed as a system they suddenly seem very important if I intend continuing in this physical form.

This relationship continues right through each group of consciousness is existence in the Universe, it appears the individual parts are not so important but without them the whole cannot exist until finally we arrive at the ultimate level of the Universe which continually exists whatever we do or don't do. The Universe just is…unless of course it isn't!

What we experience as seemingly individual physical forms (or spiritual forms or whatever level of consciousness currently being experienced!) at some level appears to not matter at all…and doesn't if the Universe already just is but as a piece of another group of consciousness it does…and doesn't.

Do I have a point to all this? No, it's just an observation that there is no point to life and there are a multitude of points to life and all things are true. Isn't that fascinating and doesn't it send the ego mind with all its structures into chaotic meltdown?

The collective conscious known as Man has been growing stronger over the past millennia as individual consciousnesses begin to recognise their place as both individual, whole energetic forms (holistic medicine) and integral parts of Man (the rise of groups putting their voices forward and speaking their truth in a peaceful way such as Avaaz.org and The Elders). With this growing recognition a whole new world beyond imagination can begin to unfold. How exciting is that?!!

When we don't bother to recycle because one person doing it won't reduce landfill sites or we don't speak out against deforestation because we don't think our little voice will be heard then we're probably right it won't make a difference if we don't bother….but if all individuals do that then the whole grouping disappears.

When we have already made up our minds what an experience means we limit ourselves to that which we already know. Oh sure we may have taken what we know and twiddled it around a little but it's still the same old belief systems with answers thrown out of the particular system of structures.

I play killer Sudoku regularly - my logical number mind delights in its structure and mystery! I notice how an erroneous assumption in my maths creates a knock on effect throughout the puzzle until eventually it "proves" itself by producing a number far from the original erroneous assumption but nevertheless based on the original assumption. I rather suspect this happens a lot in life too with one erroneous assumption or belief seemingly proving itself by replication and only coming to light when the whole picture is viewed and suddenly the structure doesn't fit anymore!

There is great comfort in allowing ourselves to be duped into believing we have everything sussed, that we have rules and structures for all eventualities and possible outcomes because it allows us to stay in control and never feel that uncomfortable feeling where something isn't quite right with our life. We don't like to believe something is wrong with our life as that firmly pulls the rug out from underneath us sending us crashing to the ground.

Far better to blame the wobble on someone or something else than face a reality built on erroneous date where everything you ever knew about the world has now been challenged.

It's especially scary if you believe in a black and white world wherein the truth is absolute, either it is or it isn't without any possibility of it being neither or both!

I used to live in a black and white world so I can appreciate how safe and comforting absolutes of right and wrong appear but I've also travelled far enough down that path to the exclusion of all others and found the unnecessary pain I inflicted on myself.....all in the name of creating a safe world free from pain! Just as extreme yin always becomes yang (the eye in the middle of the fish) my extreme logic eventually led to complete illogic.

Mairela is a wonderful place for challenging old world structures especially at this time of year. Many folk don't want to experience the cold of winter, they take their current world beliefs from their own lives and extrapolate them to form opinions of how it is here in the winter. If they feel cold at home in 6 degrees then being in a little wooden cottage in minus 20 degrees must be unspeakable.

My latest guest would never have believed a week ago they would have been stood outside naked under a bright starry sky in minus 19 degrees having just left a very hot sauna....but they did! Beyond imagination? Yes, that is exactly what it is and funnily enough that is exactly where all the new, exciting and expanding aspects of life are waiting to be discovered...beyond our mind, out of our mind, past what we already know.

Stepping into the unknown is uncomfortable but you can't really go anywhere new without that step.

It's one thing to be peacefully content with where you are in life and quite another to pretend you are just because stepping out scares you to death. Comfort will kill your soul just as readily as any monsters you can imagine.

I love the Finnish autumn from the forest harvests and colourful scenery sliding gradually towards the stillness of winter. There is the shedding of old energy as previously discussed and perfect opportunity to consciously live life in the moment.

