Wisdom of the Ancestors at the Spring Equinox

On February 4th I went on a journey, an adventure to pastures new. I set out across the Ocean to the land my Ancestors travelled to more than 60 years ago. I embarked on this journey not knowing where it would bring me, not knowing really what was pulling me to go, not knowing what to expect. As unknown as my journey was I did have resources to help guide me. I had my friend who I was going to visit. I had the internet to scroll through to get an idea of where I was going. I was entering the unknown with some knowledge of where I would land. My ancestors embarked on this journey of no return with only the courage of hope that they would find a better life. I reflected on this as I set off on my solo journey, to the land once known as the Land of Opportunity, where the opportunities are now limited.

My ancestors set out on a similar voyage over 60 years ago. They set out into the unknown territory of what was waiting for them. They did not know if they would ever set foot on Irish Soil again. They took the risk of going to a new country in the hope of finding a better life. The courage it took to go somewhere without any knowledge of where they were going made me reflect on how ancestral energy flows through my body. The courage, the dream, the hope, the vision of a better life made possible by taking the leap of faith, just like the Fool in the Tarot. This is the balance the Spring Equinox offers us. The balance between the unknown and the known. We naturally want to go towards the known as the unknown can be scary. The discomfort that the unknown brings, the uncertainty it brings yet we are living in discomfort and uncertainty on a daily basis with the turmoil of the world. How can we find comfort in the discomfort? How can we find certainty in the uncertainty? How can we bring the known into the unknown? These are questions I am reflecting on at this time as we cross the threshold into a new astrological year on Friday with the Spring Equinox.

Last year I took a course with Thomas Huebl called The Ancestral Healing Code. It was an in depth course into Ancestral connections and healing with our ancestors. Our ancestors are here to guide us and their wisdom resides in our bodies. The courage they had, the resilience they embodied along with the grief they did not know how to process. The course offered guidance on how we can help our ancestors heal as they help us heal in the process. A two way process of healing as we offer healing to them they offer healing to us. However one learning that stayed with me after the immersive course is that not all ancestors want to be healed, not all ancestors are here to help us, some want to be left in peace and we need to honour that. During the reflective meditative practices we were guided to ask permission from our ancestors before embarking on any ancestral healing. This reminded me of the balance of giving and receiving, of asking before assuming, of honouring before taking, the discernment of the wisdom in the heart, not just jumping in with both feet and assuming I know what’s best. Healing with the ancestors is a deep honouring of all our ancestors and connecting with the ones who would like to be with us through these times we find ourselves living through. We need to be mindful and respect those who want to rest in peace as we connect with those who want to guide us through. The balance of opposites at the time of the Spring Equinox as we leave the Winter, take the wisdom we embodied and enter the Spring ready for a new season.

I have felt deeply this past few weeks how courage lives in my body, the same courage my ancestors had all those years ago. It reminds me that we all have this courage. We all embody the resilience to get through challenging times. This knowledge helps me as we continue to live in uncertain times as the old world collapses to make space for the new. It is messy. It is uncomfortable. It is necessary. We cannot stay in our comfort zones anymore we have to embrace the change and trust that a better world is being built in the process. As with the Tower in the Tarot, we need the old structures to fall so that the foundations can be uncovered and we can see the Star, the Moon and the Sun (the next 3 cards in the Tarot). The foundations are strong but the structure built on lies and mistruths is crumbling, the world is crumbling around us, yet the earth, our true mother is holding us steady, that foundation is built on solid ground. Nature here on the land of Ireland, Nature across the Ocean on the land of America. Nature will be our grounding force in these challanging times as we remember to come back to ground and lean into this deeper ancestral wisdom. Alive in our bones, alive on the land and alive all over this big bold beautiful world we all live in. The connection through time and space, the cyclical process of life and nature, the reminder that no matter how dark and long the Winter is the Spring always arrives.

At this threshold as we embark on another Spring into the unknown future we can trust the known of Nature. As we find the steadiness on the Earth beneath our feet even as the shakiness of the world is out of our control we can control how we show up. Everyday I go on a walk in Nature. I connect with the natural world listening to the birds, seeing the changes on the branches as the buds start to open, welcoming the flowers already blossoming, the Daffodils, the Buttercups, the Primroses and the Dandelions. This is the choice I make in a world where others make choices that do not align with the vision I have of the future. I choose to connect with the land, the same land my ancestors connected with and remember as I make informed choices I can show up fully in a World on fire and be the change I want to see in the World. We are the ones we have been waiting for. The choices we make today will inform the world of tomorrow. How do you choose to end this astrological year as we begin a new year at the Spring Equinox? How will you find balance in the times we are going through?

