Category: Spirituality

The Solar Plexus Chakra

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My lion is raging. 
My City of Jewels is burning.
I am feeding the fire in my belly
to fill the void within.

~

Connecting with this chakra has been like wrestling with a lion. Unsurprisingly I’ve discovered that, like the digestive system which it governs, it has a mind and a will of its own. It’s a greedy guts but it’s not very gutsy. It will spill its guts over any tiny little thing. 

Both this chakra and my digestive system are overactive. I’ve long had difficulties with IBS. “Slow down,” “slow down,” the constant messages I’ve been receiving from the rest of my body and from my Gods.

I journey to my bowels and see the microbiota are overwhelmed by ‘reds’ (Streptococcus sp.). I take probiotics and ‘greens’ (Bifidobacterium sp.) and ‘whites’ (Lactobacillus sp.) become more dominant. Things slow down. Too  much. I see them lying on a beach on their bath towels. I stop the doses and give them extra green vegetables to chew on and tell them to get back to work. 

I succeed in slowing my bowels but what about my life? This chakra is associated with vital energy, power, will, with the ego, with striving in the world. I’ve always been very active whether it’s exercising or creating. I’ve been ambitious too. Since becoming a nun I’ve pared that down a bit. Made more time for meditation – for being not doing. Hard. I can meditate for a couple of hours a day now but even that can easily become a competition.

This chakra also governs the adrenals and the animal there is Scrappy Doo from Scooby Doo. Scrappy with zoomies with his boxing gloves on. “Let me at ‘em, let me at ‘em.” He’s great for starting new projects but not at getting them done.

At first I’m both afraid of and annoyed with the lion. Why is it (and why I am I) so hungry? Why does it roar so at tiny vexations then disappear beneath the table when real courage is required?

I go “raargh!” at the lion. It goes “raargh!” back. We roar together and as we roar the lion shrinks until it so bigger than a tiny cub that fits on my fingernail. It reveals that it’s afraid of the void, that’s why it’s always hungry, always roaring. 

I take it into my heart chakra with my white winged mare, with Gwyn, show it love and reassurance. We go to the void and show it there is nothing to be feared.

I go to other digestive organs. Courage has long been associated with the liver – the part of us that wants to live. Lily-livered is a term for a coward. I’m relieved to find mine is dark and healthy – regenerating now my drinking has ceased. Overactivity has perhaps been good for my pancreas as unlike my mum and grannie on her side I have so far not developed diabetes.

“Let’s try to work together, be brave, truly brave, not roar but no resilience, not bark but no bite,” I tell the lion and the pup that looks like Scrappy Doo.

I’m doing my best to befriend this chakra – perhaps a lifetime of work.

~

Location: Abdomen / Colour: Yellow / System: Digestive / Nerve Plexus: Solar Plexus / Gland: Adrenals / Sense: Taste / Realm: The World / Element: Fire / Qualities: Vital Energy / Animal: Lion

The Sacral Chakra

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They say you should be my sacred place.
They say you should be my own abode.
Why, then, when I visit do I feel like I am
stranded on an island far from home?

~

The sacred place that houses the waterworks of the urinary system and, for me, a reproductive system centred on a womb from which menstrual blood and vaginal fluids might flow and a baby and its afterbirth might be born.

Traditionally the sacral chakra is the locus of sexuality and desire. So it’s a strange one for me to approach as someone who is asexual and has been struggling with secondary amenrrhoea on and off for over five years. Is the latter caused by exuberant exercise, being on the lighter side, living with autism and anxiety or stress about not earning a living from my vocation? Or has my womb shut down simply because it knows it is pointless putting energy into being active when I have no desire for sex or for children? 

In one shamanic journey my reproductive system appears as a grandfather clock that has stopped. In another I am shown two playing cards – a Jack of Diamonds and a Jack of Diamonds falling from my ovaries. “You’ve had your last chance,” they tell me suggesting I may never see a period again. 

I learn that excess cortisol caused by stress inhibits the release of gonadatopin-releasing hormone in the hypothalamus, which fails to move to the pituitary gland to instruct it to make follicle stimulating hormone and lutinising hormone to tell the ovaries to make an egg and bring about ovulation. Because no egg is released the ovaries fail to make oestrogen and progesterone. Thus the reproductive cycle shuts down. Yet I’m not that stressed at present. The inertia of my womb remains a mystery.

