One morning last week I decided to do a candle meditation, instead of my usual "eyes shut" style. No sooner had I begun to gaze at the flame than I received this message/download or whatever name you want to give it. When it came to an end, I wondered whether I would be able to recall it to write it down, but that also seemed to be fairly easy. I am thinking about maybe recording it as an audio, later on. Let me know if you think that would be a good idea!

Some of you will have noticed little signals in my writing - small but frequent mentions that I am not entirely happy where I am geographically. I'm homesick for Scotland in a number of different ways, and struggling to love the environment I'm living in. One of the things I have trouble with is car journeys, especially if I'm a passenger, because then I really have time on my hands to look around me and see all the things I don't like. A dry, rather colourless and windblown landscape which has suffered terrible environmental degradation, littered with the careless leavings of unsustainable and failing agricultural processes, with signs of poverty and hopeless ignorance everywhere. (Yeah, I fitted a lot of negativity into that last sentence, didn't I?) That's how I see it on a bad day, and it is one kind of truth.

The thing is, though, that since I live a long way from any amenities, I have to go places by car quite a bit, and I often find it quite distressing. Not fun. So much not fun, that I have probably been avoiding it more than I realise. However, I seem to have stumbled upon a really good remedy!

About a year ago, I signed up for a 21 day meditation challenge with Deva Premal and Mitten. Each day featured a mantra, one of which was the Moola Mantra. The words of that mantra are:

It's so easy to acknowledge the divine in things we like, or people we like. In pretty things. Less easy to do so in the things we find ugly, in people or actions we find ill-intentioned. It's easy to forget that the unmanifest divine somehow permeates all. It's easy for me to feel that if I don't fight the things I don't like, then somehow they win and I have given up. But I think that just creates blocked energy rather than the flowing energy with which I am able to create and to manifest useful change. But back to the Moola Mantra...

I loved this mantra so much the way Deva explained it. To look around me, and remember that the divine is in everything is very good for me. I also loved her musical interpretation of this, and found out that there is an entire fifty minute version. I bought a copy. It seemed like good driving music, so I put it in my car. Well, maybe you can see where this is going ...

It has helped immensely. Whether that's because, as some believe, the Sanskrit words of mantras have some extra mystical power, or because I have connected with their meaning at a conscious level, or just something in the music - I feel better connected to the landscape, more lovingly connected, and much calmer. And I think that this effect has filtered out a bit into the rest of my time, as well.

Motherhood and birth may represent much more than the literal meanings, of course. Creativity, nurturing, etc. The other aspect is partly about "going with the flow", but more particularly letting everything else go with the flow. If you've ever meditated, you've probably heard advice like letting a river take unwanted thoughts away -"just let them go" we're told. Our metaphorical River can take away other things we don't need, too. It can clean away what we no longer need, making room for the new things we want to welcome. There is another little meaning to the word "cleansing" which is connected to motherhood, and is also worth looking at. Have you ever heard afterbirth called "cleansing" by country people? The first time I heard this, a light bulb went on in my head. Of course, we all know the dire medical effects of retained placenta, but what an interesting way of thinking of it! It's a reminder that hanging onto things that were once vital, but have now done their job, is not always in our best interests.

For information on readings, visit Go Deeper Readings. To arrange a reading, email me.

Recently, in Salmon in the Weir, I referred to a dream I had, where I felt that I was being told to capture the salmon, which is a symbol of knowledge, by writing down my dreams, and other possible revelations, from things like card readings or meditation journeys. Many of us love the written word, me included, but I also recognise that it can create limitations for us. When we write something down we risk setting it in stone, and somehow "killing" what we were trying to preserve. The written word takes on more import than the thing we tried to describe. This does not have to be so, of course, but we need to allow our insights to have a life, not stick them in a museum. Also, writing something down, filing it away, putting it on speed dial, is a great way to abdicate responsibility for remembering it at all. Could you remember a friend's phone number for a week without writing it down or storing it on some device? I'm sure you could, whether you think so or not, but I'm sure most of us don't bother anymore, because we think the information is "safe" for the time when we need it. How would you gaze differently on a beautiful scene while on a rare holiday, if you hadn't just snapped a couple of digital images of it? Would you let it fill your eye and your soul, making it part of your deepest memory - rather than hurrying on to the next item on your itinerary?

