SoulCollage card for The Well, and an extract from 'The Well' by Cathal O'Searcaigh.
Spring has been a-springing these last weeks over here in Hampshire, England in the UK, and for those of us who have been walking with the archetypal theme of emergence it has been a time of making connections and correspondences with seasonal shifts both within and without. Part of the lunar cycle for me was spent in Wales, and I discovered this dragon in a gardens near where we were staying in Penuwch. Side quest: if you ever find yourself there, Cwtch Cottage is a wonderful place to stay with phonomenal hosts!
Dragon, Bwlch y Geuffirdd Gardens, Penuwch.
Emergence was the theme of our first gathering around the well of of our life force and intuitive wisdom. This is a new monthly offering, called Sunday Openings at The Soul Shed. It has followed the Worm moon through its lunar cycle, and as I write, we are in the last few days before the new moon known as the Egg moon, Hare moon, or Pink moon, depending on where you are in the world. Egg moon is the name I will roll with here, because it is the old English anglo-saxon name, and that is the heritage of the land I inhabit, but the rich symbology of the other names and the heritage and stories they represent is warmly welcomed here, and adds to our connection with the corners of the earth we walk upon; our respective square miles.
Our second gathering will be a little longer than our first, as an hour felt like a rush, and who wants that?! In the first part of our gathering we will share what came for us with the theme of Emergence, and in the second we will invite in the new theme of this new moon, which is Mandala, and specifically, patterns in nature. There really is something of holy perfection mirrored in nature when we start to pay attention, and the mandala is a mindfully made human creation that mirrors this.
A mandala is a circular figure, representing the universe. They can be found across traditions, and by mindfully creating these figures in order to to perceive and reflect on the microcosm as representing the macrocosm, is something humans have done to gain perspective, and to alter our state of consciousness, for millenia.
Celtic symbol containing a triskele.
Thistle.
There is a beautiful correspondence between Pema Chodrun's idea about our life being like a mandala and the concept of having a generative square mile of inhabitation where we can find resourcing. And of course, as soon as we start to pay attention, the mandalas in nature begin to show themselves.
There is also a perfect opportunity, in a Spring lunar cycle, to MAKE a mandala in your square mile, as a celebration of your contact with nature within it. Here is one that was made last Autumn by a participant on a Soul Shed creativity walk.
and a second that was made as a piece of research for a future Soul Shed event!
These are the kinds of ideas for deep-mapping and correspondence we will explore in the second part of our gathering on Sunday, as we welcome in the new Egg moon. These kinds of practices are of course very simple, but they can be surprisingly resorative of our connection with ourselves and our inner and outer landscape. If any of this is appealing to you, I do hope you will consider joining us, or, if you're not available, to book a one to one Deep-Mapping session, at a time to suit you.
I look forward to creating with you soon!
Big Love
Sam