Redwoods - Henry Cowell State Reserve - Felton California

Honouring the Stillness as Nature Rests

The weather has turned. The hours of light through the day have reduced. How are you navigating this change? At Soul Matters we honour the cycles of change through rest. This is not something that we always find easy. In fact it has taken time and we still find ourselves resisting the stillness of rest. This world is frenetic so taking time to rest may seem impossible or even selfish. We have noticed throughout the years, especially since Soul Matters was established in 2022, that the more we allowed ourselves the time to rest the better we were able to navigate the challenges of life. Rest is resistance and it is radical act in a time where doing is rewarded. How we speak also honours what we do rather than who we are. What are you plans for the weekend? What do you do? What did you do last night? You get the picture.

Recently at a Restshop we reflected on words and how we use our words. Words are wands and hold magic power. We reflected on how we can use our words to set powerful intentions. Intentionally honouring the words we use to change the beliefs we have been conditioned to believe. One of these beliefs is around who we are and how that is caught up in what we do. What if we could change this? What if we started to rest into who we are at a soul level. The soul has nothing to do with what you do. The soul wants you to remember who you are without the doing, without the constant need for gratification, without the busyness of the modern world.

Rest opens the portal to your soul. Rest allows you look deeper into who you are. Who you are before the world told you who you are supposed to be. These may seem like deep reflections. Yet through rest they are gentle portals to becoming who you were always meant to be. Who you were always meant to be. Not who you were always meant to do. The magic of words you speak intentionally to weave a new reality. We are in the final few weeks of Samhain before we enter the deep stillness of the Dreamtime at the Winter Solstice. What magic would you like to weave with your intentions for these last few weeks?

Winter Stillness by The Lake

The Veil is thinning as Nature descends into stillness

How are you navigating through these last few weeks of Lughnasadh and Samos, the masculine half of the year? Are you letting yourself surrender and release to the feminine, Giamos and new beginnings that Samhain offers? The leaves are turning, falling, letting go, releasing as they go back to the earth to make compost of the past to make fertile soil for the future. We had a glimpse of the Cailleach at the beginning of October as she brought the winds through her waking up as she started to wander the land. The Cailleach will return fully at Samhain, her name means the veiled one and we will write more about her then. The hours of daylight have reduced to allow more hours of darkness, the masculine is yielding to the feminine. How do you experience this change as we cycle with the wheel as it turns once more? Do you find comfort in the darkness or do you experience discomfort? Cyclical living through the Celtic Wheel offers wisdom with each seasonal cycle as the wheel turns. How we embrace this wisdom is different with each turn of the wheel. Accepting where we are at any time on the wheel can bring a deep comfort to our lives and the challenges we face, internally and externally.

Resting through the Celtic Wheel of the Year offers a deeply nurturing experience as you learn to surrender to the cycles, flow with the cycles and accept where you are. The Celtic Wheel of the Year offers deep wisdom to the human experience in this culture where doing is so honoured. As we learn to rest with the seasonal energies we experience a deeper understanding of what it is to be human. We are cyclical beings that embody both masculine and feminine energies. When we embrace both and we get to witness the depth both offer. The practice of Yoga Nidra is a practice of devotional remembrance to who you are. An opportunity to stop doing and allow being envelope you for a short while. We embrace both and energies as we remember we need them all to fully experience life as it is. The doing yields to the being, the rejecting yields to the embracing, the surrendering yields to the growing, the releasing yields to the receiving and the masculine yields to the feminine. We learn to experience both and energies without distracting or wanting them to be different. We let go of the yearning for things to be other than they are, we learn to accept exactly where we are with compassion.

As the veil thins it is a beautiful time to go on an Imrama, a Soul Journey. Take your soul on a journey to discover something different or to see the familiar with different eyes. A practice where you pause, take a breath, place your hand on your heart and ask your soul where it would like to go. You may get a sense, you may get a vision or you may remember something. Then follow the inner guidance and allow it to bring you on a Soul adventure. It may take you simply into your back garden. It may take you on a walk to the forest, the sea, the mountain or your local park. When you stop and listen for a breath you may be surprised what emerges. A recent Imrama I, Anne-Marie went on took me to my local beach where I had the opportunity to witness birds bobbing on the waves resting on the sea, then back through a housing estate where I found a Book Hotel to borrow a book as I stopped by a tree that had already shed all it’s leaves so I could see a Robin and hear its beautiful song, to Mushrooms growing wildly on the paths I wandered and finally to my sit spot, a Dolmen near my home where I rested before returning home. An Imrama is such a heartwarming experience at this transition where the veil is thinning as Nature descends into stillness. An Imrama offers us the opportunity to descend into the stillness of our soul for a while as we embrace the seasonal cycle.