You might also remember that in my dream, there was some confusion in my mind between a weir (a device to trap fish) and a salmon ladder (which facilitates their journey upstream). Now I think I understand this. Trapping the fish, via a reading or a dream, etc. is only the first step. You need to get the essence of the knowledge it contains upstream within you. Let it climb the ladder up into your consciousness and into your everyday thinking.

In Celtic myth, there are many tales of magical Salmon. The Irish story of Fionn Mac Cumhaill tells how the young hero accidentally, and innocently, tastes a salmon of knowledge which is supposedly intended for his master. His true identity as a great person is then revealed and he is transformed both in status and ability, after his master tells him to go ahead and eat the whole fish. I think that this is an important part of the story. Fionn's act of accidentally licking some juice from his thumb seems merely to confirm him as the person for whom the salmon is meant, but it is the eating of the entire salmon that brings about his transformation. I like this picture. A salmon of any size - and this was said to be a very large one - takes some eating! Think of the repetitive act of this eating. Slice after slice, bite after bite. Did each mouthful taste the same? Did each chewing noticeably add a new layer of knowledge? Was there a time when Fionn felt full, and thought that surely it would make no difference if he left some portion uneaten, after all? We'll never know, of course, but I'm sure we've all been there.

This is interesting, though. Fionn didn't just write "Today, I tasted a drop from the Salmon of knowledge," in his daily journal and then somehow magically he became great. He sat down and engaged deeply with his gift. He gave it respect, he gave it attention. Those of you who have had a reading from me will know that I place a lot of emphasis on working with the material in that reading, of spending time with the information in meditation, contemplation and study. Believe me, I know that this isn't always easy to do. I have had some very profound experiences - with my cards, in dreams, in readings from others, and in meditation. These can be humbling and awe inspiring, and yet in a few hours I am caught up in whatever life puts in my path, and if I'm not careful - nothing comes of it. Well, I am trying to do better. I'm trying to learn to "clean my plate". To follow through with ideas until I understand what action to take, and then to take that action. It's a tall order, but I feel more honourable when I do it, and I think my life goes a little more smoothly, too.

What I know is impossible, however, is to implement all the things I find immediately - just as Fionn did not go out and do a lifetime's worth of heroic deeds the next morning. However, he did acknowledge the transformation and he did begin the journey. I know that my journey is nowhere near completed. It's uneven, sometimes it gets stalled, but I am on it. I do my best to follow the signposts, check the map and make progress - and I try not to forget to enjoy the experiences along the way.

In Salmon in the Weir, I mentioned that I was going to put some things on my walls. At the time, I had recently had what felt like a very important session and reading with someone. He had given me some homework. Things to do and say in order to be more at peace. I liked the ideas, but was uncomfortable with some of the details, so I let it slide for a few weeks. The day I wrote that piece, however, I adjusted the wording and printed some things out, nicely, on my computer, glued them to some beautiful photos saved from a scenic calender, and put them up in my bedroom. The change for me has been positive, and I feel pleased that I took the trouble. This is just one of many ways to make an adjustment. What I liked was the concreteness of it. I still have a backlog of actions I would like to take based on readings, etc. but I hope to hold myself to account. I intend to do it with patience and compassion, but I will be honouring each bite of the salmon, if I can.

I received the following question on the Go Deeper facebook page today:

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of the meditation question, I'd like to make one general comment about this. As a former teacher, I've often noticed that when someone has been diagnosed (maybe quite correctly) as "autistic" or "dyslexic" or as having "ADD" they tend to think that every learning obstacle they encounter is a result of that difference. Anyone with a learning difficulty should take heart that most of the things they find challenging are also challenging for many of the people who carry the label "normal". That is very much the case with visualisation! Many people find this tricky, and that's okay.

I wish that I could have talked to this person directly, because I can't be sure what kind of meditation they are struggling with, what they hope to get from meditating, and so on. However, that means I'll be a little more general, so maybe this will help more people.

Traditionally, most forms of meditation have not included visualisation. There are exceptions, but most of the eastern forms focus on emptying one's mind, or focusing on one thing (a mantra, a candle flame, your breathing or your senses) to the exclusion of all else -- which ends up being pretty much the same thing. So the world of traditional eastern meditation is wide open to those who find visualisation difficult.

