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Photo by Vincent van Zalinge

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Embodying the Mystery

The body knows how to find Mystery. I had an experience recently that exemplified this in a very real way.

I had had a long and arduous day in front of the screen, the kind of day where I ended up feeling tight, disconnected, and not in touch with my body. I knew that I needed to move and be outside.

Around half an hour before dusk I set off on a walk up towards the moor. I needed to walk fairly fast in order to come back into my body and feel it in a tangible, strong way again. I did not make a decision with my mind about where I would go, I just let my body lead me. Some connective practices that I am aware of, and that I myself, use the term Body Radar to describe how we can allow the body to lead us where it wants to go, and not where our minds and usual strategies might have us go. This way of being involves body awareness. To also then bring in a layer of sensory awareness gives a depth of connection to the experience, which I can't recommend enough.

As I rounded a small rise in the landscape a heron lifted himself slowly off the ground. Now, this is no small thing for me. The heron has become a significant feature in my psyche and experience of myself for the last year and it was only the day before that I realised I hadn't seen one yet this year. There's way more I could say about the gift of heron but that is not the point of this thread. It is important though to know that it is the encounter here with this one that brings about a sense of Otherness. That something bigger than me is at play, is trying to get my attention, is trying to have its way with me. I often refer to this something as the Mystery. I feel as if I am an apprentice to Mystery, that I do my best to stay attentive to It because my experience tells me that this will serve me and, therefore, others and the planet in ways that being disconnected with It will not.

It occurs to me very clearly then that the best way to stay in service to the Mystery is to stay in connection with my body and let it lead me where it wants to go, and not to let the conditioned part of me take over and tell me where I should go. That won't lead me to where the magic is. I am willing to risk saying that the alchemy, the real gifts, the significant encounters that carry deeper meaning, will always be found when the conditioning gets out of the way. The conditioned self is simply not available to Otherness.

So, I dare you to follow your body's will and see how the Mystery wants to play with you. What surprises, what bewildering, enchanting messages might if offer when you offer yourself to It when you get out of the way of yourself?  From a place below and beyond the brain?

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The Power of ‘no’

It is becoming clear to me that part of our 'stepping up' and 'showing up' in conscious and authentic ways includes a) recognising our needs and b) stating what they are. Easier said than done. But not impossible.  

I have had so many conversations over the years with people who find it hard (and I include myself in this) to say 'no'.  It is not our fault that this is something that we find hard.  It is not our fault that the 'yes' comes so much easier than the 'no'.

I am referring here to those familiar situations where someone asks something of us and, although we are already stretched, or tired, or simply don't feel connected with the thing they are asking support for, we generally end up saying 'yes'. Why?  Because our conditioning has taught us that this is the 'right' thing to do. On a deeper level, and on a level that concerns our individual as well as our collective psyche, we want to be loved.  If we say 'no' our conditioned and, dare I suggest, our wounded selves, fear that we might be rejected, not loved, or worse still, disliked and judged for being selfish.

So, this is no easy task is it?  It is not easy to find the courage to speak this truth for we think we are risking our social status, and our deep and very human need to be loved.  

What if we began to start to talk about this more and with more people so that we had the possibility of looking at this differently?  What if just by talking about it (and blogging about it) we began to slowly and tentatively build enough trust to try it out with each other?  There's a small chance the collective psyche around this issue might shift.  

Can you imagine a culture where when someone says 'no' to us as a response to a request, we accept this in the knowledge that this person is taking care of his or her needs and in so doing are exemplifying something that might look like, “I am saying no to you and saying yes to myself because I know that self care is one of the most radical gifts I can offer myself, the rest of humanity and the planet.   By being with myself in this way I am honouring myself and  I am not in any way dishonouring you.  I love you and I need to take care of myself right now. It is not my responsibility how you feel about my choice.”

I see it as being lovingly boundaried and a deeper step towards ourselves and a more authentic way of living with each other.

It is important to say that I wish to be super discerning with myself and not simply go for the 'no' because I can't be bothered or because it is becoming a familiar and socially acceptable response – like this radical new way of being with each other gives me a get-out-clause.

