cliodhna’s wave

…as it says on the title I am setting up a Toltec stalking group in Sligo town. Everybody is welcome even those who are scratching their heads right now wondering what on earth is a stalking group and what does toltec mean?

Stalking is technique perfected by the Toltecs ( who lived in Mexico many many years ago) for Self awareness and inner freedom. We all have limited patterns and beliefs about ourselves and the world around us that stop us being everything we could be. We live in a dream that is not in accordance with our higher selves and when we have limited beliefs about ourselves these are what we project onto the world and the dream we create around us is limited. Stalking is a tool to find these limited patterns and beliefs, change them and heal them and start dreaming from love. To create the world we want around us that is unlimited and everything we can dream of.

I have worked for the last eight years with a Mexican shaman called Don Luis Molinar. He is a nagual in the Eagle Knight Lineage and received the teaching from Don Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements, Mastery of Love) who in turn received it from his grandmother who was a powerful shaman and healer.

The meetings will be in Sligo town in the evening time for two hours every two weeks in the Yoga Centre on Castle Street (purple door!). There will be a charge of 5 euro per meeting. Contact me for further details, we are still deciding on a day but we will start soon. Text or ring me at 083 4014336 or message me on this post.

If you want to read more about stalking or the Toltecs then check out
www.ToltecHeartWisdom.com for Don Luis

www.MiguelRuiz.com for Don Miguel

love and light! x clio

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Cats don’t know how to fly but then birds don’t have two wide eyes and four feet of claws.

Bird says ‘I can can fly and I have feathers that are as light as the wind and that carry me where ever I want to go. I see the tops of trees and the caterpillars seeking the heat from above the leaves, I see the snow on top ofmountains and the start of streams that gush freezing water down the rocky slopes. The wind is friend and the rain is worm bringer. My eyes are black beads that shine and flit constantly, my body is small and my heart beats fast, when you hold me (if I let you) you can barely feel me except for a vibration and heat in the cup of your palms.

Cat says ‘I bask in the heat of the sun and my fur is warm and soft to the touch. Bury your fingers in my stomach and rest your ear on my chest to hear the thunder that is my voice. The wind shakes the branches and distracts the birds so I can change in an instant from sleepy warmth to huntress and mistress of all I see. Sudden death in a flurry of feathers and I jump and trap. I dream of grassy oceans and dark forests and stalking, ever stalking the light that shines from the sky, the quick rustle in the undergrowth and the presence of another heart that beats.’

First came the in-breath, the gasp from nothingness, the awakening the awareness of being. Nothing still was, just pure awareness and stillness, waiting for the impulse to move.

Then came first pondering; A simple ?. No words as yet just pure question, a wondering of the awareness.

Next came second pondering, an awareness of ‘self’ as something different to ‘other’. In the vastness and wideness of the beginning of the world ‘self’ looked round and thought ‘I’ and ‘you’

The vastness and wideness of the beginning of the world did not say anything back, did not look back, just was, in its awareness there was no difference between ‘I’ and ‘you’

The self began to name things; self needed some landmarks to make the vastness smaller and easier to live in. Tree (big green fluffy), grass (green soft), mother (love),

The world began to turn and the stars began to move and the self was frightened. Self asked the world “Why are you so big and all? And do not pay me any attention?”

The world did not answer.

Self asked again “Why do you not do what I say?”

The world did not answer

“You do not love me” said Self sadly

Then he heard a voice inside him “You are loved little self, you exist because you are loved, there is no difference between you and me, we are, look around you at the vastness and wideness of the beginning of the world and stop putting names on things to make it seem smaller”

“Who is speaking” cried Self

“I/You are speaking” replied the voice and suddenly Self understood, the world had begun and everything, self included, was part of it. Everything was on the journey and self was there to witness and be a traveler on the voyage. Self smiled.