The meanings of the words meditation and visualisation have become somewhat muddled in recent times, and it's no wonder. One way to learn many of the traditional empty-mind styles of meditation is through the verbal guidance of a teacher, who takes you through the process step by step, leaving moments of silence for you to try to do what they have suggested. This is "guided meditation" in its purest from. Usually, after a number of sessions the student is able to meditate without this guidance.

Then along came the hypnotherapy movement, the self-improvement movement and the new age movement, and suddenly there was an explosion of techniques and recordings and systems designed to help us relax, to realise our dreams, to meet our angel guides and everything else! Many of these approaches combine elements of traditional meditation techniques such as relaxing the body and quieting the mind, with visualising something. This may be a scene or an object described by the person leading, or may be created from the imagination of the participant. In some cases the "visualisation" is intended to be literally visual, but often ideas or feelings may work just as well. Let me see if I can explain that last part a bit better.

There are lots of reasons to do visualisations. Relaxation (mentally putting yourself in relaxing environments), to create change (either in yourself or in the physical world, perhaps using what some people call the law of attraction) or perhaps to open yourself to some kind of deeper intuitive or spiritual experience. Here the technique is often to create a space in which you are more open and able to listen to your intuition or a higher power - sort of like meeting it halfway. For example, if you wanted to meet your power animal (supposing you believe in power animals -- it's just an example), you might be more open if you deeply imagine that you are in a forest, than you would be if you sit in your dorm room thinking "My power animal would never feel comfortable visiting me here."

We tend to use the word "visualise" in these contexts, when we could as easily use the word "imagine". Those of us who have a strong visual orientation often consider that a picture has more impact than words, or that a sensory experience does.

How do you visualise? Can you picture your living room at home? Can you clearly see the various objects in their places? The color of the furniture? Can you picture how it would look if it was cleaner than usual, or perhaps more untidy than usual? Can you picture it with the walls painted yellow, or blue? (Stop reading and try this.) If that's easy then your mind has a strong visual bent. If this is hard or feels impossible, don't worry. Maybe you are more of a word person, or a "feeling" person. If you are a word person, you might be able to give quite a good verbal or written description of the room, even though the picture in your mind's eye is unclear, you know what is there. If you are a feeling person, then you might find it easier to think about how you feel when you enter your living room, what you enjoy doing there, who you think of as being there with you and how you feel about that. This emotional stuff may be even more important than seeing pictures in your head.

Another thing to check is whether your other senses are also "blocked". Take note of your answers to the questions here. Try this: think back to your childhood. You are hungry and it is almost time for the evening meal. You are either in the kitchen or dining room anticipating the food. Can you remember what some of your favourite foods smelled like? How they tasted? Were there certain sounds from the kitchen that told you dinner was about to be served -- like a pot being scraped, a microwave timer going off or someone calling? Can you hear familiar people saying familiar things? Can you see their faces? If you ate at a table, what did the surface of the table feel like? If you sat somewhere else, was it comfortable or awkward? What about your emotions? Was this one of the best times of the day for you, or was it a tense situation? Was it boring? Were you in a hurry to get away? The answers to these questions will give you an idea of whether some of your senses are more vivid than others when it comes to remembering things or remembering things via your senses and emotions.

Now, just for fun, recreate another childhood evening meal. Only this time, make one up. Imagine a situation quite unlike the one you grew up in. Maybe you are the child of parents who are gourmet chefs, or a Japanese child who hates the smell of fish, or a child growing up in an orphanage run by very strict nuns, or you are being raised by a doting grandma who stuffs you with treats. Pick a scenario and see what it's like to try to answer the questions in the previous paragraph now. Was it easier or harder for you to use your imagination, compared to using your memory? Did you find it fun to create this little story, or was it torture to try? Some people find visualising the past much easier than an imaginary situation. Other people don't have great memories, but may have vivid imaginations. Identify your strengths!

For those who have trouble visualising things which they haven't experienced, the problem is often detail. They are worried because they haven't visualised the leaves on the trees or the feathers on the birds. If you found recreating a memory easier than creating an imagined situation, it may be because you are confident about the detail. But I'll bet you didn't really see everything when you remembered. Not the individual hairs on people's heads, nor the precise weather outside the window. It's just too much work to put all the detail in -- so you trust that some of it is just there, quietly in the background. It's kind of like the perspective in a painting. The artist might paint the individual leaves on the tree in the foreground, but the ones on the far horizon might just be green blobs. We have to trust that those trees have leaves, too, just as we do when we look at real trees in the distance.