Once the big snow has arrived all tasks cease until the spring time and I am left to observe the natural wave of resting and discarding. I can fight against this natural energy wave and try to continue at full light levels or I can tune into the natural world hibernating and slowing down.

A few weeks ago I was raking leaves for my compost and preparing the garden for the winter. Then it snowed quite heavily and I could do no more. Some beds hadn't been fertilised and some leaves remained on the ground and in the trees! I could have stressed about this but living in the moment I recognised it as a natural wave serenely accepting unraked leaves and unfertilized beds. Both the leaves and beds would still be there waiting for me next spring.

The snow and the moon combined to lift the autumn darkness away and a time of silent contemplation emerged quite naturally.

Then the weather changed back to wet skies just as the dark moon emerged. The darkness was so intense and in turn created brighter stars.

The ducks and chickens are happily rummaging around the undergrowth once more and I have finished my raking and fertilising….even managing to make three more beds for my ever growing garden.

I notice how each part of the natural wave has aspects we might label as 'good' or 'bad' depending on where we are standing but rather than getting caught up in that type of separation and rigidity I choose to dance with the natural rhythm and live each day as it unfolds.

It's easy to forget the natural rhythms when we live far removed from nature both physically and mentally. This forgetfulness feeds itself and can easily run out of control.

The simple light bulb pulls us out of the natural cycle of light and dark all too easily. A simple example of how something invented to make our lives easier becomes a monster if we forget our true choices.

Simple villages existing in harmony for years are introduced to electricity and light by well meaning folk and suddenly they are able to stay up later because they have light. Consequently more fuel is needed to heat their homes whilst they are awake longer and suddenly their balance with nature is skewed. The natural cycle of growth and harvest for trees doesn't fit with the new and sudden demand….sustainability begins to erode.

This pattern is easier to see with these small villages but is also present globally. We invent electrical goods and unnatural harvests which require fuel investments greater than can be sustained and yet nobody seems to notice or care.

I choose not to light my poultry house during the winter, I choose to have only natural eggs laid within natural light cycles because I am choosing to experience the most natural food cycle possible, alongside other experiences of not...thereby rounding the whole experience.

Ultimately the natural cycle may lead me to hibernating each winter!! I'll keep you informed of developments in that area but it's a long way off for now!

Yes, it is nice to have eggs for the winter but at least let's recognise the price we are paying for those eggs…and the cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce etc. The heat and light in colder climates, the transportation from warmer climates all come at a price. Nuclear fuels leave a terrible legacy, fossil fuels destroy the planet, deforestation starves us of oxygen, erodes nutritious soil and destroys the natural pathways of living water (as opposed to the dead water we constantly drink).

We have free will and can choose to continue the path we currently tread but I often wonder how consciously aware we all are of where we are going and why. On the physical level I recognise the destructive cycle we are living in, I recognise it is the choice of the majority and therefore accept losing my physical form on this path. Whether I keep my physical form matters not as consciousness is not reliant on it but it does seem an awful shame to self destruct when it wasn't really what we would choose if we could clearly see the effects of our choices. Or maybe we would….

I don't ask anyone to accept my choices or agree with my observations but I do like to point out now and again what I believe others haven't noticed about the effects of actions. We all feel obliged to point out to somebody hurting themselves unintentionally the unrecognised truth of their actions but ultimately if they choose not to hear our advice or believe they know better the best action is to leave them to it….experience is a great teacher.

But even experience doesn't teach anything unless we consciously choose to remember or remain aware of those experiences. All the wars of the world have given a wealth of experiences to Man and yet we fail to draw on those experiences as we march off to war time again.

The forest goddess ascended to the high rocks for the springtime ceremony. She would embody the rising energies and welcome in the new growth for the year, adding her intention and power to the process.

Her movements were like those of the birch tree, fluid and light, she was the feminine manifest in human form.