I want the 'no' to come from a place that is really connected to myself and not from a place of disassociation or numbing out to life.  Some situations can be tough and, whilst I may be feeling tired or not having a huge amount of time available, it may still be within my power and energy to give something to the situation.  I still have a wish to show up in ways that make a difference or that mean I am being of help.  And my body and nervous system have limits.  It would be convenient if they didn't, but they do.  So I listen and I work within my limits.

Here's the thing ~ it is our responsibility to do the inner work around our potential feeling of rejection or being judged.  It is not the responsibility of the person who responds in this way to our request.

It is also our responsibility to discern whether or not it is the moment to say 'yes' or to say 'no'. Only we can know this for ourselves.  This is not by any means anyone elses responsibility.

It comes down to our listening and our self awareness. It also comes down to the courage to take the  risk of not being liked, of being judged, or rejected.  Tough, yet crucial to our evolution as a species.

It is also my experience that when trying out something new it can come out a little clonkily, not so skillfully or graciously. So, I invite you to be patient and compassionate with yourself and with each other if you begin trying this out, or even as you continue to take this radical risk.

I leave this with you and I wish you well with your explorations of your loving 'no'.

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Gratitude without Attachment?

I had the opportunity recently to fall in love again with the Buddhist philosophy of non-attachment during an Animas Valley Institute program in Scotland. We had spent the morning unsuspectingly creating a 'bundle' of things that were totally unique to us as individuals. Things we were born with ~ gifts, fascinations, passions, qualities, skills even.  We got ourselves a list, a sense, a clearer picture via deep imagery of what our Mytho Poetic* identity was and I, for one, was starting to feel good about that.  Deeply moved and excited in fact.

Then we were instructed to go out to the land, find somewhere that both scared and allured us. Somewhere that made us feel unsafe, uncomfortable, uneasy (not physically but psychologically). Then we were to let go of our attachment to the bundle we had been gathering all morning.

Wow! Game changer!  Ok, I get it....... I felt excited about this potential release of what I then realised was a burden I'd been carrying.

After some meanderings I came to a place where there was a long, deep and dark drop.  It was actually both physically and psychologically scary.

I spent some time there and entered in to a conversation with the place and myself.  I don't need to share all of what happened there but I did let go of my attachment to my Mytho Poetic identity.  And it was so liberating!  I felt such a huge relief afterwards.

Now, this is something I have spent years crafting, honing, and praying for so in this process I realised just how much I had been grasping to it all like a linch-pin to any meaning of my existence.

I realised something else which leaves me slightly on edge ~ through my commitment to giving thanks, to always showing my appreciation to the Mystery for showing me the gifts I am here to share and, more often recently, giving me the opportunity to share them, I have become more attached to the gifts. Through the very act of saying Thank You I have unconsciously become more attached not only to the gifts but also to my sharing of them. It's as if, by expressing my gratitude, some kind of ownership has developed. That thing has become more mine than it was.  

I am left wondering how to then be in the place of gratitude without getting attached to the thing I am expressing gratitude for?

A practice ensues. A new way of being with my soul identity, the thread I was born to live, and giving thanks for that without any expectation that it will remain that way, or that it in some way has a hallmark on it (despite the Mystery – in it's imaginal, not-too-straight-forward-kind-of-way - telling me that it has just that).  Not only that, but if I am to adhere to the Buddhist way (and I would wish to follow their lead on this one – goodness knows they've done the research!) then I would want to look into my relationship to myself as an entity. To imagine that I am those gifts and to identify with this being called Rebecca in such a strong way is to miss out on the gift of their teachings on Emptiness: that nothing in and of itself exists.  And the only real way of realising Emptiness (without having a rare, one-off enlightment experience) is to meditate. A lot.  

I used to do this and I am willing to do this again – longing to in fact. And yet, I am curious to find out if it is possible to offer thanks and hold the awareness that I am not actually my Mytho Poetic identity. Indeed, that there is no identity whatsoever. Boom!  Give thanks with a quality of lightness. Notice how I am offering the gratitude – do I want more?  Is there a stuck, slightly tight feeling around the thanks? Does it feel like I am trying to own what I am thankful for?

Well, that's the best I can do. For now.  And some day soon I will be sitting back on the cushion, eyes closed, breathing in, breathing out, until that is all there is. No me, no identity, no thing. Just an immense gratitude.

*the term Mytho Poetic was coined by Daniel Deardorff in his book 'The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in myth, culture and psyche' and eludes to the part of each of us that is the completely unique creative expression of soul.

