Beware The Ember Season

It’s Ember season and the veils are thin.

The warmth of summer and September days long gone,

A golden harvest gathered and shared.

Nights lengthen while damp, dark skies creep in.

Ghouls, ghosts and goblins rush out to play

In a frenzied riot around Halloween.

Tomfoolery, deception and delusion abound,

Tricking the mind in a maze of distraction.

Old fears resurface to haunt and spook,

The inescapable trauma, the inevitable bouts of chronic pain.

False beliefs rear up their ugly heads,

Entrapping you in a quagmire of fear, panic, shame.

Until you remember,

To return to the source of the Beloved within,

Feel the boon of His Presence and find the courage 

To look the reaper of death in the eye and wink,

Dance with the troll of doom,

And tickle the furry belly of the giant spider,

Dispelling her web of illusion.

For all this dross that is surfacing

Is yours to burn on Bonfire Night.

Effigies of past selves that no longer serve you

Feed the flames of fire, turn to embers

And transform in the crucible of love

To become the fertile ash of your awakening.

A Re-membering.

November nights draw long and autumn hues dull

As the stark chill of mid-winter approaches.

It’s time to reflect on your harvest

For all is laid bare in December,

A reckoning for the Soul,

Where you glimpse your truth,

And choose to step into your magnificence.

Or not.

Behold the Ember Season,

Trick or Treat

Fear or Love

Be aware.

A time to Re-member

Your Divinity.

The Tremble for Love

I hear it in the rustle of the Beech hedge

 As the chill nip of autumn air loosens her leaves.

I see it in the heaviness of November clouds

As they gather to release their burden.

I sense it in the fabric of the world,

The unrest, the tumult, the upheaval.

Do you feel it too? This tremble inside.

A hard knot of unease

 You’ve been endlessly running from,

Growing bigger, more demanding of you.

Yes, you, sweet one, with your lion’s heart, it’s asking you

To draw up your courage, turn in and tend.

I reach in for Grace and it flows up through me,

Bidding me to feel the grip of panic,

The fire of anger, the smothering of shame,

To name the ways they pin me down,

Or sway me sideways, trip me up,

And to love them for this.

I see the truth of it now:

The vital role these wayward parts play

 In life’s divine orchestra,

How they bring me to my knees, 

Bruised and battered, bare and broken,

To this holy ground within.

It’s a sacred summons to dig deeper into Grace.

To grow the roots of the mighty oak,

Feel the flow of this immense Love, and welcome,

The grief-stricken child, the pain-ridden teen, 

All the sweet children of human existence,

To the infinite warmth of this hearth within.

In lovingly listening to their stories,

Through the eyes of Grace,

Comes the beauty of revelation.

Dead leaves of age-old concepts, 

Worn out beliefs and mistaken ideas,

Fall away in the magnificence of autumn.

Tinged with orange, red, bronze and gold,

Fluttering gloriously in the winds of change,

A kaleidoscope of human experience,

In a divine dance with the Beloved within.

A letting go of all that is untrue,

A stripping bare to essence, to Love.

Take heart, dear one, this tremble inside

Is an invitation from the Divine

And it is wonderous.

Comments and contemplations welcome

Rewilding into Grace

There’s something about her, this magical pond,

Deep in the heart of acres of rewilded land,

Where the farm’s fences have been pulled down,

Penned-in animals are no more,

Once-ploughed fields left fallow,

Taken over by brambles, dog-rose and sallow.

Now Longhorn cattle are free to roam,

Droves of Tamworth pigs rootle the ground and

Herds of wild Exmoor ponies run free, 

All tending the grass, the bushes, the earth.

Wild swimming pond at Knepp

Within this magnificent splendour of nature,

The pond invites me into her autumnal embrace.

I glide with mallards, bask with moor hens,

The ice of the water chilling deep into my cells.

The branch of an oak extends over us like a graceful arm,

Adorned in leaves tinged with orange, yellow and brown,

Gifting acorns in gentle plops, rippling the still reflection.

Squirrels scamper by our side, a robin hops, a redwing watches.

A peregrine falcon soars in the sky above,

Where gathering clouds roll in to drop their burdens. 

From deep within, I too am replete with harvest.

The depth of Grace from this year’s reaping, 

Has given space for so much grief to surface.

The grit, the muck and mire of life’s daily toil,

Past and present, float like jetsam to my attention,

Where upwelling Love recognises the gifts they are.

The bile, the aches, the pain my body holds,

All just a signal to call in the Grace,

To look Grief in the eye,

And walk me home.

I hear Love’s whisper in the wind as I swim,

Feel Her soak deep into my being.

Allow Her to rewild me to my true nature,

Surrender to the breaking down,

Of boundaries within,

Unshackling beliefs, concepts and unhelpful patterns,

That have gripped too fast for too long.

