This has been a particularly challenging year to be alive on planet earth, with the genocide in Palestine, the war between Russia and Ukraine, soaring costs, job losses, increasing ecocide, pollution and a culture of fear, separation, division, as well as increasing gaps between the rich and poor. This has left many struggling with painful emotions, confusion, despair, powerlessness and exhaustion from overwhelming choices, sensory input and information overload that modern life throws at us.

All this means we really need to find ways to take better care of ourselves and meaningful ways to respond with love to it all.

This has been a big year for me personally too, as I was ordained as an Interfaith Minister, after two years of deep, reflective study and growth. This path seemed to flow seamlessly from the previous years of work as a Sound Healer, Shamanic practitioner, Yogini, Transpersonal Psychology researcher and Practitioner, creator of ceremony and holder of sacred space. I have spent the last two years not only training, but also growing increasingly connected to the Divine. Spirit has repeatedly whispered to me during the last few years with increasing frequency as I developed a prayer practice. Something I had never considered or understood before.

I have been working in the worlds of healing and spiritual growth since I was in my twenties. I am now in my 60th year – I celebrate my 60th birthday in just five months. I can hardly believe I will soon be getting my bus pass and yet I still feel so much a beginner at life. For example: It has taken most of this time for me to really understand the value and importance of self-care and self-love. The essential nature of surrendering to what is and relaxing fully into the present moment.

I have read about these things, practiced them even, for most of the last 35 years. But its only now, as I approach a new phase of life as a Reverend and an elder that I realise that I am finally truly living this way most of the time. This is due to my increasing ability to hear the voice of Spirit and to respond with love to what is.

So, I am expanding my work and my courses with new ways to help others deepen this connection and find their own ways to respond to what life throws at us with equanimity, love, surrender and peace. The work I am offering over the coming months will, I hope, be richer and more profound than anything I have shared before. Grounded as it is in a lifetime of experience and a connection both to Spirit, the earth and my own true path that has deepened and blossomed so much during my last two year’s training.


The sort of work I am offering is a self-care retreat “Celtic Soul” – a day long (with overnight option) event full of sacred sound, most of it in the Celtic tradition, including Welsh poetry (in English), and simple chants and invocations in Welsh. I will be partnering with my beloved friend Sally Davies, a gong healer, Naked Voice practitioner and Poetry Dive facilitator. This is a retreat to fill up your love tanks for the winter and to work with the spirit of autumn to release what needs to be let go of in the moment. We will be sharing beautiful food, dance, music, poetry, prayers and blessings that honour ourselves, the earth, all of life and the Divine.

This retreat is designed to NURTURE YOU, NOURISH YOU and help you find inner peace, harmony and balance. It will be held at Precious Wood, near Cardigan in West Wales in the yurt and in the woods. There is the option to stay over for stargazing and a fire (weather permitting).

As a result of my last two years, I also bring a greater depth of clarity, purpose and meaning to my Interfaith Shamanic Sound Healing course “Sounding the Medicine Wheel”, which begins again this autumn and runs through the darkest months. This course will bring you sacred sound-based tools, which will help you turn inwards during the quiet months, where introspection and integration are the natural order of things.

Earth based Shamanic practice is a human birth right – it doesn’t belong to any one culture. All peoples once used tools to connect to Holy Love, to the Great Mystery. We can use any tools that resonate with us to connect to the spirits of land, sea, sky, flora and fauna, wherever we find ourselves rooted. The Divine opens herself to us and whispers to all those who listen. She uses different voices all over the globe, but our hearts can become attuned to all the nuances of her many languages. On this course we share lots of them to enable you to create or refine your own path to healing and connection.

These tools will allow you to spend the winter deepening your connection to nature, to the One Great Spirit, to your own creativity and the authentic expression of your soul. They will help you heal and transform your emotional and mental patterns in whatever way you need for your own blossoming.

This course is LIVE on ZOOM twice a month from Samhain until Imbolc. I have had participants from Spain, Italy, North America and Canada, India and the Far East as well as the UK. It is a truly wonderful thing to share our deep experiences of this holistic spiritual journey with beautiful souls from around the world, and it really demonstrates the unity and commonalities we share across faiths, nations and cultures.

For more information about our beautiful “CELTIC SOUL” retreat or “Sounding the Medicine Wheel” course please EMAIL ME: hara@amazinglyfe.com

In the meantime, I leave you with this prayer that I wrote for the children of the earth, may it bless you and yours.

