Everyday Miracles
This months Angel and Tarot card draw were brand new cards which has given me an impression that maybe finally my life is moving forward.
Both cards “Miracles” and “Judgement” are cards which I have had an negative experience with and I was contemplating how our experiences in life create the perception of a single word so greatly amongst different people.
Kindness & Miracles
It was until I began in 2020 my Mindfulness training in which I encountered the “Memories of Kindness” exercise that changed my view my of my world very differently as I was suffering deep depression and events over the last 10 years were full of upset, But that exercise changed my life , it opened up my heart to everything around me. , it created intentionality of connecting by noticing even the most simplest smile or gesture. This I extended into nature which became transformative.
The exercise itself was difficult due to my neuro-divergency that I don’t have a minds-eye which includes recalling feelings but I do remember a narrative of something happening. Just to thank the smile , or the good manners of another , something funny or kind gesture before bedtime improved my mood.
But , being me , I changed the exercise. Setting an intention of awareness of kindness in the present moment whilst being out in the world opens your perception of another reality. You don’t have to be a quantum scientist or a mystic to experience alternative realities by just changing your perspective on what you experience in the moment opens up a brand new dimension.
Bringing intention each morning when you go out and encounter life of awareness of kind deeds , noticing the feeling for a second and this will be a radical change in your daily life.
You can choose how you receive your day by your own intentions of what to focus your attention on.
The word “Miracle” changed for me as my expectations and how I viewed my life had radically altered. It wasn’t the negative thought patterns of seeing what i don’t have but cherishing what i do have. We view the sensational and amazing as a miracle , like winning the jackpot or getting something we thought un-reachable; this covers up what real miracles are in our lives. I was one , for sure , was like this and often felt frustrated or deflated.
The inner work we do is about our daily life and how we navigate and perceive this each moment by moment. Now I cherish the many , many miracles in my life : I have a micracle of my cat Stella , as someone who cannot visualise I have a micracle of channeling art , being sat here in my home is a miracle and still unsure how this all happened , waking up and going to bed is a miracle of another day lived, and most weeks I am blessed to walk in the Northumberland National Park encountering the miracle of nature and its cycles of life.
Seeing my every day world as miracles is as important to me as being aware of kindness from me and of people. Sometimes I find “gratitude” difficult as its a felt sense but seeing my life as a micracle and being able to notice kindness is gratitude.
Do not Judge, Judgement
Here is another word which fills my body with dread , “judgement”. I had to confront this word with mindfulness study as “non judgement” which is a fundamental part of meditation. Even with prefix “non” I was ready to flee.
The word is still hard work, now I collect myself to breath with other peoples judgement or the unsettling feeling I get when I create something and by sitting in quiet stillness allows the non judgement.
My life experiences and my relationship to “Judgement” has caused a rupture in my spirit so hard wired now that I wince when people say anything to me about my offerings to the world even when its good. I don’t even need people as that thought of not enough judgement emerges daily. Autism wasn’t known when I was at school and “Aphantasia” wasn’t discovered properly until the 2000’s. I have always being negatively judged as I am different , it isnt the fault of people , the system is narrow minded.
Even on the 1st of this month when I drew :Judgement” I thought “here we go again !” As I have only encountered the word in negative way that’s what I perceive when I encounter it.
This is what my Tarot booklet said about the card “ A decision has been made , the new pathway is lit by the strength of clear sight and spiritual conviction. The Phoenix has risen anew and powerful decision action can be taken”
The beauty of different peoples experiences create more dimensions in our lives ; I can tell how this person encounters the word “Judgement” so differently to me.
When I studied Resilience we looked at our attachments, how they manifest conditions to protect us from things we are insecure about. The mindfulness training advices sitting silently with the feeling when we are struggling with our insecurities helps cultivate insight. When we receive insight , it is like a Aha moment , and that the inner grip of those fears may dissipate or even go away. It is not the “judgement” which affects us but our attachments which inflame our feelings and create unhelpful thoughts.
That is so easy to say , as I know how difficult it is navigating what I want to happen and what my subconscious wishes to protect me as it thinks those attachments are real.
I had coincidently made some decisions before I drew this card. Everything always goes back to being a “painter” and that nagging feeling when I dismiss it as folly due to my life conditioning. Sometimes it feels like an inner conflict of an old belief and new better ones forming. Clear sight is not an intellectual exercise but an experiential one of knowing intuitively what your body is telling you as it’s connected to spirit.