There’s a lightness now to my stroke. 

I too am living wild and free,

 Immersed in this boundless pool of divine Love.

Comments and contemplations welcome

Re-membering

This is for those of you tending your wounds,

Not just the cuts and the bruises, but

The hard long-held welts hidden deep inside,

Too harsh to forget, too frozen to weep.

rudall30

I see the pain you stashed there, your aching sorrow,

The voids in your childhood where love wasn’t felt,

The harsh words which siphoned the sparkle from your eyes,

The well-concealed traumas, shrouded in mistaken beliefs.

I see where your needs to be heard were neatly paved over,

The gaping disconnect between authenticity and expectation,

The truths you swallowed and caged inside of you,

Drenched in grief and cloaked in darkness.

And now you stand in the empty halls of your being.

I see you change your stance as you call for His guidance,

Move from the shadows of distress into your divine indomitable light,

Finally ready to love yourself whole and set yourself free.

I see you draw on His strength to raise your sword of truth,

Cut through the shackles of fear and self-loathing,

And beam with a Love so strong it melts the orphaned parts of you,

The fragmented capsules of stardust awaiting liberation.

Some call you wounded, but I see you as blessed,

With the courage and power to embody,

His great Love for this sacred re-membering.

You have been chosen, Dear One.

This is for you.

Comments welcome

The Grace of Winter

Like a tree in winter,

Branches bare to the open sky,

Roots sinking down into the earth,

Seeking nurture, sustenance, from deep inside…

shaunl

Like a bear in hibernation,

Holed up in a dark, cosy cave,

In refuge from the harshness of the world,

A long slumber, to recharge, restore…

Eyelids heavy, body weary, aching,

I hear the world knock unrelenting at my door.

But this is sacred, fallow, resting time,

And I too choose to honour the call within.

Grace takes me in through long-held pockets,

Of anger, fear and shame that cling to me still,

Through corridors of pain and grief that loom too often,

To the darkest, muddiest, ugliest self-hating crevice.

Here, Grace turns to make His stand,

Tilts up my chin to His twinkly eyes, His beaming smile,

As if to say, “This too is Love.

Rest here awhile”.

As I soak in His radiant gaze,

Swathes of Love seep through every pore, every cell, every sinew.

Grace gifts me this, and seeds for more,

To plant, right here, in my deepest wounds.

Grace tasks me to nurture His potent seeds,

To water with Love, nourish with attention,

To use this precious season of gestation,

To tend myself into bloom in His image.

So, if the world comes knocking,

I may growl and roll over, let my roots sink deeper,

For this divine alchemy,

Is necessary for rebirth.

Rest deeply, sweet soul, 

Such Grace in winter’s still.

Comments Welcome

Awakening

A part of me wants to stay curled up under the cover,

Eyes tight shut,

To block my ears from the jostle of noise,

To hide from the starkness of light.

fszalai

A part of me wants to wallow in the sticky goo of victimhood,

Enshrouded in pain, grief and shame,

Entrapped in stale beliefs and worn-out concepts,

Of how to play the game of life.

My truth, my essence, is bold and courageous,

She fiercely yearns to live in freedom,

She knows of the magnitude of Love deep inside,

And delights in sweet, tender glimpses of liberation.

Grace nudges me to gently pandiculate my weary body,

To hold His hand as I face the seeds of resistance, 

To be responsible for tending the wounds, 

And loving myself full—to grow.

I call into the deep expanse of my being,

And feel a powerful upsurge of Love wash over me,

Soaking into every cell in my body,

Scintillating, radiant, enlightening.

I sense the cover, these layers of illusion, 

Slip gently away,

Such sweet surrender to be reborn.

To uncover who I truly am.

I open an eye,

And rise.

Comments welcome.

A Prelude to Spring

As the snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils begin to shoot,

I wonder at the journey they’ve taken,

The months of stillness under the cold, dark winter soil, 

Safe in their protective bulbs.

Olga Solodenko

The multitude of worms and bugs moving the earth,

The rainwater and snow melt seeping down,

To nurture the seeds, soften their shells,

Nature’s unseen orchestra in action—a prelude to spring.

At times, I too, sit in glacial, bleak darkness,

Entrapped by long-held barriers of protection—

Fear, anger, judgement, undue attachments—

Binding my light, suffocating my soul.

Until I heed the whisper of Grace within,

To surrender to this uncomfortable unwrapping,

Allow His warm rays of Love to soften my hard edges,

Shower every defensive fibre with truth and clarity.

For this, Grace murmurs, is a sacred inner process.

A peeling away of long-held layers of attitudes and beliefs,

To reveal the divine root of essence,

Become the magnificent truth which I am.

I break free from the shackles of winter hibernation,

Rise up in Love through the rich soil of life,

Pierce through great clods of illusion,

Into the clear air of a bright new day.

