cliodhna’s wave

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

Who am I really? Who am I underneath all the pretenses and masks I have developed over the years? All the times I have shifted colour and form to fit in while never really succeeding, always on the outside, not understanding how others made it seem too easy, trying too hard, being seen as the ´weirdo´

That is the problem I have faced in the past. Wanting so much to be accepted but afraid to be true to myself because I wasn´t enough, everyone else seemed to be so much more happy, successful, witty, just plain ‘more’

I didn´t know who I was, not a clue, not an iota, well maybe a part of me knew but was covered over by the masks. How do I find out who I am or want I really want in life if I don´t know and really don’t know how to cut through all those layers I had covered myself with. I wrote a story about it called Coat Boy. I will post it later. How to dig down through those layers and find out what lay beneath and smash those mirrors into smithereens.

I remember about three years ago making a promise to my heart, standing in front of a Rathmines window and gazing out at grey Irish weather that if my heart were to bring the means to finding what it really wanted into my life I would do my utmost to make it happen.

I decided I needed help, for the first time in my life actually admitting I could do with some help. I think now, just occurred to me, that my resistance to seeking help meant that I might actually have to change myself on a deep level instead of wanting it and wishing it but at the same time ultimately avoiding myself.

I did Reiki one and as part of my intention for doing it was to find someone to work with and he presto, three weeks later I find myself agreeing to become an apprentice to a Mexican teacher who works in the Toltec teachings. My life has never been the same since. I have ditched so much baggage and there is more going all the time, I have completely changed my outlook on the world and seen past the stuff that I took for granted and saw into the heart of myself and the world around me. Competition, comparison, my inner fears, my manipulation, my need for attention, my inner tantrum throwing control freak child all get put under the spotlight and seen for what they are. Outmoded tricks of the mind which will do anything to stay in control.

I am writing this from a hotel room in Mexico City, about to go on spirit journey to the pyramids of Teotihuacan. I have done this before and always come out the other side charged and renewed. There will be changes though, there will be upheavals and earthquakes, there will be the tower card of the tarot inside my inner being, there will be resistance to letting go and there will be competition and comparison until I surrender and become in line with the flow. But at the end I bring gifts back with me to my life and they continue to shift and grow inside me until they flower and bear fruit.

What do you want for yourself in your life? Now what are you intending for yourself in your life? Because unless the two of these match then what you want will always be waylaid by what you intend.

Intention is the big brother of ‘I want’. ‘I want’ comes first, in the shape of a wish, a desire, a thought about the future or a question asked to the universe. Then comes the intention.

Intention is in the choices we make for ourselves in every moment, which is why intention always trumps Want. If we want to be rich and have a successful career but have fears about revealing our art work/ selves/ abilities to the outside world then however much the desire is there we will choose hiding and not taking the risk. That is called intending failure. I know, I did it for many years… I was an expert in intending failure.

Came a day though when I shifted the intention to success, then and only then could I start to build my life around success. I remember I decided that if I wanted to be an artist then I wanted to make money being an artist so I could make more art and spend my days doing what I loved doing most.

This shift doesn’t happen over night though, patience is required and a good hard examination of my intention every now and then helps also.

Here’s the trick, you see the thing is that life has many surprises in store for us on this journey we are on and the only thing for certain is that ‘success’ is not going to be what your mind thought it was. The wish has to come from your heart, what your heart really wants.

So it is a five step process

#1 Make the wish from your heart

#2 Intend success

#3 Let go of any expectations and attachment to outcome

#4 When the choice comes up in every moment ask yourself, before blindly making it, which one coincides with my intention at this moment

#5 Trust that is all going according to plan and enjoy the journey

It is hard… my mind jumps in and judges me and tells me I am on the wrong road and I should be somewhere else or doing something else or just plain a different person. My idea of success was selling lots of bags and artwork and making lots of money but that is not happening as quickly as I thought. Then I realize, my artwork is maturing and becoming freer and closer to my wishes for it and my business brain is slowly coming together and I know if a big opportunity had come my way in the past I think I would have failed at it due to lack of preparation. That opportunities come when I am ready to receive them.