May you be blessed by the Divine Mother
May you be healthy and strong
Safe and well in a circle of beloved ones
May you live an authentic life
In alignment with your soul
A life of meaning and purpose
That serves both your joy and the healing of the earth
May you grow through your challenges
And return easily to equanimity
With an ever more open and loving heart
May you love and laugh freely, be at peace
And be a blessing to the world.

In love, beauty, gratitude and peace, Hara xxx

Irish sound healing conference – and a holiday that turned into a pilgrimage

I recently attended the Irish sound healing conference in Co. Clare, Ireland and I want to share my deep gratitude to the team who led the event. In particular to Lucia, Jane, Clare and Katie and of course to Cait. What an experience! It was very different to the UK conferences I attend each year. Equally wonderful, but really different. We were all together in every workshop and ceremony. There were no parallel sessions, like we have at our CoSH and Transpersonal Psychology conferences, so we were immersed together in the energies of sacred sound and together we were taken on a very different journey to any I’ve shared before. 

There was some really deep work happening in the spaces between and within us. Through experiencing sacred sound as an agent of healing, nurturing and transformation we were carried between so many realms of being and different emotional states. Among many powerful and wonderful experiences, we explored the energies of grief, loss, remembrance and renewal, for our ancestors, for ourselves and for the lost language, people and lives of Ireland. 

I really wanted to share something of this experience with you, my spiritual communities, as it has had a profound effect on me. As some of you know I am currently an Ordinand in the Interfaith Ministry with One Spirit Interfaith Foundation (OSIF) and will be ordained on 26th July, in just a few weeks time. So I am currently deep into the alchemical process of this journey of ordination. What I had understood to be a wonderful weekend gathering of sacred sound practitioners and then a holiday touring Ireland, was actually transformed for me, by the power of these sound healing practices, combined with my ever deepening spiritual path and prayer practice, into a transformational pilgrimage. 

At this point I wish to briefly explain what I have discovered to be the real meaning of prayer. It is a game changer! I have learnt that it simply means keeping the lines of communication open, alive and vibrant between me and my own particular notion of the Divine, or Holy Love, as I like to call the Cosmic Consciousness. It is most powerful and effective if done daily. As often as possible, I find. Particularly if I start each day with my own nature based communion. I feel it is this connection to, communication with and openness to the sacred in each moment and in every thing that allowed this holiday to become so much more.

This was my first visit to Ireland, and I travelled with my husband, who is very unwell and whom I care for. We had wanted to visit Ireland for a long time, and it is challenging for me to find people to support him when I go away, so it seemed like a wonderful opportunity to see Ireland together. But I was totally unprepared for the profound effect that the sacred sound, and Ireland herself, would have on me.

My workshop was the last one of the weekend, and followed after the only other one that morning – “The importance of indigenous approach to sound healing”, by Cait Ni Riain, a very talented singer and facilitator. During this workshop Cait spoke about the importance of using the indigenous language and practices of the land where we live in our sacred healing work. I am in total alignment with this and was intending, synchronistically, to share some Welsh language chants that I had written, as I live and connect to the earth in Wales. 

During Cait’s workshop we were learning to sing, in Irish, part of a very powerful and deeply sad, traditional Irish folk song. This brought up a lot of grief in the participants, who shared some of their losses, because their families’ land, homes, family members and language had been lost, stolen or destroyed by the English who colonised Ireland in the past. There was so much grief, loss and trauma in the room. 

I was deeply moved by this, as well as by the power of the Irish language itself, moving within me, as we sang the words in a tongue I had never heard or sounded before in my life. I was astonished at the depth of sorrow and waves of painful but beautiful, sacred emotions that flooded me, as the Irish sounds resonated in my being, as I heard people’s stories and listened to Cait sing the entire song through for us. Her voice was incredible, carrying all of the meaning, potency and grief of a culture and country raped by the British so many years ago. I felt the wonder of the healing taking place in the space, as elements of this language were being restored to the consciousness of the people after so long. It heightened for me the importance and preciousness of each unique language, culture and landscape that together contribute to making the earth and its global community so rich and varied.

Following on after this intense experience with my own workshop was one of the most challenging things I have ever done as a holder of sacred space. But during the ceremony, as we reconnected to the Holy Love within each of us, to the Divine Feminine in creation; breathed sacred air and shared sacred breath together; blessed the sacred waters of our oceans and rivers together; and sang and drummed our love, gratitude, healing and appreciation to the earth, I can see now that it enabled us to begin to ground and centre again, after a really powerful and special weekend. One that I won’t forget.