She sat and allowed the rising energies of the Earth to flow through her mind and swirl into her body soaking up her own consciousness and blending a most holy harmony which in turn was sent back down into the Earth. The resulting combination drew Man and Earth into one, each complementing and balancing the other in an exquisite cosmic dance.

In this way Earth always provided exactly what Man required and Man created in harmony with Earth, the two became one. This thoughtless joining brought effortless abundance to Man, striped of worries of safety, survival and enough, Man became as the pure Essence of the tree imbued with sacred consciousness.

Not all Man partook of this way of creation, there were other tribes believing in themselves above the ways of nature and the guidance of Earth. Some tribes believed in life as a battle to be won rather than as a partnership to be undertaken. These tribes seemed to suffer greatly from disease, war and famine because they believed life was a battle. Their energy was not the synergy of the forest goddess' tribe, instead it was entropy.

The forest goddess had no thought for these other tribes at this time, she recognised from nature that each has its own path to tread and even when one knows not why certain actions are taken, one remains certain they are an integral piece of the whole.

At that moment a wolfman appeared on the high rocks appraising the ceremony with a sneering look. The wolfmen had never understood or explored this idea of mindfulness as it was not in their nature; they viewed it with suspicion bordering on contempt. To the wolfmen springtime embodied a baser energy of union.

The wolfman could feel the energy of mind sweeping through him, feeling unions such as the joining of planets would bring forth whilst the goddess allowed the baser energies of nature to stroke her body.

At first each felt it their duty to subsume the other and then it seemed a match made in heaven would ensue with the two becoming one. Yet there was always something being held back. The union felt so powerful and natural but deep within each was a fear, a fear that if they let their body or mind go completely they would be lost forever in union and however blissful the union was neither wanted to lose themselves.

Then the goddess remembered her way of life, recognising her strength came from vulnerability.

By laying herself open to whatever arose in nature she was never closed off to any piece of the whole and as such enjoyed magnificent harmony and abundance. As always she placed her trust in nature and opened herself up, she surrendered and submitted without fear of losing herself.

As this powerful mind flooded into the wolfman he too felt the knowledge and surrendered to the overwhelming feeling threatening to engulf him.

And as the two worlds joined the goddess and the wolfman did lose their minds, for those crowning moments nothing else existed, they had become the entire Universe embodying all things with no exception.

And then it ended just as it was meant to do, the waves of the Universe constantly moving in a never ending cycle of peaks and troughs, expanding and contracting in all dimensions. Movement is life, the path of experience an expression of the Universe.

This springtime marked a new beginning for Man with the union of the forest goddess and the wolfman shining a new light of connection amongst the darkness of separation.

I've never been a huge fan of the title 'healer' because it automatically assumes a requirement to be fixed…and a need to be fixed derives from the idea we are somehow faulty or not quite good enough as we are. So by calling myself a healer I am subscribing to the very idea I would heal….which I don't really need to heal because it doesn't really exist…and so on and so forth round that destructive cycle.

What we term 'healing' is really guiding someone to notice and recognise there is nothing to heal and there never really was.

So why don't I call myself something different? Because the people searching for my services are still in the place where it looks like something could be fixed. If they recognise nothing needs fixing and life is in divine perfection however it shows up they don't need my services!

For my own personal health I periodically remind myself I am not a healer, it's just a label I use to make life easier, it doesn't define me. In fact all words and expressions we create are just labels to help us express ourselves. Problems arise when we forget our labels were designed to help us understand each other more easily and instead start believing they are the absolute truth of reality.

It's not just words we distort in this way either; whole lifetimes can be built on similar illusions.

To experience physical bliss wear a pair of tight shoes for 3 hours and then take them off. To know yourself as the perfect Essence of your entire being, spend some time forgetting your perfection and then remember again.

Our experiences on Earth are rather like slipping on the tight shoes just to experience the bliss when we take them off. I learnt more about my true self and experienced greater bliss from my cancer, self harm and stalker experiences than from other times. The other times couldn't exist without the original experiences; one means nothing without the other.

