Hydrangea Petal Conversation
Abbey Of Soul is approaching a year early in 2025. One aspect of Abbey Of Soul for paid subscribers are the Sacred Conversations within the ‘Living Sanctuary’(it’s ALIVE!) which includes ‘Weekly Practices’ with invitations and monthly 1.5 hour gatherings to be in conversation with those practices and other posts through the month like Museletters, Poetry, Podcasts and Images. We are also creating a library of those Practice resources for your Pilgrimage Of Soul wherever you are on that journey, currently 45 and continuing. The monthly Sacred Conversations are usually on the first Wednesday, when we gather for deep conversations which include the ‘other-than-human’ world and a h‘ear’t for Mystery leading. Our gatherings always take us somewhere surprising if not impossible (a recent practice). The Practices and Sacred Conversations also offer space for continuity and consolidation throughout your journey.
This 45th week we thought we’d invite attention to ‘Sacred Conversations’ themselves and why Sacred. The gatherings are usually on the first Wednesday of each month though note, for example, in January 2025 that falls on New Year’s Day, so we will meet on the second Wednesday, 8th. Will you be joining us next time? Here is a taste of what it’s like, though each one is different, has its own uniqueness.
‘Sacred Conversations’, a way to be present with who and what arises in the moment together as Mystery threads weave together within a particular guided space into the unknown. We find ourselves in awe, over and over again finding that we too are Mystery, song. I wonder how the world might be today if such kinds of conversations were the new/ancient everyday norm. We believe that such places to encourage and hold such conversations are deeply vital. It doesn’t matter where you are on the Pilgrimage Of Soul, they are rich soul food from and for the world.
As stated earlier, our Sacred Conversations call upon the previous months Practices returning to exploring again the importance of regular practice with invitations for wanders, poetry, and more as practices; Ceremony too can be practice. This month we also explored ‘Practice’ itself and why practice. Here’s a just a few examples:
*Practices help keep focus on the Pilgrimage of Soul in a culture that can keep us otherwise distracted/busy such as consuming.
*Practices support living in wholeness holding all the parts of who we are including related wounds, gifts, failures and successes, human and other-than-human relationships, heartbreaks and heartloves and more.
*Practices over time can create new neuropathways that focus on a soulcentric purpose led life and less on human-ego-centric and old stories as they are brought into a deeper calling; become a ‘new normal’.
*Practices enable us to become more of who we are already in our core mythos longing to be in the world. There is a practice beyond ‘not being good enough’/‘never enough’ etc, though those parts might be activated. It’s more about self-healing, bring wounded parts home into wholing within nature-based soulcentric human development in a modern Western Culture where human development is a particular economy based.
It may sound strange that you might need to practice who you are, but so many of us have had to learn to live in ways we are not, distorted as in the old fairy stories, that practices can help remind you on the descent to soul as you journey towards remembering. Practices serve on the return and as you step into your unique remembering of who you are in the world and in this lifetime.
*There are certain practices we can learn, and practices that are innate to each of us with our unique ways.
*Practices can be sanctuary (hence in Living Sanctuary) in ecological unravelling times, particularly when practiced over time. An example is the daily practice and ceremony at East Beach almost daily for over 2.75 years as we step into/further into Abbey Of Soul and remember/learn/become more of who we are too!
*Practices can become a devotion, taking us deeper into the Mysteries, The Holy. The Holy here is referred to as some‘thing’ (or no‘thing’) religions follow and, l believe, all of us whether consider as ‘religious’ or not. The Holy, the ‘I Am’, is in all.
These are just a few purposes of Practices we are exploring here in ‘Sacred Conversations’ at Abbey Of Soul. So, yes, why Sacred? Here’s just one example from our recent gathering. What happens as we begin to write here is that, like a dream, the Sacred Conversation goes deeper and deeper … such is the value of reflection and not scrolling quickly on into the next day, or week, or year; linger longer ...
In this gathering we included four recent Weekly Practices around the theme of ‘Practicing’ including Inviting The Impossible, Sky Songlines a new poem for paid subscribers, a Museletter Tending and being fed by the holy and the dead (with the gold mullet), A Wild Experiment in Praise with the poem One November Evening (and some beauty responses). We arrived with music by Ganavya, Draw Something Beautiful, you might listen as you read here
We begin by reciting (twice) The Bright Field by R S Thomas as a way of exploring how practices (also of poetry) can take us to conscience awareness of living Divine Presence; a bright light, brightening in approaching the darkest day in the Northern Hemisphere. Here’s the poem, you may like to read this beauty aloud into the world too:
The Bright Field
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
R. S Thomas
Here’s a glimpse of speaking (with kind permissions and deep gratitude to courageous ones present) where the music, this poem with invitations take us, move us, voice through us, live us. The thing is, in speaking, in embodying a felt sense, rather than the ‘mental ‘figuring it out head’, and withness, transformation happens; the holy, unseen, becomes remembered and felt. What is it like for you when your follow/feel your threads? Where do they take you, in your body, in images, senses, dreaming and more; follow those. Try with other folks too. Here are ours:
Clouds parting, like the sea did,
and the sun shines through
to a field, the field is dead.
