Journeyers Sanctuary

Beginning Again

2022-07-17T22:13:00.000-07:00

Welcome Back. I guess I am saying that to myself. Time to resurrect my blog. Journeyers Sanctuary.

A place to rest. A place to rest into a moment of contemplation and conversations with and about Life.

Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you. ~ Rumi

Life in all its beauty and complexity. Life and Life Mission/Purpose. Doing what our heart is calling us to in the most beautiful, magical, creative, expressive way.

Sounds like art doesn't it. Living my life mission is art. I have always longed to teach, to be part of a journey with those who wish to explore themselves and what they are here to do. For the last sixteen years I have been teaching Counselling Hypnotherapy and almost 2 years ago I created a counselling program. Working with those whose have a dream to create something new.

This blog is a place to share what inspires me and feeds my souls. Writing articles and sharing what I love. So whether you are a counsellor, hypnotherapist, journeyer or just looking for a place where you can stop for a moment and connect with your heart. This blog may offer you something to ponder.

Welcome and I hope you return.

Diane

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking. ~ Rumi

What a Joy to travel the way of the heart. ~ Rumi

Grand Adventure

2019-03-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

Hello my friends. I have a grand exploration for you this week. How would you like to come and play with me in the fields of unlimited potential. As a writer we play in those fields all the time.

Where do all the creative stories come from?

How after eons of time could we still be creating unique and wondrous tales?

Well ..... come with me to my favourite place.

A place where all the words we could ever use and all the unlimited potential come together.

Once upon a time... in a world not so far away. There was a place of pure potential and in this place could be found words which became sentences which became great tales which were written with love and imagination. Words filled this world flying in the sky, perching on trees and floating as clouds. Waiting just waiting to become.... to become part of the greatest story ever told.

Places of pure potential have the power to effect change. The writer was holding this in her heart. She knew words, intention and potential were all coming together just waiting for someone to come to understand how powerful writing was. In this vast space of potential, pure potential - words could be the great catalyst to fire the emotion which ignited the heart and mind of the writer.
Surrounded by words the writer allowed herself to breathe in the pure potential. Finally here with an intention to use words to create, inspire, inform and weave a great adventure. The words floated all around her head as she watched, breathing, waiting for the one word which would become the one sentence of ignition. Breathing down deep into her heart she knew life would respond to who she was being in this moment. Heart and mind linked by intention to write - coming into flow with the deep desire to write...... and ...... boom an electrical signal goes out through the web of Life - the Fields and words becoming the great adventure are magnetically drawn to the writer, flow out of her pen. Putting pen to paper she allows the unfoldment of the story, the next chapter.

What if .... all unwritten stories exist in the Field

as a collection of infinite possibilities!

The writer taking a breath watches the story as it emerges and takes time to think, feel and act in new ways. The words drawn to her offering her the highest story as she realizes this will mean letting go of the old overused words. These tired words floating away to be renewed and tell a different story another day.

She is amazed at this place of pure potential coming from her thoughts aligning with her feelings to create and reinvent. Laughing to herself, writers never know what the next word will be that flows out of the tip of our pen. Surprise is a wonderful part of the creative potential. Coming into alignment with her passion she could bring her moments of flow to her pen and paper, write the story with joy and desire trusting the words that surround her. She breathed again, marvelling at how the pure potential was appearing to her as words moving in harmony, words just waiting their turn to tell the unfolding adventure she was writing. Words floating as if riding magic carpets. Laughing, she heard Harry Potter say: "I love Magic." Which led her into the next most important step. Thank-you - Gratitude.

Thank you to all the words who understood their power and potential.
Thank you for the surprise of the unknown which added beauty to a story.
Thank you to the pen which allowed the flow to flow.
Thanks to all the guidance from writers past, present and future for all times exist simultaneously and would be a tale for another chapter.

Thanks so much to my teachers in The Way of the Heart™ who helped me understand and work with Intention, Field Theory and the unlimited potential of all possibilities.

Thank you for the words which try to write the old stories over and over again, disempowering stories. You bring me awareness of the places I must bring unlimited potential to.

Thank You So Much

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff.

We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

― Carl Sagan

New Beginnings

2019-03-14T19:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends

The Journeyers Sanctuary has been calling me to start writing again. Time to write about the things I love:

The Way of the Heart

Writings that inspire me.

Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work.

Rocks, Stones & Crystals

Storytelling

Dragons

Making Orgonites

Exploring the world as a storyteller and anything else my heart guides me to write about.

I invite you to join me, after all we are on this journey together and every now and then our paths will cross and we will sit and have a cup of tea together.

Hail and welcome

May the journey continue in mystery, joy and a sense of adventure.

Blessings and a hug Diane

The Temple

2017-02-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time………….

This week I have a story for you. My week has been one of asking for help and receiving wondrous guidance. The story began to form as I was working in my Way of the Heart Feng Shui I manual. I was sitting with the wisdom offered to me this week around writing my book. It is a challenge for me to ask for help and because I did, the help I received from my teacher cleared the way for me to take a different and creative route with my book. I will share more as it unfolds. It is my gratitude that had the story dancing in my heart and mind.

So we start again…….
The ancient temple had sat on the top of Fangshi Mountain almost as long as the mountain has sat on the earth. At least it seemed so to the villagers who lived at the base of this sacred place. One particular villager had dreamed, explored and lived in the shadow of this legendary mountain and temple all her life. Stories and ancient myths were an everyday part of the lives of the villagers. She imagined mystical beings lived in the temple and had even seen then when she climbed to the top of Fangshi Mountain. She longed to talk to them, to live in the temple and study. She did not know how to ask and each time the courage welled up in her heart and she began to take a step towards, something got in the way. Something stopped her. Most of what stopped her was the thought she needed to know the answers to all the questions before she asked them. So she worked and meditate and went inside to listen, thinking if she worked hard and did all the right things she would be able to go to the top of the mountain one day and ask. Now….. there is some wisdom in her plan and a slight flaw.
Doing the work and clearing the way for wisdom is an honourable and valuable endeavour.
The slight flaw is: what was she listening to inside? What that voice telling her? Was it helping or was it holding her back?

One night she had a dream:
She sat on the top of the mountain is a beautiful ginkgo grove watching the cloud patterns change as the sun heated up the morning air. Looking around she noticed an ancient Buddha sitting under one of the trees. She jumped when he blinked as she thought it was a statue. He gestured to her to come over and sit beside him. Hesitating at first, his smile and invitation helped her heart encourage as step towards, and another step and another. Pretty soon she was sitting under the tree with the kindest Buddha she had ever met. (The only Buddha).
“You like our Mountain I see.” the ancient fellow smiled at her. “Yes, I like it too. What brings you here?” he asked. She could hear the warmth in his voice and feel the heart in his interest in her.
I want………..
I would like to ………..
I have dreamed of ……….
Do you think I could ……..
She could not seem to finish the sentences and with each unfinished sentence it was as if he was fading and she felt her heart sink. “Don’t go please!” her heart cried. “Let your heart finish the sentence.” she heard in her mind.
“Do you think….. I could come study here? There is was she had said it. She closed her eyes and breathed. A gentle touch on her hand and she opened her eyes. The ancient Buddha was smiling and his eyes twinkled. “Yes, if you really want to come and study here, then you shall. All you had to do was ask.” She woke with the wisdom repeating in her mind and heart. “All you have to do is ask.”

That was the day she walked to the bottom of Fengshi Mountain and found the path to the temple and started to climb, knowing in her heart the Gingko grove and the wise Buddha were waiting for her.

The End

I felt so much gratitude this week for taking the step and asking and for the gifts of his wisdom, fun and deep listening my teacher gave to me in our session. Living my life and writing a book have many things in common as I am finding our more and more. For instance: I may need to
ask for help and help is just waiting for me to ask on many levels.
Thank you Feng Shui and thank you “The Way of the Heart™”.

Magic, Whimsy and a Goodbye

2017-01-26T22:29:00.000-08:00

My writing this week has a touch of the mystical and fun in it. So welcome to the fun and joy I feel in the journey.

For months now I have been feeling a longing for some story, movie, offering to bring me to a place of the mystical, imaginal and magical. This feeling has been so strong at times I have felt it like a homesickness, a deep longing in my heart for a returning to something I love. Or a moving forward to…. The images that have come with the feeling are of sitting in a rosewood lined library with all the ancient wisdom and inspiration flowing around, in and through me. Each book in this library is filled with a deep resonance of its wisdom. Each word, sentence, paragraph and chapter carries this resonance and it permeates my being when I need exactly what the book has to offer and inspires me to the future when I need inspiration.

