If you liked this post, please share it!
The snowy garden is both literal and metaphorical. The last couple of weeks I’ve been deep in inspiration-retreat mode when it comes to Ardis, and winter is having her last hurrah here, with March snowstorms.
It’s also a place that came to me in shamanic journey I took yesterday, seeking guidance and support. This snowy garden is a place of great quiet and also great strength, where underneath the seeming dormancy you can hear the vibrant humming of life and vitality, replenishing and waiting, renewing and strengthening itself.
It’s a place of the in-between, a pause that seems awkward in our society where action is lauded and withdrawal or contemplation isn’t.
These are my postcards from exploring
Part of me has been chafing at the seeming inaction, fretting about time slipping away, monies and what-if-I’m-missing-opportunities. Ideas are bubbling up, yet every inch of my internal guidance system is telling me not to start putting things into practice right now.
This is so very much the opposite of how I tend to work and create, gleefully following the flashes of inspiration and throwing myself wholeheartedly into my projects. And, let’s be honest, my inner work ethic monitor is having a bit of a fit about it too, worried about ‘all the judgement!’ and also that somehow this is going to see me suddenly going from driven-and-hardworking to drifting aimlessly for the rest of my life, which is naturally associated with doom squared.
But, of course, it is not entirely quiet.
What I am discovering are deep new layers of internal stuff. Or rather they’re not new, they’re old, but the discovery that these are filters and beliefs rather than reality is something new.
Some of them have shocked me on my first discovery, because they seem like the very opposite of what I’ve thought I believed. But now I notice them, I can see how they’ve been boulders in the stream of my life, directing the current and flow, there for so long that I forgot to see them.
Right now I’m in the midst of exploring, of gently prising apart the layers, of healing and releasing and recreating. I’m already looking forward to telling you about my discoveries and journey when it feels like the right time.
Some of them directly relate to what I do here.
I’m becoming aware of the silent shoulds I’ve somehow created or absorbed.
That because I work with intuition, energy and spiritual practices like shamanism I’m expected to be some sort of tie-dye wearing, unkempt hippie who goes in for unicorns, lentils and crushed velvet.
I love the Tarot, goddess guidance, working with energy and intuition, chakras, meditation, shamanism and the spirits of nature. I also love retro fashion and style, wine, cocktails, make-up, modern art, corsets, burlesque and good food.
I am quite likely to go spend part of my day tuning into intuitive guidance and another going to an alternative fashion show that features retro latex dresses.
At some point in the past, I’d somehow talked myself into believing that I can either work with marketing and SEO and social media or I can do work with intuition and energy. Not only that, I’ve somehow been frozen into not deploying the very superpowers that other people pay me for to promote Ardis.
Oh gosh, and then there’s all the stuff about money. All the value judgements what charging certain amounts mean. Strangely enough, none of them are particularly positive. (Or positive at all).
And all the stuff about business. I’m fascinated by both mainstream business and the world of solotrepreneurs. I don’t find business language or concepts ‘icky’. I find them interesting and useful. For so long, I’ve absorbed other people’s stuff around this, attempting to fit a black-and-white distortion over my own feelings and inclinations.
That’s not to say that there’s necessarily anything wrong with any of these things. More that I’ve been realising how deep the ‘You’d really be better if you acted like someone else’ pattern went.
It feels so good to let all of this stuff go!
So, what am I going to do next?
The snow is still here, but it’s starting the melt. The ice on the pond is thinning. I’m beginning to see the paths I’m going to take become clear.
My writing is going to change. I’ve realised that for the last year or so I’ve been pressuring myself into writing what I would describe as an instructional manner. Which has its place, and I can see that there might still be posts I write that have a ‘how-to’ flavour to them.
But my main focus is going to be on my own personal and spiritual explorations, because writing about my path allows it to inspire others, to become a pool for reflection and a jumping off point for their own journeys.
In my work, I offer loving support and guided exploration at that point where my path runs parallel to theirs, where there is a natural intersection, as they explore and find their own paths and their own source of connection, inspiration and strength.
This is where my new services will be rooted. At the moment, as per usual, I have enough ideas that could keep me going for the next year or two. In the next week or two I’ll start the process of writing them down, and seeing which ones to explore and develop first.
If there’s something – a service, a product, a course on something – that you’d like to see from me, I’d be super interested to know.
Waving from the snowy garden with love, Jane. xo
If you liked this post, please share it!