As we slip on those tight shoes of our human experience it hurts….imagine squeezing our expanded magnificent self into a small physical body! Some of us forget about the shoes being an illusion and spend whole lifetimes and build huge cultures around decorating the shoes and adding bits on to stop them from hurting….it doesn't matter, we'll still experience the same bliss when we take them off enhanced by the experiential memories of non-bliss.

It seems in this lifetime I've noticed the shoes are there for a reason. At times the drama queen in me is disappointed I've noticed the game and therefore don't get so wound up in the painful stuff and at other times the goddess aspect feels very happy to float through recognising my magnificence and power.
It's all different aspects experienced in this lifetime and many others which make up the whole experience or expression of Who I Really Am.

Regardless of how I live my life it is a unique expression of the Universe or as others would see it, my life lived is an expression of Divinity or God. Regardless of how I live it….no exceptions.

The wonderful thing about running self healing weeks is that not only do I get to meet beautiful people and watch them blossom as they re-discover themselves but I receive many gifts for myself in return. I'm not talking about material items here. When I am healing I am acting as a mirror reflecting back to my guest exactly what I see…and when I allow those beautiful aspects to be fully present in me I recognise and actualise more of Who I Really Am. How cool is that!

This last week concentrated on expanding the mind, stepping back to allow more of the picture to emerge because when more of the picture is present we have a greater understanding of what is really going on and can therefore see more easily and clearly whether our decisions and beliefs serve us given our choice of where we would like to be.

There is a simple exercise I begin with to show the expanded mind and the benefits therein. Simply focus intently on an object in front of you and allow it to fill your entire vision, then slowly soften your focus and move it back a step to continue noticing the thing right in front but also more of the surroundings. Keep stepping back with your focus until you can see right to the far horizon whilst noticing all things between you whilst also noticing all things to the side, noticing all sounds and smells. When you soften to allow all to be present they can show up in your vision and when you zoom into one place all the rest disappear. This is exactly how it is with the mental level too.

Notice how the original point of focus is still present and observed but it is now quieter in your mind and doesn't pull you in. It hasn't been eliminated but it has lost its power over you and no longer creates your entire world.

If we fixate on one point only our entire world is created by that point of focus, we re-create the same thing over and over thereby strengthening the limited view we hold. We become the self fulfilling prophecy for something we don't actually want! If we only ever look at the negative and focus solely on that we can only ever have a world made from the negative. Nothing wrong with that, we can choose whatever we like to create…..just that most of us would say we didn't choose it.

When we practice stepping back we recognise there is more than the negative and by allowing more recognition to be present we begin to piece our whole vision together and observe a bigger picture from which the negative doesn't disappear but instead becomes a meaningful piece of the bigger picture and as such loses its fear factor.

This morning as I reflected back on the week of expansion it suddenly occurred to me how I was still limiting myself with my thinking! Part of the expansion of my vision was missing from my awareness….when I have stepped back fully and can see all there is before me with my mind there is still room for me to recognise all the things I cannot see because if I do not allow room in my world for the things I know nothing of yet, then there can be no room for them to show up in my world!

Daisy duck showed me this beautifully on Saturday afternoon.....

She had gone off into the forest 10 days before and I had given her up for lost presumed eaten. At the time she went we searched for days and I dowsed to help find her. My dowsing told me she would return to me and I need not look for her…but I chose not to believe my dowser (as per usual! :) and continued to search in vain and then gave her up for dead but still wanted to find her. Only when I had finally given her up and forgotten to think of finding her had I allowed room for her to return and suddenly there she was in the garden as if she had never been anywhere at all! Something we would call a miracle (remember my forest is filled with foxes, wolves and lynx)

When widening our focus to take in all things, part of that awareness includes all the dark patches beyond our mind. Just because it is dark doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Remember how there are the things we know and things we don't know but we know we don't know them and there is also the rest of the Universe contains the things we don't know and don't yet know we don't know them…..this is where the real magic lies.

Allow it to be present and you'll 'see' what I mean.

