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This blog is a look at life that encompasses a world view of metaphysical aspects, nature and the cultural adventures of an English woman, Sara Gardner (that's me!), from London living in the Finnish forest on the edge of a lake whilst setting up a holistic healing place, known as Mairela Reiki Retreat, to live and work.

Tuesday 24th June 2008

The stormy weather has continued here for a few days now, we've seen hail storms and non stop thunderstorms interspersed by beautiful sunshine which I suppose makes ideal growing conditions for my plants.....although not the hail stones bit!

I stayed up last Friday night after building myself a large Midsummer bonfire because I felt drawn to lighting the fire at the exact Solstice time of 1.59am. I had just missed a heavy rainshower but it was still the darkest Midsummer night I've ever experienced in Finland! Still, that made my big fire look and feel more special!

I knew in my mind that I wanted to mark the time of maximum light on my particular place on the planet as a celebration of me being in my light. Recently with so much of my old ways falling away I have really felt that I am entering a new phase of my life (of course every new moment is a new phase but this has been quite a large shift) and I marked the occasion by burning some of my old clothes and possessions. Not for any other reason than I no longer used them as they didn't fit (some of them literally!) with who I am now. Fire, is such a great transformer of energy. My old possessions are now reduced to ash which will eventually be dug into the garden and become part of the new growth in the future.

Much the same with old energies that we let go of, they can then be transformed into new forms of energy that serve us in our new alignment and purpose. As the old falls away it provides the fertiliser for our new growth.

Sometimes we feel quite uncomfortable or downright terrified when our old structures and way of living start to fall away or disappear, it can make us feel very exposed and naked without our familiar padding and coverings. The new doesn't arrive before the old has left because as we know it is the decaying old matter that provides the building blocks for the new so there is always a time between shifts of energy. It is like a waiting time of neither one thing or another when we can feel disorientated and confused. I always tell my guests that being confused is great, it shows that all your old structures are falling down and nothing makes sense anymore but if you can trust and stay open, knowing that you are always held in love (which you are whether you know it or not) then the new energy will emerge and grow.

New growth is implicit, it will never not come....I may plant seeds in the earth and be staring at bare ground for weeks wondering if everything is ok, yet really I can go off and enjoy myself leaving the seeds to grow because they always will. My fussing and stressing over them doesn't serve either of us! I could spend time cutting and shaping the new growth so that it fits in with some ideal of what it 'should look like' but if you take a look around at nature there isn't anything there that requires to be trimmed and pruned by us in order that it looks more beautiful. What grows in nature is perfectly adapted to its environment otherwise it wouldn't be there in the first place!

We may not have recognised this new growth, we may not have a label to give it yet but there have been many times in our lives that we have been through this scenario in many different shapes and forms. Maybe you remember the first time in your life you looked at written words (I do!) or gave birth or watched a birth or felt your heart was broken or could hold a friend who was in great pain, if you had stopped to think about these events too much you'd have probable frightened yourself and talked yourself out of them but when we just allow them to unfold naturally there is really nothing to fear and a great new depth to gain.

This new energy will be in a form that serves us best right here and now, just trust and let it be what it will be rather than trying to shape it through thoughts of worry and panic. There is nothing to panic about as everything is in divine order. Look out the window at all the new growth around you and notice how everything is different and notice the perfection in it all.

Friday 20th June 2008

The whole garden and forest seem to be jam packed at the moment with birds as many of the nestlings have emerged into the big wide world. It's wonderful to witness so many baby birds in one place and I spend many peaceful and contented hours just watching them and listening to the voices. In fact the more time that I spend listening to the different calls and sounds the better able I am to distinguish between their meaning...as far as I can being a human! It's always fascinated me how we always think of bird song as just the joyful singing of our avian friends when in fact a lot of the time their call is for somewhat cruder purposes and if we spoke their language it would lose a lot of its romance!

For example in the early spring there is a cacophony of sound as the various males of the various species declare their goods to the females and chase off rivals from their territory, so in fact what we are listening to is "Hello darling, check this out" or "Hey gorgeous, do you wanna come and mate with me?" mixed with "eff off Mr, I was here first".

In fact as I look out of the window now there is a terrible airborne fight going on as a pair of house martins have only just arrived and started to make a new nest on the sauna much to the dismay of the swallow pair nesting there already. I'd quite like it if the house martins stayed as I've never had them nest here before but it does seem as if the swallows are making their point quite strongly!

Quite often the world of the birds is harsher than we would normally appreciate, about 10 days ago the woodpecker drilled through the front of the blue tit box that didn't have a metal protection on it and took the baby birds to give it's own young some protein.

A nicer story came yesterday when I was following the sound of nestlings around my garden and I discovered two birds caught inside my old fishing cage, a male and female of what I identified later as Reed Buntings....I've never seen them before, so it's lovely to realise that they are nesting somewhere in the garden and even better to know that by following my instinct and following the trail of hungry chick voices I was able to rescue the pair before tragedy struck. I didn't continue with looking for the nest as I figured that the family had suffered enough trauma already!

From what I could see Mrs Reed Bunting had been hopping along gathering insects from the ground as she does and had followed one into the cage, then got distressed when she couldn't get out, her face was a little bald from knocking against the wire. So Mr Reed Bunting had come to her aid following her distress calls but had also got himself stuck in the cage, meanwhile the babies being very hungry kept calling for food. As a mother I can imagine how horrific that would have been...but luckily for them some giant came along and lifted them out! Well anyway, that's my human version of the story!

Friday 13th June 2008

The wet weather seems to have abated now and the sun is shining once more but in the past week we've had some cracking thunderstorms here, which are amplified by the rocky surroundings. It means that we have to unplug everything electrical as it's a local hazard having stuff blown up but the advantages are an amazing show from Mother Nature. Although we often believe that we would like constant sunshine we'd end up living in a desert if we did so it's nice now and again to remind ourselves of how grateful we are for the rain. It saves me watering the garden with my watering can and as you can see from the picture the combination of sun and rain produces the most amazing spectacles such as this double rainbow arching over the old fort hill opposite here. If I'd had a wide angle lens I'd have managed to get both ends into the picture...but I don't!

Monday 9th June 2008

It's been a while since I wrote here as I've been very busy with my garden, trying to keep on top of the natural rampant growth that comes at this time of year so that it doesn't swamp the seeds that I've planted, plus despite the sweltering daytime temperatures there is always a risk of an overnight frost so there has been much to-ing and fro-ing of pots and trays still. The current warm spell with temperatures of 27 degrees ended last night with a huge thunderstorm which was still going this morning, so at least for today I don't have to water my plants!

The organic growth of both myself and my garden have continued, I'm taking the time to keep aware of what is growing in the garden and making room for the things that I want to grow there (it's called weeding!). Just like in life you can't have a 50 week unhealthy lifestyle and expect it to all be sorted by a 2 week holiday where you head off to a spa or take a course or go on a detox, you can't expect to just leave the garden to itself and then come back weeks later to pull out the weeds and expect all your produce to be at its best underneath the layers!

That's why I always teach methods and skills for people to take home with them, that they can incorporate into their daily lives. It's nice to have somebody around that you can call if you need help but the best results come from incorporating health and balance into everything that we do in our lives 24/7.

Another thing that I've noticed is the effect of toxins on me, not just physically but mentally and emotionally too. Of course this is something that I am aware of as everything is linked through all levels of our energy field, a blockage on the physical has a corresponding blockage on the emotional and mental levels, therefore a physical toxin affects the other levels too but I hadn't been prepared for the magnitude of this effect.

I think that when you have spent a long time cleansing of course your body is much clearer and healthier and that means that you see the effects of toxins much more readily, they are not affecting you more than others it's just that the effects are clearer to see and feel. Just the same as when we have blocked out our unwanted thoughts and feelings (the ones that don't make us feel very good) we don't lose them, they are merely stuffed out of sight and mind, if we choose not to notice the effects of toxins on our body they are still there happening but we just don't notice them. I should know, I thought I was really healthy 8 years ago and it turns out I was riddled with cancer!

The start of a warm Finnish summer goes hand in hand with the return of the mosquito and they can be a bother when you are gardening all day. I'd cleared out an old cupboard a while ago and found lots of old creams and potions to keep mossies off and so I used them despite knowing that they weren't natural deterrents but chemical based. In laziness I figured that it wouldn't hurt to just spray them onto my skin, that it was better than getting bitten and yet I was also aware that I knew better than that.

After using them for a while I noticed how toxic I was feeling, not only had my physical vitality fallen off a little but my emotional and mental state had gone toxic too....I was totally in tune with my hate! As with all things this was in divine perfection, of course it was great to bring all that hate into my awareness because the effects of it within me would be none the less tangible if they remained unconscious and I guess that would also explain why I have been so quiet lately as I've been holding all that hate and anger. When I say holding it I don't mean stopping it in any way but more like a mother would hold a child, I'm allowing it to be there without acting on it, noticing what it does and why it does it, not judging it in any way and hopefully not feeding it in any way.

I always say that the difference with consciously working with your emotions as opposed to just letting them run unchecked or just stuffing them back down again can be imperceptible to the eye or the mind of another because it is your intention and your inner processes which are different to previous.

When I feel the hate come up and get directed at somebody around me I don't allow it to come out, not because I want to stuff it away again and pretend it doesn't exist and that I'm a saint but because I realise that this person is not who I am really angry at or hateful towards. Even when I am around the person who was the original cause of my hate ( it can take a while to find the root cause) I realise that my hate came from the limited erroneous beliefs of a young child and I choose not to act on them. However, choosing not to act on them doesn't mean that I stop them from coming. It's a fine balancing act but it only needs awareness to pull it off.

When the emotions run strongly I take myself to a quiet space and ask for help from the angels and my guides and mostly I write. My writing takes me to the places that evoke the relevant memories and slowly as the picture unfolds in my mind's eye I relive the situation even as I sit there writing about it but this time it is different, I'm not a small child lost in the hopelessness of the overwhelming emotions that I am feeling, I don't have to shut them off to preserve my sanity and well being, this time I am strong enough to let myself feel that huge anger and hate and yet not be consumed by it. Thus the hate is released and thereby my body feels lighter and more balanced.

I think that by actively engaging my mind in an activity such as the mechanics of writing I free myself from it's hold on me. I don't mean that my mind is holding me in any nasty way but rather it is saving me from feeling all those overwhelming emotions that threatened to reduce me to cosmic gloop all those years ago and my limited ego mind knows of no new reason why it would be different now.....but another part of me does, my higher self has a bigger view of life and the universe and therefore it knows more about how everything works in divine perfection and it knows that I cannot be hurt.

With allowing myself to fully witness my hate, and allowing myself to fully experience experientially my hate I came to a place of understanding, then from that place of complete understanding of why and where it had grown I am compassionate with myself and then from compassion comes love and when love is fully present there is no place for hate and it simply melts away. Beautiful.

Saturday 31st May 2008

Today was the last day of school in Finland and now the long weeks of summer lie ahead of us. Around Kuhmoinen, which is a very popular summer place many of the summer attractions will open now or at least move onto summer opening times.....and I usually find there are a few more exotic dishes available in the supermarket to cater for our city visitors! I have started to get into the habit of doing a little gardening when I return from my morning walk before I make my superfood breakfast and this morning was no exception. Gardening is a growing experience in more ways than one, of course you grow plants but you grow your knowledge too and it really struck me this morning just how much of a parallel for life it is. I've never really had a proper garden as such with vegetable bits and flower beds and a surrounding forest just waiting to invade it so I am on a very steep learning curve here but the thing is that it's fun and if you screw up then you get to try again...although sometimes you have to wait another year for the opportunity! A lot of my attitudes have changed with gardening and a lot of my gardening has changed with my attitudes! Labelling some plants as 'wrong' and so trying to eliminate them at all costs is madness and very stressful, years ago I spent hours making a bigger lawn and it was exhausting to maintain but now I have a huge semi wild part of the garden that will be a mass of yellow in the next few weeks as the buttercups come into bloom. They are so much prettier than grass and the butterflies fly around like it's a busy airport!

Check out the blue summer sky!

Then there was the saintly stage that a lot of us go through under the guise of 'spirituality', we start to get all caught up in being 'good' and we mustn't kill this plant or splat that mosquito because that would be 'wrong' and so we end up with a body covered in bites and a garden full of weeds that totally choke any vegetables we are trying to cultivate. Hmmm, not quite the spiritual paradise I had in mind!

Then finally I arrived at the knowing or remembering that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' in life, there is just energy in a form that either suits our own purpose or it doesn't. The semi wild parts of my garden provide me with herbal medicines as well as attracting butterflies and insects which keep the whole garden in a natural balance as well as providing food for my bird friends and therefore all my nesting boxes are filled with families which give me so much delight watching them grow. The cultivated areas give me a place to be artistic and grow some totally organic fresh produce, there's nothing like stepping out the door and picking your own fresh vegetables, especially when they have been grown with such love.....I have sticks around the garden with little flags on them with the word love!

It was great to see an article in the local rag about someone who had their field blessed before they planted it, my cousins laughed at me when I planted my potatoes by hand so that I infused each one with reiki energy so it's good to see that the idea is being more widely accepted.

I have stopped viewing gardening (and life) as a race to attain a certain status or goal and I am living in the moment, pottering through my garden and keeping it clear and open from weeds (pulling out weeds without fear of damnation because I killed a plant!) because my intention and my purpose in that space is to grow my own plantswith love as well as to allow myself to grow in total love. These are my own choices. I will find over the next few months how my choices fit into my idea of picking fresh produce from the garden....maybe I will just be faced with lots of dead plants because they don't suit this climate or soil conditions. I don't know yet and that's ok with me because I don't need to know that, all I know is that I will have lots of new experiences that become an integral part of my understanding and thereby my understanding grows. As my understanding grows, so too do I.....and that is what life is all about.

Monday 26th May 2008

A walk through the forest this morning felt even better than usual after a day out in the city yesterday, hearing the gentle breeze in the trees and seeing new bright green tips to the spruce trees around me as if they had been decorated by forest folk was just the tonic for me. Yesterday I took my daughter and her friends to Linnamäki in Helsinki. It's an amusement park with a really old wooden roller coaster, amongst other non-wooden attractions but it's not my thing so I dropped them off and went off to explore the sights and sounds of Ikea...because I've never been there before. I wasn't all that enthralled so I spent most of the day sat in the sun reading, napping and eating my way through the huge bowl of salad that I'd especially brought with me! After 6 hours of bliss I headed back to the centre to find the girls, grab an ice cream and watch the action for a while before heading home.

Funnily enough I had already been thinking about how a day in the city with its stark contrast to forest life makes me really appreciate where I live, even before I got back to my car and found the window had been smashed in. As a Londoner, sadly, I would know not to leave a rucksack on the front seat of my car but I have forgotten all about such things living in a place where I quite often leave the keys in the ignition. I think the window breaker and I are equally disappointed about what happened as the rucksack contained my empty salad bowl, empty yoghourt pot, spoon, fork, book and blanket....and there was quite a bit of blood in and around the car too. I swept the glass out...which amusingly enough made a passing dog owner tut at me (so I swept it all into a neat pile!) and then I covered the seats with rubber mats to protect the children, a nice guy from the park came and made me a window out of plastic and tape and off we went back home to the place where you don't really need to lock your car. Me and four children with our innocence a little bruised.

It is sad to think that there are folk who are so caught up in some perceived desperate need that they do things like that, I haven't felt angry yet.....that'll probably happen when I have to pay for the new glass!! It was a stark lesson/reminder for me about how we all live in the same physical world and yet we all live in totally different worlds, some more similar than others and all seeming equally real because we make them real by putting all of our focus on them.

I'm grateful to the park staff for their help, I'm grateful to who or whatever scared the window breaker away without noticing my camera and video camera in the unlocked boot, my MP3 player in the door pocket and my sunglasses on the dash, I'm grateful to my kind neighbour who came over whilst I was out and chopped up a pile of tough logs that I couldn't manage. I'm grateful for a lot of things in my life and that is what I'm focusing on today, with a little time later to send some healing to my window breaker, I hope that they feel better soon, in all ways.

Wednesday 21st May 2008

As I returned home from my morning stroll through the back garden, which is forest, I was surrounded by birdsong and not for the first time in my life I felt as if I lived inside one of those relaxation CDs! It really is glorious to be walking through the trees totally immersed in sound, as well as the smaller birds serenading around me there was the cuckoo some distance away cuckooing away like crazy and somewhere on my lake I could hear two seagulls arguing about something and then I heard a familiar sound that I haven't heard for a while...the swifts had returned for the summer with their unmistakable screeching and mid-air aerobatics. Now I know that summer is complete because the swift is the last bird to return and the first bird to leave. Yesterday I had seen the spotted flycatcher with her signature flight and bright eyes down by my sauna, she always nests there and I have the pleasure of watching her babies grow up and then fly away each year.