Yet my kidneys are healthy. I follow the cleverness of my nephrons – filtering, reabsoring, secreting, excreting, making sure there is enough glucose, protein and vitamins in my blood and removing urea and uric acid. Water reuptake and thus thirst and needing to pee carefully regulated by the hormones aldosterone and anti-diuretic hormone.

My relationship with my urinary system is good and it thanks me. The only thing I drink these days is water and only when I’m thirsty. It hasn’t always been that way. When I was drinking a small bottle of vodka every night to get to sleep it sent me cystitis and a kidney infection and made me cut down. Caffeine went due to panic attacks. Hot chocolate due to lactose intolerance. Beer and wine due to IBS and lifestyle changes. Finally herbal teas because of my rosacea. I feel healthier. Water feels good all the way down.

Let’s return to desire. What’s desire detached from sexuality? The desire to create, the desire for spiritual connection, the desire for mystical union with my God, my Beloved, my Husband outside the limits of sex and romance.

I also associate the sacral chakra with the watery subliminal realm of dream. The animal who appears here is a seahorse and I recall that in seahorses it is not the female with the active womb who bears young but instead the male.

~

Location: sacrum / Colour: Orange / System – Reproductive and urinary / Nerve Plexus: Lumbo-sacral / Endocrine: Ovaries and Testes / Sense: Smell / Realm: Dream / Element: Water / Qualities: Sexuality and Desire / Animal: Seahorse

The Root Chakra

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Rooted here in place and time
Snake and aurochs intertwine.
By shaping flesh, by flexing spine,
Embracing life I will survive.

~

Being rooted in nature and in the body. The entanglement of flesh and nervous system with the rest of the living world. Balancing growth and limitation. As I have meditated and journeyed with this chakra and researched and learnt the musculoskeletal system from both theoretical and experiential perspectives these are the main attributes that have come to me.

As an autistic person I’ve faced a lot of struggles with disassociation from my body due to differences in neurological wiring causing sensory sensitivities. My attempts to block overload out has resulted in having a poor relationship with sensory feedback from the entirety of my system. 

I used to dislike my body because it was fat and clumsy. I cut it, starved it, over-exercised it, tried to force it into a shape that fit with my ideals. Only over the past few years with the help of my personal trainer have I arrived at a strength training and yoga routine and nutritional plan that is healthy. 

Ignoring signals from my body has had its cost in physical ailments. Running for years without strengthening exercises led to runner’s knee and deep gluteal syndrome. Working outdoors in very hot and cold weather in spite of discomfort resulted in me developing rosacea and Reynaud’s. Up until this day I’ve been struggling with tendonitis in various forms as a result of repetitive activities – too much road running, walking too much on concrete in worn boots, using heavy loppers overhead – which have forced me to swap running for mixed cardio indoors, a walk for a swim, and to face the fact that I might not be able to tackle all gardening tasks without help.

Frequently getting myofascial knots has made me aware of my fascia and the importance of hyaluronic acid – the goo that keeps it supple – as a component of the extracellular matrix that exists throughout the body as a lubricant essential in synovial fluid, the skin and the eyes. I have started eating more green veg and oily fish and drinking more water to nourish it.

Working with the chakras can help us spot patterns in the systems they relate to. I noticed nearly all my physical ailments are inflammatory and relate to having an over-reactive stress response rooted in sensory sensitivities.

This has led me to beginning to develop a more mindful relationship with my body. To realising it has developed its symptoms to help me to survive. To listening to senses I shut out, opening and building new neural pathways, so I can respond to sensory signals before they develop into physical ailments. To recognising the difference between stretching and straining, increasing strength and flexibility within awareness of my current limits.

Snake and aurochs appeared as animals associated with this chakra evoking for me the strength of the musculoskeletal system and flexibility of the spine. The snake wrapping the aurochs is a symbol both of limitation and of nurture rooting down into the earth nourishing our nature connection.