The stars twinkled, “Hello stars”

The rain started to fall from the clouds “Hello clouds, hello rain”

Self looked in a puddle at the reflection “Hello Self”

I have been given a gift of solitude. Two days alone in a house in Chihuahua city. It wasn´t supposed to be this way, my partner having promised he would be there to collect me. I was pretty annoyed I tell ya when I first read his email but then I realized I wasn’t actually really annoyed, just thinking I should be annoyed and I calmed down and you know it is actually good to have this time to catch up with myself and let myself rest and have silent time for a day or two before properly diving back into the fray of life and all its attendant madness.

We are driving to the border to change our visitor status and then we drive to Guanajuato to collect the rest of our stuff. We are getting a new house here in Chihuahua city and I am organizing my English language lessons for when I return to Palmarejo.

I am still coming together after two weeks of emotional intensity, whether mine or other peoples and when you are in a group like that it doesn’t really matter whose it is. After two weeks I could feel my hold on my inner calm wearing, which of course just means I have more stuff to look at, but it is a longing to be alone again, without the constant friction of being aware and present in every moment. Makes me realize how much time I spend not being present when I go to these journeys. All the stuff comes up. It comes up in me, it comes up in somebody else and triggers something in me, I compare and judge myself for it, I make mistakes and judge myself for it. I come clean and tell all and it feels so much better until the next stuff comes up and I have to do it all over again.

What did I discover… well if it can be put into words. Here is the biggie; I had an epiphany about how I have resisted my parents trying to teach me things all my life. I had always thought it was about music, or school, or the Irish language (when I was six I told my mother this was a stupid language and I am not learning it… I didn´t) but I had a feeling then that it went way back before that. I think, possibly, that I was just resisting… full stop. I was not going to be who they wanted me to be but I didn’t really have anything else to be so I daydreamed glory and being amazing at something, anything, so they would have to think I was great. Combine dreams of glory with passive resistance and an insecurity complex about not being good enough and what do you have? Stuck.

The thing is I realized was that it wasn’t about them trying to make me into what they wanted or whether they were or not. I was in resistance even before they tried to teach me anything. I think I was born resisting being here. I know that sounds stupid but it made sense at the time it occurred to me. I don’t even know if it’s true or not, doesn’t really matter, what was great for me was the fact I saw it as mine, not theirs and so now I can keep it and own it.

So, I am going to stop resisting. It will take practice I am sure, I spent the last three days of the workshop with a tight band around my stomach. Pure resistance, my mind in a last ditch attempt to hang on, and I am sure it will use wily means and old tried and tested patterns to hold me here. But I have seen past it now so in the end it will have to let go and learn how to float.

so, out the other side of one journey, quick rest for a day and then off into four days of dreaming.

These journeys are so intense and so fulfilling to do. Anyone who has done this or any other work like it knows the futility of trying to explain to friends and family what you went through. It is so personal and inside that words just don’t do the depth of the experience or the inner release and gifts of awareness justice.

The dreaming is changing inner perception. Going deep into my personal story and changing it for a new one. You do this on a near sleep level which is where the mind has no control and you literally rewrite your personal code. Better explanation here Dreaming a New Reality

The photo is of my nephew, taken by his dad, so cute and so open to the world around him He has no masks between him and the world yet, he is open to see and be seen. That is the goal of this work, to strip the masks between who we really are and who we think we need to be to survive.

x clio

So my threadless submission didn’t get very far. I think I am not hip enough for threadless or else I am not involved enough to get comments. Oh well, not really worried. Would be nice to get a design printed though and get 2000 dollars!

So I took the design I did and made it into an embroidery. I stiched the people up seperately and stuffed them and then stiched them down onto the backround fabric so they stand out. To make the people I patchworked strips of fabric together first and then embroidered the people on top of that and then made them into the dolls ready to get stuffed.

Words in the corner, sky dancing, growing, singing, dancing…

It is good to get back on the sewing machine again. I have one more project on the go and another one sitting in my head ready to leave.