I've seen lots of baby mice around too, as there is a nest inside my front wall! I realise now the mistake I made and I shall rectify the structural situation but I'll wait for the babies to grow up and leave the nest as I couldn't bear to hurt them....in some ways I'm still not cut out for this country living! I saw a mouse by my front wheel when I came out of the supermarket last week and I thought it was very unusual for it to be around there but I just hoped it didn't get under my wheels and I drove off to visit friends. Whilst sat outside with my friend we noticed a little mouse around the wheels of my car....how about that for a coincidence! On closer inspection we discovered that it wasn't a coincidence, I had a mouse nest inside my engine compartment and there were two baby mice running around in there! They must have been in there when I drove all the way to Helsinki and back awhile ago!! It's a shame to think that one of them survived all that and then my friend's cat ate it as soon as it emerged...I guess that's life!

Monday 19th May 2008

The cold, sunny weather has continued for a while now but the snow showers seem to have turned into rain ones for now so the continual prancing back and forth from the garden with my vulnerable seedlings has ceased for a while. It got so ridiculous by the end of last week that I gathered all my pots under my front porch roof making the area around my front door look like some vegetation refugee camp. I've still lost a lot of seedlings, including all my squash bar one! Some of the growth in the forest has been hit too in certain places. The new fern fronds slowly unwinding are all limp and brown now but I suppose that the fern will just grow new ones. The blueberry bushes which were abundant with blooms (see right) don't look quite so good anymore and I'm not experienced enough to know if this has wiped out the blueberry crop again this year as it did about 2 years ago. Time will tell but I hope that shadier areas were less affected.

I tried a whole new experience last week....kind of an extreme eating thing! I discovered some mushrooms known as false morels or turban fungus (gyromitra esculenta) which are known here as korvasieni (ear mushroom). They look like a dark brown brain to me rather than an ear but anyway, they are ugly looking and extremely poisonous and the Finns love to eat them...so when in Rome....

First of all I read all about them on Wiki and I started to feel worried about them for the first time...an interesting experience to feel the fear rising! Undeterred by this, I know how the Finns like their health and safety and you are allowed to sell the mushrooms here with strict cooking instructions and so I went ahead......apparently I won't die until about day 7 so I don't know if it was a success yet!

I chopped them up and a fantastic aroma wafted around my nasal sensors, now that would explain why folk went to all this effort! I boiled them for 5 minutes, changed the water, rinsed them, boiled them for another 5 minutes...now unfortunately at this point I got side-tracked into some writing I was doing and the second boil ended when all the water had evaporated and I started to smell burning, whoops! So mine have been boiled twice and barbecued a little too so I'm quite so sure about how great they may normally taste. I then cooked them with butter and onion and they tasted superb. Then I sat and waited to see if I would keel over. I felt a slight tightness around my head a while later....although that has happened to me previously when my reiki energy was growing stronger and I've had some wicked block buster type dreams since then too....but who knows if they are connected.

I've now been given some more by a friend and I've decided to wait until day 7 before trying more....although that isn't logical because if I'm a goner I may as well eat the rest and if they are OK then I don't need to wait....but I'm drying these other ones as that is an alternative way to remove the toxins...and before anyone panics about that I will still be boiling them twice etc.

Thursday 15th May 2008

I've received a great gardening tips book and found out that it is actually only a man's urine that is any good on the compost for rotting it all down and to think of all those wasted years I've spent perched up there.....

Tuesday 13th May 2008

I saw a new bird in my garden today, a Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus). I'd never seen one before and it took a while to identify it because it acts so much like a flycatcher I almost convinced myself I'd found a new species, maybe some bird that had got blown off course by all the strong winds blowing round the world at the moment!! The Redstart is great, it swishes its tail all the time and makes a great noise which I've finally identified as the high pitched whistling sound hweet that always makes me look up from my gardening because I think someone has just whistled to grab my attention! It looked as if it had taken one of my nesting boxes which is really exciting. The pied flycatcher has definitely moved into another of my boxes and I put up another one in a slightly less exposed place to give it more choice. The new bird box came courtesy of my daughter who made it at school in her woodwork class. The girl's a genius.

As if the day wasn't exciting enough with the Redstart, I got my new road today too! Huge lorries arrived with tonnes of sandy gravel and the lovely local tractor man smoothed it all out for me, so now I can drive up my road without dodging rocks and negotiating huge ruts. We've also put in some pipework to deal with the spring time thaw problem which created the quagmire this year. I've included some recent photographs from around Mairela showing the new emergence of the gorgeous green leaves of the Goddess of the Forest, the Birch tree. The view from my window is changing daily, the window picture below was taken on Friday and the forest picture opposite was taken this morning. You can see how the lakeside birch trees have produced patches of bright green amongst the dark fir trees.

This spring came later than last year, although more in line with the usual timings, but it has come so quickly. Four weeks ago I was stood on the lake surveying snow and ice all around me and now I'm surrounded by greenery. The aspen trees have yet to come into leaf although I have seen a few starting to on my travels. It's a lot colder at the moment though, in fact we had a very brief snow shower this evening!! That certainly got me moving to cover all my new plants, gardening is so stressful this time of year in Finland!

I would like to mention that if anyone would like an electronic copy of any of my photographs then please just ask, they make wonderful wallpaper for your computer and if I supply you with the original then you get all of the pixels and not the reduced version shown here!

Sunday 11th May 2008

Today is Mothers Day and I took a trip over to my favourite meditation spot on top of Linnavuori (Castle Hill) and sat to send some love to Mother Earth and Mother Nature for I certainly have a lot to be grateful for. In ancient times we would often make sacrifices and offerings to the Gods, maybe a slight distortion of our true essence of gratitude, to give thanks for what we had by giving a little back. By making some kind of ceremony or ritual over our abundance, be it the harvest or a hunt, we put ourselves automatically and naturally into a place of gratitude, we remembered the source of our abundance and we expressed our appreciation to her. By remembering to do it we stayed connected and aware of the great cycle of nature of which we are an integral part, we understood our role within that cycle and we knew how to stay in tune and in balance with it.

Over the years us humans have become more and more detached from our natural source, we flick switches and we have heat and power, we turn a tap and we have water. We don't stop to think about where it comes from or even where it is going. Here at Mairela Retreat I spend time collecting my firewood from the forest, I know the source of my heating, I know how many trees it takes and I know how long they need to grow and how much space they need...in other words I can see how sustainable my heating is because it is right there in front of me.

I can watch the levels of my drinking water rise and fall with the passing seasons and weather patterns. The weather has a direct connection with my drinking water supply, I can see the effects of increased traffic along my road on the roadside plants and the water in my lake which ends by the road. I see which trees and plants can produce fruit after late frosts or dry summers, I see new species come to live after milder winters and I notice old friends who don't return. If I move some trees I see what comes to replace them and if I drain some swamp I notice who loses their home.

I have to take responsibility for the effects of me in the great cycle and yet even with my close proximity to nature I can't know all of those effects of my actions. The only way to keep within the flow of nature is to stay in tune with it and to flow with it, to adapt and change in line with my surroundings whether on a local scale or a universal scale. When I am living in the flow and with the flow, then instinctively I will know what to do.

Just trust yourself. Then you will know what to do. Goethe.

This kind of knowing can't be learned, it is the knowing that comes from quiet listening, noticing and conscious awareness. It is one of the unseen gifts that guests to Mairela Retreat are given by Mother Earth when they are here. Not just because you collect your water from the well or use a chemical free composting toilet, although they certainly help you to start connecting again but the sheer weight and abundance of nature permeates you, surrounds you and imbibes you. I can't explain it very well with words because it is so beyond them but when I sit up on my rock and close my eyes I can feel myself being held by Mother Earth and I can feel her vibration running through me, I am held in pure love and I am so safe, I know that nothing could ever hurt me.

Friday 9th May 2008

Summer must officially have arrived as my swallow is back and sorting its nest out on the sauna already. I think that only leaves the spotted flycatcher and the swifts to arrive back and complete the set. Meanwhile continuing with my cooking experiences I made another vat of nettle soup last night which I have to say is much better than all previous ones as I enhanced the recipe somewhat. I'm really getting into this natural food thing, my house is covered with pots of new seedlings growing for the garden....waiting for the last frost threat to go, which could be the end of this month so I spend a lot of time bringing them in at night and putting them out during the day. There are sheets of newspaper on every other available surface with various herbal remedies drying out to be saved for future months. Whilst out on my forage yesterday I collected lots of fresh birch leaves, some are made into tea, some will be kept for making a great hair tonic for shiny hair and heaps of coltsfoot flowers which are a fantastic expectorant. In my previous existence this kind of 'clutter' would have driven me insane but it feels great to be surrounded by such life enhancing produce.

My previous existence as I call it.....life before I reaped the gift of my cancer was all about trying to hard to be some kind of idealised perfect person that I had concocted in my head....I call her Saint Sara, she's still very active but at least I recognise her now and know that she isn't real.....I would like to share a letter that I recently sent about Saint Sara and the cause and effect of her in my life, I hope that it may be of help to someone.

Dear ++++, ....I'm not telling you something that you have to do or even have to agree with, it's just me sharing something with someone I love very much.

I used to always be so very frustrated with my back, it was always so stiff, it 'went' so easily and it was unpredictable with when it was going to 'go' and I felt like a real bloody cripple and that annoyed me...my stupid back was stopping me from doing what I wanted with my life, it was making me look like a weak person and made me like some kind of invalid and quite frankly I hated it sometimes and wished it would just f*** off and leave me alone. It was ruining my life.

Then one day I realised that my back was a part of me (strange that this is obvious and yet not!) and that if my back was a certain way then I was responsible for it being that way...and that I could split it off from me in my mind as much as possible and deny any connection between its pain and my existence or way of being but ultimately that was as ridiculous a notion as denying it to be a part of my own physical body.

Of course I had previously realised (intellectually at least) that my lower back muscles were holding me in this rigid perfect idealised self that I had concocted in my mind as the way that I believed that I should be in my life in order to be accepted and loved and a worthwhile person. Not showing my anger and if I did then self punishing myself for it, not showing my silliness and definitely never showing any of my thoughts of spite or hate or revenge...eventually not even acknowledging them in my conscious mind, as in that way I could continue to believe in my sainthood which was what made me good enough to be allowed to exist.

I realised that I had lumped all of this onto my lower back and then forgotten about it and then when my back started to collapse and be unable to hold all that rubbish anymore having reached maximum capacity (in fact been so toxic at one point as to have produced 7 tumours), I had turned on my back and rejected it for its efforts because it was letting me down....still trying to be Saint Sara!

When I realised all of this I changed how I felt about my back...when it has bad days I look after it, I understand the load it has been carrying and just as I would care for a child with love and gentleness I care for my back.

Because of my gentleness and compassion my back has been able to let out some of the tension and holding that it has carried all these years, consequently it feels more free and flexible with each day. Some days it is very stiff and painful as another memory surfaces and is allowed to come out, rather like an old splinter that has been festering deep in my muscle for years and has now come to the surface or the light. Those days I rest and let the memories and experiences come fully into my mind and be relived with the intention of healing. (The timings have grown shorter with my growing trust in the experience and my growing healthy systems)

I find it easier for myself to be kind to myself when 'bad' muscle days come because I have the understanding of what they are and I know that allowing myself to live and experience the full meaning behind the pain is what will ultimately release me from the holding that creates that pain.

When we are being kind and compassionate to ourselves then what we are doing is learning to love ourselves unconditionally...it's a beautiful thing, a healing thing and a freeing thing as it allows us to be totally at peace with however we are in each moment....now that is real and total peace.

Our lungs equally hold very much of our pain.....some children stiffen their back and some children hold their breath....some hold their rectum, genitals, stomach....we all hold our tensions and fears in different places, of course we all have a holding in most places but we also have a favourite place too....it doesn't matter which or how many because the route for them all back to health and balance is the same.....love them and allow them to be how they want to be....not in a rigid saintlike way but with true compassion.

It is easier to allow ourselves to let the stuck toxic stuff surface when we are feeling strong enough to deal with it, we trust the process, we feel the holding and love from our guides and angels and our own immune system is working well.......I have got myself into the habit of taking a superfood health drink each morning...giving my own systems the nutrition to work as nature intended...

These are the ingredients if you would like to try it...Spirulina Powder, Nature's Living Superfood (Kiwi), Maca Root, Ginger, Hemp Oil, Pumpkin Seeds, Sesame Seeds, Sunflower Seeds, Ground Flax Seeds, Wakame Seaweed, Nettles, Lecithin, all blended with apple juice and a banana. Soak the seeds, nettles (as they are dried) and seaweed overnight. You can add in whatever else you feel with be good for you and take it as one superfood drink

If you need any help with any of this just ask and I'll be there....as always,

Love Sara
xxxxxxxxx

Thursday 8th May 2008

The weather has changed again so we've had some rain which should spur on the advancing greenery and the sunny days still look the same but the temperature is vastly different as there is a serious chill in the air. On the bright side it makes chopping and log carrying much nicer and fresher! I saw that the pied flycatcher has arrived in my garden a few days ago and was checking out the accommodation, I've had two pairs nesting here for the past few years and their eloquent singing is always a welcome addition to the serene atmosphere.

As usual I've incorporated some of the new spring plants into my diet to take advantage of the abundance of nutrients therein. Dandelions and nettles are two of nature's real superfoods and I'm eating as many as I can whilst they are fresh and young. If you think about the power contained in any young plant it is amazing, some of them seem to grow before your very eyes and to harness some of that power for ourselves is very worthwhile. I chop up the dandelion leaves and add them straight into my salads as a substitute for rochet or I stick a handful directly into my morning blended superfood drink, I have mountains of dried nettles from last year which I use for tea and also for adding to my morning drink. I've also made some nettle soup from the fresh young shoots.....but don't tell my daughter as she still thinks it's spinach soup which she loves and so she eats loads of it. Nettles not only contain heaps of nutrients including calcium, phosphorus, iron plus vitamin D, they also cleanse the blood which makes them a great restorer for lymphatic problems and are a useful natural anti asthmatic making them excellent for all respiratory diseases.

I found a recipe for dandelion flower fritters so now I'm waiting for them to flower so I can give it a try. I sometimes get folk questioning me about taking leaves and flowers from the garden to eat, as if it were dangerous because they haven't come wrapped in clingfilm and been washed in bleach to kill any bacteria on them etc. Bless them, there are actually soil bacteria which we need to maintain a healthy digestive system....I buy myself an expensive food product to ensure that I maintain mine in these days of sterile food....also known as dead food. To my mind the chemicals that our foods are exposed to on their way to the supermarket are much more deadly than anything I could pick up in my soil. My own personal trust is in Mother Nature and my own natural defences, if I am healthy then my body will deal with anything that doesn't serve my physical body and get it to pass through me or out of me as quickly as possible with the least risk to me. If I put my reliance to never coming in contact with anything I deem to be harmful then straight away I have put a whole heap of pressure on myself to know everything there is to know about the universe and how all things work and balance out......I may be fairly arrogant in some respects but I fall short of that. My body is a perfect working system designed over many years and if I can learn to listen to it then it will guide me to the very things I need to maintain my good health...as opposed to creating a sterile (or dead) environment for me to exist in ( I can't use the word live there, it just doesn't feel right).

I'm off now to gather a sack full of new birch leaves to make some tea.

Sunday 4th May 2008

The beautiful fresh bright green leaves are really bursting forth from the birch trees now and with the bright sunny weather continuing they are highlighted most exquisitely. I've spent many years trying to capture the essence of how it looks but with little success.....it seems that the camera can't capture everything but I continue with my quest. On the other hand whilst taking some shots of a water snail this morning I discovered that the camera also sees different things from me! My camera kept focusing on the reflection of a birch tree instead of the snail 10cms lower but it surprised me when I looked to see the reflection that it took me a while to adjust my focus enough to see it...very strange.

I'm quite used to coming across hidden truths whilst doing my healing work, sometimes we really can't see what is right in front of our faces, for example when we think that nobody loves us and we have no help with our lives, we can actually be blocking all of the love and support that surrounds us and if we could just adjust our focus a little we would see......if we can adjust our energy a little we can feel the love and support that is constantly surrounding us all. This love and support never goes anywhere, all we need do is to sit quietly and tune into it, one of the easiest ways to tune into it is to take note of all the beautiful things around you and spend a little time focusing on each one and voicing your gratitude for it...as your gratitude grows so too does your sense of well being....you are feeling into the natural well being flow of the universe.

This is actually very similar to an exercise I teach for tapping into the abundance of the universe, for a period of 30 days make a gratitude diary. Start with writing down 5 things that you feel gratitude for and then increase it daily until you reach about 25 and then keep up this exercise for about a month and see what happens. The more gratitude we feel, the more abundance we attract....like attracts like, the law of harmonic resonance......or if you don't subscribe to that idea.....you see what you are looking for!

Friday 2nd May 2008

I was visiting down in Helsinki yesterday so I got to see first hand some of the wild May Day celebrations including a grand naked run around the esplanade by a very fit young man wearing his graduation cap....a traditional thing....the cap, not the streak! I noticed that as I drove south there were more leaves appearing on the trees so it won't be long until they arrive in these parts......in fact when I scan across the lake with my binoculars there is one birch tree taller than the rest that has emerging leaves on the topmost branches.

