Lianne's Diary

I was walking home through the woods last week after a small festive celebration with some of the sisterhood who live locally.  It was after midnight and as I threaded my way through the narrow forest paths the light from my little torch fizzled out. With no moonlight penetrating the heavy wood I was left in pretty much total darkness. Immediately I thought of the Bardo.

Spiritually this a feeling of being stuck, in limbo, in-between jobs or relationships, physically, it can mean being in the middle of a dark Irish wood in the early hours of the morning!

Welcome to the Bardo then. The Bardo is a transitional phase between lives, life cycles, or even moments. The Bardo is where you transform your old self, shed your skin, and start anew. It’s a spiritual re-evaluation period when you let go of the impulses of the body and the complexities of the physical world, allowing you to return to essential spiritual matters.

In the Bardo, you’ll find yourself on an unplanned spiritual retreat, often with some financial stress because work has slowed or stopped temporarily. You might feel lonely. It’s a time of suspended animation. You’ve stepped into unknown landscapes where you face the death of old identities and belief systems.

Dans Le Noir – Seeing in the Dark

When you are faced with not knowing where you’re headed, you’ve entered the void. This is an embryonic state, a fragile state and it’s dark with no obvious light switch. But, the void being undefined is also free from limitations. In the void, all things are possible.

Your biggest asset during these periods of uncertainty is reflection and introspection. What’s the reward for all the internal wrangling? A new start, a fresh new beginning. Luminosity. A lightness of being. Clarity. The gift is vision.

How do you find your vision? By learning to see in the dark.

One of the sisters once described dining with a friend at Dans Le Noir, a popular restaurant in Paris where you eat in total darkness and are served by blindfolded waiters.

The Bardo state is like eating in the dark, and what gets you through it is:

Experiment: Touch, taste, and smell new things.
Surrender: Allow yourself to be led by helpers, including those you can’t see.
Playfulness: Sure, you’ll spill food in your lap. Laugh about it.
Unity: Let barriers fall away. Everything merges in the dark.
Trust the Mystery: Trust what comes in silence.

I think the lack of stimulation allows us to hear and experience a deeper river that’s constant, still, vibrant, and real. And the process of deep listening with attention and intention catalyses and mobilizes exactly what’s needed at that time.

Having given myself up to the Bardos state I emerged from the wood in no time at all, possibly even quicker than if I had dawdled with the flashlight working (as I sometimes do).  There half a mile away stood my little cottage bathed in welcome moonlight. I was reminded once more that there is always light, even at the end of the darkest tunnel.

Once a year, in December, I and two or three of the ‘sisterhood’ visit a small Vietnamese restaurant in the nearest village. It has purple and green trim and is located on a small seafront road, one of only two main streets in the village. A Buddha statue sits atop an altar on a wall shelf. The Buddha bestows a gentle reverence to this sweet little restaurant. There’s no hustle and bustle here, just the mellow hum of conversation.

Mai Li, the owner, prepares delicious foods; from homemade lemonade to crispy spring rolls and spicy squash soup. Mai’s isn’t a restaurant that only serves food, there’s a gentle energy about the place. Also, they often give you a gift when you are finished with your meal – a toy that is reminiscent of Walt Disney characters – for children and adults alike. On a silver platter with our bill, Mai Li presented us all with a pearlescent mermaid key fob.

This is something you might see at a promotion at a McDonalds, but not a Vietnamese restaurant in a quaint nook of small seaside town in Ireland. The key ring stood out to me as significant and special. I realised that seeing this little mermaid key fob not only announced the call from a special friend the next day that loves mermaids and mermaid colours, but a subtle awareness of the meaning of the mermaid as a symbol.

Mermaid energy is intuitive and sensual, carrying an emotional fluidity that is open to creativity, possibility and the spiritual nurturance of the Divine Feminine. The mermaid takes us to the subconscious realms of the imagination where dreams are born. This is the gift of the mermaid.

This symbol sparked an internal look at the reciprocity in relationships, the give and take and expectations we hold in our relationships.