Vibrant shoots of green pierce through the earth,

Survive onslaughts of frost, wind and rain.

Lithe stems grow up to the light, strong and true.

Jubilant flowers of white, purple, yellow begin to open.

I look down at my feet in the late winter snow,

Tilt my head up to the first rays of spring sun,

Feel the kiss of Grace on my forehead,

Ripples of Love vibrating through my Being.

A glorious awakening: radiant buds of eternal joy.

Comments most welcome

A Practice in Liberation

I know how the darkness beckons you sometimes,
How you turn your back on the light.
I know how you walk down paths you know you shouldn't,
How you lose yourself in labyrinths of grief and despair.
I know you see your well-trodden habits and want to change them,
How you're done with reliving these painful patterns,
How you're oh so weary of your worn-out ways of being. 
HTWE
I know you feel empty at times, like you exist in a void,
With life twirling around you, always just out of reach.
I know you wallow too long in pools of fear and shame,
Stuck in the abyss between who you currently think you are,
And the deeper truth of whom you know yourself to be.
I know there are parts of you that you don't love,
That have plundered your joy as you exiled them away.

I know too that you've felt the kiss of Grace ignite inside you,
How you've soaked in the abundance of trust and love that reside within,
I know you can believe yourself full, rise-up out of this darkness,
For you are not flawed, damaged or failing in feeling this pain.
When fear debilitates, loneliness blinds, despair dampens,
You are being blessed with a divine invitation to love Grace more,
To replace self-judgement with His most gentle and loving embrace.

Welcome these dark, banished corners of yourself,
Listen, comfort, forgive, re-member and restore His love within,
Feel how this awakens all the cells in your body as they vibrate in jubilation and awe,
So you can dance more gracefully and play more joyfully with all the richness of life.
The dark, the light; the fear, the courage; the resistance, the acceptance-
Rise above all of it, a taste of heaven as you regain your divinity,
Where the shadows pulling at your feet, are mere tickles at your toes.

Dearest One, everything is just fine. It's all a practice in liberation.

Comments most welcome.

Mid Winter’s Gift

Deep in a frozen pond of murky water,
Encased in hard packed layers of glittering ice,
Under the constant chill of a dark wintery sky,
Lies my greatest burden,
And most precious treasure.
Valeriy Boyarskiy
I've skirted around it a million times,
Distracting myself with life's adventures.
I've sat at its shore a million more,
Tapping its impenetrable shell,
Lamenting a wound too frozen to weep.

Once a mud puddle of confusion, 
Flooded by pain and frustration,
Darkened by misunderstanding and self-judgement,
It became an ever growing well of grief and shame,
Iced over in mistaken self-protection.

Today, in the still silence of mid-winter,
Under a soft blanket of freshly falling snow,
I heed my Lover's call from deep within,
Feel His warm glow in the touch of each snowflake,
And clear the white powder from the ice.

On this frosty pane, I find in my reflection,
His beaming face smiling back at me.
A thousand suns shine through His eyes,
Illuminating this pit of arctic desolation,
Into a treasure trove of revelations.

Each frozen layer became a monument,
To the myriad ways we learn to leave ourselves.
Now the coverings melt in tears of humble recognition,
Long held tensions released in gratitude,
As this hardened warrior begins to weep.

He takes my hand and we dive down,
Through the grit and grime of past existence,
His light making visible the teaching behind the pain,
The iron shackles and golden chains,
All distractions from His embrace.

Until, in the depths of this same pond,
Under the countless veils of illusion,
He reveals the magnificence of my essence.
Together, we shine truth and clarity in scintillating radiance,
And step into the omnipresence of Grace.



Comments most welcome

This Sacred Road

On this path of living my truth,
I bump into all the times I’ve been untrue:
The job endured because I felt I should,
The countless times I’ve said yes to please another,
When every cell in my body was screaming no.
Image: dugdax
The relationship severed and lost,
Because I lacked the courage to speak up,
Or spoke too freely, without discernment,
Of import, of kindness, of truth.
Each misstep, a bruise, a welt, a cut I carry still.

The heavy sandbags of grief, shame and despair,
The concepts I hold, built on values of family, society,
Of how life should be, form solid walls, 
A prison cell around my true self.
They bar my freedom, block my light.

I touch these tender purple lesions,
Soft abrasions, rubbed raw through time,
Deep gashes still bleeding hurt,
Untended wounds, too painful to clean,
And hold each one up to His loving gaze.

I thank each blunder for the blessing it bears,
The insight, the wisdom, the truth of what I am not.
The barricades begin to dissolve,
The bleeding stems, aches recede, and wounds start to heal,
Each scar a testament to this sacred road travelled.

If this post resonated with you, I’d love to hear, do comment.