Wednesday 30th April 2008

This was the warmest Beltane that I have ever celebrated in Finland, even without the traditional Beltane fire the temperature was 21 degrees and I broke out my shorts!! I always mark the old Beltane festival with a fire to smoke and cleanse the house, cottage, everywhere and myself. The smoke is said to drive out all the evil spirits left over from the darkness of winter...which is nice. I also jump through the flames....well the remaining smouldering bits after the huge fire has died down and I've cooked some traditional Finnish sausages, all washed down with some of the traditional Sima that I made specially for may day

Elsewhere in Finland young folk are celebrating the eve of May Day by getting wrecked and spraying their hair lots of weird colours, wearing silly masks and clothes. At school my daughter and her friend ran a disco for the lower classes which was one of many fun events at the lower school.

The festival of Beltane announces the summer half of the year and is the festival of the sun God Balder. As with all spring time festivals the cleansing of the winter to enhance the fertility of the spring is the main idea behind most rituals. The actual fire is made from 9 different types of wood and comprises a sacred grid, traditionally all other fires would be put out and then relit from the Beltane fire.

Tuesday 29th April 2008

A very warm, almost 20 degrees day, a pleasant surprise for the end of April in Finland! As I went for a dip in the lake during my sauna tonight the water was a tropical 9 degrees. The toads have now taken to the water after their winter snooze and unlike the frogs who favour the ditch, the toads prefer to swim in the lake. As I walked down the jetty for my dip I thought that I was less like 'Man who dances with wolves' and more like 'woman that swims with toads' which just isn't half as glamorous. What's more after clambering back up the ladder from my chilly plunge I then heard the unmistakable smashing of the beaver's tail on the water's surface over the far side of the lake...seems he was objecting to me being there...cheeky bugger, I know I'm not the world's prettiest sight naked but I didn't think I was that scary!! The previous evening we had seen him glide by just by the shore with his huge wake giving him away as he set off in search of some tasty lily roots for his supper.

Monday 28th April 2008

Pretty much all the ice has now melted from the lake, quickened on its way by two warm nights where the temperature didn't go back below zero. There is already frog spawn in my ditch and when I took a long walk through the gorgeously warm and sunny forest yesterday I heard and saw hundreds of frogs in every size and shape of ditch, I even found a couple getting it on in the road so I excused myself from peering at them (how rude!) and put a small rock in front of them to dissuade drivers from using that particular piece of gravel! That was my good deed for the day!

I often think what a strange and dull life it must be for a frog, they spend most of their life in a semi coma one metre underground to save themselves being frozen to death, they come out and sing for a mate for a couple of weeks and then pretty much disappear for the rest of the time....you don't see them lounging around on deckchairs or reading a book, they just vanish. But of course the thing with frogs, and all living things except for us humans is that they are pure essence, they don't think, they haven't imposed this concept of time on themselves, they don't worry what they look like...it fact it never occurs to them what they look like....they are pure essence and as such all they do is be frogness.

So why are we humans different?...we are certainly essence too as we are wonderful creatures of light and power but we also possess something else, an ego mind caused by a split. If we were still a oneness like the frog there would be no other part of ourselves that could look at who we are....after all who would be doing the looking? We have the part of ourselves that decides that our bum is too big, our career isn't good enough, our bank account isn't big enough, in fact even when this part of ourselves decides that we are the right shape and in the right place with the right amount of money by default it is still creating a reality where there is a wrong shape, wrong career etc. If we make something right then we have to create a wrong way to support it.

So what causes that split? Well....strangely enough (or not) the human race is divided, or split, on that! We either split because we partook of the apple and now we are paying for our sin......I personally don't buy into that one as that creates a very mean God and I don't believe in a mean, spiteful and vindictive God that wants to control us. For me the split is there in order to allow us to experience our total perfection, to know experientially our essence and to do so by choice. After all the frog is totally pure in his essence but he doesn't have any choice in that....I'm not saying that we are better or worse than frogs, we are just different!

Knowing that I'm here for the experience, that in any moment I always have a choice about who I am and I have a God/universe/light that doesn't insist on me being a certain way sure does take off some pressure.....although my dear old ego mind is always there with my big bum and lack of finances to put pressure back on should I let it.

The two states (and I leave my mind open to other possibilities too) are actually not so different when you start to look at them either, as happens a lot with life and experiences, one is just a distorted view of the other.

In nature there are certain laws such as cause and effect, we may not be able to pin down every effect to a certain cause making a nice set of rules but there is always a cause and an effect. Now when I'm in tune with the flow of the universe (God) everything falls into place and I am in heaven, it feels great but when I am out of tune, when I'm not seeing the effect that I am causing by my own actions then I get frustrated, I don't understand why my life is so bad etc. The more we become out of rhythm with the well being flow of the universe the worse it feels to us and we suffer, we forget about the essence that we really are and we start to totally subscribe to the world where our body should be a certain size and shape and our career should be this and our house should be that etc. (These are just a few flavours of the ego world but anything that has a 'should' in the thought or an 'if only' then it comes from ego ). That state where everything in our lives is wrong is what I would call hell.

So in effect we do go to hell if we don't fit in with the universe or we go against it.

And from our higher place of experiencing all of this we can see that partaking of the knowledge of our perfection (splitting/eating the apple) was a great gift and it was also a great curse, it is both or neither at the same moment...and we have the choice about which.

Notice how the mind doesn't like this so much as it doesn't fit neatly into boxes and rules, the mind wants an answer but ultimately there is none because the question falls away when we are essence.

Sunday 27th April 2008

For anybody who has ever wanted to come to Mairela to experience the unique healing qualities but didn't want to come alone or couldn't afford the holistic healing holiday week here is an opportunity for some amazing teachings in a group session. Please pass on the details to anyone you may feel would be interested.

Self Healing Workshop Week 20th -27th July 2008 in Finland at Mairela Retreat

A group retreat week working towards empowering everyone with the tools and the trust to guide their own self and be attuned to their own innate healing abilities and natural balance.

Daily Chi Kung exercise programme to enhance energy flow

Daily meditation practice covering various techniques

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 the structure of our defences - the things that produce our blockages that keep us from pain but also stop the life force flowing

No previous experience is required

Boat trip (2hrs) on Lake Päijänne (optional & payable locally €15)

A Personal healing session for each attendee

Lots of free time to spend in the beautiful natural surroundings

Use of lake and rowing boat

Traditional sauna every evening

Airport transfer

Half board vegetarian (breakfast & lunch)

Campfire

Maximum 8 places

Accommodation is shared, either in the cottage (£220 pp) or the house (£250pp).

For further information or to book a place

Call me on 00358 408 404807 (I can call you back if you prefer)

Or text me on 00358 408 404807 

Or send an email to Sara (please remember to add me to your safe contacts list otherwise your reply may be filtered out, I always reply to every enquiry with 24 hours)

The return to essence (our pure being) is always a two pronged approach combining process work where stuck or hidden energy blockages are given permission and a safe space to express and awareness work where we exercise our self awareness muscles via body work and meditation so that we know in each moment what it uis that we are doing and why, thus creating a clearer understanding of our own self.

There are many different forms of meditation designed for different purposes and we shall be exploring some of those during the week so that you can find for yourself the best fit for your current situation

The workshop sessions will be held in Saaresmaja, an old community hall on the other side of the lake from Mairela, on the shore of a bigger lake situated directly beneath the old Iron Age fortress of Linnavuori. This is a place of great energy and was a meeting place for folk in ancient times.

A week of healing aimed at enpowering you with the tools and trust for your own journey

Starting off the week with a cleansing of your chakras and meridians in order to facilitate the natural well being flow of the universal energy. It is this energy that is always taking us back to a place of balance and when we are in tune with it we learn to trust it and travel along with the flow rather than constantly fighting it.

Monday 21st April 2008

Another great spring day for me to spend time in the garden and the final signs of spring arrived today in the form of frogs singing in the ditch and the unmistakable sight and sound of cranes flying overhead. The ice on the lake has turned a dark shade of blue which means that it will start to break up very soon and I can start to think about getting my boat back out again.

The frogs sing their chorus every spring for about 2 weeks and then they disappear again leaving the frog spawn to sort itself out. The noise is quite unbelievable and when I walk down my path towards the lake they must hear the vibration of my footsteps and they all dive with splashes and plops.

Sunday 20th April 2008

The past four days have been so heavenly here with a total spring essence to everything, the weather has been clear and sunny....can you believe I've caught the sun a little but I suppose I was very pasty before! Although the day time temperatures crept up to 10 degrees because of the clear skies one night it fell back down to minus four but I've been making the most of it and spending hours in the garden raking up all the leaves...which living in the middle of a forest is no mean feat! I usually leave them on the ground over the winter to protect the grass and all the little creatures hiding amongst them, besides which giving the whole grass a good going over now aerates it and lifts it up again after being crushed by the sheer volume of snow.

The days in the garden have given me ample opportunity for sampling the delights of a Finnish spring, there is always a new surprise waiting round every corner, the distinct whirring noise of the male snipe's wing feathers as he does his aerial dives, the yellow flowers of the coltsfoot suddenly appearing as if from nowhere amongst the dead and bare earth, a patch of crocus outside the cottage, woodpeckers tapping not just for food now but making new nesting holes, sandpipers nosing around the swampy parts of the garden and shrieking with their high pitched cry when I disturb them and they take off at great speed, the swans trumpeting and honking as they fly over in pairs heading for Siberia and their nesting ground, the redwing rummaging around in the leaves, a Camberwell beauty butterfly coming to say hello to me, my rhubarb popping its bright red heads out of the ground, wild blue liverleaf (liverwort) flowers, even a grass lizard sunning itself sleepily on a fallen tree trunk, the dogs shedding their winter coats and the birds making the most of the wonderfully soft and warm fur for their nests, more wet boots again when I forgot about the deep ditch, the purple flowers of the poisonous Daphne Mezercum (Dwarf laurel, Spurge Olive) appearing on the bare brown twigs, tens of holes in the ground where the frogs have emerged from their winter stupor and even evidence that the beaver has been for a spring time snack under the ice of the lake as there are lily roots floating in the open places.

These are the days when I am totally in my essence, loving every minute of the unfolding spectacle around me...even whilst my arms feel like they will drop off soon from all the raking! It's the fact that Finland has a good old fashioned real winter that really enhances and amplifies the special feeling of new beginnings and growth time.

Wednesday 16th April 2008

I don't ever remember seeing quite so much water lying around in previous spring times although the situation is always the same, that the snow melts before the ice on the lake and the frozen ground do and has nowhere to go. Hence, there is a lot of backed up water waiting to drain away and instead of the lake being 20 metres away from the house at the moment it looks more like 10 metres! Going to the sauna requires wading through water and the rowing boat looks as if you would need a boat to get to it! The stream in the forest that empties into my lake is already bursting through its normal banks so it's probably a good thing that the water returns to the lakes over an extended and staged period of time.

My driveway is in its normal springtime mess too, the rocks that have been appearing on its surface are now a little higher after another winter and the melting snow is making huge streams in one place. Where the road is made with a high sand content the water moves through in the channels I've scraped and drains off nicely into the forest but in other places there is a high clay content and those parts are like a quagmire. The man who usually clears the drive of snow came yesterday with his tractor and scraped the surface away into the forest to make it a little easier for me to drive out. I had wanted the whole road to be redone, rocks taken out completely and a new surface laid but I'm not sure that I was understood correctly.....I had asked someone for help to find the right people to do the job and he kindly phoned round. However, the guys coming to look at the road know that I don't speak much Finnish and therefore decide what is needed. They are probably right as they know roads better than me but it's a weird way to run my life. Every time I go out in my car I have a 400 metre rocky obstacle course with the added spring time bonus of a swamp, so I'm looking forward to having it sorted

The other effect of all this water is that I have no boots left to wear, between me and my current guest all our snow boots are soaked plus I waded into a metre deep ditch yesterday because I forgot it was there under the huge puddle in the garden and filled one of my wellington boots with very cold and evil smelling water, so they are now out of commission and I had to wear my normal boots whilst walking the dogs this morning. Most of the walk is on good roads and therefore no trouble but now that I am using the forest route, as the lake isn't safe for walking on anymore and the last section of forest path has turned into a stream I needed wellies or a diversion. So I took a new route through the old spruce forest instead and was handsomely rewarded, not only with dry feet, hurrah, but a gorgeous green carpet of grass and ferns that have survived the winter in all their finery protected from the worst by the spreading branches of the big old spruce (Christmas trees). They look especially vibrant because of their uniqueness in the bare surrounding of the receding winter.

Elsewhere it will take a little time for new growth to come, after all the ground is still frozen solid in many places just 2cm under the surface. So there will be a time when the whole landscape looks sparse and barren...although I always think it looks really neat and tidy, especially as all Finnish trees are dead straight. The same thing happens after intense healings when we have cleared out a lot of old stale stuck energy, the energy body takes some time to integrate the new structure and then it can take some time for the new beginnings to emerge from your new energy patterns. It's easy to get impatient, despondent or even afraid during these times of apparent emptiness, the familiarity of the old has left us but nothing seems to have replaced it yet and energetically we can feel like we are in limbo and it can seem as if we will be there for ever. The new place that we are going to is by definition somewhere that we have not experienced before so we can't even imagine it, all we have is our faith and trust that it will come. That faith is a natural aspect of our being, all we need do is allow it to be present, just as we don't worry if the trees will come into bud or the flowers will emerge from the soil, neither need we concern ourselves as to whether our new beginnings are coming. From the moment that you set your intention of healing your new emergence is implicit. I often teach that it is the same as flicking a light switch, from the moment you hit the switch there is a certain delay of time and then the light comes on. The only difference is the measure that we use called time, each healing taking different times. If you take time out of the equation, the only moment being now, then you are already in your new beginning.

Tuesday 15th April 2008

After nearly a week of the snow disappearing we awoke on Saturday morning to find that it had snowed again and everything was white and cold once more! I've been keeping all the newly arrived birds fed with nuts and seeds to ease their transition into this wintery weather. Last Friday I counted 14 different species of bird outside my window in the morning, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Willow Tit, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Siskin, Serin, Redpoll, Blackbird, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Bullfinch, Robin, Brambling & Dunnock.

I continued to dip in my ice hole in the frozen lake but this time I had to break the layer of ice that had formed on the open surface and on Sunday evening after we'd had some freezing rain it was especially interesting to walk along the jetty crunching on the freezing surface.

I looked up my photographs from this time last year and found pictures of sunny days and butterflies as last year was a very early spring and this year we seem to be extending the late arriving winter. As I've said before the changing weather patterns dictate that the only way to really know what the weather will be like is to look out of the window.

On my continuing theme of pushing back the limits of my personal comfort zone I headed off to the local bar with a visiting friend and indulged in some karaoke!! Talk about bizarre moments of life, there we were in a small town/village in Finland, a Londoner and an Irish girl doing the Lambeth Walk - Oi! I can't imagine why on earth would a Finnish karaoke outfit have the Lambeth Walk on their books!!

Wednesday 9th April 2008

Today is Michael Agricola's Day or Finnish Language Day, it's not a holiday but a flag day which recognises the man known as the 'Father of Finnish written language' as he developed a standard written form for the language. Agricola was a clergyman who was prominant in the Protestant Reformation in Finland and translated the bible into Finnish.

Tuesday 8th April 2008

The snow is really starting to disappear rapidly so no more great winter photo opportunities will present themselves for a while now, therefore please just indulge me with this last one of the winter sun perfectly captured by a snow shower through the trees. The last few days have been misty almost as if the very sky were melting too along with all the snow and the frozen earth. There are huge flocks of returning finches, the green finch and the chaffinch bobbing around my garden feasting on all the sunflower seeds that have now been exposed by the receding snow, I even saw a wagtail whilst cycling into town at the weekend and according to the Finnish rhyme that means that summer is only a week away....so clearly something has gone a bit awry, as I'm still walking over the lake every morning! The rhyme goes;

Kuu kiurusta kesään, puoli kuuta peiposesta, viikon verran västäräkistä, ei päivääkä pääskysestä.

A month from a lark to summer, a half month from a chaffinch, a week's time from a wagtail, no days from a swallow.

Other signs of spring are the very large holes that suddenly appear in the road (the gravel roads, not usually the asphalt...although it can happen) as the differing areas of mud, sand and rock defrost at different rates, this leads to the seasonal signposts of kelirikko appearing everywhere.....confused me completely the first spring I saw them as all roads seemed to lead to this new place called kelirikko but it's a word to describe the season of frost damaged roads. Driving into town these days is an obstacle course of pot holes and puddles for the first couple of miles until I reach the asphalt, it's not helped by the fact that I still have my winter wheels on and the studded tyres grip into the soft mud so well that the car actually gets thrown around all over the place....once my whole drive defrosts I'll change the wheels back over. Talking of holes and ice I have finally made (well actually somebody else did the hard work) an ice hole in the lake, attached the steps back to the end of the pier and on Saturday night during my sauna I went into the water four times! I'm so proud of myself as I never would have envisaged me doing it ever in my life. Clearly I am really pushing back the boundaries of my former comfort zones!