A brown ploughed field
killed by agriculture.
A tender lament present,
where the song lives.
Wonder and beauty
pomegranate seed shower
of previously forbidden shine.
Parts of us too, dead.
As the Earth is killed in current form, we are dying.
We walk past the treasure of ourselves,
also Earth, Is us too.
Miracle.
We must give everything
we have to possess the priceless.
Possess? YES!
Different from ‘buying’ land,
or stockpiling extracted gold currency.
A different currency.
Life, the field, begins coming ALIVE again
Earth Sovereignty.
The Holy.
We are Earth, The Holy
A spark becomes a fire.
Creation is happening NOW, HERE.
We are participating … in IT.
There’s an art, a ceremony, to cutting a pomegranate,
releasing the sweet juicy blood seeds.
The Primordial.
Revealed rather than excavated,
when we go into dark places.
The way to go: reclaiming the treasure gems
of the field, also ourselves.
Where our attention goes is what grows
Where is our attention?
A field has longings.
Are we willing to give everything?
What would we give everything for?
(rather than take/extract everything, including ourselves)
Reciprocity is Holy
ALIVE! The meeting point of intimacy.
Even in short time tending, eternity becomes present
tangible
felt
makes a difference
makes the impossible possible.
Praise be.
As we speak there is an embodied felt sense of the invitational music, poem, ourselves, each other and the acknowledged ones being fully present. What was previously invisible becomes tangible and transmutable in us, in the space through zoom portal, a ‘turning aside like Moses to the miracle’, in the world. Deep awe felt in and between us, unexpected. We each feel a unique way the poem touches us, and yet resonates between. Maybe you too can feel something both in reading the poem and a glimpse of this particular conversation.
A way to go in these Earth and cultural unravelling, turning times is the ‘turning aside’ and ‘the eternity that awaits you.’ in the depth of intimacy. The conversation takes further deepening in our Sacred Conversation through the next poem One November Evening (from post of 15 Nov) becoming deeply world-making in us and the world. Sacred Conversations are world making in ways that cannot be planned. Maybe you feel something as you read? Imagine this kind of conversation as being everyday conversation which is also part of the purpose at Abbey Of Soul, reclaiming the holy through inviting and cultivating revelation, deep soul conversation dreaming and ceremony; becoming vulnerable to soul Mystery in the everyday life.
What impact has the poem and conversation had with you? That too is a practice. We would love to hear. You are very welcome to comment below or contact me.
If you’d like to become a paid subscriber and join in with such conversations, you can do so here.
Currently paid subscription is £6 per month or £66 per year. I’m sure you agree, a great price and way less than ‘giving everything’. Given the deep value at Abbey Of Soul, the subscriptions will be increasing as we develop and deepen further with more offerings to paid subscribers/members in the new year. Also there will be less gifted posts, though sometimes ‘tasters’. Podcasts will continue to be gifted. Now is a very good time to join in particular, a yearly subscription. Those with year subscriptions already will continue unchanged until renewal in acknowledgement of commitment to the pilgrimage here at Abbey Of Soul. Consider a gift for a loved one this gifting season, it’s a beauty feast for a year.
Individual Soul Guide sessions and Soul Currachs (ancient small Celtic round boat) can also be booked as a way to dive deeper into underworld soul waters, Mysteries and revelations of your treasure, your gift born to live into and feed the world. Message me for information and 30min exploratory call tracking where your sweet nectar lives.
Earthsongwave Dawn Chorus will be singing in again in January for the 8th year with some wild new Earthsongs … you can sign up at www.earthsongwave.com for Feed The Earth Ceremony around Earth at dawn 1 April, 2025
Other Offerings
Revelation is Poetic A Day Pilgrimage with Holy Island, Lindisfarne in the Earth Winter Solstice pause, Saturday 21 December. For poets/writers/budding and longing to express ones …
Wild at Heart; Way to go in unravelling times – January 2025, an 8 week on-line course with further resourcing and diving into soul (contact Wendy for further information)
The She Tree – February 2025, a yearlong monthly gathering for women on the pilgrimage of soul (more to come). The last began for six months and continued for 3 years;)
Consider sharing this Sacred Conversation should you know anyone who would appreciate it. Thank you
Earth blessings coming your way as we enter the darkest weeks of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the lightest weeks in the Southern Hemisphere as we get to travel in this magnificent Earth in kaleidoscopic ways. May you practice believing “as many as six impossible things before breakfast” (The Queen in Alice in Wonderland;)
Wendy PI’A