After the conference my husband and I left on our trip around Ireland in our little campervan. Over the coming days, as we marvelled at the variety and beauty of the landscapes, I also noted all the shrines and altars, monuments and sacred spaces dedicated to the Catholic deities of Mary and Jesus and also, importantly, to those who lost their lives fighting to save Ireland and its culture from the invaders. I stood and honoured their courage and their pain, moved by my new connection to the depth of those losses. I stopped and prayed at many of the sacred spaces dedicated to Mother Mary, the mother of love, the mother of sacrifice and of suffering, and I began to understand something of the unique relationship that the Irish have to this beautiful face of the Divine Feminine. 

I had not had a good relationship with the Catholic Church before this trip. But after praying and reflecting at the Mary shrines, in the Atlantic ocean and Irish Sea, by a wildflower meadow in the Glen of Aherlow and on the banks of a river in the Monastery City of Glendalough, I began to feel, understand and really appreciate the enduring love people have both for the land of Ireland and for Mary, the Mother of Mercy, the Holy Queen. 

This trip perfectly illustrated for me that life is truly a blend of beauty and suffering. I also have been held by the Divine Mother in my pain. I too have turned in my suffering to God and received his/her blessing and love. I have always known that we are never alone in our darkest moments. Knowing that we have a loving, tender, compassionate mother, who understands our losses, our pain and our trials, and who can and does hold us through our suffering is deeply comforting. 

But after this weekend, this trip and this personal pilgrimage, after my training as an Interfaith Minister, and my years as a Sound Healer – KNOWING THAT WE CAN ALSO BE THIS FOR ONE ANOTHER – that is truly inspiring. 🙏🏻💜🙏🏻

Around 2000/2001 I was studying creative writing with Dic Edwards at Lampeter university. We were given an interesting writing exercise to do for our homework one day.

We were told don’t think, just allow each response to come …..

Firstly, pick a character – I picked either Isis or Hathor, the Egyptian goddess (I knew nothing about either, the name just came). Frustratingly, I can’t remember which!
Secondly, pick a setting – I picked the Bwgan stone (the ghost stone in Welsh) a large rock in the middle of a Bronze age burial mound, I think!) on the mountain at the tip of the valley where I live in West Wales. This is also, apparently, a nexus, where several ley lines meet and cross.
Finally, pick a scenario – I chose the floods and storms at the end of the world as we know it.

I can’t remember the whole story, as it was 21 years ago. I submitted it on paper to the university, but they don’t store students’ work that long. However, I never forgot the story or the title, as writing it was a really powerful experience. The images and feelings of that story have stayed with me. I have several times been through my old computer that I had then, but much of my old stuff was somehow deleted. I had no idea how important this story would prove to be for me! But here is what comes when I feel into it, as i did at the time….

It is a time of floods and I am sitting, on the Bwgie stone (as I know it) cross legged in torrential rain. The valley below me is flooded and our hill is an island in a vast sea of floodwater. I close my eyes and reach up and out to the goddess, calling on her to send her light and power to assist the human race at this challenging time. I am aware that there is a great tide of darkness upon the earth and there is a battle between the powers that be on the planet and the light workers, of which I am one, for the freedom, peace and healing of the earth.

(I had spent several years prior to this working with energy as a healer, balancing and harmonising the subtle energy systems, including the chakras, of my clients and doing a LOT of work on my own energy field as well. Healing has been the greatest passion of my life since 1994, so its no wonder that it popped up in my story).

I am flooded by radiant beams of white light flowing down from above, sent by the goddess. This light pools all around me and radiates through me. My job is to anchor this light and feed it into the earth and the ley lines, which will send that light out around the planet, joining up with all the high frequency loving light that all the other lightworkers are anchoring into the grid.

I am aware that I am no big deal in this scenario. There are tens of thousands of women and men like me around the world doing similar as well as different kinds of light work, with thousands of light beings assisting us. But each one of us has their own special job to do to contribute to the shift of energy. Some of these helping spirits are angels, others archangels. There are deities from different traditions, dimensions, times and religions all offering their love and light. They all have one thing in common – LOVE. This love is for our planet Gaia and all of the unique and sacred life upon her.

All of the light workers are calling down LIGHT frequencies of love, healing and harmony. We are shifting the balance of light and dark. Darkness has been flooding the earth and there is grief, pain and despair. But there is also hope, community and cooperation and this dedicated web of light workers all over the earth connecting to the LIGHT and to each other.

I entitled my story Web of Light.

(I have since understood that my connection to Egypt is ancient and powerful. I have worked in previous lives as a sound healer in ancient Egypt in temples, connecting to Amun Re, Isis and Hathor in ways I do not know, but trust are very real and strong. I know this because many times, as I develop my sound healing skills – by attending further training, and also by teaching, I find myself connected to a golden light, to the energy and shape of a pyramid, and I often become aware of ancient Egyptian images and memories.

