A story of serendipity and stones

A Story of Serendipity and Stones

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to trust life more? To let go of the planning brain just a little to yield a tiny bit more to our current changed circumstances. What would it be like to yield to the great unfolding that is your life? These are question I have been sitting with more and more in recent times.

I got a bit of a head start with the whole ‘life being turned upside down with COVID’ situation when a couple of years ago I was told I needed brain surgery. I have written about this in previous blogs-how on receiving the news from my wonderful neurosurgeon, I felt myself leaving my body and I knew life was never going to be the same again. Brain surgery thankfully has not come to pass. Instead my life is now punctuated with brain scans which keep me close to the temporary nature of life and regularly dislodges the illusion of permanency from my way of seeing. This has given me the gift of a little more courage. It is easier to say F*** it and yes to more ferocity when you are faced with your own mortality so frequently.

Serendipity

When I look back on these two years there are so many serendipitous moments that it is hard not to imagine a guiding hand of some sort or a calling home to what I am here to do. For example, the branch of the oak trees in my garden fell on a wonderful woman’s car. As a result, we have become good friends and she introduced me to a Celtic shamanic path of learning which has deepened my connection to the resource of nature.

One of the things I have found intriguing about the shamanic way of seeing is the invitation to see death from a different perspective, to befriend death and see it more in the natural cycle of all things. To examine how death and birth sit together, reminding us of when we are born into the world there is also a death – an ending to being in the safe space of the womb so birth is a death and death is a birth. Sitting with the notion that she or he who lives well has many deaths in their lifetime stirred my soul. In fact, one interpretation of the word Shaman is he or she who puts herself/himself in the fire of transformation many times.

Celtic shamanism celebrates that there is always part of us calling us forward to a new way of being and in order to ‘live into this’ it is necessary to let go of something, to make space - to let something within us die. This of course is not always easy, letting go of things, loss and grief can bring heartbreak that we have a deep programming to avoid. As the snake shows us the need to rub up against the stones to shed it’s skin, our shedding requires some rubbing up against our own ‘beautiful reluctancy’ (as David Wythe puts it).

Stones

So let me tell you a story of stones and how it has helped me in my own beautiful reluctance to shed and befriend death. This might sound a little strange to your logical brain. I am sure it would have sounded strange to me too at some point. Perhaps, however an ancestral memory is being stirred in  some part of you,  when we were more connected to the elements. To give you a little context, walking a Celtic shamanic path can include working with stones, each of which holds a sacred part of your journey.

All the stones are of your own choosing and it’s in conversation with them, that they show themselves in their roles. One of the roles for a stone to fill is your destiny stone. My destiny stone was this rather beautiful malachite stone, if you look closely you can see different spirals on it. A curious thing happened a while back. It actually split completely in two and then, sometime later, in three.

Now in my psychology training I was taught to pay attention to what comes into ‘the field’ so I sensed there was something in this, but I was not sure what, so I sought the wise counsel of one of my teachers. As we looked together, we explored the concept of me being at a mid-life point (I am 45), a threshold of sorts. Through a process of working with the split stone I started to give space and a listening ear to what wanted more life within in me - working more with natural rhythms, bringing people to working in a natural structure (yurt), honouring my granny by extending a welcome to all aspects of a person, working in circles and kindling a remembering of people’s own wisdom, growing into being the integrator of different disciplines and mothering in a different way as my three boys grow into wonderful, young men. I also gave space to listen to what wanted to be let go of - crippling self-doubt, work that no longer fitted (that I was becoming ‘stale’ at), trying to work at too fast a pace, a measure of success that was holding me back.

I also worked to cultivate patience for being in the void, this in-between space - still living what I was letting go of and not quite grown into what wants more life. Perhaps we are always somewhere in this journey with different aspects of our life- letting go, being in the void and moving forward. I love what David Wythe says about some part of us is already living our future, already on the other side of the river, calling to us to cross over.

So in these early February days the Celtic wheel turns to early Spring, marked by the return of the light, buds on the trees, new shoots, snowdrops and birdsong.

What wants more life within you?

What part of you is already across the river beckoning you to cross?

In Celtic wisdom, Spring is synonymous with the element of air; it is connected to birds and their ability to rise above and see things from a different perspective- what would an eagle’s view of your life show you?

What are the new shoots in your life that are ready to break through the earth, ready for your gentle tending to their young vulnerability, giving them time and space in your life, nurturing them as they grow?

What would it be like to trust a little more the unfolding of your life?