“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic — the inexplicable connectedness we
sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like;
the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity;
the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.”
― Charles de Lint

The feeling was so strong this week I started asking. I shared my feeling with friends and asked if this feeling reminded them of a book, movie or something they could recommend.

Synchronicity & Following Threads

Some wonderful friends suggested books that lead to other great finds.

And

James C. Christensen* my favourite artist posted on his Facebook page a link to a movie made from one of his books of paintings called “The Voyage of the Unicorn”. Taking this as a sign I watched and guess what? You guessed it. The library in the ship is a rosewood lined library with magical books.

And

I taught my Counselling Hypnotherapy class and was offered a gift of a magical journey from one of my new colleagues. He took me on a journey to the place I described above. That is the joy of hypnotherapy, you can journey anywhere. Well I did and guess what I found. Remember that character I told you about in my last blog? He came to visit me in my journey. I held him in my hand and could see every knob, muscle, horn and wing this little fellow possessed. The characters in my stories really are coming alive for me and living within me.

That lead me to some more threads and offerings. Tonight as I sat down to do a Way of the Heart™ integration I was offered two things that helped to develop his personality and characteristics more deeply.

Feng Shui II™ took me to the Wabi-Sabi House. Wabi-Sabi is the Japanese art of appreciating the imperfect, primitive and incomplete. Appreciating the beauty of things as they are at this moment. Finding the beauty in what seems ordinary.
Which was so much fun because as I had this little Dragon in my hand I could see all his beauty, imperfections and primitive nature.

Which lead me to my next gift from Feng Shui I. The question it took me to was: “Do you care what others think of you?” While I was writing of my journey through my life around caring what others think about me, I had an inspiration.

What if this little bull dog of a dragon did not care what others thought. He knew his heart so well “what others thought” was just “what others thought” and he could kindly not care.

This week has been one of following threads and listening to inspiration through the filter of writing my book, developing characters and filling in the world I am creating. I just love using my Way of the Heart™ manuals to help me write my stories and explore myself.

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the
greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

The magical, mystical, alchemical, glorious adventure visited me this week in many ways and I am learning to trust, deepen my faith and open to the unknown.
Thanks so much dear Mystery.

I have come to drag you out of yourself, and take my heart.
I have come to bring out the beauty you never knew you had
and lift you like a prayer to the sky.

Rumi

*I found out some very sad news this week. James Christensen passed away in
early January. I truly want to honour this man, the great joy and whimsical beauty
that he brought to my life through his art. It is so fascinating to feel that I will miss
somebody who I didn’t really know, yet felt I knew through his art and through the
colour and magic that he shared with me and the world.
Thank you James, may your journey be blessed.
You will find one of his whimsical paintings below.

The Gift of the Dream

2016-11-02T15:22:00.001-07:00

“Hello”, the dream started. “Hello”, I heard.

The night sky had not unfolded it hold on the blanket of darkness so I sat in the moment and waited. This was my dream and I wanted to see where it would take me.

Once upon a time in the heart of the One there was created a truth.
All legends and myths are grounded in reality. We will write the truth in the myths and legend’s of this world. The hearts of the beings who read, hear and are touched by the myths and legends will know. They will know.
The dream took me to moments of truth woven into the tapestry of myths and legends to be found by seekers of magic and miracles.
“Is it time yet?” I asked the night sky, “Maybe” came the reply. “You like the dark and the starlight, what are you looking for?” “You are right, I’m glad you know me. I do love the dark as it is a time of going inward for me and I can sit in the cave of the silence of winter. Something to look forward to and yet, Autumn, Autumn comes first though.
Maybe that is what I’m looking for, the color of the artist’s palette floating down to the earth. Red, yellow, orange and brown floating a soft dance down, down, down. Moving towards a quiet inward coming in good time. I am looking for me. The me who I so want to share with the world.”

Who am I the I you see?

“Do you know that I love magic and that which cannot be explained? Have I wanted you to know that enough to tell you with my words and actions? What would you say you know of me? That I open myself slowly to your invitation to come into your life. Yes, maybe. Maybe I just see me like that. How do you see me?

Will you know I give easily sometimes because it is easier to give than receive?

Yes I bet you do!

Who am I the I you see?

Well understanding how you see me helps me know what I am here for? What I have come to do?
My goodness what a strange question and exploration as I sit in the sparkling midnight so deeply touched by the words I have just read.

Everything is beautiful, and there are certain things I feel especially beautiful.
Beyond recognizing their beauty, those things call me
These particular things move me.
Is moving me another way of saying they motivate me?
If I think about loving something, someone, an activity, a place, what moves in me?
I could say as an artist or musician I am motivated Buy an arrangement colors, or the harmony of notes. A scientist is motivated by your beautiful elegant equation. I feel all that.
The beauty in all of these motivates me, and I also want to know how it works.
What makes it so, and why do I care?
I want to know the great sacred mystery. The sacred and the mystical motivates me.
I seem to have forgotten that lately. All my life, I thought that longing. I wanted to discover, now I would say remember, how the great sacred mystery works in our lives and why.

Daniel Goodenough

The Caravan of Remembering

A Roadmap For Experiencing The Awakening of Your Life’s Mission.

thecaravanofremembering.com

“I am the me I want me to know more and more deeply. The darkness began to tug the edges of the blanket. This is the beginning it said. Ask the questions. Dance with the words and your heart will help you to begin to more deeply know yourself. Then you will be known and sharing will be a giving and receiving.” The dream in the darkness gave way to the Heart Light, the dreamer slowly opened her eyes to find herself holding the book.
Thank you she heard her heart say.
Thank you for the magical, mystical, alchemical all lit up highest possibility Way.
The Way of The Heart™.
The Way of my Heart.

This weeks blog was a joy to write. My inspiration came from reading The Caravan of Remembering. My joy was how deeply the reading touched my imagination and allowed me to play with words in such a creative way as to deeply reveal parts of myself.

Have you ever been touched deeply in the most imaginal way?
The Caravan of Remembering touches my imagination, creativity and excitement.
If you are looking to be inspired, deepen your life mission search and connect with the sacred within, The Caravan of Remembering will help you find your way home to your heart.

Holding the Questions

2016-09-15T19:24:00.001-07:00

Questions & Sweet Inspiration

A new character emerged in a journey I was taking this week. At the beginning of our Way of the Heart ™ Feng Shui I follow up class my teacher takes up on a magical journey inward. My intention for the class is the same as my intention for the blog.

To write the stories that will come together to create a book.

To allow those stories to be written from my imagination, from a place where the book has
already been written, and by the characters within the stories themselves.

On this journey I was taken to one of the worlds in my book. A world who’s hero’s are struggling with what they are able and willing to do as well as not knowing what they can do. The scene I saw and felt in my mind and heart was so alive and real. I could feel this character’s deep longing for the leader of this world to step into his power, follow his heart and do what he knows to do. It was visceral for me. When I emerged I knew I had a new character and his personality and attributes started to fall into place. He is ancient and is part of the balance of this world. He has known this world since the beginning of time also known the leader since his birth.

There is something unique about this character, he sees into the depths of one’s skills and abilities and sees the outcomes of choices. The leader he watches stands at a crossroads. One choice moving him closer to what his heart knows will save this world, yet does not know how this will happen. The other choice motivated by fear, overwhelm and grief will result in a very different outcome.

The questions that came up for this writer are:

How do I convey in story the inward journey each character is taking?

The struggle from each character’s point of view?
Do I do it in small bits, allowing the inner anguish to be revealed in its own time?

I remember we never really knew the depth of the anguish Severus Snapes felt in Harry Potter until the very end of the last book.

I carried these questions around this week and was surprised and delighted when my Way of the Heart™ Feng Shui I manual offered me a piece of wisdom that added a new dimension to the world I am creating.

You who have the knowledge, what are you doing with it?

My focus had been on the leader and looking at the leader’s choices from the eyes of the ancient creature emerging from the dark underground.

You who have the knowledge, what are you doing with it?

Questions: What knowledge does he have?
What is his responsibility around having this knowledge?
Is it his to do something with?

This new and compelling creature has emerged at this time in my process and the world of my books process – what has he brought to us?

Do we not all have knowledge about something – what are we going to do with it?