I leave you with the glorious poem by William Stafford named The Way It Is ~

There is a thread that you follow.  It goes among

things that change.  But it doesn't change.

People wonder what it is you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can't get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.

You don't ever let go of the thread.

[wildcard-love]

to ‘find somewhere that both scared and allured us. Somewhere that made us feel unsafe, uncomfortable, uneasy......’

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Mandala created during an Art of Mentoring South West Regional Gathering, Dartmoor, Devon, Britain, September 2014.

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Reclaiming our Indigenous Wisdom

I think I am unusual. I can find a confidence inside that allows me to take risks. This confidence allows me to initiate things that I feel passionate about and because I see their worth in the world.  I can do this even if I think I don't know what I'm doing.

The backstory ~ back in the depths of winter I was walking on the land of the South Downs in Sussex. I was in the middle of holding a Medicine Walk and I had a chance to go out for all of 20 minutes.  I had my own medicine walk.  I was standing amongst some hawthorns and looking out across the rolling downland and a voice from who-knows-where said, “Stoking the ancestral fires.”

That was it.  The feeling was powerful. Like something ancient to my bones had landed in me.  I had had the feeling before but it had become distant.  This time it stayed.

I had no idea what I was meant to do with those words and their meaning but I sat with them and let them dream me.

It didn't take long to realise that at least part of what I was to do with them was to initiate grief tending ceremonies in our local community and that this offering would be a step towards a bigger collective initiative that would hold a sense of 'the village' – that which our very ancestors lived, breathed, laughed, cried, birthed and died within.  It is the village that has been lost and it is the feeling of belonging that goes with the village that many of us are now grieving.  We don't know where our tribe is. We don't have a central fire to gather around and call 'hearth' (notice that the words heart and earth are both in this word). We wander, lost like orphans, going from place to place never quite feeling like it's the 'right' place. We are longing for ensoulment of the land and of self. And somewhere, far back before industrialisation, our ancestors had this.

So, my manifesto, if you like, that was given to me that grey February day, is one of finding a way back to a future that provides the possibility for ensoulment and for re~claiming our sense of belonging to this land and the people that inhabit it.  For this to happen we need to gather together.  We need to be in ceremony as well as simply be around a fire together, making and shaping things with our hands, using them like the ones in the old stories.  We need to tell stories to each other, sing songs, cook local and foraged food and eat together.

First though, as I mentioned before, there is a need to tend the grief – and that needs to include the grief of those ancestors who had their land taken from them or who experienced loss of many kinds.

How do we do that?  How do I hold that for others?  I have not had training. I have not had elders to show me the way, nothing has been handed down to me.  So I feel my way in the dark. I learn to trust. I have to trust my deep knowing. I have to trust my intuition, my sense of ceremony and what is needed in the moment.

This feels hard at times and yet it feels like exactly the right thing to do.  I believe as part of our healing as a culture, it is necessary to go through the discomfort of feeling our way in the dark for a while.  The songs of our language and this land are waiting to be sung. I feel like I owe it to the land and those who have gone before.

All the time we take the songs of other cultures we are not really embracing, or indeed reclaiming, our true inheritance. I imagine that our ancestors had to intuit and make it up as they went along for some of the time – they didn't always have something handed to them in a neat package.  I believe in listening and responding to the field and that requires something less prescriptive than is often offered through trainings and certain traditions.  One of my teachers of cultural healing and grief work, Francis Weller, speaks to this beautifully in his courageous book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow.  He writes, 

‘While we have much to learn from indigenous cultures about forms of rituals and how ritual works, we cannot simply adopt their rituals and settle them neatly onto our psyches. It is important that we listen deeply, once again, to the dreaming earth and craft rituals that are indigenous to us, that reflect our unique patterns of wounding and disconnection from the land.’

Now, I am willing to suggest that I have a tendency to be a rebellious teenager who doesn't want to be told what to do, yet, the stronger inclination is towards supporting a strident, empowered village who listens to the land and it's people and responds through ceremony or otherwise and that this could be described as reclaiming our indigenous wisdom.  In my opinion, this is much more powerful and empowering than taking on the wisdom of other cultures.

Our recent Community Grief Tending ceremony on Dartmoor felt like proof that this way of trusting can work.  It feels as if it's happening; we are intuiting our way back to something that makes sense, that is steeped in our connection to the land and holds the potential for healing just by its very existence.

