Sunday 10 May 2015

Why are mandalas important?

WHY ARE MANDALAS IMPORTANT?

The simple answer is to try for yourself.

1 - Draw: A mandala



2 - Find: The calm at the centre of the storm



3 - Experience: The sweet spot, where the harmonic resonance balances our internal experience with the outer matrix of our universe



4 - Realise: Perfect potential exists within every moment



5 - Read: A map that guides you to the destination of inner peace



6 - Follow: A guide to familiarise the path to your sweet spot




7 - Draw: A mandala


8 - Realise: Your own dream into being



Sunday 22 December 2013

Death of the Wounded Male

Death of the Wounded Male

A primal tale of the final suffering of a young stag. We found him shot, amidst the woods. His guiltless life, taken in misguided sympathy, by a farmer's gun. Entangled for days, his antlers caught in barbed wire, his frenzied hoof prints stamping out his mandala of death upon the earth, around the base of an ancient oak tree.

We buried this beautiful child of the forest, with dignity and reverence, and learned through Gaia's rituals the passage of initiation.

We had travelled to the woods as a working party, to free the waters, blocked, locked and inert, by removing a dam, not expecting the day's experiences to carry the metaphors revealed.
.........................

Where art thou male of innocence
whose blissful sense directeth thee
upon the mortal call of fate
in knowing death's lone cry?

For there, in twisted, broken wire 
your frozen gaze has lost the fire
that blazed within your free
 and simple soul.
As men of silver teaching's path
observe the complex tanglement
of Indra's web in her disguise
as mirror'd within each our eyes
which flicker wide upon surprise
as we,
revolve, 
evolve, concentric'lee
in quantum eccentricity
of schedules held in time's advance
the geometric spiral dance
that leads upon the open path
of karma's stepping stones.
 
For in amongst our fellow stags
as yet to see the bullet's rage
whose spiral path bears down at speed
to take your precious life.
In fury, trapped at oaken base
 creates his dance upon the earth
with frantic cleaving of the soil
his desperation known to those
who see the trace.

So, will the heaven's path reveal
a gift to those who choose to steal
another's sacred life?


So look to those who hold their guns
in hellish fear of what they see
misunderstanding karma's ways
of mirroring, each action that we make.
For those who know the Tantric path
observing death is medicine
whose vital, brutal mechanism
polarises softened vision
into stark reality
where those with courage thus can see
impermanence, of all things held to be.
For on that bridge, 'tween this and that
the magic veil, in subtlety
of shades of dark and light engage
the senses, tempted and ablaze
in dalliance with the sexual fire
misunderstood, 
without sweet wisdom's path.
For in itself, the transiental
passing bliss
of male release
does bring a sense of inner peace
that serves to bind one's fantasy
contrived within futility
without an exit strategy...
How foolish that we recognise
yet still ignore the certainty
of sweetness of the rose's hip
upon our moistened parted lips
yet unaware of savage cruel thorns.

 
For 'til we learn the alchemy
begifted sexuality
the condensation of release
the mystic portal offers peace
to those who practice
Tantra's twofold path.

For what is bliss, but half the path
that on its own shall misdirect
as should a bird, with just one wing
or sailor pulling with one oar
will never reach the distant shore?

 And hidden in obscurity
beguiling through it's mystery
is the navigator's lamp
held by Atisha, clear and bright
that leads the way
into the light
illuminating golden keys
of Highest Yoga Alchemy.
...................

We freed the water.

Then, as our day ended around the fire's embers,
with tales and song, and rose hip drafts
this group of friends
with simple taste
sang this ancient song



Tuesday 1 October 2013

Tom Tom Woods

The Watery Tale of Tom Tom Woods

 Shortly after Autumn Equinox, I was invited to a party - a house warming party, in the Sussex countryside.


 It was a soft gentle party, with beautiful, magical, dancing, singing, playing young women, and strong, wise, handsome young men... I was the eldest, and both happy and honoured to be in such bright young magical company.

The party held promise. Unknown, but beckoning.

I went into the dark night garden at around 1.30 am, to sit and smoke, under a large autumnal tulip tree. The soft wind rustled the drying leaves, and caught my wandering attention.

My mind rambled and roamed, explored and enquired, and suddenly I was talking to a bright eyed young man - Thomas. I really liked this man's energy, and I felt compelled to talk, and to realise the nature of our encounter.

We talked of trees, of woodlands, and of water, and within moments he had produced a map of Tom Tom Woods, asking where water might be found. The map showed old topography, revealing the ancient pathways of the water's flow, and within minutes we had arranged to meet the following day, for an exploration.

We climbed through from the track, along a lane, and onto a pathway, ever narrowing, the canopy starting to hold and enclose the space.

I saw the swamp - the sign of a clumsy hand, an attempt at creating a pool on a steep hillside, now blocked, filthy and inert... and with a tragedy within its soul.