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle,

requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
Albert Einstein

What a journey I am walking. Reading the book of life through this “Way” and with the my amazing manuals is such a joy and alchemical mystery. Sometimes I end up with more questions than answers. I am truly beginning to understand when I ask questions, sleep on the question, and carry them in my Writer’s Heart; it will not take long before the being of my story & my book will have me bounding into my office for my journal to write some sweet inspiration down.

So….. I end this week’s blog with Gratitude and a question for you.

What questions are you carrying around in your heart?

See you all next week.
Thanks for walking the journey with me.

It is not that I am so smart, But that I stay with the question much longer.

Albert Einstein

Resonance

2016-09-11T08:59:00.001-07:00

When you read different books do you hear different voices? Is the voice you hear in your head different for each book you read?

What kind of voice do I want to have in my book?

Do the words we writers use carry a resonance of what we are wanting them to convey?

Resonance & Momentum & Magnetism – the energy behind, in, through and imbuing our stories.

The Mind is the writer’s landscape.

As a mountain scene might be an artist’s landscape.
A visual artist studies light, perspective, colour and space.
A writer studies memory, imagination, words, thoughts and feelings.
Natalie Goldberg – Wild Mind Living the Writer’s Life

This has been a week of reading other people’s stories to see what others are creating. In all the studies I have done on writing I keep hearing – read – read – read.
I began to notice each book or story had a different voice. I could feel the energy in the words and the story had a flowing energy that seemed to be taking me somewhere.
I like to spend time with a book, to savour the images and feel what the character by way of the author is offering me. As I became aware of the unique voice of each storyteller and each story I wondered about resonance and the energy in each story.

Is there hope?

What keeps me walking the journey with this book I am reading and each page I turn?

As an author I wish to offer my readers a hope, a heart connection that will come out in my writing – that is my intention.

I took all my ponderings and questions to my Life Mission III™ Way of the Heart manual this week and was offered a piece of wisdom from John Fox a certified poetry therapist.

“It is not words about roses that makes sacred poetry.

Sacred poetry is made when the roseness that lives within a particular
rose speaks to us and we listen and we write.”

I am listening and writing. I listen to the guidance and creative wisdom offered each time I sit down to write. Each character, landscape and moment is speaking its own unique “roseness” to me.

Will you feel that in my writing? Can I be open enough to let you see me?
Is writing about a world different than mine also writing about my world?
How much of each character is actually an aspect of me?

The art of asking questions is a one of the most fascinating journey’s The Way of the Heart™ is helping me take and use more deeply in my life. As I ask these questions about writing and myself I feel excited to read. My reading becomes more of an exploration of the world between the lines of what I am reading. I take my questions to what I am reading and it becomes richer.

This has been a fun blog to write because it leaves me with more questions rising within me.
Thanks so much for journeying with me and allowing me to ponder, ask and hold the highest possibility that the answers will come in the most unique creative way.

I would like to leave you with something from a different author.
Maybe you could ask yourself at the end:

What am I feeling having just read this?
What is my heart saying?

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.

The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.

For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and

passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

J.R.R.Tolkein
The Return of the King

Dancing With My Shadow

2016-08-31T19:06:00.001-07:00

What makes a hero?

What holds your characters life together?

It is time to dance with your shadow, reclaim your denied selves and surrender to the journey.

Life Mission III ™ offered me a question today. What holds your characters life together? At first I wanted to say Love, Family, God, doing what she loves. I wonder if it is simpler than that. Could it be our choices that hold a characters life together, our life together? Our moment to moment choices.

This has been a challenging week for me. Some physical challenges and I have been watching how that affects my choices. I realized at one point my thoughts and what I was focusing on was not helping me. I watched how my thoughts and focus were me choosing to believe a story that was taking my power away. I also realized I could not make the feelings resulting from my choices go away as much as I wanted them to.

So, what to do?

I brought out my Way of the Heart™ Shadow work and went inward to meet my Shadow. Found a part of myself I would name my bully. A part that is quite used to bringing out the old rubber mallet when it suits her. Working with her in a more conscious way helped me to bring that part of me out of the shadows and create a bit more space within. I also used some beautiful processes from The Way of the Heart™ Alchemical Healing class I just finished and noticed a bit more space. I was starting to find me in all the stuff running around in my head. I was actually finding my heart and beginning to realize there actually was an option to make a different choice and I could take it.

I share this because it is real and this week part of my work as a writer has been research and reading. One of my favourite Authors is Anne McCaffrey who writes some books that literally saved my life 20 years ago – the Dragonriders of Pern series. As I read some of her later works this week, books I have not read before I kept my experiences in my mind as well as my questions.

If I was reading my book of life why am I reading this book now?
What was Anne McCaffrey doing as a writer that is touching my feelings and keeping me reading?
What makes me like a character?
What frustrates me about a character?
What is she doing in her writing that keeps me reading?

The Characters Choices.

When I like, respect or am fascinated by a character what is it I like? Respect? or am Fascinated with? Is the character like me or who I would like to be? If I don’t like a character does she remind me of someone or something in my life, or me?

Choices

Hero’s are characters who are willing to ask the deeper questions. Hero’s are characters who know they are following the right path even when someone questions them. 50 people would have a different definition of hero, so hero’s are who WE like in the moment. Who we resonate with.

I wonder if we are all hero’s.

Is a bully a hero? Better question – what makes a bully a hero?
I needed a hero this week.
The moment she makes a different choice.
Chooses to do something differently.
Maybe we’re not really hero’s until we understand there is a different choice to make and make it.

This strange and weird journey I am walking right now as I write and you read is really me following the threads to more deeply understand human nature – character development and of course myself.

If I look for the hero in my characters will that add a depth to them because I am trusting there really is a hero in the most confused, dark character and will eventually emerge?

I was being a bully this week and found a way to create some space for a different choice. All the characters within my personal story had to wait until I found a Way and the right moment to choose differently.

Fascinating !!!Did I choose differently because a part of me knew I eventually would?

Faith & Trust

Well I know one thing having amazing tools through The Way of the Heart™ gave me a place to go, to explore, go deeper within and be with the bully that was ruling for a while.

Thank you!

A few weeks ago I wrote about following the threads, this journey this week is certainly that.

As I write and tell you about my week, a part of me is sitting with the characters in my book seeing them fill out with depth and richness. Wondering what kind of tools they will have.

Thanks so much for following the threads this week with me. I am really learning that writing is about not knowing the answers all the time. Just create the characters Diane and we will see where that takes you.

Picture used with Permission from Amy Sophia Marashinsky
From “The Goddess Oracle – A Way to Wholeness Through The Goddess and Ritual
Illustrated by Hrana Janto

The Journey

2016-08-13T22:05:00.001-07:00

Where do stories come from?
A question to write a story about!
Have you ever noticed stories sometimes start with Once upon a time?

Once upon a time in a land far far away and on another timeline a writer was walking towards… Walking and searching to find the place where stories come from.

Slowly making her way towards a distant structure gave her time to ponder what she was really searching for. “Stories come out of the imagination don’t they? Stories come out of the tip of my pen.” Her sense of humour kicked in. “Lovely thought, sure looks it when I write.” She giggled as the structure began to fill the horizon.
“How do I know where I am going? What brought me in this direction?”

“You are a storyteller.” A voice spoke. “You are just following the threads.”

“Following the threads?”

Like a tapestry, each thread will become a part of the whole to create the pattern.
“Patterns emerging on the canvas of the book as each story is written.”

The conversation stopped as she stood in front of the vast structure.

“Remember!

Remember this journey started with a question!
Where do the stories come from?”

She took a deep breath. “It is my intention to find the answer.” She looked up to see the door slowly opening. “Stepping over the threshold is answering my hearts call.”

Yes, and you will be required to visit three rooms to find the answer you seek.
Her inner guidance led her to the room of support, guidance, Love and Friendship. An immediate feeling of being accompanied told her she would no longer be alone. Travelling with her friends to the room of wisdom and inner knowledge she entered the second room. Here she learned to sit in stillness and of the many wonderful wisdoms she really did know although she did not know how she knew them. She also knew she could wait for the answer to her question and answers would come to her. Mystery and Faith.

Finally her journey took her to the room of Blessings and Wealth. Bringing the gifts and helpful friends from the other rooms she sat and felt such gratitude in her heart.

Breathing deeply in the moment she felt herself shift to a new place within. Slowly opening her eyes she realized they were all there, right in front of her.

Stories: shelves and shelves of stories.