Walk a mile in another man's shoes before you judge him…or go back and relive your past life experiences and the understanding you gain opens up new experiences for the way forward. Imagine going back to find yourself trying so hard to create a perfect family, you are the head of the household back in the times when the existential pressure of safety and security rested firmly on your shoulders.

Imagine the fear you might be flooded by every time somebody goes against what you believe to be the right way to achieve security. It is this fear which leads to frustration and frustration to anger, then from anger to violence as murders are committed. It's a very common experience going back just a few hundred years.

What learning do we take from knowing we have been murderers? Noticing how the constant fear of survival feels in the body and mind gives an insight into the experiences we create by seeing ourselves as mere physical beings subject to the whim of nature. There is more to Who We Really Are but we only experience that and its life affirming energy when we allow it to be so. From the past life experience we see by continuing to reduce the picture we cut ourselves off from so much we ultimately lead ourselves to the very downfall we feared in the first place!

When we fear for our safety and make our own small world with abundant food and shelter we cut ourselves off from the rest of humanity whilst perpetuating the very ideas of need. Little wonder those without food and shelter begin to panic too and in their panic want to have some of our food and shelter…..and in turn we panic because if we give them our food and shelter then we won't have enough….and so on it goes with armies springing up to protect the basic security of one small world. Everything in this particular scenario is borne out of fear and you only have to look around at the world today to see a full working model.

In one lifetime we are the landowner trying to protect our livelihood against the hungry mob and in the next we are in the hungry mob trying to protect our livelihood by getting food.

The bigger picture emerges when we live these cycles enough times to finally recognise fighting over who is right or wrong is ridiculous because neither is right nor wrong. The more pertinent question is whether anyone is doing anything to help the situation and from the scenario above it would appear the answer is no. Both sides are using all their energy in perpetuating fear and the myth that there isn't enough and we are all separate.

Do we still all really believe we can write a book of justifications? Is there really a book with columns of all the right things to be and another of the wrong so that we can conveniently dismiss half the population of the world as undeserving and thereby keep more of the good stuff for ourselves?

Deep down we all know we are connected and the guilt of that knowledge is too painful to observe consciously when we behave this way so we cover it with justifications like the colour of skin, the wrong god, wrong sex, wrong age, wrong education, wrong postcode etc. This in turn creates a world of fearful folk all trying as hard as possible to get into the right place, colour, religion, job etc. and then to confuse us all these criteria change depending on which particular piece of the planet you happen to be standing on!

After the equinox some see depression looming on the horizon as we glide into the darker months and all around us nature sheds its leaves but maybe there is a bigger truth about the process….

The natural path of life is a constantly flowing energy literally coming in waves. We are used to thinking about sound or light waves representing certain sounds or visions based on their unique pattern and so it is with all things, each being manifest by its own unique wave.

In all waves there is a peak and a trough, this is the stuff of life because without peaks and troughs we would be flat-lined and we all know what that means!

Our bodies (the energetic body incorporating the physical, emotional, mental) are still in the flow of the natural energetic wave of life and thereby respond as Who We Really Are to move us forward and our limited or egoic mind tries to stop this movement because it appears to be taking us to a place which doesn't fit what we have believed to be 'right'.

We are all very powerful creative beings, we all create the world we live in and if we believe in something so strongly then it will be so to us but it won't change reality, it won't change the absolute truth. At the moment our mass consciousness is creating the reality where we powerlessly react to the diminishing daylight hours and can only be rescued by medicine or the return of spring…..

We have freewill and can choose to go against natural flow, there is no damnation or judgement in that, merely we will expend a huge amount of energy to do so. Expending huge amounts of energy to create something against natural flow can only be sustained for a finite period until collapse inevitably comes (fossil fuels heating greenhouses take note!)

To let it all go and be washed away by the flow feels way too scary to contemplate because if we let go against the tide we'll probably spin round and go under coughing and spluttering for a while until we bounce back up.

Faced with this subconscious fear it's little wonder we label the whole thing as depression and take some magic pills to keep us comatose enough not to notice the tragedy of our life.