When I was in my 20s I had the joy and privilege of being asked by my mother where in the world I would most want to visit. She would pay for myself and then fiancé to go there. As it turned out that would be our wedding gift and honeymoon from her, as she died shortly after. We chose Luxor and Cairo. Where we visited the temples where i now believe I once worked healing with sound).

Some years later I was told that there was a book written with the same title as my story. I have never read the book, but I am now intrigued to read it. Looking at the info about it online I can see there is a similar theme running. I believe that I was receiving information that was coming through for many of us at that time, but for me it is always so subtle that I am not aware it is happening.

Recently I have discovered and been listening to Tim Whild’s Practical Ascension videos and finding that his words and practices are speaking to me in really powerful ways. His work has included pyramid energy, golden beams of light, working with Archangels, all of which have been cropping up for me over these last 20 years. Some exercises I have followed I have already done the next step before he has said it. I feel very much attuned to his work and it feels like it is really ramping up my own present Sound Healing work as well as my personal transformation. I am doing the practices for real now, that I wrote about in my story and the time I wrote about seems to be happening now. There is a perfect unfolding in the cosmos and I am so joyful to be consciously aware and part of it.

The final wondrous and beautifully synchronous connection is that Tim Whild works with Diana Cooper, who, it turns out, is the author of the book The Web of Light. I’m really going to have to read that now!

INTRO to SHO course

Welcome to Amazing Lyfe and Hara Willow Healing – offering mindful, heart centred, shamanic sound healing work:

Including retreats, courses, workshops, one to one healing and community events.

Eight week Sound Healing Circle Course

This unique eight week course is a blend of Sound Yoga (no postures, just mindful voice work) Sound healing, Authentic Power Practice (google Gary Zukav and Seat of the Soul institute) and Shamanic Healing.

It has been shown that once we have secured our physical survival, i.e. shelter, warmth and food, there are other psycho-social needs that are essential to maintain mental health and wellbeing. These are 1) a sense of connection and belonging; 2) a sense of meaning and purpose; 3) a sense that you matter and have value; 4) a sense of agency, i.e. that you have some power over your life. Another aspect to wellbeing that makes a real difference to your happiness is being able to know and express your authentic self.

It is my intention and, I believe, the experience of people who attend the circle, that the course greatly improves the degree to which these psycho-social needs are met.

What the course offers…

This course will teach you to look at your self and your life from the perspective of the Native American Medicine Wheel in order to bring all the parts of you into harmony. The Medicine Wheel is a mandala, a circular map that represents different aspects of you and your life here and now. From that perspective we then share mindful sound healing tools from various wisdom traditions in order to empower you to make whatever changes will bring you balance, wholeness and inner peace. We do this work together safely, in the context of mutual support, compassion and acceptance.

At the start you will set an intention to create positive change in one or two patterns of thinking/feeling or behaving that you feel do not serve your wellbeing. For example; if you suffer from anxiety you will learn tools to transform that pattern.

Another aspect of the course that is really healing and transformational is that we work for the highest good of ourselves, each other and all of life. The sense of connection to each other, to the earth and to great spirit, (God, the goddess, Love or the source – whatever you relate to) has been shown to have profound effects on wellbeing. It enhances our sense of belonging and community and gives us a sense of relationship to the universe and our place in it.

Each week we focus on a different part of ourselves and share practices designed to work on that aspect. For example, in week two we look at tools for creating emotional balance and harmony. Combining yogic wisdom with authentic power practice (a spiritual psychology) and meditation, drumming, singing and occasionally dancing, each week we move our energy back into balance.

Practiced regularly this can be powerfully healing. Can you imagine how the blueprint of the oak tree is stored in the DNA within an acorn? Well our blueprint for a healthy self is in our DNA and expressed in our energy system. We can realign ourselves with that healthy blueprint using these tools. I have heard that we can even reprogram our DNA!

The course includes grounding, psychic protection, is great for spiritual and personal development, improving self knowledge and awareness and the sound healing tools allow the experience of deep peace even for those who struggle with meditation.

One of the best things about this course is that if you use the tools they will bring you into harmony with your soul and cosmic consciousness (the source or ground of being) from which we come and to which we return. This brings great peace and joy and releases fear.  Which is just what we need to live an amazing life. 

I am sharing these tools as I have personally found them invaluable in my own life and use them to maintain my own health and wellbeing. Without them I would be very ill. They do work.