Its funny about what other people think is cool or not cool or marketability. Just read this post today from Florence Forrest. Sometimes I do work which I don’t really value until years later when I look at it and see that it is actually a good piece of art work that I just didn’t think was good enough at the time. Or I understand more about the image and why I did it. I think rather than ‘not being marketable’ I think we are just not ready to expose them. They sit until we recognise their value and recognise the value of who we were at that time. She does the coolest toys too, check them out.

I think sometimes I can get lost in needing to be professional and advance my ‘career’ and forget that the best art comes from the heart in the moment and if we loose that then we have lost our connection to ourselves. Marketability comes when it is ready. Of course actually getting out there and showing the world what you do helps also! Its a balance.

and of course to leave you with,  the usual picture of a beautiful sky!

“Have you ever considered writing about how you can tap into something so much bigger than yourself? I’ve just been on your red bubble and I continue to be amazed and delighted by how you can so eloquently paint the heart of myth. It is as if each of your pieces is a poem. Susanne Ilse”

Following this wonderful email from Susanne at Bonesinger, whose work I admire greatly, (and check out her post on Irish stone spirits in the irish arts blog) I sat down to write this response.

Myths are stories spun in and around our life to give richness and meaning to those everyday things we often take for granted. A Myth conotates something grander than a mere fairytale. A Myth is bigger than we are, it is what we aspire to, what we can dream towards and they are always set in the far past, unconnected to today to emphasis the otherworldness of the heroes, heroines, gods, goddesses.

Maybe Myths scare society a little, if they were true they would upset the safety of reality and a rule based society, maybe that’s why they are always in the past or in another world or set in a world beside ours that touches it occasionally but doesn’t quite meet. They are uncontrollable and unsafe, they break boundaries and rules. Gravity does not have power in a myth, neither does age, time, space or simple laws of what humans are and are not capable of.

We have been separated from our own Myths, from our own power, we have given away possibility in favour of a safe existence from cradle to grave. We accept what we are told about life, about our bodies and about our minds and we are hooked by the big ‘I AM’, we think personal power is having control, of ourselves and the world around us. But in myths the heroes and heroines have no control, they are spun by the threads of destiny and they have to drop what they think they want and suddenly everything flows forward and they are successful. There is always a struggle before the dropping of the mind.

I want to live my own Myth, I want to see what happens when I drop control and let it all flow… and this is what I do every time I create something, I try as best I can in that moment to drop control and see what happens. We all do this as artists, that feeling of flowing, of effortless creation and when its finished you look and your mind is surprised and a little in awe of ‘I did this’. Truth is though ‘I’ didn’t do it I merely got out of the way and it happened all by itself.

I am getting better at the getting out of the way bit and as I do I get closer to how I dream my pictures. A new freedom, a new level of letting go, a new style and a new trust in my voice, no comparisons and no competition. It is freeing and it is scary and it is living from the heart. Living each moment surrounded by the grandness of the Myth, by possibility instead of facts, by the wonderfulness of the fact we are here instead of mundane worries, by the connection to life as an endless river and we are here for the ride and to learn how to swim, without struggling, straight to the sea.

Thanks Susanne for the inspiration to write this, we need reminding of this sometimes and it was good to actually sit down and think about it right now. Put words on the feelings, put my intent back on track.. XX cliodhna

I had a dream years and years ago and I was sitting beside a canyon looking at an old leatherbound book which had the words “Where dragons be and how to find them” written on the front cover. I was looking at the index page because of course I wanted to know how to find them when up the canyon a huge bird came soaring. It dissolved into a thousand pixelly parts and then reformed facing towards me and took off past me with such power. I was left sitting there with my mouth open but no-one else saw it in the dream. I never did find out how to find dragons, guess I wasn’t supposed to know that information at that time.

I have changed a lot since that time. I lived in my dreams back then, It was quite cool for a while, I could dream on order and I had all sorts of mad strange lessons and journeys and I think looking back I was learning a lot on a level I didn’t know about. Time came though when I realized I wasn’t capable of holding down a proper job or manifesting all these dreams I had into reality. I was so afraid of failing (or succeeding) or making mistakes or not being able to live up to my own dreams and my knowledge about myself that I was stuck in this world and so I made the decision to come out, to quit obsessing about my inner world and start manifesting in my outer one.