My ‘I am not good enough’ thoughts have sabotaged me for long enough though. I am not going to listen to them any more. I am happy and blessed and I am following my heart and that in the end is really all you have to do… x

Life

I went to Teotihuacan recently for a ceremony for the death of an old shaman woman named Sarita. Her son was there and his sons and wifes and all the people she had touched during her life whether directly, through the people she had taught and healed or indirectly like me who had never met her but felt it was important to be there.

The reason why this is in the life part is that death is not a dissapearing rather a passing onto somewhere else. The reason I went is not that I was sad she was dead but to honour her life here and the teaching that she passed onto others including me. She passed it onto her son (Miguel Ruiz, he wrote the ´Four aggreements’ you might have heard of the book) who passed it onto the teacher I work with who is passing it onto me. This teaching has been around since before the aztecs, way before that and went underground when the spanish arrived here in mexico. Each generation gets it, changes it slightly and then passes it onto the next one. The essence remains the same however. Knowledge of self, stalking the self, to be in your own centre and power with your own connection to the heart. It was great to be there.

Death

I had my principals tested the other night. I have been bemoaning that fact that we kill anything we see that is slightly dangerous to us. Spiders, scorpions, snakes, wolves, bears, tigers, rats, all get squished under the heel of the human fear of death.

The other night wandering around the house with a torch to see what I could see (counting the scorpions on the wall outside, the bumbling june bugs in their season of dying, the praying mantis waving back and forth doing its best to look like an innocent twig swaying in the wind) when in the corner of the kitchen shiny black, with the ever so familar bright red hour glass shape on its belly was the classic spider of all the spiders…. the black widow. I looked at it for ages and then thought “I suppose I should kill it” The idea of going back to bed with it still in the kitchen didn´t appeal to me. I was still looking at it when it ran back under the cupboard. I went and put on boots and got the broom, checked the corners and turned the cupboard over. Got a towel and squished it. I really didn´t want to but I suppose I discovered that a black widow spider outside is one thing but a black widow spider in my kitchen was another thing entirely. I thought of catching it but to tell the truth I was kind of nervous about it, my mind was telling me about death and bites and poisin and generally creating fear. 

Just checked on the net and apperently they are not very deadly, their venom (15 times stronger than a rattlesnake) produces severe muscle cramps (very painful) for about three days and hospitals generally prescribe morphine for the pain. The anitvenom actually kills more people than the venom. Old, sick, pregnant and children are most at risk of dying. Maybe the next time I won’t be so scared and catch it instead of killing it. One of the mine workers got bitten by a Violin Spider in Chihuahua and he is still in hospital with operations on his arm. I guess its easy to be idealistic about thiese things when you grow up in a country which has no dangerous anythings what so ever…. not even ants that bite!

all the other stuff in between

the dogs got their injections and the puppy shrieked and yowled for about ten minutes. Puppies are such babies. Went to the vet the next day and got pipettes to give it by the mouth, much better.

and now go outside look up at the sky and see past the blueness of the sky and think about the fact that we are on a spaceship of green and blue and things growing and dying but always changing, in the middle of nothing sailing round a huge ball of light and warmth. We get so lost in our little fears and desires. We don´t actually have to do anything except be here and live and learn how to be happy and let it all flow until its time to go, time to leave this place and go travelling again. Thats my hippy thought for the day… man

x clio

I was doing my recap today when I was thinking that doing personal work like the workshops I do in the Toltec is like unraveling a big twisted knot. You have to find an end and start there and work your way into the centre of the knot. Start with the little knots and they will give you energy (inner strength) to face the biggies when they come along. Sometimes a big one just melts away unexpectably and you have a few yards of free wool before you reach the next tangle. Patience and doing things in the proper order is called for, no point tackling a knot if there is one before it that needs to be done first.