Stories already written.
Stories waiting to be written.
Stories in the process of forming in the heart of the storyteller.
All accessible to every writer and storyteller.

“Reach out.” A voice said. “Think with your heart what you wish to write and the story will emerge.”
Movement caught her attention, the phoenix grace and wisdom dropped This story into her heart and mind. She understood the symbolic gift of its flight, bowed and thanked the bird.

Stories come from Love and walking the Journey.

Opening her eyes she found herself back at the desk in her writing room, knowing she would journey back to that wonderful structure to find other answers to the storytellers questions.

The End/The Beginning

My Week:
This story describes my week. It has been one of research and play.
Have you ever fallen in love with a book? I have. My Way of the Heart™ Feng Shui II manual is the book I go to, to seek answers, find myself or find the direction I need to go to, to find my answers. I truly love that manual. The story I wrote above is the journey I walked tonight doing a Feng Shui II Integration™. I truly feel blessed to have found The Way of the Heart™ and the vast storehouse of wisdom for me to journey in. Makes my little heart sing.

Maybe next week I shall tell you about my journey with J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Inklings a group of writers in Oxford England who included C.S Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien.

Thanks so much for walking with me.

Power and Balance

2016-08-07T19:46:00.001-07:00

I have had a great time this week writing and understanding my character more deeply. There are two worlds in my book; one world of beings doing what they love, living life, seeking harmony through the gifts they bring, you might say a world of light. The other world is a darker one, filled with beings doing what they love, living life, and seeking harmony and in a more life or death way. Much more of a shadow world.
Understanding the inner workings of my characters is very important to the stories and the whole book. Seeking more information I went into my Way of the Heart™ Feng Shui II manual asking to be shown at what level of awareness my shadow character is living. Right now in this moment he is living from a Feudal awareness, one of the ego, acting impulsively and power. The colour at this level is Red. Which is perfect for my understanding of this character and his world because it is his impulsive not thinking which may be the cause of his troubles and his blessings.
Feng Shui II offered me a question to ponder:
Where do you project your courage onto someone else?
As I breathe into this question and what it might mean for my character I realized, he will need his power to succeed and he will need to understand about courage. Courage within himself and the courage of both worlds coming together to work for balance. He will need to help inhabitants of both worlds come together in partnership, to truly understand about balance and working together. A big feat for a being who right now believes ego power is the only way to accomplish anything. My character is teaching me about himself.
Remembering
Who I truly am.
Living into that remembrance.
Owning my Gifts.
What happens in the balance of a world when people don’t realize they bring a Gift to the world?
In a book or story there are only just so many characters and one can see the hole, the place where a character needs to fill the hole with what is needed in the moment.
What if it was like this on our Earth. Many places where a deep need is just waiting for one of us to bring our gifts to that place. For us to remember who we truly are and our reason for being here.
Personally I have been working with remembering who I really am, my gifts and what I have to offer, not a surprise that my character would be walking the same path.
Tonight I did a “Return of the King” – Way of the Heart™ Integration with an intention to help me write my stories from a deeper higher place. To write the stories that are waiting to be told. My action from the integration is to remember who I truly am. Owing my being a writer. Again I am touched by the synchronicity of my life. In J. R.R. Tolkien’s book – The Lord of the Rings- The Return of the King each character is asked to remember who they are – truly are. To own their own courage and to live into their strengths.
Near the end of Return of the King – Aragorn who ultimately become the king speaks about fear and that how that fear could take his heart away. And that there may come a day when the courage of all men and women might fail. Then he speaks from his heart – “but not this day.”
What I am wondering about my character and myself is can we say “but not this day”.
“This day I remember who I am and what my heart is calling me to do.
This day I realize the world is waiting for me to bring myself to this moment.”
Aragorn and the free races of Middle Earth are rallying to a great battle. Some of the characters in my book will need to take the same stand, make the same decisions about the big and everyday smaller actions in their lives. Writing their stories makes me realize all the actions we take change worlds.
Thank you for letting me explore the many aspects of being a writer and the characters coming to teach me, show me and have their story told.

“Knock, And He’ll open the door
Vanish, And He’ll make you shine like the sun
Fall, And He’ll raise you to the heavens
Become nothing, And He’ll turn you into everything.”
Rumi

Aragorn:
Hold your ground! Hold your ground!
Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers,
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
A day may come when the courage of men fails,
when we forsake our friends
and break all bonds of fellowship,
but it is not this day.
An hour of wolves and shattered shields,
when the age of men comes crashing down,
but it is not this day!
This day we fight!!
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, Men of the West!!!
J.R.R Tolkein

Saying Yes

2016-08-04T09:48:00.001-07:00

This is the wisdom I am seeking to move into more deeply.

The universe sending opportunities my way, and me saying yes.

We are so capable of learning, evolving and changing.

Yes, Universe bring the unknown, the mystery my way

And I will to the best of my evolving ability

Meet the moment with curiosity, skill and passion.

Thank you.

Exploring Tension in a Story

2016-08-01T03:04:00.001-07:00

Today I started to read a book I was eagerly awaiting. After about 5 pages I had to go out. Driving to my appointment I could hear a dialogue going on in my head about how I wanted the story to go, the feelings arising because it did not seem to be going that way. As well as the internal motivation around that. For my friends who have read some of my blogs you might remember me discussing the challenge I have been having around creating an antagonist. Inner and outer. This dialogue has helped reveal some of underlying reasons for this challenge. Thanks JK for creating the opportunity for my exploration.

"Are you going on about that again?"

"What do you mean, going on?"

"Going on about the tension and the nasty bits in a story! You have to have tension, you have to let the characters be unpredictable, get into trouble, do stuff that ticks everyone off."

"Why do I need to do that? Why, can’t I just write about wonderful happy people living a spiritual life, who go through life without problems?"

"Fluffy bunnies and unicorns! That’s what that is. We need the adversity, we need the tension. Tension and adversity makes us dig deeper. You know that, you just want…."

"Never mind fluffy bunnies, you always call it fluffy bunnies. There was so much tension in my life I get tense just thinking I need to write about it and now she starts off the book with tension."

"Oh, so you think it is tension because it questions one’s choices. What if it was just an exploration a way of moving towards different choices'; seeing what we are made of?"

"I know that ! It is the tension I feel as though I don’t know how to write about. Don’t know how to create tension."

"Here is one for you. The fluffy bunny looked both ways, took one hop to cross the road when the alien ship beamed him up and ate him for dinner."

"Very funny. Actually that is quite funny. You see I can deal with that and can even write that. It would the Bunny telling her family she was going to …. Actually it would be the creative, most popular, kind bunny who everyone relied on, telling her family she was going to quit Carrot Cultivation School six months before graduation to hop through the underground rabbit burrows of Cornwall and she may never finish school."

"Yes, good one. If you don’t mind me saying so, seems like you have a thing about disappointing people who rely on you to be something they thought you should be and convinced you as well."

"You may be correct. The tension for me is the struggle between the longing to do what your heart calls you to and responsibilities. I think it is also about faith and trust. Trusting my heart and the relationship with the unknown."

"Yah! You have such a weird relationship with the unknown. It really is the “both and”, you have a relationship and you also struggle with certain types of unknowns.
It is the emotional investment!
You want to love the good characters and to be honored for trusting them by that character having a good life and doing good things.
You just don’t like not knowing how it ends!"

"Well, I am better than I used to be, I used to read the last page of a book to see what happens. Oh my did I admit that out loud?"

"Yes, you did! Sorry I will stop Laughing soon. So now what?"

"Well you are helping me see the that tension has its place. Can I stay with it long enough for the tension to create the structure the story needs? Even in this discussion I got away form the tension by listening to you."

"Yes and no. Tension does not have to be excruciating you know! It just has to be tension. In a story there can be long term tension like the tension Severus Snapes created and there can be short term tension like Ron and Hermione in the Goblet of Fire."

"I really want my hero’s to be heroes don’t I!"

"Yes and what is so strange you also want a good story, you want to grow and I know you know tension makes You dig deeper, so your heroes will also need tension for the same reason."

"Hmmm, you are wrong you know!"

"Yah who is being funny now? Quick look your fluffy bunny has a knife and is chasing the unicorn."
"Very funny… OMG she really is!"

The Mystery of Love

2016-07-30T13:02:00.001-07:00

I have not really given you much detail about the book I am writing.
I think I will keep details in my heart for a little while longer.
I will tell you the book is about love and life mission.