~

Chakra: Root / Location: Base / Colour: Red / System: Musculoskeletal / Nerve Plexus: Coccygeal / Endocrine Gland: N/A / Sense: Touch / State: Physical / Element: Earth / Qualities: Survival and instinct / Animals: Aurochs and snake

The Chakras – A Personal Exploration

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For many years I refused to believe in chakras. I didn’t have any. They didn’t exist. They were a New-Agey Eastern thing for fluffy hippies and baby Wiccans that had no relevance for me as a polytheist in Britain. 

Then I came across the following in Alberto Villodo’s Shaman, Healer, Sage:

‘“I thought the chakras were Hindu,” people often say to me. The chakras are part of the anatomy of the Luminous Energy Field. Simply because kidneys were named by Europeans does not make the kidney exclusively European. Similarly, the chakras are not exclusively Hindu. Every living being has chakras.’

‘Regardless of where they were born, everyone has a skeleton with the exact same number of bones. In the same way, we all share the same luminous anatomy, which includes the chakras and the acupuncture meridians.’

I had an aha moment – these words all made perfect sense to me.

Around the same time I was presented with a chakra clearing exercise in the Way of the Buzzard Mystery School’s Spiritual Protection Course that helped me with getting rid of negative energies at a low point in my life. It worked. My chakras were there. I just didn’t know very much about them. 

That changed when I started practicing yoga, which I see to be connected with Brythonic polytheism, as a shared Indo-European tradition. I have since learnt much more about the chakras as they are presented in the yogic system. 

For this I am indebted to an excellent article and course by Swami Nischalananda and other meditations with the Mandala Yoga Ashram*. These have provided me with a grounding in the yogic conception of the chakras and have helped me relate to them on a much deeper level. 

However, the Sanskrit names, symbols and imagery (for example elephants and lotuses) have been difficult for me to connect with as somebody living in Britain. Therefore, with guidance from my mentor, Jayne Johnson, I have been inspired to put together my own associations for each chakra. 

What follows are my personal explorations of the chakras. They are based on those found in the Satyananda yoga tradition espoused by Swami Nischalanda and the Mandala Yoga Ashram but differ in some instances based upon my gnosis of what fits personally with me here in Britain.

*https://www.mandalayogaashram.com

Of Inner and Outer Voices

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I recently had a revelation about a voice* that has haunted me since high school telling me if I don’t acheive certain goals such as passing exams, staying in paid work, fulfilling a role in society, my life is worthless and I don’t deserve to be here.

Mental health-wise I have been much better over the past year as a result of strength training and yoga and working on my spiritual development with my mentor Jayne Johnson. A few months ago for the first time I heard my healthy body saying ‘I want to live’ and this has helped me to combat the negative voice.

Yet I went through a difficult time after my attempt to write a novel for Gwyn failed and I realised I must truly give up my ambition to be a professional author (as I promised Him over ten years ago!). I ended up back at the Abyss with the choice between three gates – to live as I was, to die, or to change. I took the third gate.

During a period of prayer I discerned what to do next – return to outdoor work in horticulture and become a shamanic practitioner. So I started working towards those goals. I began studying for my RHS Level 2 in Horticulture and volunteering with Let’s Grow Preston. I applied for the Sacred Trust’s three year shamanic practitioner training and was over the moon when I was offered a place. However, the downside is the course and the train fares to Devon will cost all my savings and then some. 

The negative voice returned as I began to struggle with concerns about finding paid work in horticulture before my savings run out. Long term I am planning to start a nature-friendly gardening business but I am aware it will take a while to complete my training, set up, find clients and start earning. So I started applying for any outdoor work from plant nurseries and garden centres to grounds maintenance and also cleaning (which Gwyn advised me against). 

That week, the more jobs I applied for, the more I panicked, the louder the voice grew. Telling me I’m a fool to spend so much money on a course which is my soul’s calling but isn’t likely to help me earn much. Preventing me from meditating and journeying saying instead I should be applying for jobs. 

The afternoon before I attended a Radical Embodiment workshop** with Jayne and Alex Walker I had a terrible interview for a cleaning job. I arrived at the workshop scatty with the voice shouting loudly at me telling me the practices were pointless and worthless and wouldn’t help me find paid work.