Here are some testimonials from past participants…

Thank you for sending the notes for week five. As usual it was a fantastic, moving and thought provoking afternoon. I am enjoying the course so much. It resonated especially as the intention I set at the start of the course was to choose to move forward with trust and love and this was mentioned in the session in regard of shifting our being into into patterns aligned with love and trust. Amazing! I am loving this journey so much.

I have worked with your CD this afternoon and it was like having you in the room encouraging me and I really enjoyed and felt the benefit.

Thank you for sharing your love, knowledge and experience with us all. Glynis xxx

Thank you Hara for the notes you give us and for such and empowering session this week. ….. Really glad Glynis told me about your course.
Love and blessings Eileen

This is an excerpt from a book on Shamanic healing – by Christa Mackinnon and beautifully expresses how this type of healing is so powerful…..

“Healing holistically, working within all dimensions of the human experience enables the wisdom of the soul to enrich the limitations of the mind.”

“Adding the spiritual dimension to the Recovery (healing) process and working shamanically helps us to expand our consciousness to experience our soul, our connection with spirit, has being embedded part of the whole and as being whole ourselves.”

“Shamanic work also creates fields where participants of groups have a direct, intense, holistic experience that produces the desired connections, shifts and transformations for healing, recovery and personal and spiritual growth”.

I look forward to seeing you soon.

With love, light, peace and healing, Hara xxx

Well, after a few difficult days after the sound healing I bounced back almost good as new. Days and days of crying for no apparent reason really restored me. I felt lots of old grief, sorrow, rage, betrayal and hurt wash away from me.

I am still finding that when I feel back to normal and I spend hours gardening, on the computer, doing my dance workouts and cleaning I am bad for a day or two afterwards, so I know I’m not back to normal, but I am still trying to find that balance.

It is a long time coming. I need to take it easy, but not stop or get lazy. I need to do my workouts, but some days I’m too exhausted to do the tough cardio dance-a-thons that work up a good sweat. Some days I just need to do gentle stretches, some chi gong, some yoga, take a walk and potter around. Other days I’m up and bouncing, like today, for half an hour non stop until I’m red in the face, heart pounding and sweaty. Then I cool down with some stretches and finally slip into my energy work – chanting, psychic protection, meditation and prayer.

I never miss those out. They are the foundation of my wellbeing. That and a great diet. I stopped taking the ImmunKomplex a few days ago. At £1.50 a day and hardly any income coming in I felt that it needed to go. It seems it has done its work after the 40 days I was on it. I am not feeling a return of the bad days without it. Now I’m on the Serrapeptase 240,000 iu three times a day, 1,400g of vitamin C three times a day and the kyolic garlic with meals. That’s affordable at least.

I used to drink gallons of water, but am still struggling with this. Which is a bugger, as I know that I need at least 8 glasses, or 2 litres a day. My understanding (from my training as a holistic therapist) is that Oxygen and Water are the essential building blocks of good health. We get more oxygen by breathing correctly – this is where the yogic practices help – and by exercising. Then we also need to get properly rehydrated, enough to flush out the toxins and give our bodies the proper support to rebalance themselves.

The water should be better than you get from a tap in the big city. But you can filter tap water. That’s what I do in Wirral and in Wales it comes from a spring, so we have a filter system on the water as it comes up from our storage tank. Great water doesn’t have to cost a lot. We don’t all need to be drinking Evian. But if you can afford spring water or mineral water all the better. If not, get the best filter you can afford. We used to have one on our sink that filtered the water through a tiny tap and it was really good. In Wirral we have one of those jug ones.

I have to say that the sunshine and the new green foliage around me is a tonic. Every opportunity I’m out in the sun, or dappled shade, to study, to meditate, to garden, to read. I wish I could use the computer out there too!

I love this month of MAY. It is my favourite time of year. Which is why I’ve not blogged for two weeks. I’ve been staying away from the computer. Anyway, here’s my catch up. Back soon,

Blessings of light, love, peace, joy and transformation to all.

NAMASTE!

After my morning bounce today I went to do my meditation and chanting outside. I needed some more outside time and I have been feeling a bit crap since the sound healing 10 days ago.

I have just finished (I hope) a 12 day period, which the sound healing also really ramped up, some good cleansing blood letting going on there… my Uveitits symptoms have worsened since the healing too. That doesn’t worry me – healing can cause things to intensify as they are released, as energy rebalances itself in the system. Plus, I had done some more intense healing with myself using the musical intervals and the crystal a few days after, so a lot of moving of energy will be going on.

Hence, really tired, headaches, more inflammation too – my fingers feel very swollen, my joints tired, weak and achey, but the most challenging symptom is the underlying one at the heart of the matter – the emotional pain that is arising. I am feeling an emotional mess.