I just finished doing a “Song of Divine Creation” Way of the Heart™Integration and the music I was taken to within the integration were all love songs.
Sweet melodies that moved my heart and made me want to rest deeply in the softness of their notes. My action from the integration was to write about love.

Synchronicity again.

Love also came up for me this weekend as I experienced with great joy a workshop of Love, Light and ancient wisdom. Feng Shui I – Reading the Book of Life.
As I moved through the weekend My book and the characters in my book were with me. I watch my teachers do what they loved and realized that Love was a great motivator, and life changer, the one thing we are all willing to make the greatest changes for.

As you know I have been in dialogue with the antagonist in my book. I have begun to have great respect for this character as it is his love of his world that motivates him. His love may for a period of time make him blind to the needs of others – hence the antagonist.

I wondered as I sat in class exploring aspects of myself if it could be his mysteriously falling in love with another that would save him. Help him understand the needs of others.
Love opens us to undiscovered realms within ourselves.

Love is the bridge between you and everything.

Rumi

The other characters in the book are living there loves doing their life mission, their purpose for being there. One character creates beauty in the clouds, the other loves the earth and her ability to communicate with stones and rocks allows the world they live on to be in harmony with all the elements. It’s easy to love what we love and what is beautiful.
How do I help these characters understand we do not always have to love what another loves and yet, can there be room for interest, openness and willingness to understand the other?

A writer sits on a cloud of words & ideas.
Grounded in the love of the story.
This is the moment one must write.

As I weave the stories of these two worlds I constantly think about Severus Snapes in Harry Potter. A fascinating unlikable character who constantly seems to be on the wrong side, in the way and downright mean. Also a complex character who is protected and valued by Dumbledore, the protector of the whole school and friend to our heros. Severus Snapes great motivator, his reason for being and doing was Love, a deep love of a woman that led to his life mission as a protector of Harry. A secret he shared with only one other person, Dumbledore.

I am keep asking myself what do my characters love?

What are they willing to do for love?

Do they have secrets they hold deeply in their hearts?
What if it is all about love?
Love that strengthens us.
Love that weakens us, is that still love?

Characters in a book are made richer by what we can relate to, the aspects that make them a mystery, things we like about them and things we just don’t get. So is the one thing we all have in common Love? I love these questions. Did I just use love in another sentence?

When I started writing my book I did not realize how much time I would spend understanding and developing the characters. Is it good for a writer to fall in love with the characters – oh well – too late – already happened.

Thanks for walking with me.

The Day Sky

Let us be like

Two falling stars in the day sky.

Let no one know of our sublime beauty

As we hold hands with God and burn

Into a sacred existence that defies-

That surpasses

Every description of ecstasy

And love.

Hafiz – Persian Poet

Remembrance

2016-07-22T00:16:00.001-07:00

I have entered my sanctuary my sacred space. Breathed in my Writer’s prayer and I am ready. Amazing! I spent time last week working on a prayer and entering practice which is helping me feel as though I am sitting in a cozy thatched cottage in Cornwall and that I am accompanied by so many helpers sitting in my sanctuary with me.
Time to begin.
This week I have journeyed to the world of my book and sat with a couple of the characters asking them to tell me about themselves and their world. As I sat with the characters who showed up. I kept a few questions in my mind.
Why are you living the life you are living?
What makes you important to this world?
Why would I want to write about you and your part in this world?
This journey was supported by some work I did in my Life Mission II manual which helped me explore the who I would need to become to do what I have come here to do and my Life Mission III manual which helps me live my life sacredly, beautifully and artfully.
These characters and I are on a similar journey. Each one of the characters are seeking to remember what they have come to do, really come to do, and finding within themselves all that is needed to do this. This is the hero’s journey. The hero’s cry: help me remember the higher and deeper reasons of what I need to remember about who I truly am so I may do what I really have come to do.
This has been the theme of my week.
Remember when I talked about following the threads?
So! Keeping the emerging theme in mind. Then I had a conversation with one of my teachers and she spoke about doing the thing in our lives that we have come to do even if we are the only one who understands the deep inner knowing that this is living our life mission.
For the characters in my book this is exactly what they have to do; this living their life mission will be what maintains the balance of this world, keeps this world alive. Each life on this imaginary world I am creating intersects with all the other lives even if the characters never meet. Each choice will affect the others some way, and will also affect the balance of the world.
All of this went with me as I spent time with a couple of the characters, going inside and meeting them in their imaginary world. What I noticed was more details began to emerge. Beliefs and ways of being important to them, history, secrets that would become essential to reveal, momentary meetings that would become pivotal points in the story all began to emerge from listening and seeing them in the landscape of their world.
Wow: ideas emerged in vivid, beautiful ways.
I also began to notice and expect that each time I did a The Way of the Heart Integration™ I was getting insights, some more details of a character I have already created or a new character that would need to play some part in this world. I have started drawing boxes around my insights and writing in different coloured ink: INSIGHT. Being willing to be curious and ask questions about all aspects of this world is unearthing the details. Even the land/earth has a life mission. I am beginning to understand and trust the insights. Even if I do not write that piece of information in the book it will add to the flavour and tapestry of the world through resonance. Through my deeper understanding of this character, world and myself as the writer.
I am being asked to become more a part of this world. To remember who I am and what is important to me. Seeing the developing and unfolding of the lives on my imaginary world is asking me where I need to make different choices. To kindly ask myself where does it seem there are contradictions in my life. The places where what I say I believe and what I am actually manifesting intersect. Creating this world of strange characters is showing me about balance and how I affect my world seen and unseen with my choices.
So the hero’s cry is really my cry, my call to the Universe:
Help me remember the higher and deeper reasons of what I need to remember about who I truly am so I may do what I really have come to do artfully, sacredly and beautifully.
See you all next week.

Thanks for walking with me.

Friendship and Sacred Space

2016-07-16T23:22:00.001-07:00

Friendship and Sacred Space

Do you have a friend to talk to about your writing?
I was given a great gift on Sunday talking to someone who has known me for many years.
I shared my ideas for my book and introduced her to some of the characters , their life mission, and their world. What a joy to hear and feel my excitement as I spoke about these characters. It was lovely how excited and supportive she was as we talked. Sharing with my friend allowed this new world I am creating to dance around me in the words I used and the feelings I felt. There was an aliveness in my experience of my characters.

Tonight as I did my The Way of the Heart™ Integration for my intention I could feel the
closeness of my book .
Having a busy life can sometimes make me feel distanced from my writing.
Integrating each day really is helping me keep the book alive when I am not writing.
Curiously my explorations in my Life Mission III manual this week brought to the pages on play. As I mentioned before I love this manual, it offers me the most creative and brilliant wisdoms.
Writing can be playful if I’m willing to allow a playfulness and to be led by my writing especially when I do not know where it is taking me.
What will my character say next?
What will be revealed to me about this new world I am creating.

When I shared my book with my friend there was a joy and I believe joy and play are related.
I’m beginning to understand that even a seemingly serious character can grow in depth and richness with a playful storytelling approach. I may write more about this later.

I want to thank my friend for her love and “sparkling eyed” listening.
Thank the Integrations and Life Mission III for being part of the journey.
Many friends – Joyful Play

Sacred Space
My writing time is beginning to become more sacred to me.
I set the intention to write and the stories come alive in my writers heart.
This day my intention is to find my sacred space, my writers sanctuary.
I close my eyes and visions of libraries, whistling valleys and quaint thatched cottages float before me.

My sacred space is in the green valley on the coast of Cornwall in England overlooking the Celtic sea.
The land my cottage sits on is green and lush, and the cottage herself warm and inviting.
Deep wooden bookshelves line the walls from floor to ceiling as fire dances golden light off the colour
of the wood.
This is my place to write. Fountain pens and many bottles of ink invite me.
The centre of the room is filled with a very large antique purple heartwood roll top desk whose many drawers rise up from the desktop, places to store my pens, inks and papers. Windows on each wall offering views of snow-covered mountains, tall trees and the deep blue ocean.

I am home.
From this place I can go anywhere.
Visit any world real or imagined.
I am home.

I have come to write, to dream and to walk the timelines where books I long to write are already published and the me who lives on these timelines is the author.
These varied timelines are places for me to visit. The authors, my already published self will have amazing suggestions for me to listen to and take action on.
For in this place that which I long to do is already a reality.
The sacred space is set, and my sanctuary a place to travel to each time I write.
I enter my sanctuary with an excited heart and a prayer.