Rowan berries hung deep and heavy over the swamp, the ripened red fruit conveying a promise, but the story had an unfoldment, an unexpected turn.


Gonna see The Riverman, gonna tell him all I can, about the plan...

The alchemy of water and sunlight - the beckoning of the golden light.


I was told the story of how the daughter of the previous land-owner had died in this swamp... drowned. And I realised that not only was the land to be cleared for the water's flow, but the trauma released from the soil.

It was time to work, to clear and to begin the release. Decades of decay and casual neglect had blocked the water's path, holding back that which needed release.

Teach me the lesson of flowing...


The flow exists, and though its labyrinthine passage is excrutiating and agonisingly slow, working with bare hands is the perfect way to feel into the soul of the earth, and tenderly clear these old pathways. A gentle reveal, of both outer and inner.


Purifying and cleansing the water, cleanses and purifies the soul. Each handful opens up and frees deep needs from within, and the release of water opens the energetic flow of life.


The water carries subtle prayers and wishes, as an amplifier, a lens, through which intentions are carried far downstream to the great oceans, and back up to the spring source, and into the vast unknowable inner earth. The cycle, never-ending, completes and begins, once again.


And soon, it flows. And I breathe, and I am healed once again. The water sings and dances, the air is alive and fresh, the passive becomes active, and the wheel begins to turn once again.


Soon fishes will be swimming here once again, life returning with renewed vigour and vitality. This is so simple to do, so easy to do, and so profoundly rewarding.

 Join me sometime, or take me with you - in the service of water. If you know of woodlands in need of my hands, I am a friend of the water.

Tuesday 23 April 2013

dance the deep line


A story of redemption, hope, fear, healing and impossibility.

1.

To wind the imagery in a little tighter… fasten your seatbelt.

Only by practicing unravelling the knot am I able to see how the conditions arose, and by using the microscope of words I am able to see the subtleties and nuances that are the fiendish mechanisms of depression and suicide.

From the other side of time, from now, I can see what happened as a shamanic journey, and one of absolute necessity, for no other circumstance could have enabled the loosening of the death grip of my pride and ego.

You see, my strength had become my weakness. My lifetime of introspection, meditation and contemplation had endowed me with a surgical toolkit of the finest delicacy, as no thought, feeling or expression passed through my being without the gatekeeper of self deciding upon how I chose to present myself to the world.

This became an infernal labyrinth, of ever reducing parameters and narrowing corridors, a self-criticism leading further and further inwards, until there was no further room for manoeuvre.

And having fully explored the limits and capacities to dance within the mind, allied with a set of apparently insoluble external difficulties, I had lost. I was defeated.

Defeated to the extent that I had lost everything, even my faith.

I lay down to die, I chose to leave this time and place.

Was this cowardly?

It was my only remaining option.

I chose my time and place, and set my trajectory to my next life. A combination of relaxation, fearlessness, surrender and sorrow, allied with a heartfelt wish for pain to cease.

I was cutting the strings of my parachute, I was about to fall.

And I fell, into death.

Mark died.

Mark heard music, the chant of a prayer that lead me back into consciousness, and the rebirth of my experience, my life, was accompanied by the awareness that I had a higher purpose to reveal, a reason for my inability to die. My faith had re-found me.

Depression? It is an intelligent struggle against the ego, an unwillingness to be prey to circumstance, and even a foolhardy inability to surrender to the inevitable. But only the most fiercely intelligent become severely depressed, it is a beautiful gift, but wrapped in horrendous papers, accented with colours and patterns that frighten us from going near it to see what is inside. We try to run a mile from it, to avoid seeing what lies within, and really, the wrapper is our ego and what lies within is our true nature.

And try as we might, we cannot escape the ever looming presence of those distorted wrapping papers, they beguile and confuse, we become disassociated from our true nature, failing to recall that which lies within.

That which we were born with, our birthright of inner peace and contentment, of love, wisdom and compassion.

The gifts of life.

It took the most extreme journey for me to realise this, over and through the mountain pass of life and death, between the crashing rocks and landslides of fear and failure.

Depression? Fear not that which lies within, enter the light that is contained within that terrifying presence, and see no enemies, but merely aspects of who you are. Aspects of yourself that frighten or even repulse you.

And know your reaction of repulsion is the very fuel that feeds the subtle depressive mind.

Use the power of love, to embrace and heal the inner demons and fears that plague the intelligent depressed mind. Do not run away.

This is the story of the rebirth, the revelation of a shamanic life, gifted with opportunity.

2.

A shattered life, fragmented, dissonant – in freefall. But with a deeply profound acknowledgement of hidden meaning, meaning as yet to be revealed.