On a completely different note it's great to see that the petition to encourage China to dialogue with the Dalai Lama seems to be having some effect. Too often us humans only use our voice to register the things that we don't want, we only speak up when we want to complain about something and consequently with the universe only being able to work with positive statements not negative ones, we end up attracting the very thing we objected to!! For example when we voice our anti war statements it leads to an increased attachment to the state of war, whereas concentrating on the promotion of peace leads to an increase of energy flowing towards peaceful scenarios. This isn't just hocus pocus stuff......if I tell you not to think about a giraffe...what's the first thing that pops into your head? A petition to encourage dialogue does what it says on the box as opposed to a petition to end violence which forms an attachment to violence.

It's also great to see how the quality and essence of power is starting to be seen differently. Previously, power was seen as the ability to stand stubbornly against any change or different view, to out shout the opposition or anyone who held a different view but now we are seeing the emergence of a new kind of power, or a new definition of power that includes being able to bend and move to accommodate others. We don't need to change the way that we run our lives when we come into conflict with others who don't share our beliefs, if we just widen our horizons we can take in both view points. If our intention is peace and harmony then that will be the vibration of our energy. There is more strength and power in being able to flex and expand than there ever will be in being stubborn and unyielding. It's what the trees teach me, the giant pine trees stand tall and strong but they bend with the wind because no matter how long and strong they are if they are inflexible then they will just snap.

Talking and being seen to change your mind or limited beliefs can often seem like the hardest actions that we can take and that is why they are the truest measure of our inner power and strength.

Sometimes we moan and grumble about the Internet, it's too commercial, too many pop ups, too much information etc. but let us also remember to voice gratitude for the other things it brings us such as being able to quickly carry the voice of millions of people all over the world who want to lend their energy and support to the powerful notion of communication rather than confrontation. Remember that your energy follows your thoughts.....so where will you put your mind today?

Friday 4th April 2008

Walking along the road this morning I noted how the ice melts quicker in the places that have already melted somewhat, I guess the darker colours of the exposed road retain more heat and thus aid faster melting whereas the pure white snow reflects the sun and therefore stays colder. Also where there is flowing water either from a stream or melting snow and ice the water clears a path much faster than the sun would do, water being a greater conductor of heat than the air. And of course I got to thinking about how energy work follows similar patterns, the more obstacles you clear then the greater the rate of clearance you subsequently achieve. Not that speed is any requirement of a spiritual path, what with now being the only moment! But the increased rate of blockage and distortion clearing does reduce the gap between cause and effect and the outer manifestations of your thought forms appear more rapidly making it much easier to see and correlate them and thusly to appreciate more readily what you are doing to yourself.

Last night for me was a great lesson in this as I had cause to be feeling very jealous....when I say that I had cause of course there really is no cause for jealousy in the universe but in my distorted reality I feel some cause and as I have done for most, if not all of my life I quashed the feeling....I don't want to feel jealous, it's such an unattractive quality and subconsciously I'm still trying to be this wonderful saint like, martyr person. So I managed to ignore this feeling and go to sleep feeling all smug and saint like for absolutely not being jealous one little bit...or so I imagined ha ha.

Woke up this morning with a bad back which was strange as I thought that I had dealt with most of my stuck emotions that were making my back rigid and therefore very painful and inflexible but off I went on my walk hoping it would just ease off and go away....like you do! Strangely enough it did start to ease as my thoughts turned to my jealous feelings. They resurfaced as I relaxed walking through nature and not making any conscious effort to keep them stuffed down. Bearing in mind they were fresh stifled emotions from the previous night and not quite so ingrained as the ones we have from our childhood years so they kept banging against my serene consciousness quite easily until I could ignore them no longer.

At this point I had a choice, I could make a bigger effort to stuff them down again and deny them, find someone or something else to blame them on or to justify them with OR I could just admit that I felt them...for the first time ever in my life (admitting them not having them!). Now the latter choice brought up some scary feelings, the whole package of if I admitted jealously then I would have to admit caring and that would place me in danger of being manipulated because I had learnt about love as a tool for controlling people. I could take you right down the tangled distorted belief system that my inner child, the young Sara, concluded about love in order to stop feeling life threatening existential pain but the actual details are irrelevant.

But when you see and feel physically and emotionally the real pain that you incur by denying your emotions and trying to hide and squash them, the real and actual sickness this leads to, it also grows your inner strength for clearing them, for letting them be present and expressed, to actually let yourself experience totally all the unpleasant feelings....in this instance the previously disapproved of emotion of jealousy. Sure jealousy isn't something that an enlightened spirit will experience but pretending that I don't feel it won't make me an enlightened spirit, in fact it will make me a twisted distorted spirit that cannot face being her real self for fear of disapproval and shame....and I've been far enough down that route in my life to know that it doesn't bring me what I desire (inner peace) and only brings pain and suffering whether I am consciously aware of it or not.

So I let the jealous feelings come and everything else that followed them until I had expressed myself completely using a huge array of techniques including acupressure, writing, sound healing and good old fashioned snarling and crying! And when I was done expressing everything that streamed out, guess what? No back ache, no shooting pains down my left leg.....even with everything that I know and teach it seemed nothing short of a miracle but in reality is the shortening of the gap between cause and effect that occurs as you travel further on the path of life.

I also noticed another correlation during all my processing. Part of my original repression of my jealousy was due to trying to maintain this idealised self image of myself as this great enlightened saint like person who didn't hold onto love and strangle it but was free and allowed others to be likewise...great if you can do it but as I said before you can't do it by pretending, you have to be honest about your true feelings. So when I let guys go and be free to be themselves I may kid myself that I am all enlightened but in reality I'm secretly hoping they will think, oh wow what an enlightened great person she is, we really want to be with her......in reality they all go off and marry somebody else...but that's another story! Thing is, many years ago somebody did the same thing to me, let me go to be free to choose but really wanted to make me jump a certain way as he later admitted to me. At the time I was really angry with him.....and all this just goes to prove that when we react so violently to something that we deem has been 'done to us' in reality all that is really happening is that it has touched something we have buried very deep inside ourselves for fear that it will ever surface and we'll be judged for it.

Who's judging you may ask......we all judge ourselves ultimately. It may have started off as our parents, siblings or teachers or peers that judged us or we felt judged us but over time we internalized that judgement and have been using it to create our idealized self image deep in our minds (psyche) and then making ourselves miserable in the relentless and fruitless pursuit of achieving that so called perfect image. Every step we take towards that idealized image is a step further we take away from our true self and from inner peace and tranquillity. Paradoxically the nearer we get to the idealized self, the more miserable and in pain we are from the fruitless pursuit and therefore the more aware we become of the ridiculous task we have set ourselves and thus become closer to stopping it. It's good here isn't it?!

What does all that mean? It means that there is no right or wrong way to live your life, there is always cause and effect and you can make of it what you will, you have free will, you have choice, all ways. Literally, All Ways.

Thursday 3rd April 2008

Spring is definitely in the air now as the daytime temperatures reach 12 degrees and the snow is melting away, the ants are emerging from their ant hills now that they have been rescued from the frozen white embrace of winter and the birds are making serious inroads into their nest building. I saw a blackbird yesterday which is a sign of the end of winter, last year it appeared on March 16th as spring was a good 2 weeks early last year...not that it has a special day for coming!

Now looking back on the strange winter that we had I lament the fact that it was never cold enough to produce icicles in my nostrils as I breathed, neither were there any piercing gunshot-like cracks from the lake as the ice settled and moved but I'm quite happy that I didn't have to contend with frozen water pipes and my wood shed is still half full! So just as in all life experiences, it wasn't either good nor bad but just different.

Chaffinches and greenfinches have also returned to my garden and I don't suppose I'll see the crested tit again until next winter as it has retreated back into its forest home.

Friday 28th March 2008

I've been focusing on softness recently in everything that I do because I've realised the difference that it makes to your intentions and of course intention is everything! For example; previously I would do lots of physical cleansing and detoxing from the intention of ridding myself of all my rubbish, the parts of me that I didn't want anymore but eventually it dawned on me that this approach or mind set was in fact reinforcing the inner thoughts that I wasn't good enough, which of course was the starting block for so many of my defences and distortions that I was trying to eliminate. Effectively I had gotten myself into an unproductive cycle, the results of which was a perpetuation of the very thing I was trying to release myself from. This kind of distortion to a non serving energy happens a lot when we are coming from the hard rigid place of our ego mind, the voice that says things like, I must, I should, if only I could, I wish I was etc.

Now dropping into a soft space the actual physicalities of the cleansing are exactly the same but the intention behind what I'm doing is different, it's much softer. I am softening myself, letting myself melt into Mother Earth knowing that I don't need to do anything but be me. As I melt further and further down, I trust more and more that I don't need to hold onto certain ways of being in order to be acceptable to anyone...especially me, as I'm my biggest critic. The softness allows tensions from my physical body to dissipate and with them go certain emotions and mental images that had been locked in place by my inner belief that I needed them to be a 'good' person and I needed to be a 'good' person in order to be accepted and loved. This is itself another cycle but a life enhancing and life serving one, if I love myself as I am I don't need to try and be different and if I don't need to be different then I am loving and accepting myself as I am.

We often read these kinds of words, that we have to love ourselves and then we can accept ourselves etc. but it stays as an intellectual concept, something that we accept as logical or reasonable on our mental level, we've read the books and they all make sense, we agree with the words, we can see our own behaviour in what has been written and so we tick that box in our mind. I've certainly done my fair share of mental box ticking and noticed that it doesn't actually achieve what I thought I was intending. In fact smugly ticking a box in my mind about how I understand and agree with that concept is another example of my intention gone awry. When I take the time to explore the energy of my actions I can see how ego driven they are, I'm trying to be perfect, I'm trying to be the one who got it right, I've ticked the box, I've understood the concept and mapped it to my behaviour and upbringing etc. aren't I just the clever one thinks my ego mind, I'm closer to being this perfect being at last.

Notice the difference when I drop into the real memories and experience the whole loving myself idea experientially, in other words when I'm sitting and writing out all the anger, hate, spite and guilt that I have previously trapped into my hidden cellar and still I can sweep myself up into my own arms and love myself with no judgement for any of those expressions because I have total and clear understanding of their origins and I have total compassion for myself just as I know that I would for another....my children have taught me a lot about unconditional love and total acceptance.

Sometimes other folk really get to us, they press our buttons and poke our deepest wounds, sometimes we know they are doing it and sometimes we don't....we think that they are just mean horrible people but truth be told we can't react with anger if there were no anger already inside of us. You can't get orange juice out of a lemon no matter how hard you squeeze and likewise you can't have anger squeezed out of you if there wasn't any in there in the first place.

If I find myself in a difficult situation with my buttons being pressed and I'm not sure that I can remove myself from it without perpetuating the hurt by reacting I ask for help from my guides or the angels, Arch angel Michael is particularly good (highly recommended). Michael, I cannot see this sister/brother rightly for I judge them. Please help me to drop my judgements and understand what fears her behaviour brings up for me.

Or God, I am really angry but I'm prepared not to be, please show me what it is that I'm not seeing so that I can understand myself and my brother.

This is my soft space for accepting myself as I am, for taking all my reactions and allowing them to surface without judgements so that I may use them as teachings to reveal hidden aspects of myself that drive my hidden intentions. As I reveal more of myself to the light of my own conscious awareness then I know that the darkness can not prevail and my light will shine brightly. It's a spring thing......new beginnings, new growth and all that! Plants grow stronger in a softer aerated soil with plenty of light.

Wednesday 26th March 2008

I've been exploring the outer perimeter of my comfort zones recently with the intention of broadening and stretching the boundaries of my outlook on life with the mind that I will ultimately find myself in a place of no boundaries and no restrictions. Last night I had a sauna and made a snow angel whilst naked, something I never imagined would happen, the 10 metre walk back to the sauna seemed like 10 miles but I'm still really glad that I did it. I was going to take a picture of the snow angel this morning and pin it on my notice board to remind myself of what is possible but a storm set in as I went to bed...I could hear the sledges being blown across the garden. The driveway was piled high with snow this morning but after the snow plough had cleared it this afternoon I set about another of my new experiences....sled racing downhill against my daughter. I've avoided sledding since I had a bad crash a few years ago and hurt my shoulder but since I recently sorted out the shoulder with the help of my acute hook I gave it another go. I see quite often during healings how fear of something is physically held as tension in muscles and tendons, sometimes we release the fear and the muscles relax and sometimes we relax the muscles and the fear is released. It usually takes awareness on the part of the healee to completely release something which is why I encourage anyone to meditate and spend time getting to know your body as the memories of our tensions and holdings are all retained within us. Anyway, releasing the tension from my shoulder muscles seems to have released my fear of crashing and thus enabled me to whizz about on a sledge again, yay!

I've also been stretching the bounds of my own personal emotional comfort by engaging in some deep self searching, allowing myself to voice inner thoughts that I have previously kept under lock and key because they didn't fit my idealized inner image of 'perfection'. Man there was some rough stuff in that deep dark cellar but I've decided to stop living my life with one foot firmly planted on the cellar door trying to keep all my 'bad' stuff hidden. I can't be a healer without embracing all of me but more importantly I can't ever be me and whole if I keep parts of myself hidden away. I've dropped a lot of tension by allowing myself to be exposed as the real me, in my experience our fear of something happening is bigger than the actual pain of the event itself. For example having that awkward conversation with someone that you would rather pretend didn't exist or saying what is in your heart even though it may make you unpopular......these are just two of my recent boundary explorations and I'm very pleased to have gone on them.

Monday 24th March 2008

I wanted to show a link on here for anyone who is interested in signing an online petition to Chinese President Hu Jintao asking....As citizens around the world, we call on you to show restraint and respect for human rights in your response to the protests in Tibet, and to address the concerns of all Tibetans by opening meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Only dialogue and reform will bring lasting stability. China's brightest future, and its most positive relationship with the world, lies in harmonious development, dialogue and respect.

Any option that keeps communication open is worth putting your energy into, I don't know if signing this petition will make any difference but I know that not signing it won't help to change anything. Just by signing it I will be putting my energy and my intention towards a peaceful settlement or at the very least opening up communication channels.

I don't want to get involved in the big who started it debate as I'm more interested in who is going to put an end to innocent people being killed, who is going to bring peace into the lives of so many people.

Imagine how frustrated a person must be in order to feel that the only recourse they have to be listened to is to kill another human being...that's not the world that I want to live in.

Wednesday 19th March 2008

Today dawned as one of those gorgeous mornings with the frosted snow covered trees set against the brilliant blue sky and everything sparkled and was lit by the sun, so I grabbed my camera when I headed out the door and spent a wonderful hour just capturing some of the marvellous sights. I went out onto the other lake under the old Iron Age fortress hill to take some shots because the morning sun was bathing the pink granite walls of the hill in a warm glow which was topped by snowy pines and then surrounded by the bluest sky ever, what a picture, what a shot. Then on the way back home I noticed how the sun coming through the pine trees had lit up some light green witches hair lichen which contrasted nicely with the deep green of the spruce tree that was hosting it and the whole thing was magically enhanced by the sparkle left by the overnight freeze. I felt honoured and privileged to notice the moment and grateful that I had my camera with me to capture it

I'd taken so many shots that when I got home I relaxed with a cuppa to download and sort through them but to my horror there were only 9 pictures on my camera, the last ones that I'd taken of the house from the lake. All of my 'moments' had gone. After a brief moment of devastation and wildly searching through the camera menus I jumped into the car and drove round the lake to try and get the same pictures again before the sun moved but I was too late...I did get some pictures but they weren't those perfect moments any more.

I knew that there was some kind of teaching in there for me but I was too pissed off to see it yet! I did see the magic of the moment for myself and I did appreciate the beauty of what I saw, and I did recognise that there is beauty all around us and that I'm blessed with being able to see it where others may miss it.....but I couldn't help still wishing I had my really great pictures....mutter mutter.

I also experienced that I should calm and centre myself because as I drove back round the road the car was rattling so much which I assumed must be something in the boot...but then I stopped at the end of road and my camera rolled down the windscreen and onto the ground......I'd left it on the roof whilst I'd brushed the snow off my boots before getting back in the car and in my annoyed state had completely forgotten about it. It was fine and I can laugh about it now but it just goes to show what happens when your energy gets scattered.

One little bonus was that I saw a tree creeper for the first time in years when I parked my car back home.

As the day went on I realise a clue to my 'teaching' was in that very word capture; I tried to 'capture' the moment of beauty because I wanted to hold onto it and when I couldn't hold onto it and keep it forever locked in that picture I experienced huge disappointment and suffering. it's a fundamental Buddhist teaching that when we form attachments and try to keep hold of anything we suffer. I see that beauty and I want to have it forever, so I hold it as mine but of course I can't really keep that moment because the universal energy is forever shifting and moving in waves, that movement is life. When we try to hold something still so that we can be in that place forever then we create blocks in the natural waves of life and we create stagnation. If I tried to keep my lake just as itis in this moment by blocking up both ends and stopping the flow of water in and out then it would stagnate and die. The picture may remind me of a beautiful moment but it cannot ever be that moment and if I spend my day muttering about what I think I have lost then I will be unaware of all the other moments of life. I can't experience life when I am stuck on this old moment that has passed.

