Medicine Dreams

The dream is a sacred thing to many tribal cultures. 

It is a vision for life, a finding of the soul. 

Native people of many ancient traditions call it medicine.

The dream is meant to heal the most broken part of ourselves and help heal the most broken part of others we meet along our journey through life.

It is what makes us whole again, uniting us to our soul and the soul of the the earth and the spirit of the one who created both.

In some Native American tribes, a youth, when ready to find his medicine will sit upon a mountain for four days and four nights without eating or drinking.

A young Aborigine in Australia will be taken to a place deep in the outback desert. In that place of solitude he will also find His dream and it will become his strength and it will lead him, safely home.

In the western world we have career advisers.

Our dream has now become deeply connected to our social status and that is reflected in the career path we forge.

How many people would prefer their child to become a gardener over a scientist, a cleaner over an accountant or a carpenter over an executive.

Not everyone, but the prevalent norm is to place our greatest value on status and salary.


This is all reflected in which subjects are taken most seriously in schools. 

Practical vocational qualifications, the arts, humanities and spiritual studies, are generally not considered as important or valuable as the hard sciences or mathematics.

We are encouraged to follow the path which most effectively enhances our sense of value in society. Whether or not the pursuit of such a path is of any inherent value within itself.

The advertisers, the media, politicians and ultimately those who benefit most and pull the most strings, the corporations, have replaced the true dream with a superficial version.

This is a great crime against our human souls and it is going unnoticed because it is happening so slowly.

 

The Media sells us false dreams.

While we run ourselves ragged simply trying to work and look after our families, we become passive to the effects of the media on our consciousnesses.

The media plays up to every one of our base impulses. It encourages us to consume above and beyond our means and needs.

 It also makes us fear the world around us while giving us the message that ultimately we are impotent and powerless to change anything.

But the most scary truth is that we are becoming numb.

We are losing the ability to truly see and hear the voice of our souls.

The voice of the sacred in the everyday.

And it is young people who are most vulnerable to mistake the false dream for the real one.



Maybe this is because the dream replacement seems quite congenial, non confrontational, consumer friendly and relatively safe compared with the true dream.

In the new dream Saint Nicholas becomes Father Christmas, Jesus becomes a blond, blue eyed, life coach, and American Idol and X factor become the initiation ceremonies for our youth.

In contrast, the true dream of our souls may very well lead us away from materiel security, the pursuit of wealth, perpetual beauty and comfort, and the instant pleasures and conveniences that factories across the world supply at both an environmental and human cost.



I took a walk outside the other night, far away from the orange street lamps and the hazy atmosphere. 

 I found a place completely dark except for the stars and the crescent moon.

I sat and heard the stories nature tried to tell me, the ones I am usually to busy to hear.

The rustle of the leaves, awaking me softly to the night, both within and without.

The river sings of our deepest truth.

The truth that is present within all things from seed, to birdsong, to the human heart.

I pray to be more present to the wisdom of  this sacred truth.

I have the feeling that our collective dream still sings somewhere along that river.

 

Yeast

 

The path becomes a meadow beneath your feet,
I know this way is taking me home.

I follow you
for gentleness follows you.

You are a glimpse of sunlight,
beneath the fig leaves.

With you, the noise of engines cease and life is simple.
Silence and love are the only work.

We sit upon a rock, gaze skyward
and learn from birds,

and fish and the slow assurance
of trees.

What we see becomes;
Look only on goodness.

Plant a garden in the concrete
Mess up the neat lawn verges with wild flower seeds.

Be yeast
Let your love be the yeast that rises the heaviness of this dough,

Making it light,
Making it nourishing.

Making it real.

extraneous

If what I'm reading, believing in, watching or hearing doesn't make me more
compassionate or loving, if it doesn't make my
 heart warmer, my soul richer, or increase
my empathy,
If it does not make me more tender and forgiving toward myself and others,
I simply have to let it go.

"JOIN"... 5 min fri

Don't forget I'm  having a SALE @ my Waldorf Shop tillytilda till august 4th!!!



Joining Lisa Jo for 5 minute Friday today...
As Lisa Jo says... 5 Minute Friday is...

Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

It started because I’d been thinking about writing and how often our perfectionism gets in the way of our words. And I figured, why not take 5 minutes and see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing.

Word for today  "JOIN".... GO

As a child I never felt like I could join a group. I felt a burden in belonging. A fear.
I felt the pressure to "fit in"; squeeze myself into a small space that left my soul outside.

Two beings, two pieces, broken, frayed, not whole.

So I flitted between people, and places, trying to keep myself intact.

Or I stayed alone.

I remember the feeling of being on the periphery of games as the children gathered to work out who would be who and what they would do.

I found a friend in the thoughts in my head, between the pages of a book, in sunlight echoing through trees and in silence.

But the loneliness pooled.

I moved away, tried to find my "tribe" in the alternative groups, the punks, the goths, the outsiders.
It wasn't long before I saw that they too had their "rules" an esoteric criteria of who was "in" and who was "out".

And somehow I new I couldn't squeeze my soul into those spaces either.

Motherhood came... wife-hood.  Suddenly the rules were different. These clubs had clubs within clubs!

There was every kind you could think of...words I'd never needed to use before suddenly became part of my inner vocabulary.

And then the religion thing... I'm still not sure how to describe myself on that one.

But my soul who doesn't use words says it comes down to how we treat each other.

When, as a child...and as an adult I've felt the loneliness pool, and my legs wobble, My God has held my hand.

He gave me the gift of a little girl, birthed in streams of morning sunlight when I was eighteen and the only group I was in was the single, teen Mum one.

I had wondered why I couldn't get the name Emmanuelle out of my mind for nine months.
 I later learned it means "God with us"
Of course now she's just my Emmy.  but the meaning hasn't changed.

When I've been lost and not known the way He knelt down beside me on the aching street and whispered to me:

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."

Maybe none of us really fit in.

Maybe that is okay.

5 minute Friday (Here)

No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.

Unscripted. Unedited. Real. 

Writing for 5 minutes only.

Go....

Here

Here.

We are.

I am.

Here is all I've got!

What am I to do with here?

Lot's of here's turn into a life. A "there"

"There"  seems so big and
outside of me.

"Here" seems so small and
inside me.

Almost insignificant.

Almost.

But it is the small here that make the big life. "there"

How shall I spend mine?

How do I spend mine?

Trying to keep inspired by online images and words?

Till that still, small voice says,

enough,

time to leave all this noise now, go back to those silent
Dog eared poetry and prayer books.

Music.

And then the kind of living that sieves dirt through fingers.

Real stuff.

Like cooking. There's

Preparation, heating the oven, choosing those few good, healthy ingredients.

Then there's the Mixing, Warming, Serving.

Each moment a mouthful.

Nourishing real life.

{Beyond} 5 minute Friday

 Joining Gypsy Mama today for 5 minute Friday. And Jennifer @ Getting Down with Jesus.

 

Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

Go... 

Beyond

Beyond you call me.

You say

"go beyond yourself...

I live over that hill, see?"

You tell it like a story

But I am the one who must walk out there. Not knowing what I'm doing.
Out into the dark forests of my fears, my failings, my limitations.

Yesterday I thought I didn't have enough
money
time
energy.

I held on tight to my own scraps of each.

Threads,
unraveling,
fraying,

All material things turn to dust in the end,
 Except those woven by love.
You say "Remember, this is the only safe way."

Maybe it was a prayer with a child, rushed and hasty at first.

Or maybe the glimmer of sun before it fell away to the night,

Or a sudden feeling of being alone

In that unknown moment,
I uttered the word "Yes"
"I'll go beyond this place of only me
to touch the hem of you."

It was a brief fling of abandonment beyond.

But that's when the water came swirling, into this dry land again.

And I understood,

Beyond is just another word for home.

in happiness - in kindness

 

 

 

 

 

from falling upward

"We dare not try to fill our souls and minds with numbing addictions, diversionary tactics, or mindless distractions. The shape of evil is much more superficiality and blindness then the usually listed "hot sins." God hides, and is found, precisely in the depths of everything, even and maybe especially in the deep fathoming of our fallings and failures. Sin is to stay on the surface of even holy things, like Bible, sacrament, or church."