The idea of this being a natural occurrence is given credence by naming it, making the season a cause, the depression the effect and solving it all with some magical pills that zombify and allow you to walk in line with the other living dead neatly fitting into the one size fits all jacket.

How about reframing it? Instead of believing S.A.D. to be a natural disorder (oxymoron) why not look at nature and notice this is a natural time of dying off and shedding, recognising how the stuff which id dying off now provides the fertilizer for new growth in the spring.

A few years ago I sank into an autumnal depression gradually growing so tired and apathetic I gave up all my classes and activities. I didn't reach for medication but applied the same principals I teach to my own situation…I lived my truth. I trusted in what was happening and allowed it unfold, just as we trust implicitly to allow autumn leaves to fall knowing they will return in the spring. I didn't fight it, even stayed in bed for 3 days leaving dogs un-walked and a daughter to take care of herself. I noticed all the forceful urging in my head that I should be doing this or that and I recognised the voice of the ego forcing with shoulds and shouldn'ts and always with lists of things to be doing. I stayed with the depression and allowed it to engulf me.

By being expanded I recognised the cloud of depression as one aspect and the now manic urging of my mind desperately trying to save my life by forcing me to do something as another aspect whilst at the same time holding the higher knowledge of the bigger picture knowing the clouds would pass if I just let them.

It's the ego mind which creates and subscribes to the lists of things we should do to be happy people. It's this mind which creates the outfit we try to squeeze into even though it hurts, doesn't fit and we can't move or function naturally in it!

My depression felt like a heavy blanket slowly forcing me to stop everything and I let it envelope me. It never lifted as I expected but after a while I noticed the blanket was in fact a soft cloud of love holding me in peace. I still didn't want to do all those things I'd stopped but now it didn't matter to me. Was I still depressed? No, I had just entered a new phase in my life and had shed much of the old. I recognised the natural shedding of things which no longer served me; I recognised I had only been doing them because I felt I should. I had been trying to live up to a false image of myself.

It all goes back to the idea we were born imperfect…..and we were!

We were born imperfect (human experience) that we might know ourselves to be perfect (Who We Really Are). We cannot know ourselves to be perfect unless there is such a thing as imperfect. If we didn't have hot we would have no concept of cold!

Quite often when folk come to stay here they enquire about the cost of food because they have heard it is quite expensive in Scandinavia. Certainly with economies of scale and transportation costs one would expect food here to be dearer but it also appears that way because Finland doesn't really have a 'cheap' food market. When I'm in the UK I notice the supermarkets cater to 3 levels of shopping, the basic range, the normal items and then the top of the range items. It's amazing how someone managed to get designer label concepts into produce!

Generally in Finland we buy and grow food which we then prepare our own meals from because the concept of 'You are what you eat' is well known and consciously acknowledged. The balanced construct of a healthy plate is shown by example in schools as well as taught. Many years ago Finland had the unenviable top slot in the European heart disease tables and so the government decided to do something about it from the roots level. They introduced free school meals for everyone based on healthy cooked meals, plenty of salad, milk or water and bread (rye or full grain not just white processed sliced stuff). The result almost 30 years later is a healthier population and the passing of the heart disease top slot to Scotland (land of the deep fried mars bar!)

I'm not knocking the idea of choice but I wonder if we all knew what we were really doing to ourselves would we continue with our shopping choices.

Sometimes folk look into my shopping basket full of fair trade, organic, locally produced, hand grown etc. produce and tell me I pay a high price for my food...and then I look at their energy field and think the same thing about them....

My mother sends me newspaper cuttings from the UK and on the back of one page was an advertisement for a UK supermarket advertising a summer BBQ meal deal for £3!! 12 bread rolls, 8 sausages, 4 burgers, chicken breast, potato salad and tomatoes all for £3. Does anyone stop to wonder how it is possible to produce all of that for only £3, especially when you bear in mind the packaging represents the greatest proportion of the cost! Somehow the idea that food quantity is more important than quality has taken hold and turned whole populations into zombies...the advert finishes with 'Hurry! While stocks last.'