And this is how it is with so much in our lives, that when we experience something beautiful we try and capture that moment so that we may live in the magic forever yet it is not possible to do that and consequently we end up suffering. If we could capture a moment in our hands it would turn to dust anyway. Letting each moment pass through us in its natural energy wave allows the well being flow of the universe to continue to flow. When we stop judging each moment as 'good' or 'bad' in order to capture it or reject it then we can just allow the flow to come regardless of what it brings.

When we stop placing meanings on each moment with our limited ego minds and let everything unfold naturally in its totality and wholeness then we can more readily see, feel and know the gifts that we are abundant in.

Today in Finland it is Minna Canth day, this flag day was officially raised for the first time last year. Minna Canth was a writer, business woman and social activist in the 19th century who raised awareness of the 'role' of women by her books. She didn't really toe the line as far as any social, political or religious niceties were concerned and consequently rubbed folk up the wrong way much of the time......I like her already! By challenging the views of the day she has helped society break out of outdated role models, something which should be actively encouraged regardless of how uncomfortable it makes us.

Monday 17th March 2008

I don't know if my mistake on Saturday about exercising my pecs whilst walking though deep snow can be explained away by my old concussion...can I get away with that?.....or do I have to 'fess that despite having passed A&P during my health studies I don't know my arse from my chest or my gluts from my pecs, whoops! I meant to refer to my gluteus maximus, minimus and medius but it all got lost in translation! Thank you to the smarty pants who pointed it out J

As I was chopping some firewood tonight I unearthed some half formed larva/insect that I quite often come across in older wood. I'm fascinated by them as they are always in different stages of development ranging from just a white blob to having distinguished insect features but I still don't know exactly what they are or become. It reminds me of reading a leaflet years ago about some new flea product that arrested the life cycle by stopping the flea from forming after it pupated. To me that always seemed like an awful way to go, the flea kind of melts into a mass of cells and then reforms in its new shape but with that product it never reformed and remained like cosmic goo. These insects obviously don't make a cocoon but use the inside of rotten wood and I get to see them at various stages.....here's a picture if you choose to take a look...but not if you are squeamish!

It reminds me of how the process of energetic transformation occurs, we literally have to melt ourselves down into the bare building blocks of who we are and then when we have the cosmic soup in its basic form we then rebuild ourselves in our new image and we don't take any of the old features with us.....we may regrow them in a different way but we don't retain the old. That's why we all find it so very scary to let go and allow the transformation to take place because it has to be a totally surrender, a complete meltdown of everything we ever knew before and then we can emerge with the new.....there is no room for leaving a foot in the old way of things, it just won't work. We'd all think that butterflies were mad if they hung onto part of their caterpillar body instead of transforming into a butterfly...but it's something that us humans try doing all the time. Happy St Patrick's Day!

Today's weather picture!

Sunday 16th March 2008

Today in Finland is the time for children dressed as old women with sooty faces to come and give decorated willow twigs at your door in exchange for sweets, chocolate eggs or a little money. The traditions of Easter in Finland are an amalgamation of Western culture, Palm Sunday and Orthodox culture, the tradition of taking palm fronds which were supposed to have been lain on the path of Jesus into Jerusalem are changed to willow twigs with new buds, these are then decorated brightly with tissue paper and feathers to symbolise the spring and the new growth returning, incorporated with the Orthodox traditions of witches that would hit you with the twigs or Virvonta to drive out any evil spirits after the long dark winter. When the willow branches are exchanged the children recite a good luck poem which will bring you prosperity for the coming year.

The Easter festivals, like all Christian festivals have been placed to coincide with the old pagan rituals and the spring time ceremonies are all about the return from dark to the light, the spring equinox on Thursday marks the day when the sun will light the land for longer than the darkness and nature is filled with new energy for new beginnings, new emergence and new growth. It really is a powerful time energetically. The traditional egg or chicks are all symbolic of this new life, the next part of the cycle of life that comes after the long time of stillness and darkness that allowed us to integrate our energies. This cycle of life is eternal, it never stops and we are all part of it.

The Easter bunny is symbolic of birth and proliferation! Another big theme of spring time that the church wasn't so keen on celebrating in it's earthy, natural way but it's such a powerful, vibrant energy it's worth celebrating and being grateful for.....after all if we didn't reproduce then we wouldn't be here! So often in my energy work I see that it is the stifling and strangulation of our creative life force (libido) that cuts us off from an amazing source of power and creates the foundation of our limited ego self that slowly and mistakenly strangles us.

The traditional Finnish Easter food of mämmi is a pudding made from rye flour and malt which is supposed to liberate you from evil.....personally I think the dish itself is pretty evil and gruesome so I don't touch it! I found this interesting BBC page about it that supports my point and gives a recipe for anyone brave enough to try it.

Saturday 15th March 2008

Last weekend there was some pretty heavy snowfall making everything look very pristine again but then on Tuesday it started to rain quite heavily and the snow receded opening up large patches of land and it seemed that spring was on its way. I looked up last year's Blog and noted that the thaw started around the 15th March which was a little early and therefore made last winter very short! However on Thursday night it started to snow again and it hasn't stopped much since so I guess spring will be a while yet. What with all the snow my idea to take a long walk up the big hill yesterday turned into a bit of a trek. The forest road had been opened up for a logging lorry during the week so I had a clearer walk for the first half of my journey but when I climbed over the wall of snow left by the plough to take the path back down to the lake I has snow up to my knees! The first step was a bit of a shock because the dogs being lighter had only been sinking a little but I figured the extra exercise would tone up my pecs so I slogged through. Coming down the hill I found the snow was even deeper but apart from being hot I was quite impressed with my stamina as I travelled over a kilometre like that.

I'm still walking home across the lake every day as the ice remains fairly thick under the top layer. The rain had melted all the snow on the ice this week so that one morning I had to wear rubber boots to slosh back home! Since then the water had frozen a little with the result that as I walk across it the ice breaks under my feet but I know that I'm not going anywhere as the bottom layer is more substantial....sure beats a cup of coffee for waking you up in the morning! Not that I drink coffee anyway, one of the healthiest decisions anyone can make is to stop drinking coffee as it stresses the body so much.

I've been trying my hand at making a traditional Finnish May Day drink this week as it has hit the shops for Easter. The drink is Sima which is described as a sweet mead. To make it you need:

A large bucket
2 lemons
5 litres water
600 grams raw sugar
Half cup honey
Quarter teaspoon yeast

Wash and peel the lemons, keep the peel and the actual body of the lemon but throw away all the white pithy stuff. Soak the lemon and the sugar in some hot water for a while then add the rest of the water and the other ingredients. Whilst the water is quite warm it's easier to dissolve the sugar and the honey but don't add the yeast until last when the liquid is warm but not hot as you don't want to kill the yeast! Cover it and leave it overnight at room temperature until you can see that the yeast has started to ferment. Then put a little sugar in the bottom of a bottle plus a few raisins and strain the liquid into the bottles, leave them with the tops just placed on but not done up, in a cool place. The Sima is ready when the raisins float to the top. Presumably the longer you leave it the more sugar turns to alcohol....we have drunk most of it already so I don't have to wonder about how much booze we're having! I made up a new bucketful last night in fact!

I would suggest to anyone who suffers from candida that this mixture of yeast, honey and sugar isn't the best thing to be consuming!

Sunday 9th March 2008

St Maria's day today! The day that marks the occasion of Mary being told by angels that she would give birth to Christ. Christ showed us what we are all capable of because we are all one and the same. We are all children of God and we are all part of the holy trinity here on earth, the holy father (creation), the holy mother (Mother earth) and the holy child (You).

Saturday 8th March 2008

International Women's day today, which before you get all cynical about another day invented for card manufacturers is a traditional Russian celebration to mark the achievements of woman in agriculture and industry operating heavy equipment and breaking out from domestic slavery. In Slavic cultures the yellow Mimosa flower is the symbol of the day....lord knows where they get them from at this time of the year! These days any small sign of affection, appreciation and adoration are what the day is about. The day is still more widely recognised in the former soviet union countries than in western europe but any day that encourages us to take note of folk that we appreciate is a nice idea...we don't have to restrict it to any particular group of people or any particular day.

Wednesday 5th March 2008

On Monday evening outside the supermarket I slipped on the ice and landed on my head so I've now been resting as I've got concussion. Apparently these days it's known as mild traumatic brain injury which sounds a lot more serious than concussion to me! Basically my brain is a lot more excited and using up more blood sugars than usual but with a restricted blood flow. Nobody knows why the blood flow is restricted in concussion but my guess would be that the body is trying to mitigate the likelihood of the brain being further damaged by reducing the pressure, our bodily defences always maintain the integrity of the brain as far as is possible. My body had no chance to protect my head when I went over as it all happened so fast, one moment I'm stood there with my shopping bag and the next I'm on the floor and the inside of my head is vibrating like Big Ben at midnight. I had to hold onto my head to try and stop it as it felt awful.

I figured that I probably had concussion when I couldn't stop crying for the next half hour, it was most peculiar but a good cry doesn't do any harm. Funnily enough I has been reading a magazine on Saturday night talking about shoe spikes and all the injuries that occur in Finland due to slipping on the ice. I do own a pair of shoe spikes that I strap on when I'm walking round here in icy conditions but they don't help when you're not wearing them and you don't see the threat coming! According to the article there are approximately 300,00 injuries a year resulting from slipping accidents of which 18,000 need hospital treatment and nearly 1,000 die! That's pretty awful especially when you remember that Finland has a population of only 5.1 million.

Tuesday 4th March 2008

I hadn't realised just how many different theories and dates for the convergence with the galactic centre were expounded, according to some folk we've been and done it already! Though it seems to me that deciding what exactly is the centre of the galaxy is the first stumbling block and that kinda throws all the subsequent stuff off. There has been a 3 degree shift in the magnetic north pole of earth in the past decade or so and that seriously changes the outcome of map reading when going for a hike in the forest so I can't imagine how anyone thinks they can accurately predict the convergence. Seems to me that as with all things we'd be better served by living in the now rather than worrying about a future date that we can't predict that will bring changes, or not, that we can't predict. I'm sure that it will all become clear after the event.

I noted that somebody said it would be "the end of life as we know it"....and I suppose it probably will be but then I could say that after every day when I climb into bed because each new day is a brand new experience for me to make what I will from it.

One thing I do know from experience is that it's not really the new states that cause me to react but the swinging from one state to another. Physically when I eat chocolate I get a sugar high but my bodily reaction comes when the sugar level drops back down again, as the level plummets I fall asleep...not everyone has such a severe reaction, that's just me! When my female hormones changed during the monthly cycle it wasn't the peak of any particular hormone that caused a reaction but the sudden drop in levels. It's the change from one state to another that drags us through reactions. Working with energy I see this a lot, there is no 'right' or 'wrong' peak or trough, they are merely measurements of where we are with regard to a particular energetic state of being but it's the up and down waves that cause the reaction in most of us.

Those up and down waves are also what we might consider to be expansion and contraction, all too often we tend to think only in terms of expansion.....my aura is expanding as I grow in consciousness we may smugly say but if we stayed at that state of expansion then we have achieved stagnation, whereas life is about growth, life is about movement, life is about living and experiencing, not reaching a certain size of aura and sitting there for the rest of time just dusting and polishing it...but as usual I will respect your right to do that if you choose.

It's the training in energy work that gave me the tools to ride on top of the waves rather than drowning and being overwhelmed by them and that is also the kind of work that I do here during holistic healing holidays. A surfer appreciates and respects the awesome power and beauty of the wave but he certainly doesn't want to get into it, riding along with it and experiencing the energy of it is what a surfer does. Watch a surfer come back onto the beach after riding a wave and see the vibrancy in their eyes, that's life force in it's physical manifestation.

We all have our own surfing beaches, sometimes we lie on them relaxing and listening to the gentle lapping of the waves around our toes but when the waves start rolling it's time to grab your board and ride the wave before it crashes onto the shore and covers you with seaweed and dead fish!

Yo dude! Note: I can maybe just about get away with saying Yo Dude! because my children probably won't read this but please don't try this at home. J

Monday 3rd March 2008

I've been thinking back to the whole weather issue again because I've been looking at reports from around the world of all the strange weather that's been happening. For me it's bizarre that the temperature has not dropped lower than minus 9 this winter where I live although I would normally expect periods of minus 25 yet I see that in Greece they have experienced temperatures of -15...this being the same Greece that British pensioners go to for a winter break to avoid the cold climate! The snowfall here hasn't been so much either but the Alps have recording breaking amounts and China has been hit with huge falls, there has even been snowfall in the Iranian desert which would normally still be hot and Saudi Arabia has seen its first snow since most folk could remember. The times they are a changing and I now base my weather predictions on what I can see out of the window with the likelihood that it may change any moment!

But don't the weather patterns of the world change regularly anyway? I'm sure that I remember seeing lots of images of folk skating on the frozen Thames during Dickensian times. The Vikings changed careers from farmers to pillagers when the Scandinavian climate started to grow colder,making their farming efforts harder. In the ancient history from Siberia, buried deep in the cellular memories of the locals are reminders of the place of Eden that Siberia was like before the earth switched and everything froze.

I don't know if this earth switching that they talk about is the pole reversal or magnetic field reversal that scientists acknowledge but so far have failed to agree on. Nobody really knows the effect this naturally occurring event will have on anything or even how long the process will take but there are many theories which are explained much better than I ever could here.

I have also wondered before if the 'heating' up of the planet is in fact just the physical manifestation of the rising consciousness of the planet, as our vibration quickens does that affect our environment? Well, there is nothing that we do that doesn't have an effect, in quantum physics it is noted that even when you gaze at an object you have changed something.

There is a lot of talk about the year 2012 with many people living in fear of it being the end of the world, some folk think that they will ascend to another dimension leaving behind those who are not yet ready.....that all seems a bit elitist and judgmental to me but as with all things I suspect there is truth in it but when we can see and understand the whole truth it won't be quite so sinister or scary. The Mayan calendar was based on the 26,000 year cycle of the Earth within this galaxy and it is in the year 2012 that we will finally be in direct alignment with the centre of the galaxy and therefore that was the end of their calendar, just like mine ends on December 31st because that's the end of my current time measurement.

It is the effect that this planetary alignment is having on us folk that interests me. I'd never been a great one for horoscopes as I figured that it was unlikely that one twelfth of the population would be meeting a tall dark handsome stranger on the same day but of course true astrology is much more personalised than that and I've grown to appreciate the effect that the moon has on my behaviour so it doesn't seem so far fetched to assume that all the other planets would have some effect on me too.

There has certainly been an upsurge in the consciousness of the planet as far as I can see within the past two decades, my own personal history or journey has been a reflection of that...so maybe that is why I see it so easily. As I grow in consciousness i.e. I become more conscious, more awake, more aware, I recognise more about myself than before, I can see more easily the original roots of the reactions that I'm having and I am no longer swept along in the tide of those reactions. Now more than at any other time I see clearly the choices that I have about who I want to be and I recognise the perfection of any of those choices.....no 'right' ones, no 'wrong' ones just different choices for experiencing different aspects of my multi dimensional being.

Is that because we are heading towards the full light that shines on us from the centre of our galaxy? Is it because this light shines the way for me, or that it influences me to attract more light into my life? Is it down to the Law of Attraction that we cannot fail to be pulled into a lighter body because we are bathed in this light from the centre of our galaxy? A light body shines more, a light body doesn't have old heavy stuff that used to pull it down and use up all its energy.

Some of us still get pulled down by those old stuck energies that we have taken into our core beliefs over the years, it can be very scary to release those old beliefs because we've never known anything different....better the devil you know we say! Take heart that if you are feeling tired all the time and totally out of sorts, then this 2012 stuff may have a lot to do with it but if you stop fighting and just let everything go it will all lift off and leave you feeling very bright and light. Interesting times.

To have a look through some of the theories, predictions and general thoughts on the planetary alignment with the centre of our galaxy check out diagnosis 2012. There's loads more fascinating stuff on the site for you to digest or ignore depending on your own beliefs.

One thing for sure, if we are entering a new time in a new dimension with new bodies then this is the equivalent of a birthing process and we all know how painful they can be. But regardless of how difficult the birth may be, it's all forgotten when the brand new life emerges and it's always worth it.