Living in the cloudy haze of rebirth, with no grounding, no strength and no power I flailed within an ungraspable experience, living in a dazed wonderment of unfamiliarity and helplessness, confined with a jealous view of how all others seemed to have meaning, focus and energy as to how their lives were so simple, so uncomplicated and so easy…

The depth of my suffering was over, completed, but where from here? Where or what was this prophetic destiny that I knew lay ahead?

I knew that it would be something completely outside of any imaginary expectations, without any personal historic precedence, as I had burned those bridges that encircled my city of ego, and from those ashes the new would be that – New.

Q. How does one imagine the unimaginable?
A. Wait until it happens.

The last vital links I had left in this world were Coral and Gus. I had to rebuild, in an unimaginable fashion a creation, a manifestation that would serve as an attractor of the true potential of their father.

Just not possible.

All the great works have been achieved, the world’s great men had covered all bases, and all I could achieve would be a pale imitation, following in another’s footsteps.

And from the intense inner vortices self-centred attention, the view of the horizon is even less apparent – limited vision you see. Locked into an introspection vortex, lacking a pathway out.

You know the saying, ‘a chink in the armour’.

It happened like this…

3.

Only the deepest attachment has the capacity to reach into the deepest aspect of my mind.

I had lost attachment to ego, health, home, relationships, money, faith and life itself. I was free, but of no purpose.

Gus, my son became ill. Extremely ill. Life and death ill.

When I arrived at the hospital his life was not even hanging by a thread. It was floating, suspended between the worlds of life and death, like a mote of dust in the sunlight, and even the coarse spoken movement of a word might have served as the nudge into death.

And in the environmental world of violent and intrusive surgical procedures and toxic chemical pharmalogical cudgels, (read - a Bankok hospital), what use might a fragile and confused father be? How might I protect the life essence of my son?

And, I’ll add, a cynical son, a boy whose interpretation of his father’s methodologies have been viewed from the corner of his eye, with a ‘yeah dad, sure’ attitude.

That first few weeks, sat by his side, to my view I held his life within my aura, extending my life force to within his body, to protect his very soul, sharing my soul with his, asserting my capacity to heal, to re-find life within himself. To not die.

This bridge between souls became, over the months, a subtle mechanism whereby my own healing began, and footholds and staging posts of recovery began to manifest within my own life. A sort of selflessness, a true, continual flow of loving, healing energy, to perhaps one of the only souls on this earth that really mattered to me, had mysteriously happened, at the perfect time.

Even now I am still slightly confused about my sense of personal recovery, affected by the intense suffering of my son, almost a guilt at having ‘used’ the situation. I know you understand this. Anyways…

4.

I am walking in the woods, a few months later.

Gus still ill. Me? A little firmer, a little clearer, and feeling a little stronger.

The woods are ancient, and living upon a series of hills and valleys, with streams interspersed running though as arteries of the hills, carrying water, minerals and nourishment. A source of life giving energy. Perpetual.

Straying a little from the main paths I begin to slow and amble, losing the drive to reach my destination, and I begin to engage with my surroundings in a more sympathetic manner.

I see more.

Where fallen wood and debris have accumulated the water flow slows, drags and develops a thin film, a scummy looking layer, upon which a dead layer of grey inert bubbles gather, and this to me, is a blockage. A blockage.

Note to self: Clear blockage?

Like a boy in the woods, I clamber down the bank, wade into the water, and remove the debris. The water sighs, and a turbulent joy returns to the flow. I am happy, and have an unfamiliar sense of satisfaction. Doing something that no-one knows or sees, and it feels good.

Hmmm, now I’m down in the stream I can see another blockage, a few feet away, hidden in the overhanging undergrowth. I can grab a fallen branch, reach in and free that blockage too. That feels good too.

Job done. Sorted.

Fast forward 1 week.

I’m back in the woods for another walk, this time I’m feeling really low, sad, helpless and I’m crying. I leave the woods and wander up into one of the surrounding meadows, find a clear open space and I sit upon a small hillock, with my head in my hands, and I cry, and cry, and cry.

From my despair I am aware of a presence around me, I look up, and 6 horses have wandered and gathered around me, looking into my soul, with understanding and empathy for my sorrow.

Two of the horses walk slowly towards me, one brown, one black, and press their noses upon my cheeks, and they breathe me. Their breath becomes my breath, and we 3 breathe together, as they heal me, as they understand my sorrow.

And for moments I can speak horse. From mind to mind we share communication, and they ease my suffering. This is a unique and magical moment in my life, and a crossroads in my recovery. We share common experiences of love, pain and suffering in a communion of souls, a communion that knows none of the parameters of conventional understanding and this breaks down a barrier within my soul, that had hitherto separated me, Mark the human being, from the majesty and unity of the animal kingdom.

5.

Another day, another walk in the woods.