I will continue to walk the path of re~membering and of stoking the ancestral fires and, when you feel ready, I will walk with you on that path.

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A polite Thank you Vs Embodied Gratitude

The entire ethos around having 'good manners' and 'being polite', of which I was diligently brought through childhood and then something resembling adulthood with, always made me feel suspicious.  I did what I was told, it's true, and yet there was something underneath the words that didn't sit in a place of truth for me.  

I have been a seer of truth for as long as I can remember.  And that is not always a comfortable or easy role to uphold.  And yet I don't know any other way.  I would be the one at the edge of the school playground standing, looking, trying to work out what was supposed to be going on and what was my place in it?  Nobody gave me an instruction manual and none of the competitive games and often unkind ways of speaking made sense to the truth-seeker in me.

There was an unnaturalness in the words that made me feel uncomfortable, stiff, contracted, even.  The area I wish to focus on specifically right now is the adult/child relationship. It is important to say that within this exploration there is a deep and authentic gratitude for the support and kindness I received as a child, in many ways that are not mentioned here.

I was 'supposed' to say 'thank you'.  'Thank you for having me', 'thank you for dinner', 'thank you for my present', etc, etc. If I didn't say thank you I was being rude, ill-mannered, ungrateful.  Yet I could smell the inauthenticity even at a young age. I felt like a puppet for someone else's conditioning that was not in alignment to something more natural.

In some cultures there is not a word for thank you. India is one of them and I have had the great initiation of spending time on her formidable soil on many occasions and for long periods of time.

They don't understand why the word 'thank you' is used nor what, indeed, it means.  There are many lessons to be learnt from visiting that land and this was one of the less gruelling ones for me.

I explored what it was not to say thank you.  It was edgy.  After practicing this for some years on and off I came to realise that 'thank you' can be said in many ways – the actual words themselves, and literally, in different ways, or different words.  Sometimes that is the best way in order to get by without offending or hurting feelings.  After all, it isn't the words themselves that are the issue, it is the attitude, or quality behind them.

Having developed a practice of gratitude over recent years and looked into what that means and feels like I see that at last, I have found the deeper, truer response to someone or something showing, expressing or giving me something.  I am beginning to notice what gratitude feels like in the body.  It feels connecting, light in the solar plexus, a feeling of warmth in the belly.

I wish to embody gratitude, to live it rather than say a polite thank you because that is what is expected of me.

What does this look like?  For me, this means a certain graciousness in my actions; doing things yes, because they need doing, and more importantly, because I want to do them, offering from a place of connection, praise where my heart wishes to place it.  In short, the living of gratitude comes from the heart and its sense of connection.  

When I make a practice of speaking my gratitude and also of hearing the gratitude of others I feel more connected to them.  And this is a very different thing to the expectation of saying thank you when someone has done something for you, or given you something. This is a connective way of coming together. Here, there is an intentional quality that has praise and an intimacy with life at it’s core.

It is true to say that there is a innate and tender marriage of gratitude and grief. The two really do go together, and that's another blog story..........

I bow deeply for your receiving of these words.

Rebecca

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Here’s the link to the website if you’re interested.........

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Badgers follow the same trails as their ancestors.  They know the routes they need to take in order to find food, water, good lodging.........what would it be to take this medicine and go the way of our ancestors - the ones who knew what they needed, and how they needed to get there...? The ones who knew their original instruction and made sure that was met.

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Bringing the Sit-spot home

I get a tingle in my body and a feeling of aliveness in me when I hear Jon Young of the 8 Shields Institute talking about 'bringing the sit-spot home'.  What does he mean by this?  For me, this means taking the feeling, or the quality, that I experience when in nature into my daily-life, that may not be in nature, although very close to it.  The feeling in my body when I listen to a wren singing, or watch a deer grazing, or find a badger track in the mud. I have many names for that feeling and today I name that feeling connection. It is to take the experience of connection with me even when I'm sitting at the computer, just as I am right now.