As a mirror to this I realised a few days ago that lessons arrive as I need to learn them. It gives me a wonderful sense of freedom when I realise I don’t have to control me or my world, that all flows as it should. I wrote a big hippy post about a while ago to do with snowflakes and water and reiki. Let the energy flow and it will go where it needs to. Hard to let go sometimes though, old habits come up and I catch myself trying to change or ‘fix’ someone or something.
What got me thinking about this was that instead of looking at something big like family issues in my recap today I  decided to look at driving. I am 35 and I am just really starting. Partly of course I had a bike for years and it was all I needed in a city and also Irelands heavy Insurance/car tax but they are just excuses to me not getting my own car and starting to drive. I realised it was down to the same old chestnut of me not feeling up to situations that might arise. Future dread. Possibilities of failure. Of course when I do get behind a wheel and drive I am very calm and sorted and well capable and I feel amazing after having done it. I just need practise. I have to demand and insist I drive to get past the block, instead of what I have done in the past of just letting others drive.

I saw a cool ford escort today. I might look at another tomorrow morning but I reckon its going to be one of those two. !!

exciting!

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!

I was doing a tarot reading with Paul last night, the osho zen tarot, I love them. They have a directness and a simplicity and a connection with here and now that I like. Anyway, I asked for me and ’sorrow’ came up and I was explaining to Paul that, for me, to really release sorrow you have to go into it and experience it and not try to run from it into control (whatever form that takes.. television, books, cigarettes, food, anger, however) and also what was I hanging onto in my life that I didn’t want to let go of, didn’t want to fully mourn and accept that it was gone. For me also tears are about the fear of letting go, the mind goes to fear and out come the tears.

I started a path about three years ago working with the toltec teachings and I don’t think I have ever cried so much and in front of people too! Its my first port of call and sometimes I hate it and try not to and other times I accept it and accept the fact that it will pass in time.

I know when I am in control because I feel a pushing in my solar plexus, a frustration, a want that cannot be satisfied, anger, a feeling of wanting to pick a fight, a need to make someone else wrong or make them little. It is my flag, this feeling, that it is time to relax, let myself fall into truth of here and now, stop trying to twist the world into my idea of how it should be and let it flower in its own time. I think I have been feeling this way recently, I have been doing so much administration, getting the past in order, setting up structures (like this blog and my shop) looking at other amazing blogs, making a web of myself on the ephemeral world that is cyberspace, that I fell into the illusion of control, I could, by much action, shape my world into happy and successful.

This is my fear, an old one, to control how others see me, to make them like me, to manipulate the world so I get what (i think) I need. The fear of really truly being exactly who I am right now because it might not be enough and the sorrow is to let go of the facade and let truth shine through. There is only truth.

The second card I got was ’sharing’, the image of a woman offering a bowl of fruits. She has so much she can give and she gives from endless abundance. This is the way past my fear, to share with the world what I have because each of us has a unique path and wisdom to give to the world and there is always enough for everyone. My mum used to say that we each born with our own packet of love and each child had his/her own.

I have been connecting with others who are on the same path as I. I got a wonderful email this morning from A Fanciful Twist (a really cool blog I discovered recently) which gave me a smile and encouragement. And of course Paul, the ever present love, with his own viewpoint on life. Sometimes we are completely in sync with each other and sometimes it’s immovable force meets unstoppable object! He got ‘the master’ card in this reading last night, but you know, I think I am going to ask him to write something from himself for that!

So, a deep breath, relax, time to put the admin in perspective and stop organising for a while. I am going to get the oil paints out this morning. I ADORE the smell of oil paints, they surround me in a cloud of magic or possibility, don’t know why but they do. Start creating and letting it flow once more. If anyone is feeling too much ‘doing’ and trying to control this morning, sit back, have a cup of tea, get a piece of paper maybe and doodle or write or hum a tune or sit under a tree or ring a friend you haven’t talked to in ages. These are the things which make us happy!

x cliodhna

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