Sometimes I feel the Phoenix as a child sat painting with so much joy emerging now a rekindled spirit becoming whole once again.
Bull Crag
Unlike the sunny weather report it was dimly lit with light rain but it was pleasant to be out feeling the autumn freshness on my skin. I had returned with needing more photographs and I wanted to find some places to practice my gestural and abstract work in nature. Mainly my paintings are channeled through me but my “Songs of my Soul” paintings begin with a photograph of a shape or form I find on trees and then abstracted in pencil which moves into radical change of expression with watercolour. I just want to be able to sit in nature and draw whilst feeling the place and experiencing the whole. After 30 years stuck in an office my body and soul (and my cat Stella) is desperately wanting me to be outside all the time
As I stood looking at autumn leaves for a while to take a picture , their beauty of mottled and blotched colour , with speckles of other colours it dawned upon me that they reminded me of Hilma Af Klint beautiful spiritual watercolours and perhaps there is a project for me. So decided to create a portfolio of photographs of beautiful autumn leaves.
Walking through nature has always an affect on bringing ideas to me. Nature is always whispering in my ear.
As I wander through during this time of year I am drawn to the three fates , Moirai in greek mythology , Goddesses of destiny where Clotho was the spinner of your life , Haichesis measured the yarn and Atropos cut the thread. Autumn always has a foot in the beginning , middle and the inescapable destiny of cycles of time. For something to begin there needs to be an end, and the end is just a beginning. It is everywhere I look and the spiders like to remind everyone when there is a mist or morning dew of the spinning of life.
What is also inescapable for me is finding a compassionate mess of nature mingling together to photograph.
This young man popped up along the path towards the nature hide and although Fly Agaric has been used for shamanic purposes it is Toxic to people if not processed properly but not for Red Squirrels. By the looks of the other ones surrounding this that there was a Squirrel feast last night. Reindeer love eating them but we don’t have them here so I wonder whether other deer species love them. Slugs love to munch on them too.
Bakethin Nature Reserve
The Ferns are turning golden and now become more distinguished as each strand has its own signature of colour variation creating a lighter feeling than the density of masses of green. They remind me of a Tanizaki book “in praise of shadows” where he laments the loss of shimmering gold due to modern lighting.
You have to be careful walking across the spongy moss forest floor as it’s full of the tiniest mushroom , it looks like a magic shangri la of faeries revealing itself just before Halloween. To me Halloween is more than the current commercialism not that I wish to be a kill-joy , it is where the veil between dimensions are lifted which we can we explore other worlds , meet faeries and other mystical entities , connect to passed family and friends and experience magic.
For sure the place is right now other worldly with mushrooms growing from branches , moss and lichen dangling from the trees and there is a serene energy and a sweet smell to the place.
Just sit for a pause to inhale the moment and be nature.
From time to time as you wander there are surprises to encourage you further just as the pollen invites the bee. It is whispering into your ear that you are the same and you belong. It is saying every aspect of you is whole and there is nothing wrong. It urges you to be yourself and not let anyone define you as something else.
My favourite pond is turning into a colourful abstract painting and even now that bullrush is still standing guard over its domain. You feel the stillness of the pond now , the ducks have gone wintering elsewhere and the critters that were skating along the water have gone to bed exhausted and longing the warmth of the sun.
I go seeking the after effects of a storm where a leaf from another tree becomes stranded on a different tee making its contrasting expression known. They knew each other through an underworld but this time they embrace each other for a moment.
Hareshaw Linn
Sometimes something so evocative show up in my wanderings with mesmerising glow of crimsons flirting with beautiful blues that I need to just sit down and honour serendipity
There are hundreds if not thousands of layers of time showing you that life is not linear and you are a tiny but essential part of an infinite whole. Some show a fractal of a shape behind a disappeared petal or seeds with their own individual identity already creating a future and within theses seeds something smaller but the same again. Behind one colour are other colours ready to be revealed. When you connect to this you realise how multi dimensional reality really is. What mind created such wonder !
It reminds me of my body and all the individual elements which make up a whole which everything is needed to thrive
The past , the present and the future all exist in one moment Be that moment .
Then you look further into a new unexplored part and find another dimension that you were once never aware existed broadening and deepening your own awareness and aligning it to consciousness. You cannot go back to whence you came as have you begun to seek, letting go of separation returning back reclaiming your wildness.
