How a story arrived

Last week I sent a story. The one about Manchester.  Very different from my usual style.

A bit weird really.

So…you know I haven’t been blogging as much as I have in the past. Well, I’ve been changing, on the inside. Part of that has been an emptying out; a quietening of my mind but also a simplifying of my life.  More yoga and meditation, more time alone, more silence, more reading, more diary writing. Less being busy, less multi-tasking, less social media, pleasing other people.

And so from this quieter place, stories are beginning to arrive.

So, on the day of the attack in Manchester I sat by the river and cried a lot. And then I went and got my book and my pencil and I shut my eyes and listened and took dictation.

That’s what it felt like.  That I had to just listen and scribble down what came.  And that’s where the story came from.  It was like a download.  I feel like I was tuned into the right channel to receive it. I don’t feel like I made up the story, simply that I had to write it down.

Weird huh?

So then last night I sat by the fire and asked ‘What does Donald Trump need to know about nature’ and this is what I got…it arrives like a movie where I am watching the pictures and writing down the words.  See what you think.

What does Donald Trump need to know about nature?

As I start this I am sitting by the bonfire in my own garden and my soul family come to join me.

We sit in silence and wait. First a black cat comes to the fire and winds itself around. Then Aslan appears and walks around the circle and roars. In the fire his eyes are a strange yellow. No one is scared of him.

The circle is now complete. Aslan nods at me and I start to sing and chant. I am older, I have long white hair, golden skin and a blanket around me.

I thank everyone for being there and for their part in my life and for their wisdom.

We all close our eyes and meditate and then I step forward and sprinkle herbs on the fire and as I do the flames reach higher and create an arch. I drop my blanket and am naked. I step into the fire and through the arch of flames which leads me to my sacred land of mountains and rivers.

The earth

I am walking and I see a huge eagle swoop down and it picks me up and carries me like a doll to a cave..I am scared. A huge millipede comes up and I am to ride on it’s back into the cave. We go deeper and deeper. It climbs the walls and I am small enough to hold on. We climb into a gap in the stones and into the stones of the cave. Somehow we squeeze through the stones until I can hear the stones talk. It is all black but the stone rumbles:

‘I am solid, I am here. I am under your feet. I will go nowhere. I was here before you and will be here after you. I support you humans even though you drill me and crack me, mine me and gouge me for I am bigger than you who are no more than scratches on my side. I will quake, I will shake and I will crack but I will be here.’

The sun

We walk on to the light; the sun which is dazzling. I shade my eyes. The sun says:

‘I am here. I am heat. I do what I do, I am going nowhere. I am neither friend or foe. You can draw on my strength to help you or you can ignore me. Either way I can dry the earth. I can make plants grow. I can kill. I can give life. Accept all this and work with me’.

The insects

Then we get to the river and I slip off the millipede who says:

‘We are so small and so many. You can change our world and some of us will die and you will never know the stories we might have told, our medicines in our juices. You will never know that we are your allies unless you stop and listen’

The river

He pushes me into the river where I am caught by a fish who lets me ride on his back:

‘Look how full of life is this river. Plants, fish, bugs, a full world is here. Drink with us, play with us. Keep us clean. This is your habitat as well as mine.’

And then the river goes thick and dark and murky and I can’t breathe. I am choking, the fish is dying but flips me onto the shore.

The rain

The grasslands are burned and dry and there are animals of all kinds wilting and dying in the heat. I call for rain and black clouds billow and the rain comes:

‘I too am a life giver and a life taker. Yes I will fill the rivers and the water holes and the lakes. Yes I will make the grass grow. So too will I make mud slides, the earth slipping away. I will drown your villages, your people. This is my nature. Work with me. Get to know me for I am a life giver and a life taker and I can not change but you can work with me’.

The animals

And the rains pass and an elephant picks me up and puts me on his back and takes me through fields of all kinds of animals; cows, camels, lama, rabbits, ostriches, a polar bear, brown bears, they are all here; iguanas, turtles, ant eaters, sloths, monkeys:

‘We are your neighbours. We share this world with you. Destroy us and you destroy yourselves. We do not fear death, it comes to all of us, but we do not take more life than we need. We live life in balance.  Live in balance with us. Take no more than you need and don’t hoard. Know that sometimes there is famine and sometimes feast. Sometimes it is time to hunt, sometimes time to rest, sometimes time to mate, to play, to birth, to feed to die. There is nothing more. You keep nothing. Travel lightly like us and there can be enough. Our diversity is your diversity. Our children are your children. We will not kill you but our deaths are yours. Work with us, learn from us. We have wisdom you need’.

The air

And the eagle returns and swoops me up. I fly over the animals and the rivers and mountains the air says:

‘Feel this air, feels how I lift you, support you, how you breathe it, how it feels to be filling your lungs with such freshness. I am here for everyone. Everyone deserves to breathe air as fresh as this mountain air. Every human, every plant, every animal. There is enough for us all. Work with me, protect my clarity and I will feed your lungs’

The plants

We swoop down to mountain pine forests where the trees cluster around me as I stand on the ground:

‘We speak here for all the trees, the plant life, the mosses, the fungi, the lichen the blossoms, the redwoods and the oaks. We share this earth with you. We are here to fill your life with beauty. We offer you our fruit. We create air you can breathe. We give you shade. We hold secret healings in our roots and boughs. Destroy us and you destroy yourselves. You cannot live without us. Learn from us. Know when to blossom and when to shed, when to grow and when to mulch. Give others a home in your boughs. Create offerings to nurture the world. Have strong roots and reach for the light. Work with us.  Listen to us when you need us.’

The universe

And the trees close around me and create a whirlpool tunnel which sucks me down into the centre of the earth and out into the galaxy.

‘You are so small. So unimportant. So fragile and yet so beautiful. When you are nothing, we will be here. See our vastness and know your limits. See your finitude, see your momentary existence in our vast expanses. You mean nothing to us. We are impartial. We will remain when you are gone. But learn from us. Learn to expand, to transcend your small lives and go beyond your limits of your flesh. See the vastness of the universe and know that you are a tiny, precious part living with many other tiny, precious parts..from here you are all the same; all one. Your connectedness is obvious from here’.

I swirl around and spiral through a tunnel of light back through the fire gateway. I step out and take my place in the circle.  Aslan nods. We all join hands and bow our heads before one by one taking our leave. And the fire burns on with Aslan by it, looking into the flames

The End

So..if any of your is hanging out with Donald any time soon maybe you could pass in the story to see if he gets it finally!

If you enjoyed reading this please share it with friends. You might also be interested in talking to me about coaching , or maybe try some of my online courses (some are free), or treat yourself to a climate protecting pamper with vegan friendly, organic Tropic which supports the planting of forests and education in deprived areas.
Thanks for being here.
Julie