Thursday 28th February 2008

Today is Kalevala's day here in Finland. The Kalevala is a collection of folk poems that together tell the epic tale of old legends of Finland that were sung throughout the years and then gathered together by Elias Lönnrot and published in their final form in 1849. Much of the material goes back to the first millennium based on Finnish oral poetry, some of the richest and best documented in the world. Wikipedia has a great summary of the cantos that weave the tale of the heroes and villains that was said to be an influence on Tolkien. An online source of a full English translation can be found on about.com

Wednesday 27th February 2008

The weather this last week has gone through many permutations and this morning the landscape is a mass of whiteness after a night of snow. Yet we still haven't experienced the normal winter temperatures that would be expected in Finland and with that comes thoughts of global warming. I'm not a scientist and even if I were one I couldn't pretend to know all the factors that are contributing to the changing weather landscapes of the planet but I do know that the weather of the planet changes anyway as a natural occurrence. As human beings we are constantly changing and also adapting to our circumstances so why would the entire living organism of Mother Earth be any different. Life is growth, life is change. I do what I believe is right to keep Mother Earth unpolluted, just as I do what I believe is best for keeping my body unpolluted. I may not be my physical body and I won't die when my body does but that doesn't mean that I want to treat it like a garbage tip. Looking at healing holistically I know that the normal healing reaction of the body to an invading toxin can be to expel it violently as in vomiting or diarrhoea or to heat up the body with a fever. I sometimes wonder if nature is heating up at this moment in time as a healing reaction to all the rubbish and pollutants within her system.

The increasing violent reactions of earthquakes, typhoons and hurricanes remind me of Mother Earth trying to expel toxins to heal the sickness of her body.

Any system has an innate intelligence that will lead it back to wholeness and balance, that is the very foundation of the work that I do here by helping folk to be more aware of the guidance that they are getting that leads them back to that state. Mother Nature and the entire cosmos are no different in that respect, the equation will always balance itself. I always say that when we think with our human mind we are limited with what we can know, the human mind is a very powerful thing but it is still limited when it comes to knowing the interrelationships of the entire cosmos. We can't know all the effects of our actions from our logical mental minds but we can be more in tune with the natural flow of the world and the universe, we can learn to tap into that natural force and to live in harmony within it. It is the lot of humans to view themselves as separate, we think we just live on this planet but we are an integral part of it. Similarly, we think that when we have a sickness in a particular area of our body we can just cut that part away as if it were some random event that give rise to it being there. We believe that if we just cut down on carbon emissions that everything will be just fine and everything else can continue as it was before. It is our free will to do so, there is no judgement in that but is it what we really want?

Thursday 21st February 2008

It's been snowing for the past day so there was no chance to see the full moon this morning or the lunar eclipse, I could only tune into the energy of it, never mind maybe the weather will be clearer for the next one in 2028!

Announcing the arrival of a great Finnish invention!

The Acute Hook (Kipukoukku in Finnish) is a simple and effective design made from beautiful Finnish birch ply wood, the healing tree of the forest strikes again! The Acute Hook is an acupressure and self massage device that helps you get to those hard to reach knotted muscles that we all have in our necks, shoulders and backs. You can really seek out those sweet spots for yourself with the end of the Acute Hook and then rock it and roll it as superficially or as deep as you like to smooth out muscle tension. You can use it anywhere, I keep mine by the computer so that when I stop to think or wait for a page to load I can sit back and give my muscles a break and a massage at the same time, a double whammy! You can even sit and watch TV whilst treating yourself.

It's environmentally friendly, doesn't require batteries, doesn't give off any EMFs, completely recyclable, chemical free, easy to use, lightweight, versatile and economically sound.

I bought one for my mum (ideal Mother's day present!) and whilst I was getting round to posting it I used it on a shoulder injury that had been bugging me for 3 years (despite massage treatments) and it really shifted it....I almost didn't post it. I've got my own one now and I've started to sell them too as they really are fantastic. You can read more about them and purchase one from my new Acute Hook page. I'm so convinced that you'll be happy with it that I'm giving a full money back guarantee too.

It can also be used on the reflexology points of the feet.....a blissful experience.

Tuesday 19th February 2008

I know that I've said it before and I'll probably keep say it again.....Aspartame is a poison! I've shown evidence and testimonials to folk until I've bored myself as well as them but of course the problem is that most of the time I'm preaching to the converted so to speak. But I believe so strongly that there are millions of people in the world who do not realise what they are consuming because all they see for example is a one calorie drink that will help them to mitigate the effects of their sugar lust, when in fact the aspartame is fuelling the sugar lust, or the person who opts for the sugar free product because they are great parents and want to look after their children by restricting their sugar intake little realising the abysmal health legacy that they are creating for their child.

If you want to continue using aspartame products because it suits your purpose, i.e. weight loss or better health then I'm not going to argue with your choices but please for your own sake take a look at all the information available and then make an informed choice about what will suit your purpose, as we sometimes find that we are doing something that brings us closer to the very thing that we seek to avoid. May I recommend a fantastic starting place called the Dorway to discovery.

I know myself when I have accidentally eaten something containing aspartame because my tongue starts to burn and I get an ulcer come up on the end of it with hours. It doesn't happen very often as I usually avoid sweetened products and I check labels regularly.....I'd much rather rot my teeth with sugar than kill myself with aspartame, my choice! Luckily in Finland there is a lot of xylitol used which is a sweetener derived from the birch tree...I am such a fan of the birch tree and its wonderful healing properties!

Monday 18th February 2008

Clearly a day for the woodpeckers today as the Black Woodpecker was banging away at a tree in the garden before he considered himself rudely disturbed by me and the dogs, and went screeching over the lake to the forest on the other side. Then I saw both the Great Spotted Woodpecker and then the Green woodpecker on the bird table. This morning was the first time this winter I could extend my normal walk round to the other side of the lake and then just stroll across the lake and back home, what a refreshing change! Again I watched the long cracks appearing as I walked and shifted the ice somewhat (must go on that diet!) and heard the rumblings as trapped air sought a way out.

This weekend I was inspired with a new healing idea, a healing wall made as part of a healing grid for sending distance healing to anyone who would like to receive it. The details of the free distance healing are on the bottom of my healing page. I know from my time of illness the power of knowing that out in the world there is someone sending you healing energy, in fact even in my healthy times I know how wonderful it feels to know that your peace and serenity are always in somebody's mind.

Sunday 17th February 2008

This weekend finally saw the arrival of enough cold weather to freeze the lake thoroughly. It's been a long time coming as the water had come through on top of the original ice to a depth of about 10cms after a heavy snowfall had pushed the ice down. I tried to walk over it last week but the top layer of ice was only a couple of centimetres thick and the whole top layer started to bow under my feet! On Saturday I checked the ice at various points with my ice auger and all layers had now frozen plus the strong winds that we've had recently had cleared off most of the snow so the lake is like a huge open playground. The dogs love the freedom of running around on the surface and I love the feeling of walking on water!

When I was first out in the middle of the lake drilling a hole there was a tremendous noise from under the ice as a lot of trapped air started to move and it felt to me like the ice vibrated but when I thought about it afterwards I figured it was more likely me that was shaking as the immense drumming noise had made me jump. Every primitive nerve in my body felt on red alert as it's such a 'non ordinary' place to be stood. As I walked I saw lots of cracks appear and run along in front of me as the ice shifted but these cracks are only a few millimetres thick and as the ice is half a metre thick I know that it's not going anywhere.

Using my newly sharpened ice auger and my ice saw I made a hole in the ice big enough for me to get into during my sauna.....but I didn't use it! It's strange to think that we worry so much about the ice breaking when we walk on it but when I try and make a hole it took me lots of effort and a long time!

Friday 15th February 2008

Yesterday was the last day of school for the eldest high school students as they start their examination studies and in the traditional way they 'trashed' the school and went around throwing sweets for the younger students. On Wednesday night after I came out from my tai chi course the doors were sellotaped shut and there was polystyrene and cornflakes scattered around the floor plus the huge snow piles outside were sprayed with graffiti in readiness.

I think it's great that it is a normal part of their school life to mark the end of school in this way without getting into trouble....although technically I don't think they were supposed to spread cornflakes over the floor but it does all get cleared up. I also got a little confused during my dance class when I visited the toilet and they had switched the signs over! Today was the turn of the next class to mark their rise to be the new 'old ones' of the school with a traditional dance. My daughter saw the dance as it was performed for the whole school this morning, then I believe later they performed to the old folk and then tonight parents and other people could come and see them dance. I went along and watched 16 students dancing dances from all over the world including one which I recognised from my school days in what we called country dancing. There were American dances and Viennese waltzes with the girls all dressed up in gorgeous ballgowns. I know that when it's my turn to watch my daughter I'll probably cry a lot! What a beautiful tradition.

Thursday 14th February 2008

The day known as Valentine's Day in the UK is known as Friend's Day (Ystävänpäivä) here in Finland. This is the day that we send cards or little gifts to our friends to show how much we appreciate them. Although being a complete romantic, I love the UK version of the day I also like the fact that a day of gratitude for our friends has been established. Of course there is the commercial aspect to it that we could all get cynical about but I choose instead to focus on the positive aspect that today I have taken the time to honour my Finnish friends and to let them know how much I love them.

Tuesday 12th February 2008

I often talk here about the way that the universe works, how it brings us lessons that we need to learn but I don't mean that in a punishment type way which is how some folk perceive it, more like the experiences that come into our lives can all have a similar theme and they are reminding us at a cellular level of some previous trauma that we have long since forgotten about but is still affecting our daily lives and decisions regardless of whether we are aware of it or not. That is why the universal energy throws these things up, it's not like some central organisation looking through a big sheet and saying 'Sara Gardner is still thinking everyone is laughing at her, lets send that event into her life on Tuesday so she has the opportunity to realise the strength of her hidden thoughts', the energy that we hold deep inside of us resonates strongly and attracts similar energy to it. We've seen reams written about this recently with the law of attraction...if I have a huge beacon inside of me transmitting 'everyone is laughing at me' then that's exactly what I will attract and thus I will prove my point continually to myself and strengthen the inner hidden signal. It takes awareness to realise what is happening and then it takes strength and trust to step out of the loop for long enough to allow the original block to start processing, to be expressed and thereby released.

So why am I telling you all this, apart from I think it's important for us all to know that and it's quite interesting I've been round my own particular loop these past couple of days and I felt it was a good time to share my painful process. In fact by doing this I am exposing my wound and putting myself in a very vulnerable position but it is through the gateway of my vulnerability that I will find my greatest strength.

I should have realised when I suddenly felt compelled to give my opinion about the 'quack' article that my mum had sent me that something was stirring because normally I wouldn't bother to even comment on writing that creates fear and confusion for many folk. But one of the comments touched a wound of mine (or hit a nerve as we sometimes say) and that is people treating me like I'm stupid. The comment about how you wouldn't find reflexology being used to treat a broken leg was such an asinine comment, treating people like they are idiots......and we folk are not. Nobody needs to have that pointed out to them any more than being told that you don't use the butchers when you want your hair done. So I hate people being treated like idiots and manipulated into a certain way of thinking.

Now in itself this is really no bad thing, people being duped and not given the proper respect is not a noble thing by any means and the article brought out some good points about holistic healing in general, so that was that.

I hadn't known then that I had been gently drawn into an arena of that energy vibration, feeling like I was being treated as stupid, the wound was being gently poked and the energy stirred for the next event.

I was contacted by someone under the guise of catching up and asking for some help with a medical condition, to which of course I responded. However, the conversation that ensued went round the houses and finally arrived at a request for something totally different. To cut a long story short it seems that I've been dragged into somebody else's mess. I can't and won't go into details but by yesterday morning it had brought out such a mixture of emotions in me that I knew I had to sort myself out, I was so angry and hateful about the whole thing that it was horrible to experience. I could feel the level of passion was rising in me, the pure strength of the energy, the force of the reaction and this is where my awareness helps out by saying very calmly 'don't react to the situation but look further to see what this is touching in you'

I took my feelings to the computer and just wrote out all the awful stuff that was inside my head, just let it all stream out onto the screen, allowing myself to be as vengeful and spiteful as I wanted to be because I know by now that this is the vengeful, spiteful little girl inside of me that has been so badly hurt that she wants to hurt everyone back, in fact she couldn't hurt them enough. She wasn't able to express all this rage at the time of the original trauma and so it has remained bottled up inside of her right up until she became an adult.

As an adult everytime I feel the slightest notion that I am being treated like I'm stupid in order to be manipulated then this huge rage comes straight to the surface and explodes and I can lash out and cause so much more hurt and misery in the world. The cycle is perpetuated because I then feel guilty about it afterwards and so more layers are placed over the top of the wound to try and stop myself from feeling it. But at that moment I had another new opportunity to feel the real pain of that wound totally and that's what I did. I raged and let out all my feelings of hate and revenge, at the time not actually knowing where it would lead until the final sentence that came violently out of my fingers I'M NOT STUPID. And then I knew which wound was being touched.

I let the energy continue to come out and rage (had to move it away from the keyboard now) and by allowing the energy to move the memory is brought to mind and I could see my older brother stood in front of me laughing and pointing at me. The family tradition of stopping me from being angry was to make fun of me and I'm not blaming anyone because I know the full horror of how it has come right round and I've done the same to my own son when he has been raging.....and I know that he has a deep wound too. I can't go back and change it now and wallowing in guilt about it for the rest of my life won't help anyone, I'm healing my wound and by doing so the healing energy will travel in all directions of time and heal the ancestral wounds too. So I am very grateful to the couple who poked my wound so successfully.

So there I am feeling exactly how I did about 40 years ago and everything is as clear and painful as it was back then, I'm remembering it vividly right now. I'm in deep emotional pain about something and I'm not able to express that pain because of the humiliation of being laughed at by everyone and the misery I can feel is just so intense it's almost tangible, I never knew that a human body could endure such misery, I'm feeling it so much that I have to let it out and from the depths of my being comes such mournful wailing that I feel it would make the whole universe weep, I feel that my heart would just break into two as the misery is so intense, it's little wonder that the little girl inside of me couldn't cope with this lot and buried it deep. I'm bigger now in so many ways, I have the knowledge I've gained through my work that I won't die or be annihilate from the intensity of this emotion/energy, I know that I have my angels and guides holding me when I can't even hold myself any longer and I know that through all of this pain will lie my peace.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

The pain expressed in howls and sobbing for some time and I let it come in waves just as the energy does, then I shook out my body to release the muscles that have been holding all that vengeance and misery in place for so long. It will take a while for them to return to normal I may need to rest for a while and drink lots of fresh water to flush out the physical toxins being released alongside the emotional and mental ones.

This particular wound of mine runs very deep and I don't think that I have cleared it all yet but there is no race, there is no end goal that I'm heading for, the meaning of life is the living of the life and not any end product or one big moment. The usual feeling of peace and a new lightness in my body descend through me as I reach the end of my cathartic process and enter the stage of integration, pure pink love energy is poured into the lanced wound and I feel whole again.

I've written about this personal moment to reassure others that there is a way out of those situations that cause an extreme reaction from you (someone pressing your buttons), that we needn't be afraid or judgmental of the spite and hate inside of us because it's only there to cover up immense sadness that at some point in life had threatened to annihilate us (remember that a child's view of the world is sovery different from an adult view). Those feelings are not who we really are they are just feelings. I want folk to know that feeling guilty about how we are doesn't serve us in any way and doesn't help to release the grip of the cycle in any way.

It takes a lot of work and self awareness to step out of the cycle and you don't have to do it alone. It's part of what I do for a living, I live and work with the same principals but if you would like help and don't want to come all the way to Finland then please go to the UK School of Energy Healing pages and find a healer near you. They are all skilled in this kind of work, although they don't all have a huge forest next to their place for howling and shouting and smashing things up in!

The dead stumps of rotten birch trees that are still standing out the back make excellent rage objects, by battering them down you can express your rage in a meaningful way and the rotten remains get speeded up on their natural return to the earth. Not only that you get the wonderful holding from the energy of the living trees around you. I call it thera-tree!

if you have any questions or this article touches something in you that you'd like to discuss or share then please feel free to contact me, my details are on the front page.

Sunday 10th February 2008

Somebody sent me an article from a UK paper and asked for my opinion on a piece called 'How to spot a quack", which had been written as part of a piece promoting a book called 'Suckers:How alternative medicine makes fools of us all" by Rose Shapiro. I'm not going to join in any fight between what we call orthodox medicine and alternative medicine because I don't see any need for fighting, there is never only one way to health and it doesn't serve anyone to start labelling things as right or wrong. But I thought the list brought up some good points to consider.

"A quack will treat only chronic conditions such as fatigue, backache and food intolerance. Practitioners avoid competing with mainstream doctors, so you won't find Chinese herbs or reflexology being used to treat a broken leg or heart attack"

I can't argue with that! Neither would I be able to find a GP that would treat chronic fatigue with a plaster cast!

The average GP doesn't have the time or resources to deal with chronic conditions, mainly because the orthodox approach to medicine is to treat the symptoms and isn't versed in looking at the overall picture of health, the whole body, (w-holistic).

"Practitioners avoid competing"....There is no competition amongst any practitioner whether orthodox or not because the primary concern is for the patient. I'm not saying that there aren't folk out there who are more interested in making a quick buck and couldn't care less about what they sell or who they sell it to but that cross section of people goes right through from large pharmaceutical companies to individual practitioners both orthodox and otherwise.