I know that I have grief and pain to be released, as I have no patience (a sure sign of emerging issues), I feel suppressed energy surging up and making me feeling restless, angry, frustrated, weepy and I feel like shouting, screaming, smashing things every time I try to do something and I’m too weak or clumsy or I mess something up and then I cry.

So, today I went outside into the very mixed late April mountain weather and I did the chi gong element exercise before I sat to meditate on the medicine wheel. Firstly, I do my grounding, centring and protection; connecting to the earth, to the sky and the stars, which brings to my awareness and intensifies the energy flow between mother earth and my heart, and father sky and my heart. I then use sacred geometric energy forms to keep me in balance and prevent my energy from being lost or taken by others.

Nature abhors imbalance as well as a vacuum, so if you vibrate at a high level and others around you at a lower one, (and hours of energy work like I’ve been doing for the last 20 years raises your energy a lot), so unless you consciously control your own energy system your energy can leak away into the people around you. And sometimes people will actually consciously take your energy too. You’d be surprised how often that happens.

A few weeks ago on the train to Liverpool I sat next to someone I know only vaguely and we chatted for a while. After about 20 minutes she said something like “you don’t have very powerful energy for a yoga teacher and healer Hara, I’ve been trying to take an energy boost from you for the last few minutes and I’m getting nothing!” Once I got over my shock at her cheek I told her that I’m not surprised that she got nothing, as I am not inexperienced and am well aware of psychic vampires, conscious or unconscious and I never go out without protection to keep people from lowering my energy or letting in any unbalanced or low energy forms that might be hanging around in the environment.  She seemed quite cross that I wouldn’t allow her to charge herself up on my energy.

If you don’t buy into this here are a couple of examples of how you will have most likely experienced this yourself…

1)   You feel great and then you go to spend time with someone you know who is very needy and demanding. After you leave them you are exhausted. Even if you didn’t speak about their problems.

2)   You go out into a public space for a bit of shopping or to meet up with friends and you feel really drained and tired when you get home despite only having walked a bit and spent some time in a coffee shop.

In both cases your energy has been drained by someone who is vibrating at a lower level than you. This is not a judgment thing, it’s just a fact about energy. It doesn’t mean they are better or worse than you in any way, it could be as simple as your mood is high or theirs is low. Its all an exchange of energy which happens all the time!

Anyway, back to this morning’s practice. I grounded, centred and protected myself and then did my medicine wheel meditation that I do every day. There are many models or templates for this from all over, but mine is one I’ve used for over 20 years and it works for me.

I started in the East, in my model the gateway to Fire and Spirit, and I asked for guidance, inspiration, enlightenment, for light to be shed onto my healing journey. This is the place of new beginnings, starting over. I asked to be guided through this healing  journey and for spirit to help me remember at all times that in truth there is no illness, danger or anything to fear; that the material world is illusory and the stuff of duality, simply the appearance of reality, but actually only a reflection of the deeper reality beneath. I spent some time in gratitude for the flow of spiritual awareness and support in my life.

In the south, gateway to Water and the Emotions I connected with the universal flow, and asked spirit to help me remember to flow at all times with all life brings to me, and to allow my emotions to flow through me, while I remain detached from them in my calm centre and I asked spirit to support me in witnessing, fully feeling and experiencing my emotions as they flow through me, but not to keep hold of them and thus indulge them, whether painful or comfortable. I reminded myself that only love is real and spent some time in gratitude for all of the loving, nurturing and nourishing relationships that I am blessed with in my life.

During this time connecting with emotions, water and flow, I began to notice an imbalance in my hands. In the place of the south I was holding my hands in the Buddhi mudra to connect to the element of water even more deeply. I ‘felt’ into my hands (moved my awareness into them) to explore the imbalance more and was fully mindful of the energy in them, the tightness and swelling and this strange sense of imbalance between left and right. It felt like one hand was making a different mudra to the other, I looked down and they were the same but felt really different.

The weather was changing around me as I sat, the wind blew in the trees and ruffled my hair and it was chilly with the clouds scudding all over the sky, white and grey ones that sprinkled me firstly with pellets of icy hail and then with large but intermittent drops of rain. I was still warm from my workout and the thick tracksuit I was wearing and the hoody and raincoat over my legs.

I sat feeling the swirling emotions within me and the currents of wind without. There was a blackbird close by on top of the huge pine tree across the year from me. He was singing his head off and the sound, intensified by my eyes being closed, took me back to a place of deep love, to early childhood. I was very young, perhaps five or so, in the garden of my Auntie Kay, a very elderly lady friend of my mother’s who we visited a lot when I was tiny. I sank into feelings of safety, warmth, love, care, being protected, looked after, innocent still of the cruelties, suffering and loss that life inevitably brings us, and suddenly I was crying for that small child, for my mum and dad and the lovely old ladies who were family friends and doted on us and who are all long dead.

