You might know the feeling when a bright memory from your past drops in to visit. This morning when I was sitting with my journal, there was a moment when I had a crystal clear memory of being on the Sacred Isle of Iona. Iona is a magical (and very small) island off the west coast of Scotland. I was a part of a residential workshop there back in 2014 with the wonderful Kathy Jones of the Glastonbury Goddess Temple.
I heard these words during a time of silence and meditation: “I am a Teacher, I am a Healer, I am a Wayshower.” These words have been my touchstone ever since. And nudge me gently to keep sharing my work.

Have you ever heard the words of your calling/purpose?

Last week I was walking along Cronulla Beach. Right on the edge, where the water rushes up sometimes as high as my knees, and we walk a little more briskly to save from getting our clothes wet. The tide wasn’t especially high and the ocean not especially wild. Fully clothed, hat and sun glasses, shoes in hand. Ambling to breakfast at the café at Wanda Beach.

This place is home to me – I grew up here, and although never a bikini clad beach babe (as in Puberty Blues) I have a long love affair with the ocean.

On this particular morning, at a certain point, some confluence of the ocean currents managed to create a whopping great wave-only about one metre wide and taller than me-and I didn’t see it coming.

Are you aware of the cyclic nature of your life?
Living with aware consciousness means being alert to the cyclic phases that are pertinent to you in any one moment and being conscious of the choices made in that moment. 

Do you know:

• When is the time for planting and nurturing the seeds of creativity or creating intentions and plans for those intentions to come alive?
  Spring - 3am-9am, New and waxing Moon, Days 3-9 of the menstrual cycle, Maiden time: 0-25 years old.
• When is the time for holding the space for the growth of your seeds and intentions and celebrating the fullness of their reality?
  Summer - 9am to 3pm, Full Moon, Days 10-16 of the menstrual cycle, Mother Time: 26-50 years old.
• When is the time for harvesting the riches of the cycle, for examining their worth, for sharing in community
  Autumn - 3pm-9pm, Waning Moon, Days 17-24 of the menstrual cycle, Maga time: 51-75 years old.
• When is the time for letting go? For rest and completions? For endings? This is the time when the ground is prepared for the next cycle- the letting go, the bones, become the mulch for the next plantings.
  ​Winter, Dark Moon/New Moon, Days 25-2 of the Menstrual Cycle, Crone Time: 76-100 years old)

​At the age of 54, when I joined the School of Shamanic Womancraft - first as student, then apprentice and now teacher, the Wisdom of the Cycles became integral in how I lived my life. As a woman in the last months of my menstrual cycle at 54, I had lost the opportunity to integrate the living wisdom into that particular cycle. The diurnal (solar), lunar (moon), seasonal and life phase cycles have had riches of wisdom to offer in my personal life and in my work.

I understand that if I do not live with the cycles consciously, they happen anyway-the wheel keeps turning. What I have come to know in my work as a Counsellor and Psychotherapist is that far too often, the cyclic consciousness is suppressed, stuck, or wounded. Our responses become Shadows which we do not or feel we can’t know. Pushed aside, these shadows can often lead us in an unconscious and painful dance.

Whilst the teaching of Cyclic Wisdom is central, it is also critical to recognise and call home the shadows that are often created by this suppression, stuckness and wounding. 

In Western medicine these "shadows" become diagnostic labels which are most often treated with medication: the effect of which is to suppress even further the psyche’s response. (A note: I am not anti-medication for mental health as such-sometimes it is a necessary and life saving/life enhancing gift of western medicine).
However, in working with the cycles, I have noticed that mental health issues are often linked to a Shadow wound at certain times of the life cycle:

• In the maiden time-the Shadow wound is often to a person’s sense of identity and might result in personality disorders
• In Mother time-the Shadow wound appears to be in relationships and sexuality
• In Maga time-the Shadow wound appears as disorders of mood, for example depression and anxiety.
• In Crone time-the Shadow wound appears as fear of letting go, fear of death, undealt with grief.
• In the Centre of the wheel is Trauma-Which occurs often and is often relegated to the Shadowlands.

Cycles are by nature, a movable feast- and of course these Shadow wounds or issues might occur at any time. I have found linking them with 'The Cycles' and creating awareness and intention a critical tool to enhance a person’s capacity for healing of self and welcoming home of the exiled shadows into a tender, accepting and wise relationship. 

If you are interested in learning more about Shadow Cycles and mental health, join me in the Shadow Cycles series of workshops (all online currently), beginning with an introduction on 12th March and commencing the teachings of the Cycles and Shadow Cycles from Samhain in May.

There will be learning about the Cycles, the Shadow Cycles and approaches for integration. The workshops will involve personal work with your own Shadowlands, and will also be useful to broaden your skills if you work in the field of Mental health in a professional capacity.

Regardless of your purpose for attending, be prepared to dive deep and connect with your own Shadows, and be aware that you will be in a safe, confidential container of a group of like minded women.

For more information and to book click here. 

On the cusp of the new calendar year, I find myself deeply resting. There is a sense in me of deep need for rest. Preparing for the wheel of time to keep turning. 
I have been contemplating David Whyte’s poem “The House of Belonging” (this is an excerpt-the full poem is at the end of this blog):

“This is the bright home 
in which I live,
this is where
I ask 
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.”