I spent the first half, in the morning, battling against the voice. Then, in the afternoon, when I was more relaxed and present and connected with other bodies the voice stopped. When finally we came to dancing our insights I decided to have it out with the voice once and for all but found it had vanished.

I then received the gnosis – ‘It’s not my voice’. 

This was one of the most significant revelations of my life. For decades I thought it was a part of me, an inner critic, formed from my internalisation of the capitalist work ethic. A little like the inner Sheriff of Nottingham Nicola Smalley describes in The Path to Forgotten Freedom only a whole lot nastier.

Then, finally, it struck me, no part of my psyche would tell me I was worthless or want me dead. This voice differs from my true inner critic who, of course, is critical, can be harsh and judgemental, but is looking after my integrity.

I realised any voice inimical to my life is not my voice.

Then what is it? I began to wonder. I intuited it must be a malevolent entity. When I asked Gwyn He told me it was not one of the spirits of Annwn. I sensed it wasn’t from the underworld or any of the lower worlds but was bound up with the middleworld. Unlike the spirits of Annwn / ‘fairies’ who live in a reciprocal relationship with Thisworld but have their own independent world and reality it could not survive without parasitising upon human emotions.

Names that came to my mind were ‘liar’ and ‘deceiver’ which I remembered are applied to Satan ‘the Father of Lies’. Was I being tormented by the Devil?

When I asked one of my spiritual ancestors she replied that it was a malicious spirit, an ysbryd drygioni. Christians have blown such beings up into one big Devil in the same way they have raised Jahweh into one big God.

I asked whether I needed to hunt it down and destroy it (like Ged does the gebbeth in The Wizard of Earthsea – my experience reminded me of that story). My guide replied, ‘No’, as such beings feed on our attention and negative emotions. The best defences against it are to do the things it tells me not do because they will not help me gain a job and earn money – prayer, meditation, journeywork, sitting still in nature (which I really struggle with), being with other bodies, dancing, play and fun (which I never allow myself). 

Realising this voice isn’t mine and hearing how to defend myself from it are huge steps I am hoping will help me move forward towards earning a living in a way that allows me to stay physically and mentally well and fulfil my vocation.

I’d be interested to hear whether anyone else has had similar experiences. How do you tell the difference between inner and outer voices? I’m hoping to get to grips with such discernment processes better towards the end of my shamanic practitioner training when we approach practices such as depossession.

*Here I’m referring to intrusive thoughts not to auditory hallucinations.
**A development from embodied relational therapy.

Stepping into Orddu’s Lineage

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I am told I must step into Orddu’s lineage. 

Warrior. Prophet. Spirit Worker. Inspired One. Healer.

I am old but on this path I am still so young.

Heretofore I have proved myself only with words,
with books, although those months on the mosslands
planting cottongrass and sphagnum might count for something.

I have said too much – talking about me, me, me, my problems.

The time for whining and complaining has come to an end.

It’s time to listen, to learn, craft a new art to heal the violence.

(I will not speak again of how Arthur killed her with his knife,
drained her blood into two bottles to grease a giant’s beard,
neither will I drive Carwennan again into my own wounds.)

A life off the page lies ahead of me now – the spirits call.

A Journey Book

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Over the past few years my Gods have been encouraging me to draw more (even though I am not very good at it) and I have been inspired by the work of Ceri Davies at Below the Wood* who has been recording spiritual experiences in words and images.

Recently when I journeyed to ask my guides how to improve my journeywork a black serpent showed me ‘I must begin a journey book’.

Up until now I have been recording my journeys in word documents on my computer and they tend to get filed away and not looked again. I guessed there is something in the old fashioned way of working with hand and pencils on paper and the time and effort this requires that honours the journey, fixes it in memory and brings its transformative potential into the world.

The first step in the process was buying the right book. This wasn’t hard. Knowing Jason Smalley has a shop** selling products based on his animistic photography of our local landscape I looked there first and immediately found the ‘Storm Raven’ journal. This fit perfectly as my patron God, Gwyn, is associated with ravens and the stormy nights of the Wild Hunt as well as the calm in the midst of the storm.

Since then I have been recording my journeys and have felt their effect more greatly in my life.