The flipside of the mermaid or the shadow side of this symbol asks us how we can get emotionally muddled in fantasy-like notions of our relationships. She asks us to look at the illusions we hold in our life, especially our relationships: do we tell the truth, do we judge, do we develop unhealthy dependencies in our relationships with our lovers, families and friends. The mermaid seeks emotional honesty and ultimately after some travail, a new sense of emotional independence springs forth.

We three left happily clutching our mermaid gifts, and with a sense of having been touched by the divine even in the simple and humble dining room of a lonely restaurant on a chilly December night.

When you know that it’s time to move somewhere, you may have the experience of feeling like you are in two places at once suspended between two locations. I was driving from County Down, where I used to live, one afternoon in the spring of 2004, and I knew it was time to move from County Down back to Galway. The road to seemed old; I knew suddenly that I was going to be only taking this road through the lush green fields a few more times. The afternoon sun seemed brighter, and the clouds closer. Everything lit up, not only the realisation of a possible move, but the Mourne Mountains landscape took on a more brilliant bluey purple colour than usual, acting like a beacon on my thoughts.
What prompted that feeling of knowing when it’s right to move? How do we know when to take a certain path? Go to the first barometer — your own body. Your own body is a compass. Your body will respond. Chills may run down your spine. There is warmth and familiarity accompanied by the sadness of making a change, feelings of letting go and arriving well up inside.
Knowing can be like a flash on your camera. A splash of light brightens your surroundings. For a moment, all is vivid and filled with colour. You feel a flush of new energy, charged up connecting with boldness and a sense of purpose. You receive images of your new location – the sights, sounds, and smells of this place are already with you. Your new location will show up in your dreams. You will feel carried as if an invisible hand is moving things along helping you to your destination.

In June this year , I had to choose between two veterinarians to do a complicated surgery for Milo, my beloved black cat , who was 5 years old at the time. My feline friend and companion had a cancerous growth on his left shoulder that needed to be removed. This would be an extensive surgery; due to the size of the growth they would have to remove some of his shoulder muscle as well. Since he was an older cat and vulnerable to possible complications in surgery, I wanted the best care possible.

I had two possibilities to consider: Either use my usual veterinarian in up country rural Ireland, or go with the high-tech vet who was based in the city, the areas industrial centre.

The city vet came highly recommended as the best veterinary surgeon. Plus, he was licensed to do acupuncture on animals. And he had the best life support equipment for the surgeries he performed. Not surprisingly, he was also the most expensive, almost twice as much as my regular vet, for the same surgical procedure.

I didn’t know him at all, so I took Milo for his first visit to this vet to get an estimate on the surgery and more generally to see how the two got along. The city vet’s assessment of Milo was very precise. He was good and efficient in his examination, but I felt Milo was handled like just one more cat out of dozens handled that day. A personal connection was distinctly lacking.

Still, when dealing with a serious surgical procedure, is that warm connection the most important thing?

The thought I kept in the forefront of my mind was: What does Milo want and where would he prefer to go?

A Dream and a Dark Wood

Months earlier, I had a dream that haunted me for a while – I had dreamt Milo was dead. He was gone and I knew it. In the dream, I was talking with the staff of a high-tech animal hospital. They were all in a car and wouldn’t step out to talk with me – an aloof group. From the parking area outside the animal hospital in the dream, I could clearly see a nearby dark wooded copse surrounded by a fence.

After a while I forgot the dream and even the talk of Milo’s surgery didn’t jog my memory. After our appointment at the city animal hospital, I had the instinct to take Milo for a look around the building. On the other side of the animal hospital, looking out of a window I was startled to see a small dark wood surrounded by a fence. The dream flooded back to me.

I knew immediately I couldn’t leave Milo here – he would die because he wouldn’t feel on familiar ground and because they didn’t know him. Milo would feel disconnected, unnoticed, alone, and more vulnerable to the shock of a surgery. At Milo’s usual vet office, they not only knew him, they were fond of him. Anyone will recognize that loving feeling, especially an animal. They are natural love detectors.

When a prominent dream symbol also shows up in our daily life, a guiding hand is trying to reach us. When dreams are so lucid that the symbol reappears in our daily life, an important message awaits us. I’ve also found these symbols to be right on time. The image of the dark wood had settled into my memory only to be recharged at the appropriate moment to serve as a cautionary guide, and in fact, may have prevented a premature death for Milo.