Those blockages, they seem endless, there are miles of tributaries, all somewhat blocked, their flow inhibited.

Hold on. A thought enters my head. A loud thought.

Is there a correlation between the complex and fractal aspects of the many streams and tributaries of the woodlands, and the complex and fractal aspects of Gus’ damaged lungs?

It is a long shot, and perhaps just stupidly impossible, but maybe, just maybe, there is a remote correlation between the two complex systems. So… my mind running very quickly, I leap to the possible conclusion.

I clear the waters, and Gus gets better. Simple mathematics. Simples…

For the next three months I spend my weekend hours tramping up through lost entangled tributaries, engaged, fully immersed in an environment of purely natural elements. Up to my knees in fresh running water, breathing deeply, engaging my breath with the close environment, bent under overhanging undergrowth, crawling up hidden waterfalls, working solely with my bare hands, reaching into dark still inert waters, to remove debris with sometimes a charming and sometimes repulsive aspect.

Working until my hands are frozen and bleeding, my clothes soaked and mud covered, my faithful hat carrying a weight of twigs, mosses and leaves. A wild woodsman, working on a wing and prayer in a seemingly endless series of water purifications.

And purification for my soul. Each sigh of eased water lightens my soul, in an ever increasing sense of fulfilment and progression, in the clearance of the woodlands waterways, and also in the removal of my rebirthed immaturities. I am rapidly developing into a man whose new found direction and fulfilment depends upon my faithful continuance of my unusual task.

Gus is getting a little better now, early springtime. Any connection? Who can ever know, but I love the idea, the idea of the possibility that the two – my work and Gus’ recovery are interlinked… I would love to crank the idea up a notch or two, but I am a man alone, with limited time, limited understanding and limited capacity. But I’ll just persevere and enjoy whatever comes along, but some form of help would be good.

6.

Time passes. It is an unusual night. It is the night of the full moon, but also the super full moon, the night when the moon is bigger, brighter and closer to Earth than at any other time, it is Saturday March 18th 2011. The moon rises in the early evening, and the night sky is astonishingly transformed.

I sense it is time for some magic, time for some alchemy… Now, turn your eyes away from the page if you are of a delicate or sensitive nature, and should you read on, keep these words to yourself. But I am going to guess if you have read this far, and you know me, I will not shock you.

I bless two doses of lysergic acid diethylamide. I take the two trips.

The night progresses and at around 10 pm, with the moon enormous and bright, the sky cloudless and silver gold, I venture down to the woods. Alone.

I enter the woods through my usual pathway, my familiar route, and the pathways are muddy, slippery and dark, and though the moon is bright, the woods are shaded and dark. I do not take a torch, I wish to for my senses to fully engage. I do have a staff that I carry, to guide and support me. A familiar if you like, a friend, my old blackthorn staff.

I know I am taking what might be considered a shamanic journey, one in which I will encounter deep and hidden secrets, both within the woods, and within myself.

If I am to trust the woods, and more importantly, if the woods are to trust me, I have to bare my soul, make my vulnerabilities plain, and allow my intentions to be known.

It is time for us to really get to know one another.

7.

The first hour or so was charming, magical and majestic. The woods were unusually quiet, no sounds discernable, no wind at all, an uncharacteristic quiet. I wandered around the familiar beautiful paths, entering the groves where the moon’s bright light penetrated, and I was happy and content, meeting familiar places and trees, with whom I had previous acquaintance.

The darker gullies and slopes seemed intimidating and dark, even scary, with their dank, moist night time stillness, the ways down precarious and dangerous.

I knew I had to venture into those places that held fear for me.

With respect and trepidation I requested safe guidance into the gloom, fearing falling and injury.

Slowly and carefully I felt my way into the almost sinister depths, with fear rising within my mind, but knowing my fear was due to an internal reaction, rather than any external malevolent force.

I stood still, and chose to stand, with my fear rising rapidly. I had to stand, and learn to experience and engage with my fear, to learn to encounter a primal sense of enclosure. To engage with what I understood to be inner daemons, aspects of my mind.

After several long minutes of intense discomfort, I understood that love was the appropriate and perfect methodology to apply as an antidote, and ushered forth a radiance that embraced my daemons, and chose neither to ignore nor suffer any fears.

I became fearless in that environment.

It was then that I realised that the very spirits of the woods, those that chose to dwell in those places that man fears, were almost testing me, exploring the heart of my soul.

I chose to encourage them to enter into me, so they could become familiar with me, in my vulnerable and open state, and having done so, met them with my loving energy.

I felt comfortable, safe, protected and welcome.

We had introduced ourselves.

I was now the visitor, no longer the intruder. I had come in love, and with a wish to communicate. I stood still, in silent contemplation, allowing whatever energies that came my way enter into me. I felt the sense of ancient timelessness, of a world that blinked at the lives of men, where trees lived, for thousands, maybe millions of years.

