Breaking Free!

This evening's post comes to you by the magic of a full moon in the watery sign of cancer, realm of the emotions. When we start to live by moon cycles and cycles of the year, strange things begin to happen. We may find that we are more in tune with our instincts, our intuition grows sharper, and we understand our own personal rhythms more, knowing when to expend energy and when to conserve it. Life is based upon patterns and cycles and these are reflected in all of nature and all of creation. We are driven by the repeating cycles of the sun and the moon, the tides and the seasons; everything in motion in the magnificent orchestration of LIFE!

Nature has a habit of breaking free from constraints, just watch any of those programmes about a brand new seed forcing it's way through the hard earth, a tree root cracking a building or a plant breaking through concrete; if left to its own devices, nature will not be tethered for long.

On new year's day this year I read a blog post by a woman I greatly admire called Maggie McNeil. Maggie's Honest Courtesan blog has run for years and her commitment and intellect are pretty damn impressive. She writes daily, did you get that? DAILY! Using her voice to shine light on primarily sex work activism and key issues in this area, Maggie's posts are also beautiful reflections on life.

When I read her New Year post about transitionary periods in life, I was genuinely touched by what Maggie had written about how painful her 'coming out' process was. As a former sex worker with a strong academic background, she acknowledged that the lack of a voice being given as an outlet for the expression of her truth, was restricting her beyond the point of comfort. Maggie was in the metamorphic stage of break-out, facing the unknown but feeling the inevitable.

I was lucky enough to meet Maggie last year in Las Vegas for a conference at which we both spoke; Desiree Alliance's - 'The Audacity of Health: Sex Work Health and Politics'. I will never forget hanging out in the pool with her at the welcome party just chatting about life, our experiences, our boobs (!!) and putting the world to rights on a balmy evening surrounded, as is usual at these events, by many of the most colourful, wonderful people I've been graced to meet in my life, hookers!

Maggie's post addressed her coming out process. In moving from hiding large aspects of herself and her life, towards radical openness, she acknowledges the occasional wish to return to the safety of the comfort zone created by her former secrecy, but far more recognises the freedom in her revelations. It got me to thinking about how and why we hide so much of ourselves in life, often creating a world full of people anaesthetising themselves one way or another, usually with addictions or medications, because they feel unable to simply be themselves and be okay with that. How sad that is.

We all have a past, we all have stories to tell, experience to share, and we all have to find comfortable ways to inhabit these human frames in which we live. This moon is all about releasing old emotional patterns and ties; what would it take to liberate any remaining hidden aspects of yourself and to truly let yourself just be, exactly as you are and exactly as you wish to be? Why do you make decisions to censor yourself? I know for me, many decisions I make are prudent ones based upon the feelings and considerations of people I love, mainly my children. Adults can meet me in my radical honesty and make their own minds up, but kids can be cruel to one another and without the life skills to manage that cruelty, that's tough. 

I am aware of the difference between a fear based 'secret' and a discernment based choice, but it's not always easy to make the call to freedom and truth. Why not sit tonight with the moon in her radiance, and dream a little upon what parts of you, you are hiding and see if there's any small risk you can take somehow to be just that little bit more authentically you. What old patterns are ready to be released so that your true essence can break free, and do you even know what that would look like or feel like?

There is no shame in truth when we speak with an honest and compassionate heart. Me, I've walked a crooked path in my time and there has been much healing to do, but I was born in purity and I will die in purity too. What I do with the bit in between is entirely my choice, and my greatest hope is that whatever those choices are, they will somehow, in some way, make this world a little better for my children, their children, and their children's children. 

From what will you break free today? Let yourself be light of your burdens, for every bit lighter you are, you offer that knowledge and understanding to another, and therein lies the essence of true healing. 

New Year; New Ways

"Keep on doing what you've always done and you'll always get what you've always got."

It's 2015. What, if anything, does this mean to you? Do you step into the New Year full of resolve, full of  'resolutions' to change things, full of longing to be different somehow than you were yesterday, or last week, or last month?

Being a pagan witchy kind of a woman, I must admit that for me, new year always feels as if it falls both on November after the deep riches of Samhain releasing, or on Winter Solstice with the return of the light. "Happy new Gregorian calendar" is more like it on January 1st. That said, there is definitely something in the collective consciousness that takes us a little deeper into setting our intentions for our year to come.

So why do we make resolutions that suggest the rest of the year we are falling out of awareness of our deepest desires, soul longings and spirit callings? Being human is complicated! There is a mass seduction going on out there via television, the media and other influential corporations and institutions that can make it easy for us to fall into a kind of deep, somnambulant, and hypnotic paralysis. We forget! We lose the clarity of these visions, we lose sight of our dreams and our intentions as we became caught in old habits and patterns, busy-ness and the fast pace at which so many of us live these days. 

The old ways taught us how to come regularly back into connection with our remembering - by working closely with the cycles of nature, change and transformation we're ever present in our lives. Nature echoes life, life echoes nature. We are not born into technology, we are born into presence, pure and simple presence. 

So what does it mean that once a year, we all get into a resolute place of "I WILL CHANGE THESE THINGS"? Working with the cycles of nature, the moon and my own inner landscape means I am increasingly aware when I'm out of alignment, and when this is so, I tend to find that I am easily tripped up, engage more readily in tensions and conflict, disagreement or upset and forget the simple basic truth that we are all connected. Everything changes if we use our conscious mind to 'change thought change direction' or 'change energy, change pattern' as we sometimes say in tantra. 

2014 was a year of transformation for me, largely revolving around intimacy, relationship and love and all that this means. Whether that be with family, partners, friends or my relationship with my self, transformation was definitely key. 

Now the thing with transformation is that it is endless in its possibility; like the oroborus eating its own tail and eternally self replicating, we move through time in an infinite loop of possibilities all of which lead us with certainty back to the same place - US! 

Yes! There's no getting away from it, all roads lead back to the self, so we may as well find ways to love ourselves, to love our lives and create the things we dream of right? The top five regrets of the dying are listed as:

1) I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2) I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

3) I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

4) I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5) I wish that I had let myself be happier.

My mother's death in May of this year brought many of these into sharp focus. My throat chakra opened as I found the balls to speak out more in the areas I found challenging (intimate relationships). My habit of over working began to slow down….that's a work in progress but it is shifting. I've never really lived doing what others expect of me so my work therefore lies in dealing with the consequences of other people's projections around where they perceive my failings to be if I don't live the life they expect, and around other people's values being in conflict with my own in this case. Then, the lesson lies in finding peaceful resolution. I'm definitely carving out more committed time for friends and activities that nourish me this year, and without doubt, playfulness, lightness and humour and summoned to the party! 

So, if you're the kind of person who comes to January loaded with resolutions, or if you're more like me and your intentions move with you around the cycle of the year, in either case, let it be more than lip service we pay to our deepest soul longings. Let our spirits manifest their deepest, truest expression of self in this coming year. What are YOU going to do about that? 

In the words of Star Trek's Picard, let's not faff about…just make it so!