I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that

​thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.

But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought

it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,

it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,

it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.

And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,

this is the gray day
someone close
to you could die.

This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next

and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,

the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.

This is the bright home
 in which I live,
 this is where
 I ask
 my friends
 to come,
 this is where I want
 to love all the things
 it has taken me so long
 to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
 like the house of belonging.

Hi There
Although I have trained in many psychotherapeutic modalities since the 1980s, over all that time, the modality I kept going back to was Psychodrama.

Psychodrama is a group psychotherapy action method which was developed by Dr Jacob Levy Moreno (1889-1974) last century. The method is also used in one-to-one and relationship therapy these days. Psychodrama is also a developmental theory comprising of a theory of personality and development, called role theory. It is a sociological theory comprising of the science of sociometry: the measurement of relationships and connection in groups and community. 

The reasons I love psychodrama in particular and why I chose to train as a psychodramatist (which took 12 quite intense years) are many:

• It’s ALL about relationships
• It involves engagement and development of thinking, feeling and action (the 3 components of role), which few other psychotherapies do.
• Creativity and Spontaneity are the cornerstones of psychodrama
• It works

A note on the length of training: I completed my training (through AANZPA) relatively quickly. The training is not comparable to other education systems. It is based on role development, and progression through the training is driven by the trainee to a large extent. It also involves extensive personal development work. That is, my thesis and practical assessments were done only when my roles had developed adequately for me to step forward and say I was ready. 

Here is a quote I love from Zerka Moreno (in “The Quintessential Zerka” p.43). (She was J.L.Moreno’s wife) 
“Moreno’s vision was so comprehensive. With him, one worked all the time because life was constantly presenting itself to us. Everything was about relationships-ours to each other, extending to our near and far social atoms.”

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Have you ever wondered
Where in your body
Or perhaps your mind
Is tucked away
The Cave of Shadows?
And if the Keeper of the Cave (a fierce warrior by all accounts)
Would allow you in (or perhaps let them out)
Who or what might these shadows be?
Yours
You

There might be a tuneful singer
Who comes warily to the cave entrance
And suddenly shouts in retreat
“But I cannot sing!”
And as you lie in the softness of dreams
You hear your own beautiful voice of song as it drifts from some dark cranny at the back of the Cave.

And here are the terrified/terrorised and angry ones.
The Keeper takes special care that they remain inside
They are small. Tiny and misshapen
They have the sneakiest ways of escape
And when they get past the ever-vigilant Keeper of the Cave
(because they can)
They grow
Like a stain of ink in water.

How are you? I've been working on organising and streamlining my business recently to bring further order and balance to my life, including a commitment to a regular newsletter. I'm thinking about once a month, so do look out for them.
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 It was a fine Irish day in County Clare when I made my visit to Biddy Early. I knew she was reputedly the last woman in Ireland to be charged with Witchcraft under the Witchcraft Act of 1586. That was in 1865 (only 3 centuries of terror). She was taken to court and acquitted- reportedly because no witnesses would come forth against her. She was born and lived all her life in County Clare: 1798 to 1874. A fiercely independent red head, she was famous for her healing skills and for her capacity to communicate with and cure the wrath of the faery folk. There is a story of her Blue Bottle (which has never been found)- she would gaze into the bottle and it would give her inspiration for the cure that was needed at that moment. People came from far and wide to obtain Biddy’s cures. I was keen to visit her place and feel herfor myself!
I knew it would be hard to find her. I had some clues from the internet. And her cottage was long for sale (still is, as a matter of fact, 1 acre of land and a ruined cottage, 75,000 euro- last year it was only 45,000 euro (approx.. $68,000AUD), so the irish economy must be picking up, or perhaps there is more interest in Biddy these days. But even the real estate map wasn’t very useful to find it. We (my intrepid investigator partner Geoff and me) knew the road she was on was on was a country road – an “R” road which usually meant that it was sealed and that there was enough room for 2 cars to pass each other(just).
True for this road. However, it was very winding and had almost no places to safely stop. After going up and down the road a few times and not spotting anything that looked like a ruin or even a forest entrance, we turned off the road and came upon an elderly gentleman at the front of his elderly house. “Do you know where Biddy Early’s cottage is?” (me, slightly embarrassed about my obvious eccentricities)  “I do”, he said (without batting an eye lid, and as matter of fact as the sun rising every day) “I will take you there, follow me.”
As is the way of the Irish, he jumped in his car, and we followed him. No questions asked. He stopped on a bend in the road. Hazard lights on (ours anyway, he had that thing the Irish have which is a trust that other cars will drive around you and not into you…………… doesn’t always work, mind).
Next thing I know, I am walking up a gloomy muddy track with this man. The house is not far from the road. It is in a wood. I didn’t stay for long. I felt anxious about being with this strange man I did not know. I am not sure why. Geoff was only down on the road 100 metres (or less) away (down on the road with the car- he has a magical belief that staying with the car will stop someone from running into it) The picture of the cottage is above.
I could feel her there and was disturbed by my Irish gent guide who kept bobbing up and down at the window when I least expected him. I was sure I could see her shape in the wall. Take a look at this photo below.