A couple of nights ago, I had another one of my very intense magical Wizard-type dreams.  I use the term Wizard rather than Witch because sadly, a Witch is still seen as a 'baddie' bitch in our prejudiced patriarchal  populace, while a Wizard is nearly always the cool 'goodie' guy in a tall pointy hat and long white beard. I don't have a tall pointy hat, but the beard is coming along nicely...   It would be good to re-invent the Witch and reveal her as the Wise Woman of the Woods she really is, but as many of us have all too vivid imaginations of flames licking around our knees and dunking stools in icy cold rivers, it feels more comfortable at this time to feminise the Wizard, and use that comfortable, heroic, save-the-day archetype for this little blog...
Anyway - to the dream.
Many people crowding around in a large airy room.  I began to look at the palms of my hands and soon the energy began to flow.  Multi-coloured beams of light, flashing like forks of lightning in an electrical storm, flickered between the central points of my palms - known in Chinese Qi Gong as the 'Laogong' - or the 'Palace of Toil'.  I looked up, and others were also beginning to move the energy in the same way, and soon the whole room was full of Light, flickering and sparking in rainbow colours of great intensity - one between another. In my dream I knew what was going on - I had seen it before, many times. My dream progressed into tumbling, vibrant images, too complicated to process with a waking mind, and soon morning came, and the late summer sun lit up my curtains with a fire so bright they looked like they had been woven with threads of pure gold.
This laogong Light, this energy in the palms of our hands, holds incredible power.  This is the power that moves mountains and creates worlds.  This is the timeless, infinite energy of which we all are part.  This is the Universal Life Force that flows without end through every being that lives, has ever lived, or ever will live across all time, space, realities and dimensions.   It exists within and without.  We cannot know it or understand it, we can only accept it IS. 
In dreams all things are possible, and so it is.  We forget, when waking life seems so solid and permanent, that what we perceive exists only because we believe it does.  Nothing is real, except the Energy of Life. Nothing is real except this.  What is this?  It is what it is... It's Love   

Dawn the other morning... Nature's masterpiece, painted from stillness and with complete perfection. Once you're out of bed, Nature always offers up a reward, and sometimes it is so beautiful it will take your breath away!
I've been too busy lately - I feel I have had no time for the simple things.  Those little things that earn no money, but for me hold the greatest value. Being all alone, sitting in a field of buttercups waiting for the sun to rise, watching the river, listening to the birds - these are just some of the things that make me feel totally at peace, and also in a sense, bring me 'home'.  It is in these moments that I know I am always in the right place at the right time, and no matter what life seems to throw at me, all is exactly as it should be. 
It is so easy to slip when one thing after another comes along and apparently knocks us sideways. When under pressure, we soon forget that we are here and alive for very good purpose.  The Universe always organises itself to perfection, way down and beyond the tiniest traceable particle, and all things within and without hold massive significance to the whole.  We wouldn't be here unless we were part of that universal significance.  We are meant to be here.
I was listening to someone lately, who described us as the central sun of our own unique Universe.  All things, events, time, space and experience, flow and spin around us like a wheel, with us as the axis.  Everything that happens in our Universe happens because we draw it towards us.  We are both transmitter and receiver, beaming out our desires, worries, fears and hopes, and drawing towards us everything which is in alignment with those wishes - both good and not so good. Our thoughts, words and actions are these wishes, and like it or not, everything that comes along arrives because we, on some level, have requested it.
This feels true to me.  I get this.  I have seen too much evidence of it in my life to refute it. When we have no compassion for ourselves or others, none is shown to us.  When we send out the message that we are unloveable, it is always reflected back with indifference.  We truly are that powerful.
It is easy really... so easy! And yet, so difficult too, because the mind won't allow the simplicity of it.  The mind does not want to let go of what has already happened.  It identifies so strongly with the past, it projects all of it into the future, and so heavily influences the present moment.  No longer are we the clean, white canvas of childhood.  Now we are splattered with the bloody experiencies of our past. 
No matter how I try to white-wash my present day, colours of my history bleed through constantly - they will not be hidden.  
White-washing doesn't work!  A new canvas would - but that's for next time around!  In this life, what do we do?
I believe our task it to paint a constantly refreshed new picture with the colours we already have.  All of them are who we are, all of them are unique.  All of them are the shades of our particular resonance - without them being as they are, we would not be US.
Our picture is our song, our signature, our essence.  It is for us to craft it into a masterpiece of such significance, the Universe - that is us - will bend to our desire with grace.  We cannot forget the past, and that is as it should be because we lived it with purpose, but, like lumps of formless clay we can use it with awareness to create something of great beauty and meaning for us now. 
As our Universe spins never-endingly around us, we can consciously simplify our personal vibration and output - blend the past, soften the shades of our bitterest memories - and take the time to gently mold our moments with loving attention, therefore constantly crafting the Life of our Dreams.    
  