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.

Richard Rohr

It is not the perfect image, vision or,  ideal that  must come to fruition.
It is my love.

I have come to learn love grows when I come up against my own limitations.
In the vulnerability of my nakedness. My shortcomings.

Because when I'm shivering cold, in the storms of my own making, He comes to cover me with a blanket.
Then I can bring it to cover another.

In this the paradox of "not enough" becomes that which "runneth over".

Because it is in the stretching out and loving through imperfections, both my own and those of others that I meet God.

This is the ground on which He works and breathes. Working nutrient into rough, hard clay.

Clay that can only be molded into something water tight, with the free flowing water of love itself.

source

 

"I have seen green and fruitful trees standing in the middle of a dry and barren desert. These trees survive and flourish because their roots have driven down and discovered hidden streams of flowing water. Some people live in the midst of evil and misery but still radiate joy and lead fruitful lives. Through prayer, the hidden roots of their faith have reached down to the source of living water."

 Sadhu Sundar Singh 

 

Eat Warm

Day's but a sliver on the horizon. I feel worn rag thin and threadbare. Today, I've tried to reach out, help, give, and it has not been enough even though I'm spent.
There are days when no matter how many "right things" you do in the "right way"
only wrong answers and blunt red crosses drag their biro lines across the page.



He takes our little one in his gentle arms, arms softened by years and babes heavy sleeping heads, and wriggling legs.
We've been there before, and it's hard when there are only two pairs of hands to carry so many little bodies, hearts and souls.



He tells me to go upstairs and rest.
He tells me the burnt roast sweet potatoes are delicious, just the way he likes them.
He keeps pouring friendly wine into my glass.
13 years has brought us to the point of knowing what food to provide and when to the other.



A friend brings the freshness of newly dug veggies and the good smell of herbs bunched and tied into string parcels.
Fresh turned earth life meets dry husk. Cradles it deep, and the green springs forth again.

When babes are tucked under blankets I begin to make soup.
Green beautiful soup.
Clear broth, nurturing, soul healing soup.



When things used to go awry, a once frequent occurrence for my family, my Dad always used to shrug his shoulders, throw up his hands and say, "Quelle Salade"! "What a salad!"

Life can be a salad. Full of everything. More ingredients = more salad.
I have a house load of ingredients.
My salads are never boring.
Mostly my salads are beautiful. Healthful even.

But sometimes I have enough of salad and I need soup.
Simple, clear broth silence :)

Today was soup day.




I wade weary legs upstairs and stroke the forehead of my babe with the toothy grin and the sore red cheeks, flushed warm and plump.

I stare deep into my wild child's eyes and tell her I will always love her better for her the wildness.
I leave laundry folding, dusty bookshelves and the bathroom floor for another day.
I don't even think about the porch and the wellies and the sodden socks
... for there have been three weeks of rain brewing a mud tea there and I just know the lino's curling up at the edges.


"For we are the beauty we do".



And suddenly everything is reduced, down, purified to...
Clarity.

All I have to do is a simple thing really.
I make it all complicated. But good ingredients don't need fancy recipes.

Those handfuls of goodness, nourishment, greenness, freshness, a little earth and little life.
that's what'll do the work for me.

Life:

Throw in handfuls of fresh dug goodness

Don't faff, fuss or overcook.

Serve generously.

Eat warm.

Letting go... and then... {Embracing}

We had the most beautiful afternoon yesterday. The sun was a narcissus rather than a daffodil. The sky, white as an eggshell or the top of the milk in a glass bottle.
We spent the whole afternoon outside at the park and then exploring the basements and servants quarters of a local national trust property.
And you know, I didn't feel the concern that I usually do, the nagging feeling that we are somehow not "caught up" with all the conventional schooling plans and ideals that many of the girls friends seem to accomplish through their busy classroom days.
It was liberating to feel the sun and know, know deep, that each of the hairs on our head are numbered by the bringer of the sunlight Himself.

In the evening I read this post.