In one of my journeys behind a waterfall I discovered ‘three joys’ who appeared as three cranes to gift me ‘the dances of creation and destruction’ and ‘the standing crane’.

In a journey I narrated to my spiritual mentor I met a bear spirit who took me to witness the unfolding of a numinous vision of a dark castle in a pool with shadowy entities entering and leaving with gifts. I was told I was ‘not allowed to go in’. ‘I must stay still’ and ‘be the witness’. This was very hard as I like to do and understand things rather than simply witnessing. This has stuck with me as a lesson in the appreciation of mystery. 

At the Way of the Buzzard*** Bear Necessities retreat a bear full of stars appeared to me and in a shapeshifting experience showed me how to be more grounded in my body by being aware of all my muscles and slowing down.

Drawing my journeys has not only helped imprint them in my mind but in my body and it is noticeable that I am being encouraged towards embodying insights physically and through movement practices to bring them into my life.

*https://belowthewood.ca
**https://earthlight-images.myshopify.com/
***https://thewayofthebuzzard.co.uk

Falling Leaves and Wanting to Live

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A late autumn. Nos Galan Gaeaf passing. The leaves at last coming down in the fullness of their vivid vibrancy – the yellows of lime and maple and the bronzes of beech whilst the acers on the park shine their reds and oranges.

The trees are letting go. Surrendering. Preparing for sleep. Dying a kind of death.

I’m feeling well. As a result of my practices my physical and mental health is improving. Following an injury I’m running half marathons at my best pace yet.*

Yet, still, after being triggered by a reader’s comments on my book I’m turning the old cogs and being chewed up by an old destructive thought pattern. ‘If my readers don’t like my writing I will lose my audience, I won’t make any money, I will have to return to proper paid work and forfeit my time for spirituality and creativity, meaning my mental health will deteriorate, leaving me with the choice between a living death and death.’ 

For a few days I considered totally rewriting my book to fit better with what I thought those in my audience who are Celtic Polytheists and Druids might want or expect by removing some of the darker and more gory scenes that are based on my personal gnosis about the story of Gwyn/Vindos and His interactions with the serpents of Annwn but this led to total paralysis. I realised it wasn’t what He wanted and ultimately the book is for Him.

I then perceived I’d slipped back into the false belief I could make a living as a professional author, which I promised Gwyn I would give up over ten years ago, had thought I’d given it up, but was unconsciously still clinging onto it.

In a journey with the Way of the Buzzard Mystery School** I performed a rite of letting it go with puffin – viscerally vomiting it up as a huge and toxic fish.***

This done I’m still turning those darned cogs. ‘I can’t make a living from my writing so when my savings run out I will be faced with the choice between living death and death.’

Then, entirely expectedly,  a voice from within, a voice from my healthy body, from my life force, from my spirit, ‘I WANT TO LIVE.’

This was utterly astonishing because, in my existing memory, I cannot remember once thinking ‘I want to live.’ Since I started primary school most of my life has been a battle against ‘wanting to die’ so this signals a vast change.

I believe this comes from having arrived at a monastic lifestyle that suits me centred around devotional creativity in service to my Gods. This incorporates practices that nourish my well being and relationship with Them such as meditation, journeywork, yoga, running, strength training and good nutrition (giving up alcohol has been a big factor) along with cleaning, gardening and litter picking as service to my home and local greenspace. It has also been a great help having the support of my spiritual mentor, Jayne Johnson.

I think my letting go ritual at this time of leaf fall also played a big role.

Much of my fear lies around having to give much of this up to earn a living when my savings run out. I haven’t found a solution yet but it seems a huge step forward to have my inner impulses on board, not to want to die but to live. To be recognising my negative thought patterns and stopping fighting myself.

Those cogs fixed in my mind by the capitalist system I smash, I trample, I cast down amongst the fallen leaves to rust, to rot, to die, so I can live. 

*Last year’s PB was 1:54:55 and since recovering from my sciatic nerve injury I have bested it by nearly six minutes with 1:49:02 – well above average for a 42-year-old female.
**The Way of the Buzzard Mystery School website can be found HERE.
***The images from my journey book recording my journey with puffin.