When I listen to a guided visualisation recording, or I create one in my own mind, details are among the "hooks" which keep me focused. I have certainly experienced times when I couldn't see what someone was trying to show me, or what I was seeking, and it is frustrating. At these times, if I can't discipline my mind to cooperate, or perhaps the person guiding me isn't clear enough, I give myself permission to quit trying. If I want to continue my meditation session, I just do some breathing or something. One thing about meditation is that it does take practice and discipline -- and if you use those things, it gets easier. Another thing is that you are not going to have a profound experience every time, whether you use visualisation or empty your mind. However, there are still many benefits!

If you are interested in some simple and varied guided meditation techniques (many of which do not require the ability to visualise!) you might be interested in the guided meditation cards I sell in my web shop.

I sometimes shuffle my meditation and prayer cards in with my oracle deck for my daily draw. Today, I drew this card, once again encouraging me to reach out to nature. If you follow my writing and other work you might think I need no encouragement -- but that depends on which nature we're talking about. The lush, green world of Britain really speaks to me, even from a distance, but the stark, sandy, drought-ridden of Colorado -- not so much. I am trying. Trying to open myself up to whatever this land wants to tell me.

The quote on this card is from Inisfail, by Ella Young. The quote below, is from the guided mediation on the reverse of the card.
This and other guided meditation cards are available from my web shop.

While the connection between all things must be acknowledged and respected in the individual, whether songbird or sunset, I also want to remember that bigger things like where I live vs where you live are connected, too. Sometimes, in a warm, fuzzy way, it's easy to see the connections between the small, loveable things, or human things. or the obvious ecological connections that concern us so much lately. It's not always so easy to stop drawing lines between cultures, between what we like and what we think we don't like, between my dog and your dog.

If I truly believe that there is Spirit and Deity in the joy-shout of the rivers, then knowing that all things are connected, perhaps I can trust that even the tumbleweeds and dying cottonwood trees contain the same spark. It all contains what Fionn mac Cumhaill called the music of what happens. The music, one might say, of acceptance. No attachments, no aversions, no resistance. Just vibrating with the molecules of the universe, and yet . . .

And yet, what brought the Tuatha De Danann to Ireland? What brought the Milesians? If it wasn't a love for one place over another, then what? I can only conclude that part of coming to earth, part of living an earthly life, is to experience a heart-rending love for certain things, for particular views, for particular weather. This is part of what defines the earthly experience, and part of what defines the spiritual experience. As usual, balance is everything.

Solitude, in and of itself, means nothing today. If I sit in solitude switching between Netfilx, the radio and my smartphone, the result will probably be loneliness rather than solitude - even if I don't recognise it as such. It will also be mentally noisy, and even when I switch off all devices, that noise is likely to continue. One result I notice from spending too much time media surfing is a shortened attention span and a lack of ability to focus. I need antidotes to this, and I need discipline to partake of the antidotes some days! Regular practice really helps. What I need is "soul-itude". Time spent honouring the needs of my soul. Turning off both the media chatter and the self chatter. Quiet in the environment provides a route to quiet within. Only when I am quiet am I able to listen, not just for a voice, but to listen with my very pores for a sense of the divine. Whether I am sitting in conventional meditation or riding a horse, my inward quiet and awareness provides my chance to hear.  

I'm the kind of person who longs for a regular schedule, but as soon as I come close to achieving one, rebels against it. Living in the country with animals, and at the mercy of weather and changing seasonal chores, I'm probably in little danger of ever achieving that regularity - particularly since I have so many competing interests. Can you sense the rush of thoughts there? What will I do first? What chores have I forgotten? Why don't I have more time to have fun?

The frustration of shortage.
There is an acknowledgement here of the frustration I'm sure others feel, too. I feel the shortage of fellowship keenly at times, whether in ritual or during the flatness of a Sabbat day spent without companions. One of the lessons that has to be accepted from Island life is that shortages are real, and if the Island's only shop is out of butter, no amount of money or complaints can change it, and all must equally go without until the next boat brings more. Some of us may be on this island by choice, others only by circumstance, and others are just visitors to the solitary path.