Writer's Prayer
May I be inspired by my longing and intention.
May inspiration be only a breath away.
May my pen be guided by my Divine writer.
May I allow my body, heart, mind and soul speak to me and through me.
May the tapestry and weave of life lead me to beautiful insights
that inform my writing and creations.
May I always remember who I truly am.
May I say “Thank you”.

These last couple of blogs have been about entering practices, sacred spaces and a prayer.
Important to set the stage.
The kettle boils – time to make a cup of tea and begin.
Once upon a time…..

Standing in Life

2016-07-08T23:41:00.001-07:00

Standing in Life
By Diane Auld © 2016

Hypnotherapy offers our clients healing on many different levels. I do not know what healing will mean for my clients. I do know it often does not look the way I think it will. In my work with clients I create a session based on our work together and the longings in their heart. The magic of hypnotherapy is it can engage the emotions and senses. The story below may offer a client a feeling of freedom and allow their imagination to soar in the words and space created in the story. A story that speaks to hope and possibility done at the right time can be a balm for an aching heart. The client I created this story was living with MS and in the telling of the story in trance she experienced a moment of ease because her heart was ready to be carried away by the story. These types of stories really do have their own timing. This story includes many of the changes my client was working on and many of her words.

I have offered it with the spaces I might use to give the unconscious mind pauses and time to
integrate in it's own unique way the offerings in the words of the story.
I have come to realize I need to give the unconscious moments of silence, pauses
And in it's brilliance it will use that space in exactly the way my client needs it.

Have you ever watched a colt stand ? Moments after it is born the colt stands. It takes a great deal of concentration and focus for the little colt to stand on her wobbly legs.

As I watched she gathered her energy and focused ..... Focused her energy ...... Focused it on standing ……. Colts are so wobbly at first…….. but I could tell as I watched her she knew .... Somewhere deep inside she just knew...... Just knew she could do it ….. Could just stand and walk …… stand and walk …..

she knew if she focused all her energy ...... Gathered all the energy from within ..... Within a place deep inside ... A place her unconscious mind knew how to tap into .... she could do it …. And it was in the trying that she could be ….. would be …… stronger…… she was learning to trust ...... Trust if she focused gently ...... focus all her limitless energy into her muscles ……into each and every nerve in her legs and hips….. and saw herself ..... Saw the clearest picture of herself ..... standing…..standing strong ……. Strong …… and moving with ease …….

It was amazing to watch ……the little colt actually saw herself getting stronger ……saw herself able to move beyond her wobbly legs…… able to see herself strong and agile …… she could feel the energy flow down her legs…… feel the energy flow down her legs… and she loved the feeling …..

It took practice though …….each time she attempted to stand up she visualized the energy flowing down into her legs ……. All the energy she needed flowing to her legs ……. All the energy she needed flowing into her legs ……..giving her the strength she needed …….

Relieving her pain …….. and fatigue ……….and she knew deep within …… knew deep within her that each day it would get easier and easier …….. seeing the energy flow to her and through her legs …… gradually standing ……. Stronger ….. stronger ……feeling such a sense of freedom …… such a sense of freedom …..this energy allowed her whole body to move and flow freely …… She felt this amazing energy in every cell of her body …… and she knew she could let go …….. and just be herself …….

Just be herself ……. Find a joy in defining who she was ……. Free at last …… free at last ……. Limitless ……. Perfect exactly as she was ……. Making her own decisions ……. Becoming her own individual person ……. Free at last …….. and deep within herself she knew she would always be able to find the strong …… courageous……. Healthy ……… independent part of herself ……. Finally free …….

Finally able to express her desires and wishes …… and she wanted to run ……. Run with the wind in her hair ……. And in the running her fears seemed to fall away ……. As a sense of joy and happiness filled her body …… she knew she could be all she wanted to be ……. All she wanted to be ....

Because she believed in herself …….. believed in living the life she wanted …….. leaving the confined space of her previous existence behind and moving fluidly through her life ……. Letting go and allowing the old to move through her …….. flow out of her body …… release her from the old patterns ……. Time to create new ..... New ways of being and seeing herself and her life ……. New ways .......

Following the Threads

2016-07-04T09:51:00.001-07:00

What to do when feeling stuck? Stuck might not quite be the right word. I’ve come to realize there is a difference between feeling stuck and actually being stuck.
Did I get your attention?
Feeling stuck can be more of a judgment, a way to dismiss what my inner writer is actually doing. Feeling stuck dismisses all I am doing when I am not writing.
Being stuck might just be what I do when I don’t sit down to write. Hmmmm ….

Writing about the antagonist and his world has been one of my big challenges.
As you know I have been doing The Way of the Heart™ integrations each day around my intention to write the stories that will become my book. After one of my integrations I wrote the words Trust and Keep Connected. Trust the book is living within me and the integrations are helping me to understand myself more deeply. Trust that the actions coming out of the integrations are leading me in the direction of inspired moments, of glimpses of the unknown.
Have you noticed as a artist there is a great deal of unknown in the creative process?
This week two things happened. We had a Life Mission evening and I worked a few nights in my Life Mission III manual.
The Life mission evening was inspiring because during a moment of working with my intention I heard ” Just write the stories about the characters even if it’s not for the book. Get your inspiration from pictures, movies and good TV”. With that in mind the next night I was watching a TV show called the Rise of the Continents, this particular show was on Australia and when an aboriginal elder spoke about his special gifts, lights in my head went off, this is exactly what I need for my antagonist. I grabbed my notepaper backed up the video and listened to him speak about his gifts with such beauty and grace. The ideas started to come alive; here was a way I could bring my antagonist to life, these gifts would one day help others understand he was not evil, he was desperate.
The next night I decided to use a picture as a visual inspiration and write about it. The picture I was guided to was from my pilgrimage to England in 2014. The picture was of a solitary stone in the Avebury Henge in Wiltshire and is called the Adam stone. Staring at the picture and breathing deeply into my writers heart and mind there emerged a story that will add another piece to my book.
The solitary stone is the antagonist in my book, the stone began to tell a story, one that would give this character, his personality and add to his inner world. I could not of guessed which picture I would’ve been led to. My Life Mission teachers Daniel and Kimberly talk about threads and how if I follow the threads of my life they will lead me where my intention is asking me to go. For me this process says trust what you are noticing and being offered because they’re leading you into the unknown in this moment, which may bring clarity in the next moment.
My intention to create the stories is alive and living in me. What if the events, things I notice, pictures, movies, TV shows, articles I read and music I listen to are all part of the bits of my life informing me and influencing the stories in my book. My teachers would call that Reading the Book of Life. Well, a picture I took almost 2 years ago in a sacred place called Averbury has influence the creation of a story and a character in an evolving book. By reading the book of my life and trusting my intention I have followed the threads to begin the story of an antagonist, who may turn out to be more.
What a journey.
May the tapestry and weave of your life lead you to beautiful insights that
inform your writing and creations.
Thanks for following the threads with me.

Tools to help ourselves and our clients

2016-06-30T14:22:00.001-07:00

Breathing

Remembering to breath.
Have you noticed your breath during your day.
I am becoming more aware of my breathing. When I stop breathing and how my body feels at those moments.

Dr. Andrew Weil says the following about Breathing Exercises.

Breathing exercises are a wonderful way to reduce anxiety, agitation and stress, while promoting relaxation, calm and inner peace. It may take some practice - and requires some commitment on your part to achieve results. However, the long-term benefits are well worth the effort - a calm and relaxed body and mind are less prone to health issues.

The reason I thought I would write about this today is I have found I often can get too busy to stop and breath never mind smell the
Roses. That works for a while and I also notice it really does not help my commitment to my body and my intention.
This morning I remembered an IPhone App I purchased and just did 7 minutes of breathing to this app.
It was fantastic.
So if you have an intention to bring awareness to your breath this just might help.
This app is a bit pricey, and I find it worth it. Going to breath now

Happy Breathing my friends.