It was another world, of which the minds of modern men had little consideration or knowledge, a secret world of natural unfolding, that had the patience to let the selfishness and egoic pride of men transpire as a passing breeze. The minor irritation of a passing adolescent mankind, soon to be gone from this world, and then the trees and an unselfish nature might return to this place once again, undisturbed in the place of their birthright.

Sensing the enormous natural condition of this place, I felt small, powerless and vulnerable, but no longer afraid. I realised that I am small, I am powerless and I am vulnerable.

Inhaling and exhaling deeply, I gradually worked my way out of the dark, dank depths of the woods, from the very streams I had cleared during the light of the day, with a gratitude and humility. The water ran with a different sound, a different intensity, an unfamiliar murmur to its voice. But I now knew the waters in their secret aspect, their hidden language.

As I reached a lighter and clearer area of the woods, my heart began to open further, and as the familiar areas reassured me, I chuckled at the fears that had arisen within me. I knew that all fears were an internal condition, and the woods held no danger for me. We had become friends.

My confidence grew, and a blasé and a dismissive and arrogant pride arose. I had encountered my deepest fears, and had survived. I stood and looked up at the clear moon as I stood by a complex yew tree, laughing at my strength and power.

A sound exploded behind me, and an instantaneous and eruptive fear shattered my complacency. The woods had another lesson to teach me. I was still the mere human, the foolish man, the incomer, and a wood pigeon, leaving its roost was sufficient to re-engage my humility.

I had no right to play with ideas that I had somehow mastered these woods, it was through their grace that I could venture into this place with safety. A wood pigeon, maybe the least intimidating creature of the woods had the ability, the capacity to fire me into an extremely powerful, momentary terror.

My lesson was to remain in abeyance to the whims of the larger spirit. I could feel safety and protection, but only if I remained humble with deference. I was not the master here.

8.

I roamed awhile, calm and humble, and found myself by an ancient stump of a long dead tree, and at this place I felt myself to be at the very heart of the woods, the place around which all the life here revolved and depended.

I stood and introduced myself to this most powerful and ancient of spirits, and cried with the pain I felt for Gus. I requested this spirit to hear my pleas, my request for whatever healing capacities that lay hidden in this place to hear me.

These words I sobbed – ‘please help me to heal my son’.

I promised the spirit that I would endeavour to protect and heal the harms that man had inflicted upon its world, and should Gus become well I would expend my energies to the protection of this place.

I made my vows, with a candour and depth known only to me and the woods.

I turned away with a sense of completion of my shamanic journey, and then saw ethereal creatures in the woods. Spirits of both wolves and bears that had long since left this place. Ghosts perhaps of those animals whose homes had been destroyed and whose lives had been hunted by men, coarse animals, long ago.

I had the privilege to be welcomed as an honoured guest, allowed to be shown some deeply hidden secrets of this ancient land.

I journeyed out of the woods, with a deep, deep respect, and a sense of connection, a relationship that I knew was a part of a lifetime’s commitment.

9.

Over the next few days I revisited the journey within my memory, gently exploring the night’s events and experiences, and a new sense of possibility began to emerge.

Instead of merely clearing and cleansing the ever flowing system and networks of tributaries and streams I should endeavour to find the source of all this water, to try and find the spring source. If indeed a spring source existed in these woods.

If I could find the source I could cleanse and purify this epicentre, polish the diamond so to speak, and use this methodology to cleanse the waters. As a wise man told me ‘it is easier to wear shoes than to cover the whole world with leather’.

I asked many folks who lived in and around the woods if a spring could be found. Asking old folks walking their dogs, those who had lived and grown up in these woods, but no-one knew, no-one could tell me.

Later that week, whilst in a bookshop I found an old ordnance survey map, and in an obscure and isolated area of the woods I saw this… spr. The map was marked with the location of the spring. It actually existed.

Like a child waiting for Christmas Day, the days until the weekend dragged and dragged, until the morning I strode up the pathway, marked on the old map as Pilgrims Way towards the place of the spring.

I jumped across a steep banked ditch, and fought my way through a tangle of holly, fallen trees, sodden ground and dark dank airs. The place was no spring source, it was a swamp, a foul smelling, rank, fetid, dead place where no-one had come for many long years. A hostile place that carried a very clear message. Visitors not welcome, especially men.

But I knew I was not the man for whom that unwritten message had been placed this past 100 years or so. I knew I had been guided here, as a part of my commitment to the woods, and that here I would find a place where I might focus my attentions, and approach the impenetrable, unafraid and with the support of all the spirits inhabiting the woods. A deeply secret place. And why so secret? Why so obscured? Why so forgotten?