I recognised that since my mum died in 1991 I had no one older and wiser than me, no loving elder to hold me and say that things will be ok; to give me support and advice, to say I’m here, don’t worry, you won’t fall, I’ve got you.

I felt such a wave of grief and longing release from my heart, I wanted so much to have that feeling again and I knew that not having anyone there for me, in that particular way, was both the greatest loss and the greatest gift of my life. It meant that I had no option 24 years ago other than to turn to spirit, first in the form of nature, then later to non physical beings; my spirit guides and guardian angels, in order to get the support and wisdom to grow through my life challenges. I had experienced some big challenges that I really needed support for in my twenties and thirties and I feel that turning to spirit for help opened me up to the most incredible experiences I’ve ever known, taking away forever my fear of death and showing me many times over that the non physical realms are not only real but very much able to engage with us in the material world.

As I sat there with the hail falling in my hair like diamonds through hot shafts of sunlight I was bathed in fire and ice. I felt that I must be sitting in a rainbow as the wind blew, shushing and whispering in the trees, the birds joyfully sang their little hearts out, the cuckoo called out from below me in the valley, and the woodpecker’s hammering echoed between the trees. I felt like I was in heaven. No wonder the earth is so healing to us – when we stop to fully listen and feel, our hearts can open up and nature’s beauty, perfection, the emerging creative, joyful life energy that flows everywhere is bound to fill us too with joy, peace, harmony and vitality.

After that I moved into the West, the gateway to Earth and the Body and I changed my mudra to the Soorya mudra, the earth element, that brings health and vitality. I asked the spirit of the west to aid me in regaining my health and vitality and to understand what my body needs to return to balance and health.

Again, in this mudra, my hands felt unbalanced and as I felt more deeply into my  whole body I realised that it was my whole left (feminine) and right (masculine) sides of my body felt different, unbalanced and almost disconnected, as if they belonged to two different people.

The left side felt heavy, tight, swollen, toxic, blocked, stagnant, inflamed and angry. As I let my awareness sink deeper into my body I felt it was swollen with unshed tears, unexpressed rage (inflammation is usually anger issues – fire energy) burning fury, impotence and grief.

The right side felt clear, open, soft and flowing, almost transparent. It felt full of liquid warmth and was energised. The sun began to shine hotter and brighter and the wind softened to a cool breeze. I opened my eyes for a few moments and the sky was a deep blue, the clouds almost gone and I focussed on the imbalance within me and deepened into it as the sun’s warmth eased me into the blocked pain in my left side.

I allowed myself to feel the sun melting the blocks, asked the breeze to blow them away, thanked the rain for cleansing my energy and the earth for receiving my pain as I cried and cried, a torrent of grief, sorrow and hurt poured out of me. As the flow slowly ebbed and emptied away I was left filled with peace.

Once I had fully immersed myself in the peace within, I slowly moved my awareness to the North, the gateway to Air and the Mind and changed to Gnana mudra, the air element and bringer of wisdom and spiritual understanding. I remembered the wisdom, knowledge and understanding that I have gained and that which I still have to learn and will come to me as I move further into my wise woman energy – that crone stage that is coming at the end of my menopause journey. I asked for the spirit of the north to increase my wisdom, knowledge and understanding for the highest good of myself and of all beings, and that my experiences would be able to help others find ways to enjoy for themselves more peace, love and harmony and less suffering.

 I gave thanks to the spirits of the four directions and the elements, the trees, the birds, the ice and fire, mother earth and father sky and the rain, the beautiful life giving rain. Then I chanted for a while, the great Moola mantra.

The Maha Moola mantra invokes the living God into the space where you are, it invokes protection, relief from suffering, connects us to the void, to love and joy, medicine and nectar – it brings serenity, the holy spirit manifests around you when you chant it. It is perfect practice for someone on a healing journey.

I then finally went inside, now thoroughly chilled and in need of some breakfast.

Things are moving on, I am still taking vast quantities of Vitamin C as calcium ascorbate, or ascorbic acid as its called. I am taking Kyolic garlic, the Serrapeptase and the Immunkomplex. These supplements are helping a lot. The hospital are pleased with my progress and improvements and I am just getting monitored now, now treatments from them.

I still think that what will allow this to be ultimately released from my system is more work like I did today; more healing, more remembering and letting go, allowing my body to let out what it has stored for so long and wishes to be rid of. Then, I think, I will come back to balance and health.