The Cave at Oweynagat - Uaimh na gCat (Cave of Cats) from the inside on a Imrama a few years ago.

Portal to Wholeness at Autumn Equinox

The Invitation to Rest through the Celtic Wheel is to trust what resonates with you and find your own way as you honour your own cycles of transformation through the practice of deep rest. Yoga Nidra is a practice where the EGO is fast asleep and the SOUL is wide awake, as our teacher Tracee Stanley reminds us.  The wisdom we experience as we rest through the cycles of the wheel invite us to live aligned and in rhythm with the natural world. A cyclical journey where wisdom is revealed with each spiral as we connect with the intelligence of the land we live on and embrace the cosmic intelligence above.  The wheel turns with certainty each year, as we now move through the final weeks of Lughnasadh with the Autumn Equinox. This is the final cycle before we start all over again at Samhain.

The archeoastronomical day this year is Monday 22nd September, just after the partial Solar New Moon Eclipse. Eclipses happen when the Moon passes directly between the Sun and Earth, blocking the Sun’s light from our view. What is usually invisible (the New Moon) becomes visible and the Sun that usually outshines the Moon will become invisible. This is a reversal of roles and energies. Eclipses are an opportunity to pause, to recalibrate, and to suspend the normal way of doing things. What is usually seen becomes hidden; what is hidden becomes seen. This is the energy of working with opposites that offer a portal to wholeness. Similar to Autumn Equinox energy where we have equal day and night, balance between masculine and feminine energy, the yin the yang and the light and the shadow. Can we shed light on what is in shadow? Can we witness what has been invisible and make it visible? This is an invitation to embrace both and energies of opposites as we journey through the last few weeks of Samos (the masculine half of the year). This is the wisdom we can embody as we enter the portal to wholeness and slow down and pause at the threshold. This is an opportunity to have reverence for everything in our life as we find graceful ways to move back and forth between masculine and feminine qualities, ways that allow the opposites to co-exist and complement each other. A reminder that we cannot know the light without the dark. We cannot exist by just going, doing, thriving. We need to bring balance to going by stopping, to doing by being and to thriving by resting.

A word to describe this Autumn Equinox energy is Solustrance - the moment when the world is bathed in a soft, amber glow, the leaves on the trees, the surface of the water even the air itself appears to be touched by this magical radiance.

A reminder that Trees become their strongest in the Autumn this is because they have finished bearing fruit and producing leaves now all of their energy is being pushed down into the roots. Can you embrace this wisdom for the Autumn Equinox? Preserve the energy from Samos to resource you through Giamos. Connect with the earth and ground into her endless wisdom with each turning of the wheel as we complete this cycle and the portal to wholeness with the Autumn Equinox.

Autumnal Glow

The breeze of Autumn blows a gentle end to Summer

End of Summer

The schools are back and the weather has changed. The gentle autumnal breeze has added a coolness to the air. The summer is officially over when the children go back to school and the young adults start college. In the Celtic Wheel of the Year we are still experiencing Lughnasadh energies until the wheel turns at the Autumn Equinox on Monday 22nd September where we will experience equal day and night.

Final days of Lughnasadh

We are in the final days of Lughnasadh. How does that feel for you? Is summer a time where you enjoy the flurry of activity, the bright evenings, the warm days? Or are you looking forward to the inward journey of Samhain? Lughnasadh is traditionally a time where we celebrate the fruits of our labour. We celebrate how we have travelled through the Celtic Wheel of the Year, what was seeded at Imbolc and what has come to fruition. If any seeds have not grown can we bring awareness to them. Are they still seeds we want to nurture? Or are we ready to let them go with the Autumn Equinox? As we let ourselves release the old to give energy to the new. We would ask you reflect on how the seeds you planted have helped your relationship with Rest. Remembering that Rest can be productive, so can you bring awareness to the fruits of your Rest at this time.

Showing Up to What Is

Soul Matters took a summer break to enjoy time with friends and family. Sinéad moved house and county in July. Anne-Marie went to Italy. Our summers were very different than we expected and the seeds we planted at Imbolc grew differently than we wanted. The medicine of the Celtic Wheel is to face this with an open heart rather than withdraw and ignore. This is not easy medicine yet it can be such a powerful way to nurture the unexpected events that life throws at us. As we continue our journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year our experience deepens with the medicine. Rest through the Celtic Wheel has been our place to come home as we honour the cycle of life with all its ups and down. As we learn to embrace the polarities, the joy with the sorrow, the love with the fear, the light with the dark, we can learn to accept life as it is. This is medicine of cyclical living which offers us the ability to experience life challenges as they arrive. Life is neither fair or unfair, Life just is. We hope you will join us at one of our in person events to experience the deep medicine of Rest through the Celtic Wheel.