Sinking up to my waist in the fearfully wretched swamp ground, I grasped at a tussock to heave myself up and out of the suction of the back mass of rotten waters and debris, with the potential of drowning in this forgotten place very alive in my mind.

I waded my way through the seemingly impenetrable sludge, and clambered onto a long fallen mighty tree, a giant of a tree, that looked, and still looks like a fallen dinosaur, bridging a small gully, the gulley hidden on 2 sides by steep and precipitous walls of fallen trees and a mighty oak and beech, another side by the rank swamp waters and the fourth side by an impenetrable tangle of fallen trees, and hostile and sharp shrubs.

This place was deeply hidden, deeply protected, until now, until it revealed itself to me alone.

10.

There was no spring to be seen, nor heard though, but through a pile of dead leaves a slight trickle of water led my eye. I had grown accustomed to observing the movement of waters in these woods, my instincts had been attuned in a watery way.

Working as ever with my bare hands I plunged my hands into the sodden debris and my heart sang as after a few minutes of clearance work, the trickle had become enlarged a little and a confidence arose within me that I was close.

I had to stop this end of the work however, as I realised that if I was to free these waters, if I was to remove this blockage, I first had to turn my attention to the swamp. For I understood from my previous months of stream and tributary clearance that the nature of water’s movement mean that the water had to have some way of being released and freed further downstream or the process would not have the freeing effect.

So placing my enthusiastic boy-like tendencies to one side, I turned back into the swamp to see if there was a hidden culvert or outlet overflow that might reduce the level of the swamp waters. Fighting through a mass of fallen trees and branches, sucked into the black mass of swamp filth, I reached up to my shoulders into a crack in an ancient stone wall, and dragged out repulsive slime covered debris, heaving with all my might, until the moment of initial ease occurred.

It was as if the swamp had gathered, as an ancient constipated sewer, for unknown years, until the initial rush farted and diarrhoea released, belching and sliming its water content into a long lost hidden outlet. I had lanced the boil. It was foul.

But oh so satisfying. Bloody fantastic.

I was filthy and sodden, but a very happy man, and I could now turn my attentions to the treasure, my goal.

I clambered back over the swamp to the sodden mass where the trickle was emerging, and for another hour or so cleared more and more debris until I found a sandstone slab, with rocks either side, like nothing I had seen before, and I knew I had found the spring. A slight flow emerged from a side stone, subtle and slow, but by now it was getting late, and I was tired, hungry, soaking, filthy and thirsty. And at this point I thought that I had found all that was to be found, for there was absolutely no sign, no indication, that anything other than a single slab with two rocks either side would be found here.

11.

A week passes, and the thought that something exciting, even a treasure might be found looms large within my daydreams. After all, this is St Helens Woods, and St Helen is the patron saint of lost treasure and nail makers.

Back at the spring, I notice the brackish water in the swamp has receded a little. I can tell this quickly when I arrive as the fallen trees have a green line, now a few inches above the current water level. This is good news for my eyes, and the waters. They are now flowing, and coming alive once again.

The swamp is still treacherous and dangerous, there is no opportunity for complacency or hurry as I cross over, I have probed with my staff and the bottom is at least 6 feet deep, sufficient to drown me. I have to be very careful, picking my way across, leaping from one isolated tussock of grasses to another, and sometimes balancing upon a fallen tree trunk. I’m glad I practice yoga, it gives me a strength, agility, balance and flexibility that aids my precarious passage.

I’ve reached the spring, the water is fairly bright, entering the glade from the same stone I uncovered the week before, the actual spring source. But I am here to do a little more clearance, just to give air and freedom to the waters.

From that first slab I plunge my bare hands into the compacted earth and debris, that is covered with layers of dead and dried leaves, and I find another slab behind the first, it is beginning to look like a man made channel, and as I clear further back, the water ceases to flow from the crack in the first side rock, and begins to flow, with a slightly increased intensity from the next rock in the channel.

This is getting interesting and exciting. Very exciting.

My hands are now bleeding at the tips, as I drag handfuls of sharp stones, compacted soil and debris from the ever increasing channel, and I begin to wonder what might lie further ahead, lost, buried, concealed, hidden. I know now that something very special lies ahead. Treasure, definitely. Treasure lies ahead…

I’ve cleared the channel, back around 10 feet, washing the honey coloured stone with the revealed spring water, rinsing and cleansing the passage for the waters, and then a change.

On either side of the channel are 2 larger, darker stones, that reveal an entrance to what appears to be a larger opening, perhaps a pool of some shape or form. Might it be round, or oval? How big is it? How deep is it? Will there be any carvings? Might there be a mosaic floor? What will I find at the point of the waters entry to the pool?