So, what happened with Milo? His regular vet did the surgery. He not only survived the surgery, but healed very quickly – and he’s quite healthy and very much alive six months later, as active and eccentric as ever.

What I Learned From Milo

When we are going through a major transition — a surgery, a relationship crisis, a divorce — sometimes we need a familiar place to go to, a place where people know us by name, where we have a sense of home. We need that personal touch to get us through the mire: the doctor who knows our name as well as our children’s names, the bus driver who waits for us when we’re running late, and the friend who remembers to send us flowers on our birthday. Kindness and warm familiarity is real and long-lasting medicine.

Love and Light

Lianne

I started to take African drumming lessons this summer to loosen up for teaching classes in a local town on the Language of Intuition. We practice on djembes, (pronounced jem-bay) in a circle. This drum is goblet shaped with a goatskin head and you play them with your hands, not sticks. Drumming in a circle makes you aware of how to be in unison with the whole group. I thought to be a good teacher I would need to be aware of individual rhythms in the group and be able to facilitate a harmonious blending of the group’s energies. A sound out of sync can be heard and felt by the whole group. When everyone plays in unison we reach a place of one mind, an ecstatic, blissful state – a group smile.

Drumming teaches individual and group syncopation; you learn to listen to your internal rhythms more acutely. Drumming teaches you how to take risks — the sound of a drum gives you permission to move in new directions with a feeling of joyful spontaneity.

Listening to the sound of a drum reminds me not to watch the clock as much as observing the flow of life. Watching the clock doesn’t give us all the information. When we observe life’s natural rhythms, we learn what good timing really means.

To be honest, I haven’t always been good about entering my schedule in a daily planner. I’ll go a few weeks or a few months, and make those entries, and then stop. I just don’t feel inspired. I find that my imagination needs tickling, and traditional daily planners are too linear. I don’t feel they give me permission to contemplate as much as to keep on doing for doings sake.

I eventually realised that what I needed was something more like a journal. But I’m afraid of those silk covered journals. I’ve had one before, and I’m more tempted to put a beautiful poem in there than my extraneous thoughts. Thoughts can be beautiful, but they can also be full of mud, so I prefer a journal that’s functional to one that’s overly pretty.

If I don’t have time to think about what’s going on in my life, I feel lost. I want to follow the movements of the moon, collect inspirational quotes, do some pencil drawings, and ponder. I need to contemplate not so much what needs to be done but what has transpired, and how can I learn from it.

It wasn’t until I found a journal that would accommodate my spiritual self that I started to be more consistent in my journal writing. I’ve written in a journal now for almost five years. I’ll record symbols, spiritual insights, life events, and many other life treasures. That journal has inspired me and helped me maintain a regular journal writing practice. Who knows? One day I might have it published.

Timing is cyclic, ever moving and changing, redirecting us from moment to moment. I’m not so concerned with keeping time as letting time coax me into new ways of being.

Love and Light

Lianne

Yesterday I spilled a cup of tea. I know, it may seem trivial. I can’t count how many times I’ve accidentally broken a cup or spilled its contents, or I’ve observed someone else doing this only to discover that some simmering mood was about to bubble over. Emotions are up when a cup breaks and spills. In the Tarot, the suit of cups represents emotions and feelings, not just romantic feelings, but the whole range of emotions we experience from grief to anger to blissfulness.

When this happens, expect some kind of emotional outburst: an argument flares up, a disagreement begins, tears flow, or frustration mounts. Cups are our emotional containers – carrying our pool of feelings — and when our emotions get stirred up, we are prone to breaking a cup or two or tipping it over.

We can choose to let our emotions throw us off balance or use it as an opportunity to tune in to them. When we start to feel emotions rising, the temptation may be to run away from those feelings that are churning inside. Something is churning for a purpose. There is wisdom in the churning – a mystery of the self is unfolding.

Now when I break a teacup or it overflows, I pay attention – I know to tune in to what I’m feeling more closely. When I don’t stay with the emotion – when I don’t listen to it or feel it – then I tend to criticise or bemoan myself. I’m also more likely to have the emotion burst out unexpectedly when I don’t tune in, leading to arguments with others, losing my temper when driving, you know all the possibilities. But when I go inward, I connect with insight, I find a wellspring of wisdom.