In a way I can see the perfection of such proliferation of treatment packages and the conflicting advice that they give out to everyone because eventually the whole population will have such spinning heads about who or what they are supposed to believe when it comes to their health that they will be forced to see the truth of the matter that nobody can tell you what is right for you......you are the only person who can know that and to do that you need to be in touch with yourself. When we can recognise and stay in tune with the innate intelligence of our bodies that regulates our breathing, circulation, digestion, rest patterns etc. and allow that intelligent force to balance out health then we will 'know' intuitively what is the best thing for ourselves in that moment regardless of whether it has been labelled orthodox or alternative or complementary or whatever.

If someone falls down and breaks a leg in front of me then I'll take them to hospital, if my friends have cancer and want to use conventional treatment then I will take them and support them in their choice. If folk don't know that they have choices then I will give them all the information I can. I trust and respect the innate intelligence of everyone to do the thing that is right for them at that time, regardless of whether it's what I would choose.

Next point Quacks "use disclaimers. It protects then from legal action when their methods fail"

I thought that the medical disclaimers were put there because they were required by law.

Quacks "tell you that you may get worse before you get better. Mainstream medicine rarely causes the primary symptoms to worsen"

As I said before conventional medicine looks mainly to treating symptoms and not finding the original cause of the problem whereas holistic medicine looks to the original cause and tries to re-establish the body's own healing and defensive mechanisms. For example the bodily reaction of inflammation, fever or diarrhoea can all be considered as symptoms and from a conventional approach the reduction of these processes would constitute the main approach to treatment but from a holistic approach these reactions are considered as part of the normal bodily immune system reactions. The greater the inflammation then the greater is the effort being made by our immune system to keep us safe and healthy. As a general rule of thumb our immune systems keep problems in the periphery of the body, for example the skin, away from the major organs and as far from the brain as possible.

If we ingest something harmful then the defences of the body induce vomiting to remove it in the first instance, then maybe diarrhoea to flush it straight out the other end before it can enter the blood system. Inflammation can bring extra resources to a site of infection and also serves to keep the infection in that place. Coughing is designed to dislodge foreign objects (including excess mucous) from our respiratory system. The list is longer but I think I've made the point, the symptoms that conventional medicine can try to ease are our body's defensive reaction to an invasion of some kind...therefore when you are told that your symptoms may get worse in the short term what is meant is that as you start to heal your normal bodily defensive reactions will kick in or increase and this is nothing to worry about. When my body has a 'cold' and my nose is streaming and I'm coughing up stuff I rejoice that my body is eliminating something that it has recognised as foreign, I don't need to do anything more to help my body than rest to give it extra resources to boost my immune system and drink lots of fresh water to help flush out the toxins and other by products of the defensive reactions out of my body where they no longer represent a danger.

So, yes mainstream medicine rarely does make my symptoms worse because it's mainly designed to eliminate those very symptoms, it's designed to eliminate my cough but not the source of the irritation or reason for my body coughing in the first place. It's worth noting here that as we quash the natural defensive reactions of the body by treating them as symptoms, we risk driving the original cause of our dis-ease deeper into the body.

Quack will "claim there is a cure for your condition but your doctor won't tell you because it will undermine their authority"

I don't pretend to even understand that statement so I don't have any comment to make!

Quacks "say that the roots of the treatment lie in 'ancient wisdom' but this doesn't mean it works"

I totally agree that just because something is based on ancient wisdom it doesn't necessarily work and I would add that just because something is natural it doesn't mean that it is good for you...check out hemlock and death cap mushrooms! The flip side of the coin is that just because something is based on modern scientific techniques it doesn't necessarily work either, we don't know the whole truth of anything, we never can when we are coming from only one level.

Quacks will "be keen to stress your individuality. He will tell you that even if a remedy is useless for others, it might still work for you."

And he will be telling the truth! However much more convenient it would be for us all to be exact replicas of each other the fact remains that we are all very different, we all react to things differently physically, emotionally and mentally......and hurrah for that I say! As all the factors of body, mind and soul are relevant to our overall health they are also relevant to our overall healing. When I had my chemotherapy it was all I knew at the time but by going through it I experienced how barbaric it is and from then on have grown to understand more about the roots of my own disease...all of my medical history was part of the learning process and we are all in the midst of our own individual processes, we are each at different points in our lives where different methods will bring different results...that is why I support the notion that there is no one way to do anything. There is no one size that fits all when we are looking at our individual health.

This of course brings up the earlier point again....how can we ever know what is the right thing to do if everyone is telling us something different all the time. Good question! The only way that we can know what is right for us is to know ourselves, to stay in our natural rhythm. The innate intelligence within us that breathes (sit without breathing consciously for a while and notice that spark within you that starts your breathing again...where did that come from?), the life force that knows when we need to rest, eat or poo......this intelligence knows more than the basics, it's the same natural instinct that guides the birds across the globe, that causes the buds to emerge in the spring and guided me on my journey back to true health. My guidance takes me to what serves me best and yours will do the same for you if you give it a chance and listen to it.

And finally...Quacks " have a 'success rate' of around 80%. it's not too high a figure to be thoroughly unbelievable, yet high enough for the needy to find irresistible. But you won't find details of who the people are in that 80% - they don't even have to exist"

I'm a great fan of statistics and how they can be made to show anything, the key area here would be the definition of 'success'. For instance after my cancer treatment if I stayed breathing for 5 years then conventionally I'm considered a success but for me the success of my cancer was for me to turn it around into a positive force in my life. statistics are just that...statistics...if you want to know if something will serve your health, then explore it and find out how it feels with you. And if you wish to disagree with everything I say....I applaud your individuality.

Friday 8th February 2008

My second dance class went ever better than the first one, not so much in terms of my abilities but from a relaxation point of view, I really enjoyed myself and didn't spend too much time getting annoyed and frustrated with my unconnected feet and brain. I danced a slow tango which was amazing, my best one so far but then we speeded it up and for some reason I just couldn't fit with the music or my partner! Later on as we practiced the waltz the female partner was asked to close their eyes and that made such a huge difference to me.....I could do it!

Just as in a meditation class or healing session when I ask folk to close their eyes, it's not for some mad reason like I'm going to nip out and nibble some biscuits rather that we get a lot of noise and rubbish coming into our heads from the visual stimuli around us and just by closing our eyes we can close down 90% of that interference and use that spare capacity in other ways. Predominantly we spend very little time actually feeling into our bodies in any way, we don't note the subtle energies and the huge tensions that we sometimes hold in places. When we put our minds to a place of tension in our bodies we place our energy there too. We could release that tension just by the simple process of becoming aware of it and then choosing to no longer hold it although sometimes to release the tension takes deeper work but still by placing our attention to it, in a soft curious way, we will bring it further into our attention until gradually we are able to see more of the roots of the tension.

It's ironic that us humans spend so little time truly knowing, understanding and being present inside our own bodies and yet we are so attached to them, believing our physical body to be who we are.

Of course another aspect of closing your eyes to dance is about growing trust, you have to trust your partner to be looking after you, my brain was convinced at one point that we were going into a wall and it was a conscious effort on my part to soften that tension....because I know the roots of that particular issue of mine run deep, so it was a marvellous opportunity to heal a little and let myself be guided. The rigid character structure defends by controlling everything in their lives, usually so they can never be seen to be less than perfect...these controls are what bind us, leading to a stagnated life and chronic muscle tension. Sound familiar?

I was sent a newspaper clipping about a new playground for over 60's that had been built in the UK to encourage folk to exercise more with more accessible and affordable facilities. There are heaps of courses run in Finland especially during the winter months to keep folk active both physically and mentally....although there is a huge chasm in the emotionally active sector (it's a known phenomena that after the clocks change in October some folk just switch off their emotions too!). I found out last night that my dance class is free, I don't know how many attendees are over 60 as the folk round here look so much younger than their years...must be something in the water, but it seems to me that the older you get the better you are at dancing. Is that due to more practice/experience or is it that as we get older we drop a lot of the anxieties and irrelevant thoughts that keep us tied up in our minds and we realise that life is just there for the living...and then we get on with doing just that. Same thing I suppose.

Another reason that the older folk keep so young looking could be those great scooter/kick sled things that they ride around on, they have a shopping basket at the front and they stand on the runners and push themselves along and then whizz down hills with wheels for the summer and ski runners for the winter...I can't wait to get one!

Wednesday 6th February 2008

Today is the national day of the Sámi people, the folk that we would have called Lapps, who live in the area known as Lapland which encompasses parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. This area is also known as Sámpi. One of my favourite Finnish films (it's a Russian film with the characters speaking their own native tongue), The Cuckoo is about a Sámi woman, A Finnish soldier and a Russian soldier who are thrown together by circumstances of war and none of them speaks the others' language. There are many instances of conversations where they have completely different interpretations of what the other is saying, sometimes very comical, sometimes not and it reminds me of a lot of conversations that I have here! The film also depicts some of the very old traditional Shamanic healing of the Sámi folk with a soul retrieval ritual to bring back the Finn from the brink of death. By the end of the film the three have reached some understanding between themselves, showing the way forward for mankind and then they each return to their own lives and particular civilisations......I'd would definitely recommend a viewing.

Tuesday 5th February 2008

Today is Runeberg's day as well as being Shrove Tuesday so in the UK folk will be cooking pancakes and here in Finland I would be eating some Runeburg tarts if I'd remembered to buy some at the shop last night! It's an official flag day of which there are 19 during the year. The law states that the flag has to be flown from public buildings on certain flag days and it is also recommended to be flown on other special days. Today the birthday of the national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg is one of those recommended days. Runeberg's most famous work is Fänrik Ståls sägner (The Tales of Ensign Stål, Vänrikki Stoolin tarinat in Finnish) written between 1848 and 1860. It is considered the greatest Finnish epic poem outside of the native Kalevala tradition and contains tales of the Finnish War of 1808-09 with Russia. This is the war in which Sweden lost Finland, which became a Grand Duchy in the Russian empire.

I came across Pappa Moomin this morning whilst out walking in the forest!

According to the guide as a Finn I should be celebrating my Shrove Tuesday with some family sledging followed by some pea soup and some Shrove buns....the recipe for which looks suspiciously like the normal buns (pulla) which I have no objection to stuffing myself with....if only I'd been better prepared!

Monday 4th February 2008

When I drew back the curtains yesterday morning the window was splattered with snow which is something that I've not seen before and then when I went downstairs I discovered that all the windows were caked with snow except the ones on the west side of the house. There'd been a really strong wind and loads of snow during the night, in fact it was still going on up until 1pm. When I eventually went to clear the paths the snow was over a half metre deep in places and my paths look like long canyons! Even the wood shed had been filled with a fair amount of snow coming under the door.

The snow plough didn't turn up until late in the evening so rather than struggle through the forest walking the dogs I just hung around here with them. I dug a hole through the snow on the ice and then opened up the ice to gather water for a sauna, when I made a hole in the ice the water came gushing through as I think the heavy load of the snow has pushed the ice on the lake down! I then used my new ice saw to cut out a section of ice so that I could just scoop the water out in buckets. Previously I've just made the one small hole with my ice auger (like a corkscrew that cuts through ice out really quickly!) and then pumped it up by hand into a bucket but that takes time and I prefer to scoop! Although if the ice reaches 1 metre thickness as it usually does I'll probably go back to the one hole and pumping method rather than trying to saw out a section of that. If I could make a section like that I'd love to be able to drag it out and make some kind of ice sculpture from it but it's way too heavy.

I did briefly consider trying ice dipping during my sauna but the hole looked so small and the water so dark that I imagined myself trying to get back out but not being able to because my fingers were slipping on the wet ice.....so having freaked myself out totally I didn't bother with that. But I did dive naked into the snow instead.....well when I say dive it was more of a lounge really but that's the first time I've been able to do it so I'm very pleased with myself. Actually sitting and laying in the snow didn't prove so bad even thought it was -6 outside, I felt quite OK but when I got up to go back into the sauna the sharp burning of the snow started and then the snow started to melt on me and for some reason cold dripping water down my back was awful....I screamed and couldn't get the steam going fast enough! All in all I did three turns in the snow, one for my front, one for the back and one sitting down......which isn't to be recommended for reasons I won't expand on but you may be able to guess!

The reason for this insane activity...in case you are wondering is that it's a fantastic way to boost the circulation which in turn creates greater health, more oxygen getting to the cells, more cells being reached, waste products are taken away and eliminated more efficiently, so basically the whole inner environment is much healthier....even the screaming is good for you, it releases the tension that many of us hold in our jaws. Please note that rolling on top of hard packed snow is not the same thing! The snow horse is my daughters art work and I think she did a really great job.She's making the most of the wet snow just before another cold spell comes and makes it impossible to stick it together. It's big enough to sit on....but I don't think she'll let me cancel her riding lessons.

Friday 1st February 2008

There was a beautiful deep red sunrise this morning which looked like my house had been replaced by a large glowing neon ball as we walked up the drive this morning, it was a bit of a shock when I first turned around and noticed it, I thought my home had just been nuked! Standing up on the top of the hill waiting for the school taxi I was absorbed in watching the silhouette of the spruce trees against the red band of light that lay underneath the rolling grey snow clouds which gradually dispersed upwards into a swirling mixture of pastel greys and pinks. The red from the sun reflected onto every surface and I found myself walking through a warm pink glowing world and then as the sun finished it's morning chorus the silver grey of the racing clouds slowly reclaimed the sky. Good morning universe!

It's quite a windy day here and I was equally fascinated by watching the wind amongst the trees, something that captivated me the first time I saw it here. I had never really thought about 'seeing' wind as such but when it comes down a row of spruce trees you can follow it's progress just as if you were watching the imprint of some invisible giant walking down a forest track and brushing the trees as he walks with his elbows out. At one point there are seven 30 metre (100ft) tall pine trees that stand quite alone, they were left from a logging job as they are too thin, so they wave and bend dramatically in high winds and are really interesting to watch (well they are to me!). You can see that the mid point is the crucial link, the meeting place of the sunken roots and the swaying branches, reminding me somewhat of the heart chakra as the bridge between the earth centres and the spiritual centres. The wind is such a powerful force yet it still amazes me that it can uproot these trees and I've even seen not far from my home where the pine has had such a strong root system that the wind has snapped it from the middle with the sheer force of bending the top over!! That's unthinkable power.

If I hadn't been so distracted by the sun and the wind I would have been practising my dance steps on my walk because last night I finally started some lessons. I've been keen to learn how to dance at all the brilliant village dances that happen around here during the summer time. I've been to a few and been dragged and flung around but I've always wanted to learn to do it properly. I was really nervous and excited, I dragged my neighbour out with me so that I had a sympathetic partner, his feet didn't suffer too badly so we'll be back next week. We did a slow foxtrot and a waltz but already I'm hazy about which was which, I think the waltz is the slow, slow, quick, quick one....I'm totally inflexible (these trees could teach me a thing or two) and I spend too much time looking at my feet and if I think about the steps I totally lose it but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I did have some lucid moments when it all fell into place, I'm hooked!

Thursday 31st January 2008

As I set off for my Tai Chi class last night I hadn't realised how hard it was snowing or I would have left earlier but I wasn't the only one who was caught out and arrived late. I've only been going back to my classes for the past few weeks but it's all come flooding back to me, I love the exercises that we do as they help to bring my awareness to maintaining a grounded, balanced posture that is soft and flexible. These are all the qualities that I bring to all aspects of my energy field not just the physical (when I am aware and mindful). If you are grounded, balanced and soft then the energy of the universe just passes through you, you experience life but you don't get hung up with any attachments to a particular way and thus you save yourself from pain and suffering....it's a Buddhist thing!

The arrival of some decent snow means that my daughter will be having regular sports lessons consisting of cross country skiing and ice skating. When we first arrived here it seemed strange to have PE lessons like that but now they seem normal. They sometimes ski a few kilometres to a little camp place where they cook sausages over an open fire and then they ski back to school....we never did anything like that at Plumstead manor comprehensive, though I suppose you're a bit limited in south east London! Even without the amazing sports programme I am really pleased that my daughter is attending a Finnish school, they always come in the top spots of education tables both European and world-wide, plus the school meals are not only designed to give them a perfectly balanced nutritional meal but they also instil healthy principals of eating. I've noticed that folk who leave Finland and settle in other countries tend to come back here when it's time for their children to go to school and I don't blame them as the encouragement and resources that are put into a Finnish education are second to none. The class is given little tests at the end of each section of work to see if they have understood it and those who don't score so well are given some extra lessons to help them. These additional hours are never seen as a stigma as they are such a normal part of the curriculum, everybody has strong and weak subjects and nobody is allowed to fall behind because once that happens it's very difficult to keep up and impossible to remain motivated.

Sometimes it's nice to be able to imagine where someone is sitting and writing so I took a picture of the view from my front window, you can see the sauna down by the lake's edge, the lake of course is covered with snow at this time of year and to the right is the roof coming down over the front door from which is hanging one of my bird feeders. The birds really keep me entertained during the winter, in fact they distract me from working a lot of the time! I am very grateful to be living in such a beautiful place.

Sunday 27th January 2008

I'm saddened today to learn that the reason for all the services being present down the road on Thursday was that the car driver had died. He was either taken ill or had already died before he left the road, he was 86 years old and lived over the other side of the road a few kilometres from me. I met him quite a few times, he didn't speak any English and so when we met all communication was done with smiles and waves but he was a lovely man with a great smile that took in his eyes and the sparkle in those eyes was beautiful, I shall miss seeing him around.