I'd be hurrying in the opposite direction but I suppose the zombies with their brains addled by eating this rubbish will comply and part with their cash!

Cookery programmes designed to show us how we can easily prepare and enjoy good and healthy food become skewed and distorted in the starved brain until eating becomes just another leisure activity or hobby.

This year I created myself a garden based on the principle of Oneness (everything is connected). Every act in the garden has been done with conscious intention to create the exact qualities I require from my food. Not in a forced way where I analyse what I think I consist of and try to extract formulae to reach a standardised version of the human self image. I recognise there is always balance in nature, even if it is at a level beyond our ken and therefore to be balanced by nature all I need do is allow nature to read me (by not shutting myself away) and allow it to emerge without interference from my egoic (small) mind.

For example I don't allow myself to get caught up in stress and anxiety about certain crops which don't grow as I'd hoped....no doubt there was a reason for it beyond my sight and I trust it was all in Divine order. Because my garden was filled with a huge variety of crops the various levels of success evened out across the whole and I know that what I have serves my highest good for who and what I am right now.

Yesterday as I dug up my potatoes I sang and as I washed them in the lake I sang, I remembered how I lived my life in such a way that the lake remains clean and pure. I swim in the lake and draw my sauna water from it so that the water knows me and sings my song too. All this takes my time but it is effortless when I step back to the bigger picture and remember why I choose to do it this way. I choose it because with this purity of mind, body and soul I can really experience much more of Who I Really Am.

That is my choice which doesn't mean it is for everyone to choose....I only wonder if those who choose the £3 BBQ know what they are really choosing.

I've been doing a lot of cycling these past few weeks visiting the forest most days to collect the amazing abundance of berries and mushrooms on offer. I can't help but notice the few pieces of litter I see along the roadside consist mainly of cigarette packets and beer cans. It seems those who fail to notice unhealthy and debilitating effects on their own inner environment also fail to note outer environments too. This isn't really any surprise as our inner and outer worlds are one and the same even if they are expressed in different forms of manifestation.

Years ago as a knock on effect from my childhood thoughts I regarded the collection of berries from the forest as a mundane chore to be endured for the sake of having berries to eat and make juice from. To go and collect a bucket full of any berry felt like the worst thing to have to do because it would take so long and my lack of enthusiasm and energy reflected my inner thoughts. Now I've changed my mind about it and the whole process has changed too.

These days I can't wait to head off with my buckets and punnets to spend a few hours deep in the forest because it's a Zen meditation for me.

In the forest I'm surrounded by the cleanest, purest air possible combined with the pulsating energy of pine trees and powerful earth energy amplified by all the quartz deposits in the rocks. The harmony of the peaceful surroundings and mindless activity of picking berries soon drops me into a deep space. The chattering front brain has been given an activity to keep it occupied allowing the deeper and quieter thoughts space to unfold and be seen, felt, heard and recognised.

My mind had previously been polluted by the belief that berry picking was a chore to be endured and because I believed it to be so that was my experience and it drained my energy as I forced myself to do it.

Recognising so many other things in my life draining my energy because of the way I viewed them allowed me to see my own power of creation and begin using it to my advantage.

Now when I cycle up hills instead of telling myself how hard they are and how much of a struggle it will be to get to the top without stopping I remain mindful of the word 'effortless' and notice how much of the force previously used by my legs was actually stress and tension about not being able to do it!! I had been fighting and bullying myself, using so much of my own energy to deride myself and tell myself I couldn't do something! And we all do it...

When my daughter complains about something she 'has to do' and I see all her energy drain away as she speaks about it I remind her if it is something she really has to do then why not find the good aspect of the task, however small it may be and focus on that. Find the magic in what you do and focus on that aspect because then you are always engaged in magical activities. And if you can't find any magic in what you are doing ask yourself why you are doing it.

There is magic in all things if we allow ourselves to experience it.