The Tarot is a deck of picture cards and has been used as a tool for divination for about 400 years. Tarot is a living system used by seers as a powerful aid to their intuition. There are many different styles of Tarot decks, but they all have more or less the same meanings.
The symbols on the cards represent themes in human destiny that have been with us since the beginning of time.
The powers do not lie in the cards themselves – although there is a special magic about one’s own Tarot deck. It is more that the inner eye of the person giving the reading is opened by the Tarot, giving a vivid insight and helpful interpretation.

When you order for a Tarot reading you are setting up a subtle link between you, your reader and the Tarot symbols.

The Scary Cards

All of the cards are awesome, but there are three or four that can make you especially uneasy, unless you understand their meaning.

The Hanged Man sounds grim, but this person is actually hanging by one foot. He resembles the Norse god Odin, who hung from the World Tree to gain the secrets of the Runes in a shamanic revelation. So the Hanged Man can mean a hesitation before inspiration dawns.

Death looks worst of all, shown as a naked skeleton swinging a scythe, and it’s no accident this card is numbered 13. However, the physical death of any person is not by any means necessarily foreshadowed by this card. It is most likely to mean the ending of a phase, which is essential if you are to move forwards, and while this card may presage some loss or dark passage, rebirth is implied, so don’t dispair!

The Devil looks evil, but truly this symbol means caution – you need to examine your subconscious motives, so you don’t act as your own worst enemy, and be realistic, so you aren’t seduced by promises of goodies that will betray you.

The Tower is perhaps the most negative card in the pack. Struck by lightning, it seems to be crumbling to destruction. It can indicate disaster as a result of pride or wrong-doing, but it can also mean a bolt of inspiration which may bring some uncomfortable changes.

With Tarot the only thing to fear is fear itself, so let your expert reader guide you into making wise choices, as the cards clarify your situation and throw light on your path.

Which cards will be drawn for you? Have a reading today!

What a cufuffle this morning in the hen house. Squawks and the frenzied beating of wings woke me at the crack of dawn. I had been up most of the night spell-casting and wasn’t happy as I headed off down the garden, stick in hand, expecting to confront an opportunistic fox. Imagine my surprise to find Milo, one of my cats, herding a group of week old chicks into a corner, whilst a group of indignant mother hens looked on. He hadn’t harmed any of them (he knows better than to do that) but as these are the first chicks I have ever raised I think he associated them more with clockwork toys rather than an early morning snack. He was promptly evicted and order restored as the hens took back possession of their yellow balls of fluff. He (Milo) is now in a massive sulk at having his game of chicken interrupted. He has been given extra Spell duties as a result of his indiscretion and for disrupting my hard earned sleep!

I have been away from my cottage for a few days on matters abroad. It is always good to travel but I always long for the rugged cliffs and wild seas of my beloved Ireland. After so much traveling it was marvelous yesterday morning to sit on a grassy knoll as the the pale dawn sun rose above the horizon and bathed the cliffs in a beautiful but chilly amber glow. As I sat there listening to the surf roll and watching the seabirds wheel above the gray-green sea I noticed a larger shape in the sky approaching from the west. This rare avian visitor rides much higher than the gulls and glides majestically as if powered by a solar energy from the sun alone. I recognise this bird, for it is the mighty Albatross I have seen several times over the years and as a springtime approaches so does this strange and magnificent bird visit my cliffs. I know nothing of the habits, migratory or otherwise, of these great birds, I have no way of knowing if it is even the same individual but as he descends lower to the waves and closer to where I quietly sit I fancy I recognise his profile and his approach to the land as one I have seen before. He wheels and the gulls try a mob attack – he glides on seemingly unconcerned, skimming the white tops of the waves. I watch him for perhaps twenty minutes, then as if beckoned by some distant star he rises fast and high into the now blue sky, heading south. The image of the bird stays with me long after he has flown. The villagers tell me these birds are rarely seen in these parts and I feel that the bird, when he does visit, brings a message – what that message is will no doubt reveal itself at some point. I will keep you informed.