I’ll soon find out. But I need help now. And I need tools. There appears to possibility of a 6 ft diameter pool, with 4 ft of earth and debris above the channel level, and who knows how deep it might be. I cannot probe to the bottom as the earth becomes too compacted and resistant. Whatever the size or form, it means a lot of digging, far to much for my bare hands, I’m going to need a shovel, a couple of buckets, a trowel for clearing the stone joints, and a scrubbing brush to clean the stonework. And a friend to help me.


12.

I almost cannot breathe I am so excited. I’m trying to hold my excitement and my imagination in check, but really who knows what I might find? What is the nature of St Helen’s secret treasure?

I work hard, digging down into the pool to reveal its circular form, constructed from old smooth rocks, and what is this? Some sort of ledge, a long edge of a stone, about 3 feet across, and this is looking like a lip of some sort, maybe forming the entrance of the water into the pool from the spring source.

My excitement is growing, I am lost in a mounting wonderment of possibility and curiosity.

The shelf reveals, and is a very large deeply calcified stone that bears witness to many centuries of mineralised water flow, around 3ft square.

But where is the actual spring source? Is there more to be revealed? The water flow now is intensified, the water increasingly bright and clear, singing in the shaded morning light.

At the rear of the calcified slab I find a lip, a slightly raised edge, with a central dip from which the water happily leads down into the pool.

I’m working again now with my bare hands, no metal tools here as I wish to sift through the debris and compacted earths, with a delicacy and care, for there might well be something of rarity or value.

I reach beyond the lip, and slowly reveal another circular form, around 18 inches diameter, appearing to be constructed of a terracotta tile or brick, and as I start to remove the contents I realise this is perhaps a font of some sort, an initial gathering portal for the spring waters.

I’ve now cleared the font, and it is around 2ft deep, a tapered circular form, a basin, that fills directly from the spring source, and then overflows onto the calcified slab, then drops in a waterfall manner into the large circular pool, which then in turn overflows into the channel.

And then, I reach behind the font, and find an old sandstone column capital that has been forced, maybe by men, or maybe by nature, to stem the water’s flow. It has been capped.

I heave the stone capital from its prison, and the water surges! I have found the spring, the true source, the lost Spring of St Helen.

13.

The water is clear, bright, singing and very, very happy. And now it is time. Time to drink the waters. Taste the quality of the water, to learn its mysteries.

Before I do this I light some candles, burn some frankincense and myrrh, and hang a victory banner, a red silk banner, embroidered with the 8 auspicious signs of Dharma, to welcome the released spirit of the spring back into the world!

The scene is set, and from my backpack I take an old crystal chalice I found at a local antiques fair to drink this holy water, to imbibe the healing waters with reverence and delight!

The water is delicious. Perfect. And I laugh, and I cry, with my tears falling into the waters flow. My tears forever conjoined in spirit with the springs waters.

Oh no! I have an accident, I drop the chalice, and it smashes into fragments. My immediate reaction is despair, but within a single moment I laugh, as I realise it is a perfect moment, as I alone had that opportunity, and no other would ever have that unique experience.

To commemorate the moment, I bury the shattered shards, to bear silent, intimate witness to this treasured moment in my life. A perfect impossible dream, realised.

I am now jubilant, ecstatic and happy, but again so tired. My work for today is done.

The pool remains to be excavated, and cleaned, and for that I will need help, and Tom my friend has offered to come and help me… but next weekend. I wonder what might lie at the base of the pool, and how deep might it be?

I take stock of the place, newly cleared and revealed, and suddenly I am aware of an enormous cruciform oak to the rear of the spring, and to my right a giant ancient beech tree, both at least 500 years old, and from their proximity I realise that these are the guardian dryad spirits of this place. They have welcomed me into the heart of the mystery, introduced me to their hidden treasure.

14.

Its time now I feel to introduce this magical, healing place to the world. To my family and friends, and whomever might wish to visit, to see, to sense and to drink.

So I plan a small event, to coincide with the moment of the royal wedding, an act of profound earth magic, whilst the world is looking in another direction. Perfect!

I’ll call it ‘Crystal Water Healing’ with the intention of creating a single, pure, perfect amplifier of love and healing intentions, with the aim of initiating an opponent to the poisoning of the waters at the damaged nuclear power plant in Japan.

From my perspective, this is possible, for the sense of achievement and powerful momentum leading to this discovery defied the impossible, I mean, how can something so beautiful, so powerful, so large and so pure be found, in a public park? In a place known to thousands, loved by all. Can you imagine finding this in your local park? It is impossible, but it has happened. Defying impossibility.

From now, and for as long as this water flows, it will be reaching into the contaminated waters of the planet, carrying a love, messaging a purity, that will, as the apocryphal butterflies wings affect, initiating powerful and positive affects across to the far side of the earth.

The story continues to develop as friends and visitors come and visit, enjoy the waters, help in the clearing and restoration of the spring and its environs. Friends uncovering its history, archaeology and meaning - it is a work in progress.

