Clearing the riverbeds
These past few days, I have been creating a new relationship with an abandoned farmland that has called me to clean many of the overgrown and blocked river beds, causing waterlogging (aka. muddy boots!) on the fields. Despite this being “backbreaking” work, it has been so satisfying, it has actually been addictive. Why?
Not only do the rivers act as a natural drainage mechanism and carry water to other places of potential need, they are also a source of beauty and inspiration that offer a feeling or resonance of movement, direction and clarity.
As I am creating space for this water on the land to flow, I am doing so for my own inner waters too. It becomes a very accurate reflection of the inner work I am currently doing: not the usual cleaning the cobwebs (in fact, I have actually been very happy to leave those be right now!), but rather the clearing away of the muck, the mud, and the seeds of years gone past that have settled themselves into growing nests of root systems like thick nests… blocking my vision (the clear waters beneath), my creativity (to let go and feel the channeling passing through), and the ease and flow of my life.
As above, so below.
These are the illusions, the stuck patterns, the habits that don’t serve me anymore, or my relationships for that matter… the stored trauma stories, the mental blocks and the negative thinking. They have created their habitat in the riverbeds of my body, seeming natural enough that I think they should belong as part of the landscape and remain untouched. So came the question with working a physical land – where are the limits to human intervention? How are we causing harm by interfering with our limited and often selfish ideas? Am I harming an existing ecosystem?
In response, I remember that we are in reciprocity with Mama Earth, and have given myself permission to act on the land. In right responsibility, to the best of my knowledge and my observation.
The riverbeds called me. It’s what I saw was needed. It’s where I felt to go. The resonance was there, perhaps the land showing me what it needed to be in better harmony. Or perhaps to show me what it was that I needed. For it is the very nature of Mama Earth to provide for us, to give without any expectation of return. I hope and believe there is this cosmic design that brought me to this place because something knew it was I who could provide this act of service for her, because it was indeed I who was in need of this healing work.
Clearing my internal ecosystem of muck. Giving space and removing the mud so that I can see the direction of the water flowing, its clarity and its purpose. By letting go of all of that built up, soaking for so long, comes a new feeling of freedom. Can you understand now the addiction?
Upcoming retreat
So here I am literally cleaning rivers, all while preparing to guide a very relevant retreat: the Wisdom of Water in Mafra, Portugal from June 13-15.
If these topics speak to you, along with getting in touch with your own inner guidance, symbology and felt sense “thinking”, letting go and trust, you may want to join us. Click here for full details.
Water is the essence of life.