Breathing Zone - Relaxing Breathing Exercises by Breathing Zone
https://appsto.re/ca/NO0cw.i

Mystical Merlyn and the Dreamers Dream

2016-06-26T02:13:00.001-07:00

So finally they are all gone.
Now I can wander and check out all the nooks and crannies.
I know this is just a dream I don't think she does though.
I can feel the unfoldment of her dream.
Well let's see what I can get into. The brown cat wandered down the long hallway. Feeling the curiosity and wonder in his wandering. All this space so much unknown. After all I am Merlyn the great mystical cat he sang as he stepped into the open door. Tables many tables he jumped and walked across from one to the other; the dripping Tap caught his attention. Stopping for a drink he looked out into the forest. Taking in his new world watching for any movement, time to go many more adventures await.
The inviting hallway led into a spectacular room, books and art.
You don't think cats would notice things like that well guess again.
This cat does.
The leather chair in the corner sends out an invitation. Adventures await. Sitting on the leather chair watching, watching the words float in the air around him as many books wanted to tell him a story, their story.
He picks one the alchemist turning cat cookies into gold. Now who's dream is this really his whiskered face smiles. Cats do have a sense of humour you know. Standing turning around he settles down to see where the next dream will take him trusting and waiting for the dreamer of the dream to realize she is dreaming and he then can go home.
Now wait a moment I could dream I am home. I wonder how that would affect her dream? Maybe she will dream she's dreaming this dream while I settled into my place on the couch in her office to wait. The little brown cat drifted off to sleep as the dreamer woke. She wandered into her office smiling at the crafty cat on the couch whiskers and paws fluttering in the dream.
What do cats dream of?
Are they chasing mice ?
Are they running in the forest of their imagination?
Do they have an imagination?
So many questions.
Well I think a cat with a name like Merlyn does.
Thanks from Merlyn and the storyteller.

Learning and Sharing

2016-06-21T00:58:00.001-07:00

Sharing the Hypnotherapy Journey

This weekend was our counselling hypnotherapy class. A group of dedicated people coming together to learn, share, explore, try out and inspire each other. My favourite mode of expression is through stories and metaphors. There are so many creative ways to work with hypnotherapy and although I love many of them stories make make my heart sing.

I am teaching Counselling hypnotherapy and that of course means counselling. So this weekend we really explored Counselling; creating a space for the client to move at their own speed, to find safety within themselves and the therapeutic relationship to open just a little wider, just a little deeper. We explored ways to stay with the client, not moving too far ahead so we loose rappore . Staying in the moment without an agenda, expectation and of course judgement.

Is truly is an honour to be called the teacher because I am learning as well. I am learning to speak and share about a process that is unique with each client. I am learning to speak about the subtle nuances knowing it will make more sense as each of the students sits with a client and experiences the realization they will need to listen more deeply, notice the subtle cues, hear what the client is telling them even when the client cannot tell them, cannot say.

I love to watch the light switch on when a student get it, experiences what I stumble sometimes to explain. Each person is unique and my challenge is to support each students uniqueness and how they will be a counselling hypnotherapist. Not my way, their own unique way. So they are kind when I endeavoured to explain, talk about and share the foundational aspects of counselling, the aspects they need to know and will still take and do uniquely their own way.

This weekend we explored working with a client who could not talk about what had brought her to Counselling, could not share. Safety was needed for this client on so many levels before she could trust. We talked about how to create the safety directly and indirectly. What it might be like working with this imaginary yet real person. What would I as the counsellor need to be aware of, need to hold within myself to work with, honour and walk closely beside this client. It was amazing discussion.

Then we created a hypnosis session for this client. Each of us wrote something about how we would approach a first session, a hypnotherapy session.

This is where my heart was deeply touched this weekend. I know that I cannot create a hypnotherapy session for clients unless I have deeply listen to what my client needs and is asking for. The more I know about my client te easier it will be to create something on the spot, spontaneously. Well I have to say this weekend I hung out with poets who deeply listened. Each one of us created a unique piece and it was caring, supportive, therapeutic and spoke indirectly enough for this client to possibly feel safe enough to hear and allow her unconscious to support her while her conscious mind took a little vacation.
I wish I had marked down some of the language.
I am writing about the weekend because it was rich, challenging, joyful and I felt we all came together passionately dedicated to learn and experience

What an honour.

This is what I wrote for this client I hope you enjoy it.

Many years ago a legend was told of a place .... A place deep in the forest..... A sanctuary of safety....... One that sent out an invitation to those who needed ...... Needed that which was offered in the sanctuary...... In this place..... Some people need to know they were safe and that it was safe to be in control of their life ..... That the choices they made in their life was there right to make .... Right to make until they chose to make another choice ....To know that the right to choose .....Their right to choose was their birthright ...... This sanctuary offered a refuge ....A place to sit.... To sit ..... And when one sat in the sanctuary in this place within..... Within the sanctuary in the forest ....In the circle of the trees they could sit and find a power..... A power and strength within...... Breathing the gift of the trees....Of the ancient strength .....the patience of these old friends..... breathing and connecting to mother Earth and her solid gift of knowing herself .....She really did know herself .... And offered it to anyone who rested there..... Breathing in deeply .......Breathing it into the place where it lived in her being.

Picture copywrite Diane Auld 2014

Entering the Sanctuary of the Writer

2016-06-20T00:57:00.001-07:00

As a writer I know beginnings are very important. This week thanks to some beautiful direction from my Life Mission III manual , I have been contemplating the sacredness of beginnings, beginning to write, coming back to a character whose story is expanding and evolving and entering back into the world of my book after an absence.

Beginnings.

I asked myself how would I like to enter my writer’s sanctuary.

I found this process very comforting, as my writing this week has been more technical than storytelling.

Entering back into the story tellers realm was helped by some questions that came to me:

What do I want to connect with when I sit down to write?

What do I want to bring to this moment?

Who am I in this moment?

These have been my inspiring companions this week.

What did I hear?

Begin with a longing and an intention to write with body, mind, heart and soul.

Allow the writing I have already done to inform me, to create a place for this character, this situation in the grand story.

Find the place in my heart and mind where the characters, the evolving world lives, “Ah there you are do you have more to say?Engage with the character, the paragraph, the situation I am writing.Begin to write, allow the words to pour out of my pen.

I have found that the more time I spend with the characters in my story and the story themselves, they begin the process of internalizing, the story starts to live in me.

Where does this inspiration come from?

I believe in these moments when the story starts to come alive in me that there is a relationship of three, the writer, the story and the Divine Creator.

This coming together begins a dialogue, one that comes from my body, mind, heart and soul interacting with the Divine moving through my writing.

What a dance, what an incredible dance.

When I enter the sanctuary of the writer all of that is there, all the resonance, every moment that I have put into my writing, and every moment every writer has put into their writing is present for me to attuned to.

I close my eyes, breathe into my heart and in my mind’s eye I see words, paragraphs and pages, all of the elements of my stories floating around the room , around my sanctuary just waiting for me. Every time I sit down, I arrive in this moment to begin and they are there waiting for me and my pen.

Let the dance begin.

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”

― William Wordsworth

My Week: Integrating my intention to write the stories that will become my book has really helped me keep the book alive in a week of commitments. My actions have been centred around creating an Entering Practice for when I sit down to write. I loved doing this. I created a prayer to read and be with before I start writing. Something that inspires and reminds me why I write.

One action I have pending for this coming week is to sit with one of my characters and have tea. Let that character speak to me and tell me about life from their point of view. I am finding the antagonist the most challenging character and circumstance to write about. Maybe it will be him.

Thanks so much for sharing my journey with me.

May your writing be blessed with inspiration and dedication.

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp.

The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.
– Ursula K. Le Guin

The Green Room and the Tall Lady

2016-06-08T23:24:00.001-07:00

A different kind of story.

As a counsellor and hypnotherapist I have many people come to my office. I try to make it as inviting a place as I can. We are told it is our relationship with our clients that is most important. Yes, I agree and would like to add our office is very important as well. Have you ever changed something in your office? Did most of your clients notice right away? The story I have for you is one of closure. Not closure with my counsellor, but closure with her office. When she told me she was moving this story emerged as a way of saying good bye and thanks.

The Green Room & The Tall Lady

If the little green room could write a story it would have many tales to tell. It likes its life, because for the last few years it has become the focal point of intense healing. Each day of the week it watches as its occupants work at looking inside themselves and trying to heal the pain of the past. When you are a room you don’t have issues to deal with, although you do become part of the process for others. As each hour flows into the next people enter your safe space and you get to engulf them in the security of your walls.
The room is happy with the current owner, she is kind and compassionate. The room gets to see the pain she carries. When she is alone and has a moment to look inside herself, he watches as she puts a hand on her head and sighs, a sigh of sadness, an acknowledgment of how other people's pain touches her. He sees her strength also, a strength that comes from knowing the process works.
He watches as she welcomes one person after another into this special space to explore the past and present. He watches as the relationship between the two of them deepens, enabling the visitor to look closer into the corners of their mind and feelings. He marvels. When the door opens and the tall lady welcomes another guest no one really knows what will take place. The tall lady listens that is a given. The room listens also, and the guests talk.
The room has friends: the green desk with its round carved edges. The Brown chest of drawers with the notched edges, the one the rock sits on. The rock was a gift from a visitor. The striped pillows - complicated pillows, nice to sit on, nice to hug, but, hard to hit. The little blue pillow in the plastic bag, I wonder why it lives in the plastic bag. And the green wand with the sparkles. All these play different parts in the process becoming focal points for a wandering mind.