I've often seen that when communication dispenses with words and goes straight to eye contact and smiles that so much more can be said than words could ever manage, it's the acknowledgement of a total feeling that passes between people and it transcends all the pitfalls and stumbling blocks of the ego mind. Maybe we should do it more.

Saturday 26th January 2008

You may have noticed that I've been working on my site quite a bit recently trying to tidy it up a bit and add all those extra things that I've always wanted to do, I don't know where all this creativity is coming from but I'm riding the wave whilst it's here. Last night was no exception, I have now created a case studies page where you can see some material from actual holistic holidays taken at Mairela which will give you some idea of how the holistic approach works and how the whole experience knits together to empower the guest and gives them a solid foundation that they take with them when they return to their own world. I'm still waiting for one more to come back and I hope to add a few others in the future to reflect the diverseness of our individuated being. As always I welcome any feedback or questions they may raise.

Friday 25th January 2008

A couple of months ago a mysterious metal pole appeared at the top of my drive and as I wandered round the area I noticed others appearing too at the ends of other unmarked tracks, so we've had weeks of wondering what sign will appear on them! This week my sign appeared and it seems that my drive is now know as 'Linnajärventie' which means castle lake's road. I wasn't quite sure how to take that at first because it's my driveway albeit a meandering 400m track through the forest but to me the sign implied that folk could just come down to the lake via the road but the only place down there is my home. Although the road isn't on land that belongs to Mairela it was built by my granddad and I'm the one who maintains it (I have seriously got to do something about the protruding rocks this spring). After getting all huffy for a short while I decided that I was being all British about it and it was just a name describing the road, folk quite often drive down to my house and turn around and leave (ha ha, don't know if it's the dogs or the owner that puts them off!) as during all the years it was empty folk would come and sit or fish here. Sometimes I feel guilty for depriving them of such a great beauty spot but then the whole area is one great big beauty spot with plenty of places for just sitting and fishing. I'd like to think that I'd be quite happy for folk to come and sit here to admire the view (with one or two exceptions....you know who you are!).

The signs will also make giving instructions for walking routes around the forest a little clearer with some more signposts and track names, those old instructions of 'just past the pine forest by the lake where there's the large granite rock and some blueberry bushes' never really clarified things very well!

Thursday 24th January 2008

They say that the last week in January gives the most rapid rise in the light mornings and 'they' weren't kidding, I said to my daughter this morning that it was like God said lets flick the switch back to light mornings again. The sky as I walked round the forest block started as a pink glow almost concealed by large grey snow clouds that slowly changed colour to pastel blue clouds set against a red sky and then by the time I was home again an hour later the sky was glowing a beautiful golden orange. The wind has now picked up again and the trees are depositing their snow burdens onto the ground changing the outlook of the landscape once again.

As we walked up the drive today we could hear sirens in the distance and we were trying to see if we could identify which service it was, as we don't get much practice hearing them in the middle of the forest, as opposed to London. As we walked further up the drive it became obvious that the sound was coming our way and as we came out at the road we could see at the bottom of the hill a fire engine, a fire support vehicle, an ambulance and a police vehicle all with their flashing blue lights going, a stark contrast to the whiteness around. I must admit that I couldn't contain my nosiness and had to just wander that way with the dogs to see what the commotion was all about but I couldn't see anything other than a car in the ditch....seems there's a lot of that about! I can't figure why you would come off the road there either as it's straight so maybe it was Mr moose making trouble running across the road without looking first, that's one of the biggest hazards on these country roads.

Wednesday 23rd January 2008

With all the snow gently piled up on each and every bare branch and beautifully decorating the dark green spruce trees, the full moon rays filtered through the snow clouds at midnight created such a magical spectacle, it really is one of my most favourite things in the whole world. On Monday evening I held the meditation group gathering here as our village spot wasn't available and I hung lanterns in the snow covered trees and built snow lanterns out of lots of snowballs piled up around a candle. The effect is gorgeous, I did take a picture but they didn't come out very well. I would go and try to take some more but my darling dogs have trampled the lanterns...no respect for craftsmanship!

Talking of dogs ruining things, I bought them new 'easy to put on' reflective vests last week but come Monday morning in the usual hurry to meet the school taxi in the dark they proved to be not so easy. In fact I'm not even sure they were designed for dogs, I'd just grabbed them from the pet section in a big store and hadn't paid them much heed. Anyway, on they went and off we went. Once they were off the lead they shot off into the forest as per usual but I realised after some time that they hadn't re-emerged and so I called them, still nothing so I called louder. Eventually I got really angry with them which was reflected in my shouting but still no sign of them (except the little one) so I started walking home and calling, eventually getting past angry and into being worried. Maybe they were in the next town still chasing an elk, or worse they were now in the middle of the forest surrounded by wolves! About 10 minutes later they came running up behind me and the truth of their adventure emerged, their vests were ripped to shreds like the result of some comic book explosion. Seems that they got tangled up in the forest and couldn't get free, they must have been frantic with me shouting all that time. We've all learnt our lesson now, the vest remains are in the rubbish and we're sticking to the old reflectors from now on. The mornings are lightening up quite quickly now anyway, especially with all the snow so I'll soon be leaving my enormous yellow coat on the peg for another year.

Monday 21st January 2008

Dare I say that it is snowing heavily now and the whole landscape is white at the moment, yay! Just in time for the full moon which peaks tomorrow afternoon, so if the snow clouds have gone by tonight the whole place will be lit up by such an awesome magical glow that I can stand outside at midnight and marvel it.

Remember the caterpillar I found the other week on the frozen road, I brought him home and made him a home in a jar with some salad leaves but he just curled up and died, well on Saturday I saw another one almost at the same spot except there was now a centimetre of snow and it was walking across the track. I'm pretty sure that isn't right but I left it there anyway as it probably knows better than me about what it should be doing. Talking about caterpillars and things I've added a new mini gallery with all my butterfly pictures. Enjoy!

The crested tits are well and truly established back in the garden now so I'm very happy, one was sitting in the bush waiting for me to go away and let it continue eating seeds, he was very patient whilst I sat there for 15 minutes watching him until my bum got cold and I had to go inside. I'm hoping to get some new shots of it this winter. These ones here were taken a few years ago with my old camera and lots of patient waiting in the snow! I love the one that I caught of it coming out of the peanut feeder with a nut in its mouth.

Friday 18th January 2008

Went for a spin in the car today - literally! I've now joined the large Finnish group of folk who have spent some time parked in the ditch at the edge of an icy road wonder WTF happened! I'm quite impressed that it wasn't until my 5th winter here that I left the road and I'm guessing it's the result of growing confidence and diminishing caution! I was on my way to the next town for an appointment and I cut through the forest as per usual but I didn't appreciate the state of the road until I felt the first slip and I panicked and hit the brake...bad move, the car went into a violent swing and started sliding towards a very large rock. Now, I've seen what these large lumps of granite can do to the average car so I wasn't so keen to engage with it and I couldn't believe that my angels would let me hit it either. I imagined in my mind (without thinking) that I would somehow go round it. I heard the voice in my head saying 'take your foot off the brake' (something I've drummed into myself) and despite it seeming suicidal I lifted my right foot, the car swung round 180 and parked in the ditch behind the rock, missing all the other rocks too. Phew! I love my guardian angels and they certainly love me.

I then set out to walk down the road to the house of the tractor guy who clears the snow from my drive, who coincidentally was the closest house to where I was anyway. He wasn't at home but by a series of phone calls via my wonderful friends he finally arrived and pulled me out. I did find out that the towing hitch which screws into the front of the car can't fit now that the engine warmer plug is located there, so we had to dismantle that first but apart from that the tractor pulled me out easily and the car was fine so I continued on my way to my rescheduled appointment. The worst part of the whole day was finding out that the big supermarket in Jämsä didn't have any mature cheddar....nnoooo! I do miss my mature cheddar, cheese on toast made with mature cheddar and rye bread is food of the gods.

Wednesday 16th January 2008

I've been making a few adjustments to the site, with my nose dived into HTML 4 For Dummies^® (For Dummies) these past few days (it's like Hungarian to me!) and I've finally completed a recommendations page with details of all the books and CDs that I have recommended to folk during their holistic healing holidays. If you're interested in any type of healing for patients or for yourself there are some useful titles and some really great music, for meditation, relaxation or healing and toning.

Plus another reminder that I am running a free competition to win a free holistic healing holiday to be taken this summer and you'll find the entry form on the Natural Matters competition page.

Tuesday 15th January 2008

The weather is driving me mad with the constant rain/snow combination which creates the most treacherous conditions for driving and walking. Strangely enough it's the walking on ice that produces the biggest reaction in me and I've been studying it's effects on me over the past few morning strolls. When I was about 12 years old I hurt my coccyx (my dear brother pushed me into a wall with a slate top that jutted out right in line with my coccyx), I felt quite weird afterwards and then 5 minutes later I fainted. I remember that I didn't know what had happened, my mum told me that sitting down (on the loo!) and then waking up on the floor was called fainting. Then a few years later I slipped on some ice and hit my coccyx (maybe I should grow a bigger arse to protect it!) and the familiar awful feeling of fainting and sickness came over me. I've never been good with slippery stuff since then...yes I know, living in the frozen North is really intelligent!

Now that I'm a spiritual explorer of my hidden depths I've been noting the feelings inside me when I walk (shuffle!) on icy roads and I can see how it is all linked to that feeling of being totally out of control. As I walk I can feel all the tensions in my muscles and they are so bad that it's painful (using my awareness to note the pain that would ordinarily be habitual and unnoticed). I've read that about 40% of fractures happen before the bones hit anything because of muscle tension and feeling inside my body on ice I can well believe that. I intellectually know that the more tensed I am walking on ice the more likely I am to slip and lose my balance but that doesn't make one iota of difference, in fact quite the opposite! This is exactly the kind of experience that people bring to healings (overwhelming fear not walking on ice!) and it's a great reflection for me of my inner state. I've been using the situation as a playing field to explore my reactions. When I explored what was scaring me I realised that I felt very high up and unbalanced, so I purposefully pushed my energy back down into my feet, connecting the middle of my feet down into the ground and that really made a huge difference, I was able to walk 'normally' for 100m. I found that if my foot slipped forwards that it produced no reaction in me, it's only the movement backwards that tips me into fear, which is strange because I've also noted recently that I walk and stand with my back tipped back. This is a reflection of being a bit defensive about life, you know the expression about being on the back foot, I'm waiting to react rather then going forward and acting. Then when I'm slowly picking my way down a slippery hill (which is quite sensible) I can hear the voice of my inner bully tormenting me for being so pathetic. All very interesting!

On the bird front, I'm pleased to say that the crested tit has returned to my garden again this winter, I didn't see it at all last year and I really missed it, so yay for that! On the other hand.....I don't know why but every year a dying bird comes and sits on my bird feeder, I now recognise the signs, the fluffed out feathers, the wings pointing back and the sleeping in such an open position. Yesterday a greenfinch adopted the death pose, he was obviously not well as the rest of his flock left last week for warmer climes. There's nothing I can do with them but I always bring them inside, give them warmth, water and love...and then they die! Oh well, I hope when I die I'm warm with a full belly and feeling loved.

Friday 11th January 2008

Today saw the launch of an online competition to win a free holistic healing holiday here at Mairela! If you go to Natural Matters you'll find a little piece about the prize and also the competition page. Good luck!

Monday 7th January 2008

It's snowing at last! Very fine but persistent snow that is slowly filling up the landscape and turning it back into how Finland should look in January. I'm still not ready to walk the whole way across my lake yet but I did have to take a short walk on Saaresjarvi because Sylka dropped her reflective scarf when she was wandering over it and neither dog would go and pick it up for me. I did the usual checks first like jumping up and down heavily to see if anything shifted and when it didn't I walked and got the scarf. It's a weird feeling to do something like that based on trust, I can't see under the ice to know exactly how thick it is, but then I do a lot in my life based on trust when I can't really see everything that I would like to. I always remember that there is nothing that comes to me that I can't handle...even if it doesn't feel like it at the time!

Last Friday was the 8th anniversary of my cancer, which makes me an official survivor of stage 3 ovarian cancer. That was definitely one of those moments in my life when I was just working on trust without any idea of what was going to happen. Not only have I handled it but I've gained so much from the whole experience that it's a real positive influence in my life and I'm sure that this attitude is a large part of my success in staying free from cancer since then. Whenever something seemingly 'bad' comes along in life I look for the meaning in it, what is this showing me about myself that I haven't seen or been aware of before. Awareness of ourselves is one of the key elements in a healthy life as it gives us the answers to the why and the how of everything that we are. Knowing why you do something is important because much of the time we are actually taking ourselves further away from the one thing that we most desire. So many of us cut ourselves off from others in order to mitigate the pain of rejection and yet that action drives us further away from union and oneness which in itself creates more pain. I don't expose myself so that I can judge myself in any way, as condemnation serves no useful purpose, but I seek my truth so that I may know who I am and from that place I can be who I am rather than the false self that lives in fear of rejection. When I am my true self and I love the whole of myself then there is nothing that can hurt me, therefore no reason for me to wear masks and create defences to hide behind, the very defences that stop life coming to me. When I am fully exposed as who I really am then I have total freedom and when I have total freedom then I am fully exposed as me.

Sunday 6th January 2008

A new year and some changes to my home.....nothing drastic just moving the furniture around in the living room so that I can look out the side window at the birds more easily and from the sofa I can sit and gaze out the big front windows over to the lake and the surrounding forest covered hills. We still don't have any real snow but it seems that finally the proper thermal winter has arrived with temperatures around -8. Over the new year I took an extended walk and was shocked to hear and see that most of the surrounding lakes were open ( not frozen), my lake and the one that feeds it are small, approx. 600m x 250m and they freeze quite quickly and therefore stay frozen. I haven't tried to walk over my lake yet as the weather was so up and down I couldn't know for sure just how safe it would be. It's amazing every year I don't really think about the motion of the water being stopped until I see another lake in motion, or until the spring time when I'm definitely ready to see the stirring of water symbolising the stirrings of nature as everything comes back to life. But for now we are moving into a real time of stillness and consolidation, a great time for rest and reflection....especially nestled in front of a glowing fire.

I tried something new on new years day...seemed like a good time to do that! I went walking with my new MP3 player that I'd got from Santa. I've always been a bit rigid ( no? really?) about non natural things being part of my nature walks although I realise that actually there is nothing outside of nature really, after all nature is constantly evolving and changing so who is to say that all the stuff that humans produce isn't part of nature, although if we accept that thought we also have to accept the way that nature will deal with it to restore the balance.....a poignant point when I'm walking in a snowless January in Finland for the second year running. My missing snow is probably falling on some bemused tropical island inhabitants somewhere. Anyway, I embraced a new way of walking whilst listening to music as opposed to listening to my inner thoughts and peace....and it was fantastic! The old saying about dance like no one is watching and sing like no one is listening was what it was all about. It was a jumble of mixed music and it was interesting to note how much of a weird concept it was for my mind to be hearing the music I listen to indoors whilst I was walking through the normally tranquil forest. It was such a weird feeling that I felt like I was spaced out on drugs or something especially when I listened to one of my favourite healing CD's Pure Peace, this is a great mix of Johann Pachebel's canon for strings ( A canon is a piece of music for several instrumental 'voices' in which each enters after the other, playing the same music at a distance) with bird song and waves crashing onto beaches, it really is the most amazing and relaxing CD that I own and I thoroughly recommend it to everyone. Hearing the bird song and the moving water whilst walking through a frozen and motionless forest was surreal to say the least but what a way to open up your senses and expand your mind!

I used my new engine warmer for the first time on Friday as I was off to the airport to collect my daughter after her Christmas visit. After I started the engine I unplugged it and left the car to warm the inside as I hate getting into a cold car but when I returned to the car to set off it wasn't running anymore. Even worse when I tried to restart it there was nothing happening from the ignition...talk about rising panic!! I checked the bus timetable first and the bus I would need to get on to arrive at the airport in time had left 5 minutes ago, I phoned the local garage and he was too busy to come out to me and couldn't think of anything simple to try. I phoned my taxi driver friend envisioning a €200 taxi ride to the city but as my daughter was traveling unaccompanied and I was the one down to be collecting her it would be worth it. I couldn't bear the thought of her coming through the gate and me not being there....although I expect she wouldn't be so fazed by it as me! My friend was already in Helsinki and so at least I had somebody around to collect her even if it would mean endless paperwork and phone calls to sort out. I then popped the bonnet to see if anything simple looked amiss, like an obvious wire unattached or something, I'd already checked the petrol, but everything looked as it should. As a last resort because it couldn't hurt I stuck my hands on the block and asked (begged) for the car to start....a bit of healing can do the trick sometimes and behold when I turned the key the engine fired into life! Now of course the explanation is that the car had previously overheated and the engine has some kind of cut off switch but I like to think that the angels not only helped me keep calm throughout sorting out the problem but also did some mechanical magic too.

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