I asked the question on my facebook page this morning...  'How much do you want change?  And what are you prepared to face to allow that change?'
This question (of course), I am really asking of myself...  How much do I really want the change I say I do?  How brave am I prepared to be to allow that change to come?
Being stuck, like so many of us are, means wearing a straight jacket 24/7 for years and years and years...  And the weird thing is, that straight jacket is the most comfortable item we have ever worn. So comfortable in fact, it seems to offer a protective layer against... well, everything.   It offers' comfort', and makes me think I am 'able' to go about my business knowing exactly who I am, and what I can or cannot do. For so long I have worn it, I cannot imagine a life without it.  I think it is me.
When life... the universe... god... whatever... nudges you - and it will in the end, make no mistake! - the first stirrings of awakening begin, and just like in the Matrix movie, the full realisation of the constraints of this straight jacket, turn it from a cosy blanket of comfort into a barbed wire overcoat. All of a sudden, we realise we have been existing inside the loving embrace of an iron maiden.
Who put this iron maiden in place?  What does it consist of?  How is it to be gone?
The iron maiden is every negative thought, belief and idea we have about ourselves and the world of our creation.  We put it there.  We installed it. We even signed up for an annual servicing agreement, to make sure it stays fully functioning.  We love it.
Yesterday, my beautiful autistic daughter (who always speaks the Truth - she knows no other way of being) - told me in her special way, that I talk so much of inspiration and self awareness, of hope and light and joy, but that she never thinks I really mean it.  She told me I do not live the words I spout so freely every day.  She told me - in essence - that I am a liar and a fake.  
She is right.
My straight jacket felt so uncomfortable last night.  It hurt me like it's never hurt before.  Bitterness rubbed painful blisters around my neck and anger pressed hard against my back. Regret and resentment restricted me so much, I couldn't take a full breath. For the first time, I felt the ties of this thing I wear, cutting into me.  The old wounds split open and I bled.
We have to go there...  If we really want change, we have to go there.  It doesn't mean years in coumselling therapy, it just means acknowledging and admitting we hold these things close.  It just means looking at our soul without the filters in place.  It means - for me at least - to set aside the nice girl who does the right thing, who always does as she is told for fear of guilt and judgment.  It means standing emotionally naked - it means looking at the truth. 
What else is possible, eh?       
     

In my garden, magical things are happening... It's April in England, and all around something seemingly beyond our true understanding is  coarsing through the fibres of every living thing.  Like an unstoppable river, whose power comes from the very cosmos itself, the World is waking up to the sound of Nature's drum.  Stepping outside you can see it, sense it, feel it and even hear it. Dew dressed bluebells are vibrant in the morning mists, primroses smile out from the undergrowth, and the tiny buds appearing on the Hazel tree are absolutely loaded with unimaginable potential.  The air itself feels pregnant... In the hush that isn't quiet at all, the sound of Life pulsing and crackling through the woods, the fields, the moors and meadows, makes me shiver with excitement - Life is changing from pure energy into manifestation of form... and it does so effortlessly. 
We often forget it, and usually deny it, but all this magic, all this power, all this purest energy is coarsing through us too.  We try to separate ourselves from other living things, cut ourselves off, and deny our origins in the stars, but Nature speaks quietly and incessently in the stillness, whether we are listening or not.  Why are we so frightened of her whispers?  Are we scared of the power we hold?  Does the thought of infinity, endless energy, and non-separation from everything, terrify us so much we remain constantly in a state of partial paralysis?   
We work so hard to keep in separation. We exhaust ourselves with the effort it takes to hold back the will of the Universe. We virtually choke ourselves to death in our attempt to keep apart from Life.  When it rains we put up our umbrellas, throw on our coats and curse our luck for getting wet.  We shout at our children to 'get inside quick!' - as if the touch of life-giving water could burn their skin... We tell them off for getting muddy, for getting wet - for playing with nature and her gifts.  We frighten them into believing the kiss of real Life is harmful and should be feared.  We deny them their Truth.
But Truth, and Life, will out...
In the end, we all come to understand... we all 'let go' sooner or later.  When we do, the real ride surely begins, and if we should care - which I'm sure we won't - we might wonder why we spent so much of our lives in such pain.  As energy flows as it is meant to - unfettered, unblocked and endlessly in motion - the limitations, restrictions and fears must fall away, and the bliss, the rush, and the joy of the truth of existence must finally reveal itself.
For this is the eternal Truth.  The Truth that Nature kindly shows us in every flower, in every leaf, and in every blade of grass when we take our courage and step outside of our houses, our cars and our mind-made need to feel safe.  When we move closer to her, when we allow her to reach out into us and blend with us, we can see and feel how she just grows and grows.  She never stops growing and she never stops flowing, because the will of the Universe is behind her.