So, what about the tall lady who has made the room her home away from home, and in a way her helper. She is fascinating. The room knows only a few more details about her than the visitors do. He knows only what he sees. She is beautiful and the beauty radiates from her soul, from her heart. There is an aloofness, but the room knows this comes more from necessity rather than desire.
You see the room does not feel the aloofness, for in her own way she is as open as a book, you just have to know how to read the book. The room sees her as an old friend. What does he know about her? She feels very deeply and she amazes the room with her deep capacity to be moved. Her tears are a reflection of her honesty.
She is moved to tears by joy, sadness, injustice, and witnessing courage that inspires her. Her understanding comes from her own healing journey, experiencing the stories she has heard over the years and her innate wisdom. He wonders how she does it sometimes.
He has observed how important her spiritual connection is to her. He feels she is surrounded by the spirit of the elk and that the wisdom of the Ancients keeps her connected to Mother Earth and to the Universe.
She has never directly told him any of these things, instead she reveals herself in subtle, gentle ways, by just being herself and that is enough for him.

Journey to the Heart of Mother Nature

2016-06-06T15:29:00.001-07:00

^{Journey to the Heart of Mother Nature}

I wish this blog to be about the many things I love. I will be writing journeys and stories about the wisdom of the stones. These stories speak the language of the unconscious mind, just let yourself breath in the story and the language will speak to a part of you that understands metaphor.

If you do not like caves this one starts off in a cave.

Here is the first one.

We all choose stones for different reasons. It is often the qualities we wish the stone would invoke from within us, bring to us, help us remember within ourselves.
Allow yourself to take these journeys with the stones you love and know, and ones you wish to form a new relationship with. These stones and their stories will take you deep into their heart of wisdom, and will invoke in you an opening and a way to get to know yourself through the qualities that stones offer as a beautiful feast for and to the heart, the soul, the one that remembers all within you.

Our first journey is to a deep wisdom place.
Allow yourself to breath for a moment, attune to your heart or if you love stones,
to the place within where that love lives.
When you feel centered and quiet - slowly read the journey.

The storm raged outside filing the air with the kinetic energy of life and change....... She breathed the coolness, drawing it deeply into her being........ The storm receded and she opened her eyes. Standing at the cave entrance her eyes took in the blackness. Black as midnight
shadows on moonlit water........ She waited for the storm to surge again as her mind wondered at this moment. Alone and not alone........
The walls of the cave shimmered in the flickering light, iridescence touching aspects.......... Aspects within she was seeking to more deeply
live into......... Time to release the past, to allow movement. She was determined to do whatever inner work was necessary to heal into the wholeness the watery oracle had shown her........ They called her magician. Sought her out for her gifts. I only seek power over myself she
thought as she walked to the back of the cave.......... I only seek power over myself......... A table was covered with papers and old friends;
rocks and stones who had chosen to be part of this journey. Journey with me now she softly whispered to a stone picking it up gently and
holding it to her heart. Journey with me now......... Closing her eyes she entered the sacred breath as the vision began. The forest trail unfolded before her. I love the smell of forest life her breath sang as she felt solid ground under each step.......... It called her......... the grove........ Stars shimmering through the tops of the trees as the branches open their hearts to her allowing her to move into the deepest part of forest. Breathe....... Breathe..... she heard herself say coming out of the clearing her rock circle waiting patiently. My old friends ...... Dear old friends waiting
........ As she sat against the deep blue stone her face turned up and the stars bathed..... Bathed her soul...... And it flew outward as she dropped
even more deeply into the grounding of this sacred place..... she walked the path of stars with the figure who joined her. Familiar and ancient the being smiled at her. It is time to see who you really are....... to step into the vastness of your soul name. Your courage and wisdom take that into the heart of this unfoldment......... let go what you no longer need. This is the place of done with that...... Done with that! The path lit up before her as she allowed...... Allowed the path to be her guide. No more she spoke to the old ways, old beliefs, no more........ How would those on earth see her, she wondered. As a comet with the old being burned up in the sun as they walked the star trail...... they visited the distant stars leaving the old on stars of volcanic fire..... Leaving the old.... Leaving the old ..... Allowing herself to go deeper and deeper as the stars offered her opportunities to deeply unearth the walls. the holding back, the not good enough - no more her freeing heart cried, no more......... She felt a slowing........ as a star of crystal light offered her a resting place; a grounding into the newness of the space created within. Breathe she heard ......... breathe into the space and see who you really are. Dancing light filled her being, red, orange, golden yellow, Golden green, rosy pink and blues of many hues and she breathed each one in, knowing their voice was offering the way........ Offering her just what was needed in the moment...... Time to rest and allow the healing, the wholeness to inform you, the voice whispered. She opened her eyes to find herself back in the grove supported by the stone, the earth and her winged soul. A hand holding hers. Thank you she whispered. You are welcome. I am called Nuummite. She looked down at her hand and the deep black of the stone caught the beauty of the starlight. You are welcome.

Picture taken from:

http://www.glstones.com/Nuummite.htm

My favourite Greenland Stone Site.

Following the Threads

2016-06-05T10:52:00.001-07:00

What to do when feeling stuck? Stuck might not quite be the right word. I’ve come to realize there is a difference between feeling stuck and actually being stuck.

Did I get your attention?

Feeling stuck can be more of a judgment, a way to dismiss what my inner writer is actually doing. Feeling stuck dismisses all I am doing when I am not writing.
Being stuck might just be what I do when I don’t sit down to write. Hmmmm ….

As you may remember the antagonist and his world is my big challenge right now.
As you know I have been doing The Way of the Heart™ integrations each day around my intention to write the stories that will become my book. After one of my integrations I wrote the words Trust and Keep Connected. Trust the book is living within me and the integrations are helping me to understand myself more deeply. Trust that the actions coming out of the integrations are leading me in the direction of inspired moments, of glimpses of the unknown.
Have you noticed as a artist there is a great deal of unknown in the creative process?

This week two things happened. We had a Life Mission evening and I worked a few nights in my life mission III manual.
The Life mission evening was inspiring because during a moment of working with my intention I heard ” Just write the stories about the characters even if it’s not for the book. Get your inspiration from pictures, movies and good TV”. With that in mind the next night I was watching a TV show called the Rise of the Continents, this particular show was on Australia and when an aboriginal elder spoke about his special gifts, lights in my head went off, this is exactly what I need for my antagonist. I grabbed my notepaper backed up the video and listened to him speak about his gifts with such beauty and grace. The ideas started to come alive; here was a way I could bring my antagonist to life, these gifts would one day help others understand he was not evil, he was desperate.
The next night I decided to use a picture as a visual inspiration and write about it. The picture I was guided to was from my pilgrimage to England in 2014. The picture was of a solitary stone in the Avebury Henge in Wiltshire and is called the Adam stone. Staring at the picture and breathing deeply into my writers heart and mind there emerged a story that will add another piece to my book.
The solitary stone is the antagonist in my book, the stone began to tell a story, one that would give this character, his personality and add to his inner world. I could not of guessed which picture I would’ve been led to. Studying Life Mission I remember my teachers talking about threads and how if I follow the threads of my life they will lead me where my intention is asking me to go. For me this process says trust what you are noticing and being offered because they’re leading you into the unknown in this moment, which may bring clarity in the next moment.
My intention to create the stories is alive and living in me. What if the events, things I notice, pictures, movies, TV shows, articles I read and music I listen to are all part of the bits of my life informing me and influencing the stories in my book. My teachers would call that Reading the Book of Life. Well, a picture I took almost 2 years ago in a sacred place called Averbury has influence the creation of a story and a character in an evolving book. By reading the book of my life and trusting my intention I have followed the threads to begin the story of an antagonist, who may turn out to be more.

What a journey.

May the tapestry and weave of your life lead you to beautiful insights
that inform your writing and creations.
Thanks for following the threads with me.
See you all soon.