Well, here’s to that!

This last few years (2008 to 2015) is a 7 year cycle period for me – from age 42 to 49, from the 6^th to the 7^th life stage. I have been working with sound during this whole stage.

During my Masters Degree in Consciousness Studies and Transpersonal Psychology I began a huge shift in my spiritual practice (which had been Authentic Power practice and Yoga, both chakra based practices) to include the use of Sound and Silence. I trained as a Transformational Yoga teacher, learned the bija mantras and the Indian musical notes Sa Re Ga etc., as well as other forms of chanting including the OM from Hatha yoga, Tantric mantras from Shakti yoga and Vedic mantras from Shabda Yoga. I also learned how these mantras related to the chakras and how to use them to bring about balance and healing that would filter immediately from the subtle into the mental and emotional levels of wellbeing. I studied this at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in New Delhi in January 2008. I was in India to attend the first International Congress on Psychology and Spirituality. There I met Swamiji Vidyanand and after the congress I went to train with him as a teacher.

Also, during my MSc course I undertook an individual research project into the effects of Sound and Silence on the psyche and the physical body. This research and the training in Transformational yoga, which combined postures with a lot of chanting and study of the chakras and subtle energy field of the body correlated closely with the colour meditation and study of the subtle energies and chakras I had undertaken at the College of Healing back in 1994.

Working with the chakras has been at the heart of all of the healing work I have done. I feel this is essential, as they relate to the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of the multiple human systems. They relate to the endocrine system, the glands, hormones, the chemical messengers in the body; the circulatory, digestive and elimination systems. Each chakra helps to regulate different aspects of our system.

Then I began to put together what I had learnt about the energy centres (another name for the chakras) and intention with Gary Zukav when I studied Authentic Power with him; what I learned about energy, intentions and healing at the College of Healing; about sound, energy and intention in Transformational yoga and I became more excited.

As a student of Psycho-therapies, Person Centred Counselling, Transpersonal Psychology, Authentic Power (a spiritual psychology) and Healing my primary focus has always been on healing psychological and spiritual issues, using Transpersonal tools, i.e. tools that include the notion of holism, a spiritual reality and a connection to a wider more meaningful reality.

Now, discovering the power of adding Sound into the mix was the most exciting thing in the world for me. You see, I come from a family of musicians. Singers, pianists, violinists. Now my sons are both musicians too, they play guitar, classical, rock, base and also drums. I sing, dance, play samba and shamanic drums and my soul never sings more sweetly than when bathed in music, all types, but particularly classical, and I CHANT ALL THE TIME! I sing every day.

As a family we sang together. We were a dysfunctional lot, a bunch of addicts if ever you met one – alcoholics, smokers, food addicts, shop and workaholics, sex addicts, we did most of the good ones – but the place where we were healthy, whole and in harmony was when we made music together. We sang as a family at celebrations, it was the one thing I remember that united us. When we were all one in LOVE and harmony. Whether it was singing around my paternal grandmother Mabel at the piano, she was a brilliant professional pianist, or singing in 3 or 4 part acapella harmony around the Christmas dinner table, we made wonderful music together and always, always it moved us to tears.

I sang in the school choir and in school musicals, my mother sang in a choir at St George’s Hall in Liverpool. We always cried when we heard each other sing. It made our souls BLOOM, put us in touch with our own and each others’ beauty and perfection, our emotions, our souls were exposed, open, blossoming – it was the only time I think we were truly vulnerable and authentic with each other.

So, now I am practicing and studying sound healing (there’s always more to learn) and discovering deeper and deeper levels. It excites me and empassions me – really FLOATS MY BOAT. I am studying Sound Yoga, musical intervals and scales, how to use tuning forks, singing bowls, new ways of chanting and toning to remove pain and energy blocks, where I would have used my hands before. I LOVE using sound to do things my hands used to do. Its so gentle and sweet.

I am bringing together all the Shamanic, therapeutic, colour, sound, chakra and energy tools I’ve learned during the last 25 years to evolve my own personal practice as well as my healing work. I have created Sound Mind Yoga a simple blend of these tools that anyone can use to enhance wellbeing and I am doing a diploma in Sound Healing to learn as much as I can about new things I can do with sound. I have plenty to do during my Uveitis sabbatical, including using all these tools on myself!

When my sabbatical is over I will blend Hara Willow Healing and Amazing Lyfe and Sound Mind Yoga into some coherent meta approach. It will be focussed into one stream. Not sure what that will look like, as I’m still in the chaos stage of revisioning my life, but it will get there…