And Gus? The chest drain was removed from his lung cavity after a year. He can now walk unaided, can dance, can travel alone, and is rebuilding his life, to recapture the spirit of a 22 year old man, with a sense of the potential of full recovery as a possibility. I take him waters from the spring, each week, and one day, one day soon I hope, he will fulfil my dream and come visit. I will cry that day, and laugh a satisfied chuckle.

A man healed. Me.

Sunday 31 March 2013

water ceremony

Last Friday, I was driving over to Hastings, with the radio on... By a strange coincidence it heard it was 'World Water Day'...

I call it a strange coincidence as I was heading to the lost waterways of St Helen's woods, to meet two friends, Simon and Charlotte, with the intention of clearing some heavily blocked water paths, and one in particular that had previously defeated me for the past two years. The fallen trees that were blocking the stream were simply too large for me to move on my own.

Now, I'm not shy about shifting obstructions when it comes to water, but I did need a hand, or two, or three or even four to tackle this stream.


We met at the woods in the late morning, and spent several wet, muddy and sweaty hours working our way back up through the sandstone canyons, heaving logs and debris from the water's path, finding lost waterfalls and cleansing the flow, step by step.

Both Simon and Charlotte understood the nature of the task, and during the process, the journey, it became clear to us that the analogy of clearing waterways is indeed a metaphor for cleansing one's own blockages. As above...

So below...

By the time we had reached the source of the stream, cleansing all along the way, the water had regained it's song and it's dance. It sings as it travels along and over the rocks, and dances with the air and light as it gains momentum along the flow.

We undertook every obstacle, with only one extremely heavy tree defeating our combined muscle, but... we managed to create a diversion around the blockage, leaving the fallen tree, but navigating around and under the blockage.

Our task was complete. The beauty and freedom had been revealed, and the water released. It was late afternoon, and time for light refreshment in the Dragon Bar.

I thought the story had kinda finished there. But...

Later in the week Charlotte contacted me to tell me that Dr Masaru Emoto was holding a water blessing ceremony on the following friday, in London, upon the River Thames, alongside Cleopatra's Needle.

I could not travel to London, as I had other commitments, though I determined to hold my own ceremony at St Helen's Spring, at the same time as the Thames' blessing... Good.

Then it occurred to me that it might be possible to create a county wide ceremony, with the help of two other friends, Martin and Gabrielle. Martin lives alongside a tidal river in Lewes, the River Ouse, and he created and held a ceremony at the fabulous Zu Studios.

Whilst Gabrielle held ceremony at the Holy Well, in Eastbourne...  So, within a single day, the water had co-ordinated and orchestrated it's own blessing. C'est Alchemique...

But once released, the flow takes upon its own dynamic, and the story has yet another chapter. Hey, bear in mind I am only talking about this past week. Water works really fast y'know.

Charlotte and Simon have travelled to Avebury this weekend, and have freed up a lost spring source, Swallow Head Spring, releasing the blocked energetic of that ancient and sacred place, and have plans for working dynamically with the great challenge... London's waters... 

If you want to play, get wet, gain insight into the flow of being - just ask x

Tuesday 26 March 2013

charter of needs


It was the night of the Blue Moon - August 31st 2012

The time was arising when my grand-daughter was to be born, and I wished to take advantage of this beautiful moment, and integrate as many possibilities into a single drawing, as an offering to this unborn child. 

Thus I drew, 'Once in a Blue Moon'.

click this

I had been wishing upon many stars, for several weeks, praying for this child to be blessed by the subtle and hidden energies of this universe, and recording this journey as a journal of pictures, in which I observed the heavenly mechanisms of the sky, in order to gain alignment with the larger process.

In my mind's eye I could see the vast turnings of intergalactic space, and felt the distant pull of those subtle movements of the night sky as they moved around the dome of the heavens.

It felt so vast and unreachable until I understood that within my imagination it was possible to reach the far reaches of space and time, and to see the movements and sense their flowing energy, and thus the imagery revealed itself to me.

click this

I knew I wished for all her needs to be met... all her needs... and by coincidence I had encountered a beautiful list on the previous day, and decided to integrate it into her pre-birth chart 'The Rebirth of the Divine Feminine'. 

Mind you, within a moment of starting to integrate her needs into the drawing I stopped sharp.

How could I be so selfish, so self-centred to consider that my grandchild was any more important than any other child, or any other person for that matter, and come to think of it, any other living being.

So I chose to weave this subtle tapestry to include the needs of every living being, and that, of course, includes both you and me too.

And now I would like you to read, to contemplate and to observe your own needs, and the needs of others, by reading 'Your Charter of Needs'. Take your time, pausing with each word, and should you be so inspired, share this list with another, so they too might pass it on.... with the intention that all our needs be met.

click this