This morning, for example, I was out for a wander (in the 8 Shields model this is the timeless, relaxed place of the South West), following my body radar, rather than my mind.  I sat in a place that feels like my sit-spot and listened, watched, felt, and smelt. I dropped my awareness below the brain, I became more aware of my body and my senses. After sometime of sitting I let myself be drawn towards a gate I had never seen before, then along the brook which is just next to the gate.  In my timeless wandering I became aware of sheep skulls and I was reminded of  the presence of death in this life.  This, in turn, brought gratitude for this moment, this life, this very morning. I saw a white horse hair hanging from a branch which, for me, brings a very particular medicine.  I became aware of all the myriad creatures that inhabit that piece of land.  At a certain point of the brook I crossed and it felt like a beach with all its stones, so I began searching on the ground – for nothing in particular.  I found a clear quartz stone which I then washed in the ice-cold water. I felt connected to the snow that is now melting on the high moor and into this brook, as well as many other brooks, fords, streams and rivers.  I felt connected to the oceans that this water flows into, and then all the waters of this earth since all the oceans are connected. I acknowledged the water in my own body. I gave thanks for the quartz and for the water.

I walked into and then through the woods, and over a small bridge.  On the other side of the bridge, in the mud, there were animal tracks – fox, squirrel (or rabbit?), and then a badger print. It's been a while since I have seen a badger print.  I felt connected to that creature again. In my mind I imagined it's low, heavy body close to the ground, determined and tenacious. I felt those attributes in my own body and then the connection came.  Connection to what? A badger? Why is the feeling of connection to a badger so important?  Why is connection important?

Without the experience of connection I feel separate. The experience of separation brings despair, deep pain from the wound of childhood and beyond, and this leads to dysfunctional behavour. My contract with Life did not have me agree to the continuation of this pattern.  Indeed, it might be true to say that we all have this agreement with Life. Perhaps this is the Original Instruction that is spoken of in some Nature Connection circles.  Perhaps our original instruction is to come into a deep and honest connection with nature so that we may come into a deep connection with ourselves and, therefore, each other.

Is it possible that our original instruction is to transform these dysfunctional patterns of the individual and the collective that did not meet our longings in order that a functional, intact story is created?

I did not stay at my sit-spot very long.  I am seeing more and more that it does not need to be a sit-spot experience that brings these feelings.  It is the quality of timelessness and quiet mind that enables the connectivity to occur. It doesn't matter how this is achieved. It need only be 15 – 20 minutes.  It might even be a few seconds.  Like the brief privilege of hearing the sound of the raven's wings as it flies overhead.  That might be all it takes to drop into quiet mind, a sense of the other-than-human-world, a sense of Mystery, and connection to all things animate and inanimate.

Coming back inside I stay close to the feeling that all those encounters brought me.  A feeling of aliveness in my cells, brightness in my core.  It is these feelings, these qualities that are essential to my being in connection with myself, to being in relationship to my fellow humans.  Isn't this, then, the real reason to go to the sit-spot, or to wander in the natural world?  Because it has the potential to bring us, well, into a natural state.  One that, at it's very foundation, carries the essence of peacefulness, equanimity, and truth, all of which bring human relating beyond the realm of dysfunctional behavour. Friends, I dare to suggest that we could choose to spend time in nature not just because it makes us feel good and so that we can experience blissful states. We can choose to spend time in nature so that we can become better human beings and so that the world we are then interacting with and part of also becomes a better place.

If you are interested in nature connection and cultural repair you may like to visit the 8 Shields site:

#http://8shields.org/

[wildcard-love]

The Beauty of the Wound

To add to this last piece on the Sacred Wound ~  it is important, too, for me to share the experience of the beauty of the wound; the love of it that I feel because of seeing it's vulnerability and that, in turn, brings with it a sense of beauty.

And so, on a deeper level still, I see how this being different was, up to a certain point in my life, seen by others as a difficult, even negative thing and certainly so in the environment in which I grew up.   The Black Sheep, the one that was different, etc, is not something to hide away in wild places (disguising it as a strong, self-sufficient, powerful young woman) and be in a non-trust pattern, but rather something to honour, celebrate and welcome fully for all the gifts she is able to bring to the world – whether in the 'guide' or 'facilitator' role or not......... Now, thankfully, I see how this being different is not difficult, or negative, more something to cherish, something that is positive, and yes, beautiful.

I leave you today with a poem ~

Finally

Finally on my way to yes

I bump into

All the places

Where I said no

To my life.