I was reading some advice given to folk in the newspaper about feeding sugary drinks to bees found on the ground to provide assistance, what with declining bee populations etc. It struck me it was like advising householders to flick teaspoons of water at a raging fire! Quite apart from the fact at this time of year many bees naturally die out as the colonies prepare for winter the greater problems of dying bee colonies lie elsewhere and cannot be fixed by giving individual bees an energy drink.

Uniform landscapes of monoculture strip the land of diverse and balanced ecosystems whilst the chemical battles waged against any remaining insects tip the balance even further.

.My garden is such a mass of dragonflies, butterflies, bees, hoverflies and other insect life I sometimes wonder if all the missing bees and hoverflies aren't just living here with me! Everything has something it eats and something it is eaten by….including me being a food source for mosquitoes! There are natural variations in population each year presumably from the prevailing weather conditions. I don't seek to analyse the reasons why each creature evolves and appears as it does because I cannot know all there is contributing towards it instead I notice how natural energy works and live in harmony with it. By living in harmony with natural cycles and being flexible enough to flow with them there is nothing for me to fight with

This year I took up bee keeping, starting with two colonies in langstroth hives, the traditional hives made of boxes stacked on each other and filled with frames containing honeycomb. I've discovered over the summer how bee keeping is just another form of intensive farming with little regard to the natural welfare of the animals involved. The hives and the maintenance procedures are all set out to maximise honey production rather than maintaining naturally healthy and happy bees. I've decided rather than constantly inspecting the bees and treating them with various chemicals and destroying certain cells I'll allow the bees to follow their natural instincts and patterns. I was horrified to find how a queen excluder is used to prevent the bees from swarming…sure they take some of the honey with them and I'm left with fewer bees and therefore less honey but if I physically prevent them from following natural instinctive behaviour stress will set in and we all know how damaging stress can be.

I study and work with the natural energy of life therefore it is easier for me to see how one pot of honey from happy healthy bees is far more life enhancing than twenty pots from stressed and exploited bees. Similarly a bunch of fair trade bananas contains more life enhancing energy as opposed to bananas produced with slave wages. The farmer tending his own land knowing he can care for his family and educate his children to give them choices in life creates produce with energy of peace and safety. The worker paid a minimum wage with no hope for change in the future, constantly worried about anything happening to him or his family because he cannot provide for them creates produce with energy of stress, worry, tension and fear. We are what we eat and I know which one I would rather be eating.

The man in the street can change the world but not by feeding the odd insect with a cup of sugar water but by noticing where real food comes from, noticing how the natural world works, recognising the power of creational energy as opposed to the false and empty power of force.

When I pick fresh raspberries from the forest I am literally ingesting the very building blocks of life. When I brush off the odd bug I give thanks and remind myself how grateful and blessed I am to be living in a place where I do occasionally find insects on my food!

Another aspect of bee keeping which horrified me was the local practice of harvesting all the honey and feeding the bees on sugar water for the winter! I don't even use processed sugar in my own diet and the thought of taking away all that wonderful honey with its amazing medicinal and life enhancing properties and giving the bees processed sugar is astoundingly insane! How is it folk can do this and still be wondering why bee populations are failing! I don't need to analyse exactly what chemicals are present in natural hives to know how to keep bees, I just let bees do what bees do because surely they know best.

It's the same thing in my healing practice, I don't pretend to know what is right for everyone and the work I do helps because I take my thoughts out of the way and allow natural energy to flow through.

To understand failing bee populations we need to step back and take in the bigger picture rather than systematically analysing what is right in front of us. When we only analyse at our current level of understanding we become stuck at that level and fail to grow and evolve our understanding. By continually stepping back and allowing the bigger picture to emerge greater understanding comes and when we are in that flow of knowledge and tuned into natural creation guidance is easy to recognise.

I like the fact many folk are turning to their gardens to grow their own produce and support insects because just by standing and observing the natural world you cannot fail to notice how pure creational energy is silent, efficient and cheap!