Words clamoured and rustled through the tangle of sticks that so often Dam the channels between my deep soul knowledge and my worrisome mind.
One by one, the bindweed of broken debris and bark loosened and the waters, clear and fluid, flowed through.

"There is only one thing needful"

One Thing.

I have always loved the story of Mary and Martha. Instinctively, I suppose, I realise that it speaks to me and my life in a way that is often pertinent and necessary.
It is a whittling down of many superfluous "necessaries" to one single, essential necessary.
How I need to hear this message daily.

All moments are gifts. Providential gifts engorged with possibilities. Gifts of raw material with which we may either create or destroy the true and essential in the world around us and within us.
And in fact, all people who are set upon our pathway in this life with us, however difficult or despondent they may be, are gifts too :)
All situations are opportunities to choose the "one thing" needful among the many unnecessary things.
Things that clutter, confuse and ultimately lay down barriers... or dams.

Providentially , each day, each moment, through the quiet communion between the soul and it's creator we can discover the "one thing" out of many that is needful to our life and the life of those around us.

We will always have choices. These days the choices are more abundant than ever. Yet to accomplish one thing we have to put away and put down the others that clamour loudly for our attention.
For each person this "one thing" looks different.
It could even mean being gentle with ourselves and accepting our limitations gracefully.
It could simply mean taking time to oneself to quietly behold the silence.
It could mean rest.
It could mean making a meal for someone, writing a letter or visiting a lonely soul.
It could mean creating beauty in your own little corner of the world.
It could mean planting seeds.
Taking a walk.
Lighting a candle.
It could mean putting down the ideas and conventions we are conditioned to accept and instead embracing our own unique path.
It could mean abandoning fears and discarding doubt so that we can mould our passion into a coherent and meaningful form.
Then exuberantly share it with others.
It could mean taking a little time away from the hustle and bustle of the world.
It could mean buying that new book.
Or buying nothing at all.
Giving away the dust collecting clutter.
It could mean throwing yourself "out there",beautifully, honestly, vulnerably,unflinchingly.

And so the "letting go" is a moment by moment state of being.
To take full and complete drafts of the life that calls us, sings to us, leads us to our "home. The life that brims abundance for others, plants a tree, waters it and lets it flourish into a dwelling place for birds, a shelter for animals and a source of food and oxygen for all.
To take full quenching gasps of that life, we must be able to put all else down. In faith. In complete faith.

As e.e cummings said... - "Let all go dear,
so comes Love."

This is the putting away of possessions, worries, superficial ambitions, status and false dreams that Jesus spoke of.
It was not, I believe, asceticism for asceticism sake that he meant. It was the throwing off of unnecessary weights and baggage's that prevent us from truly beholding, the fullness that life has to offer.

"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
John 10:10

A wonderful new homeschooling buddy of mine says that when people ask her "but how are you going to teach all the curriculum subjects when your child reaches high school?" she simply (and victoriously in my humble opinion) answers... "Well this is the grand plan see.... I'm not going to!"

We cannot cover every base. We cannot hold onto every pretty flower that grows along the embankment. If we did, there would be none left :)

As J.M Barrie said "Life is a long lesson in humility."
It is also a long lesson in letting go. For we cannot hold on. Neither should we.
Only hands that remain open, vulnerable, revealing their tender palms, can ever truly give and receive life's real gifts.

So at the root, at the beginning, at the germination point and the renewal of each moment, I can come, kneel, as Mary did and discover what that "one thing" needful is.

"Every morning
I lay out the pieces of my life
on your altar
and watch for fire to descend."
Psalm 5

And the fire that burns away dross will replenish the translucent newness of each moment. And I will find the green emerge, fresh and tender between my toes.
Day after day.
Moment after moment.
"One thing" after another.

Transfiguring the ordinary, everyday. Infusing, something of God into the hours and the fragility of clay formed bodies.

Immersing hearts in the light of their true purpose. To Love, to take joy, to give and to be!

Directing channels of energy into aqueducts that irrigate soft soil. Trembling soil.
The soil from which we grow a life that counts.