All the unintended wounds

The red and purple scars

Those hieroglyphs of pain

Carved into my skin and bones,

Those coded messages

That sent me down

The wrong street

Again and again.

Where I find them,

The old wounds

The old misdirections,

And lift them

One by one

Close to my heart

And I say

Holy

Holy

Holy

~ Persha Gerstler

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Grief & Gratitude ~ unearthing the Sacred Wound

There is a fine line between the layers of grief and the layers of gratitude.  I recently sat with myself as an adult now in communication with my younger, wounded self – the one who knows the pattern of being on the outside of things, of not belonging, of not being welcomed, heard, encouraged, and of being told she is 'different'.  That was a heavy and dangerous burden to carry, the likes of which are still (as being told here) a work in progress. This Black Sheep wound (as I now tenderly call it) had created an aspect of myself that has protected me from being hurt and disappointed by the world (this aspect is sometimes called The Loyal Soldier).  I became 'self-sufficient', I didn't need anyone's help, 'I can do it myself', etc, as well as going off to wild places alone to get away from the world that I couldn't trust or where I didn't feel safe emotionally.  I am happy to say that this aspect of myself was noticed quite some years ago and is being gently kept in-check.  The important work now is to accept the wound.

On this day recently I was in another layer of the grief around having been given this wound, this pattern, and in there, at the very source-point of the grief, I found gratitude. Gratitude for being given this wound.  Without this wound I would not have developed the capacity to feel deep compassion, to really wish to hear and be fully present to others, to welcome, to honor the gifts of others and to have a heightened awareness around inclusivity.  And for the work as a guide and council facilitator, this is a gift.  

I finally saw the old story of Black Sheep as the Sacred Wound – the one that brings forth all that is essential to the role of guide, facilitator and ceremonialist from having a particular childhood wound that has been worked through enough to not get tangled in the mess of it but to acknowledge and accept it instead.  The wounds do not go away – we just get better (potentially) at being with them.

In those moments of tenderness with myself, I experienced the subtle intimacy of grief and gratitude and just how important it is to acknowledge both.  In there, I find movement. Not stuck, heavy, burdensome stories. In there, I find the possibility of stepping fully into my role as a guide, and in service to my people. This way of stepping into the role has a deeper level of authenticity that feels real and transparent.  

For this journey, I acknowledge the depth of grief that has had to be visited, and I feel incredible gratitude for the gifts it allows me to share with the world.

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Our Part in the Whole

Let Rumi speak first ~

Out beyond all ideas Of right and wrong doing There is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass The world is too full to speak about. Ideas, language, even the words ‘Each other’ Don’t make any sense.

So if, as Rumi says, there is no wrong or right, what can we expect of ourselves in the challenges of human dynamics? The complex weave of inter relational fabric requires of us to unpick any strands of the psyche that are not serving the field of conscious evolution and offer them up for our growthful communion with each other. We all have a part to play in this Divine Comedy called Life. When I offer to someone something that is difficult for me about our connection, or the communication within the connection, I may have an expectation that, whilst I’m awkwardly owning my part in the story they will, in due course, do the same.  However, this is not always the case. I have to do my part and expect nothing back. I just try to remember what is helpful. What do I mean by helpful? Helpful, to me, means what is going to serve the field? What is going to allow us to unravel the patterns? Us. Together. We’re in it. We have, as individuals, a responsibility. To life, to ourselves, to each other. A responsibility that is not laden with a weighty, gruelling set of tasks and rules, but conversely, one that can be approached with dignity and lightness. One that speaks to the potential in each of us. One that knows better than to take it personally. This quality of recognising our responsibility feels to me like a natural response to life for giving us life.  And it works both ways - in other words, speaking our part and not then being willing to hear the other persons part is as much a refusal to own the interconnectedness of things as not owning our part in the micro story we’re involved in.  The micro is inextricably linked to the macro, that’s the point. There is a Higher Goodness that waits for its recognition in all of us and the simple (though by no means comfortable) act of owning our part is one of the many cogs in the wheel of human kind’s potential transformation on this planet, at this time. Part of the responsibility for me then, is to remember that the other person may not recognise this and, therefore, simply may not be ready to offer up their particular strand of unhelpful patterning. They just might need to keep hold of it for now.  And for me to remember that this, too, is part of the Whole, even if part of me wants to change, or refuse it.

For All Our Relations

Rebecca