The thing I know about myself is that I always get what I ask for.. always.. and this is not from an ego point of view, it amazes me sometimes when I look back and remember ‘Oh yeah, I asked for this, cool, thanks universe’. Of course this cuts both ways, I remember being frustrated with myself that I wasn’t in touch with my negative emotions, I was living on the surface all the time. Boy oh boy did I have a doozer of a year and a half after that wish but I came out the other side wiser and more in touch with myself and more accepting of my negativity and smarting from a few painful lessons.

So to come to place I think of as the Jonathon Livingston Seagull place. To learn how to ‘not ask’ but to stand so still you can traverse time and space. To learn how to be in that precious space of peace where creativity flows without hindrance, without judgement or comparison or fear or dissaproval. To leave ‘trying’ behind and just be. To let myself do that with my art and my pictures but also my life. Let it flow to where it needs to go so always I am in the right place , and the right place is always here.

I feel right now I am on the beginning of a cycle, cool feeling, I am planning work, wanting to get down to it. more oil pictures, these pictures I’m doing for threadless will get turned into embroideries. Patience, plant some seeds and see what sprouts. I said to someone recently my lesson is slow development and patience with myself is something I have had to learn. Let things develop slowly, don’t rush, don’t push, I will get to where I want to go to eventually with my stuff well learnt and well prepared, with calmness and in heart.

I am settling with Paul also, wonderful feeling of deepness that I always just accepted I would probably never find and of course scared the shit out of me when it arrived . Just to make ya’ll jealous here is a picture of the swimming hole we were in recently and I was swimming in a looking around at where I had found myself in my life saying “Cool! thanks universe”

I am coming back to Ireland in a week! how soon time rolls around…

Back to mists and mellow fruitfulness and away from my new found watering hole under a railway bridge and constant sun and dust (dust has permeated my pores, especially since the water in the house we are staying in ran out so no showers or washing dishes) and dogs sleeping away the day and barking at each other all night.

So news for those of ye in Ireland who are interested in self discovery and exploration and healing of the body and being. There is some workshops happening now and for May in Co Claire in a retreat (language school) called Holywell. Its on the edge of the burren and a very inspiring place to be. The work is Toltec and is about facing yourself and your wounds and healing them. The teacher is Luis Molinar who was an apprentice to Miguel Ruiz who wrote ‘The Four Agreements” and “The Mastery of Love” and he is a very understanding gentle teacher. I have worked with him now for about four years, various workshops in Ireland and trips to the pyramids in mexico.

Dreaming is changing your dream. We are dreaming right now, creating our world from the energy we carry and send out and everything we see is a reflection of our inner being, the beautiful side as well as the side we don’t want to admit to carrrying. In dreaming you take the limited side and literally re-dream it. Change takes place on a deep level.

I always find I have changed after doing these workshops even if it seems nothing was happening at the time. Its like a glacier melting. Small streams grow to big streams and then all of a sudden when you are least expecting it a whole big chunk falls off and there is a lighter quality of being. I love doing them, I love the quality of energy that surrounds them and that stays with me after I leave the world of the course and go back out into the big world again.

For me also its about getting rid of all pre-conceptions I have about the world. All the ways of looking at the world I was taught growing up and that I don’t want anymore. To be able to really see the world through love and not through the smoky mirror of my own thoughts and habits. Leap of faith into true freedom of spirit.

I have posted the poster but if anyone wants a bigger file of it post a comment or email me and I’ll send it to you. He is also doing private sessions of an hour long in his house in claire but they fill up fast and sure maybe see you at a workshop!

I will be going to the yoga day and then the Language of love. There is a mens workshop also. I know this is kinda short notice but I have been distracted lately, hard to get to internet and then when I generally did have it I was working so not much room for keeping up with the list of ‘things to do’. There is a link to Luis’s site in my blogroll or here http://toltecheartwisdom.com/

love and light!