There is a place, beyond this place... A week of thankfulness {Multitudes on Mondays}

There is a place, beyond this place.
Sunlit strands curve outward and onward,
Evoking the soft sting of a memory.
Sighing deep as a teardrop drawn from the dawn.



Weary heart don't forget, all colours are birthed,
From the light that finds you here in the dark.
In this fractured moment, Love beckons unflinching.
"Cup your hands and hold the weightless gold of eternity.
Release all else,
This is the way,
come."



Here, in this moment with all it's flaws,
The sodden clay, the tear stained pores,
Lies a germinating soil.
From which grain can grow.
*
In that moment,
when life reveals its true purpose,
let go,
and Love will break like a wave, trembling,
Over the bare ground of your soul.



Seek that pearl. Sell all else!
Abandon your heart to the deep.
Beneath, and beyond the endless fields of desire and fear,
The seed waits for water.
Earthy, pure.

Let all go dear... So comes love...

I  pray to bring light, peace, God's love into every situation. Wherever the opportunity arises.

I want to well compassion from broken, parched ground. 

I want forgiveness's balm to soften the hard places.

Leave a space.

For the sacred to enter.

Open those windows out wide, let the light and the sound of the Autumn breeze flood through.

As e.e cummings says...

- let all go dear 

so comes love...

 

(Photo's of Tilly in Autumns evening Goldust)

Finding God in both the High and the Humble places

Walking...
Seeking...
Climbing
Reaching...
Grace.

Peace.

"The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places."
Habakkuk 3:19

• Standing still in the silent wonder of Creation's beauty
• Cradling the warm body of a little one unwell
• Holding fast too the Hem of His garment when I stumble
• Sacrificing outward appearance for inner truth
• His love washing over me in my brokenness
• Sunlight sparkling on little ones toes and hair and fingers and dress
• Knowing I am using His Hands to serve in all the hard and humble work
• The quiet stillness at the end of a day spent well
• Green fresh grass between my toes
• Candlelight and my girl on the piano
• Yellow roses
• Learning how to live for Him and allow Him to live in me
• Becoming smaller
• Gentleness
• Kindness
• Fresh produce from the garden
• Driving through the country with the window down
• Soul connections
• Eating ice creams I loved as a little girl
• Snuggling in under the covers with little ones
• Following the footsteps of the good Shepherd, whether to the high or the humble places, for both are equally Holy.

Multitude Monday

This is "Dobbin"

Dobbin is 28 years old. He was mine when I was little.

He has a little bell but it's rusty. And sometimes his wheel get stuck (they're a little squeaky too)

Last week, Seraphina and I rescued him. He was dirty, rusty, sad looking and his wheels had stopped turning. They had seized up altogether.
But Seraphina, did not see the dirt, or the rust, she saw a little yellow horse with big sad eyes, and she loved him!
Together we cleaned him up gently with sponges, soap and warm water. Then we dried him with a dishcloth.
He is now Seraphina's very best friend and follows her around wherever she goes!
And strangely enough you can almost see a twinkle in his big old eyes now!

We tied an new string on his collar and fed him some grass and a bowl of water. It had been a long time since his last meal. So as you can imagine, he gobbled it up!

Little Fee showed him around the garden and he seemed very happy with his new home.
Poppy, Peter and cottontail (our rabbits) all got introduced and they all seemed very interested to meet this new garden friend.

And I sit here in the quiet to thank God for memories and friends both new and old.
And the strings that tie them together.

We brought Mary Flowers from Grannies garden for the month of May (the special month of Mary)

In Gold white and blue we laid our prayers, fresh, fragrant, open, vulnerable, unfolding, revealing the words of our heart, the nectar of souls.

Matilda prayed these words, words so simple, like pollen rising, hovering.
"and unto these does the kingdom of heaven belong".

"Thank you Mary for praying for us. Thank you for loving us and being our Mother."

Do you have a home alter?
 It has been a beautiful addition to our home. Ours is small and simple but the girls love to decorate it with candles, palms and prayer stones, they love to bring flowers for  Holy Family.
Inside the cupboard we have prayer books and rosary beads and Bible stories for them to look at whenever the want.
*