The need for simplicity.
I have found that ritual, far from adding another "chore" to my list, seems to simplify things. I know what is required, and I can get on with it. Rituals, like recipes, are best carefully chosen, tested and adjusted - but then they become second nature. It's how I learned to bake bread. What initially seemed like a lot of trouble to go through to eat healthier bread is now a straightforward and enjoyable process. This was something of a revelation to me. It happened when I decided to learn a couple of prayers. They were fairly short prayers, and the hard part wasn't learning them, it was remembering to say them. I ended up printing them out, sticking them onto pictures I liked, and putting them on my bedroom walls. It worked, and now these are a comforting and uplifting moment in my day.  As I've shared before, this was the origin of my meditation and prayer cards.

Valuing what you have at hand.
I can see myself doing something similar with the SDF daily devotions. I will value them, and no doubt personalise them, and enjoy knowing that perhaps others are doing something similar. I hope that I may gain a little extra strength to value and use the other gifts I have at hand as a result, and learn to spend a little more time in true "soul-itude."

*edit 2021: The SDF no longer exists.

Thinking about the current new moon, and an appropriate meditation, led me to this. The habit of calling the dark moon the "new moon" causes some confusion because it might seem to describe that sliver of light which soon appears as the waxing crescent, as in this painting. I really intend this kind of meditation to be done around the time of the dark moon. In music, we talk about the importance of the silence between the notes. In the same way, the dark moon is a time of pause, or suspension which defines the light and energy it frames. I also wrote in more detail about The New Moon in a blog post last month.

The terms "full moon" and "new moon" really describe a fleeting moment in the moon's flowing cycle of waxing and waning. Any astronomer or astrologer will tell you that the moon is only truly full or dark for a fraction of a second. As the picture below shows, the changes in the moon's shape always appear on our right as we look at it. So when the full moon begins to wane, the right side appears to be eaten away by darkness, and after the complete darkness of the new moon, the crescent of light begins to appear on the right side of the moon's circle. This flow is nice to understand, in those moments when you glance up at the moon and may wonder "Is it about to be full, or was it fuller yesterday?" and "Is the new moon coming, or has it passed?"

You may have noticed that at the full moon people and animals tend to be restless, more emotional, sleep less, and so on. Tides are higher, there is more crime - everything is powered up and highly charged. So what about the time of the new moon? Generally, this is a time of calm, of waiting. I believe that it is a great time for deep meditation of the "empty mind" type. It is a great time to make peace with ourselves, with our surroundings and with one another in a serene setting - without effort, without discussion. Just to be.

So, personally, I would take the night and day of the darkest moon as a time to do nothing. I would create a still pond on which new impressions and inspirations may be envisioned as that glimmer of light begins to show itself in the coming few days. A sort of internal scrying. Then I might begin to make plans and take actions, working my way toward the full moon when the power is strongest. There is no one right way to work with the moon's power. In some cases, I find that if I have a big, new idea I might only think and plan during an entire waxing period, and after the full moon begins to wane - I might simply let the idea begin to rest and think about it less. Then, as the moon begins to increase again, if the idea has taken root in my heart and mind, I will begin to work on it in a more concrete manner - laying groundwork, planting seeds and working with the increasing energy.

Using the natural flow of the moon's energy in this way is healthy. It allows us times of rest and reflection, times of hard work and achievement. Contemplation and celebration each find their place. Catching hold of the power of the waxing and fuller times of the moon vs taking time to simply open ourselves to the quietest of guidance, and to rest, helps to keep us in balance. In a world where we are told that "we must fulfil our potential" it is easy to feel that we must make things happen, and also easy to give up on them a little and quit trying, to feel like failures, if they don't. Just as we need to find the balance of circadian rhythms of night and day, rest and activity in order to be healthy and productive, so we can also benefit from tuning in more to the rhythm of the moon.

Another way to think about this is in terms of launching boats. Someone launching a little dinghy from the seashore can use the rhythm of the waves to make it easier to get water underneath the boat, and to get a little boost to get moving, too. A larger vessel must wait for the daily tidal changes to be right in order to be safe, perhaps even in order to float. Did I mention that the moon controls the tides?