Turning Back Time: I visit the Hurlers

On July 23, 2018July 24, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections10 Comments

I am climbing the walls of an old church. There is only the outer fortification of stone, smoothed into mortared slabs. Each slab is chiseled with symbols, hieroglyphics of an ancient language my cells remember, but my mind has forgotten how to read. My hands grasp the hollowed frames of windows, climbing through the inside through levels until I know I have reached the 3rd floor. Here my hands let go of their grasp and I find I am hovering weightlessly. My body prone, I look down to the depths below. And then I begin to turn, like a clock. My body the hands of the hours going backward.

I had this dream about a week ago, and it has lingered with me since then. It has been more than a month since my return from England. My third trip there in as many years. I go to this land to turn back time.

After we descended from Brentor, and I paid my respects to the guardian stone, Sue graciously offered to take us along in her car to the next site, and Larissa and I accepted without negotiation. I was more than happy to take a break from driving on the ~~wrong~~ left side of the road down the winding narrow lanes of rural England, and I knew Larissa shared my fear that there was a good chance we would get lost following Sue who drives with the skill and ease of a professional racecar driver.

I drove down this lane and many like it.

So to The Hurlers we went, with Stuart navigating using a traditional paper map as Sue manipulated the stickshift gears on her ~~race~~ compact car. Larissa and I were impressed, to say the least, and kept breathing large sighs of relief that we were not in the front seats and could enjoy the views that ~~flew~~ passed by. And, we never got lost. Well, that is until we got there and I started to wander…

To be honest, I rather wanted to get lost, but at that critical moment the brain won over the longings of the heart, and I turned around. But, I am getting ahead of myself…

It’s difficult to describe just how vast and complex the landscape of Dartmoor is, which covers 368 square miles of moorland filled with the evidence of ancient civilizations. Pure heaven for someone like me.

The Hurlers is the remains of three large stone circles in the wild moorland landscape of Dartmoor, which just happens to be aligned with the star cluster Orion and sits on the Michael ley line. To say it is a place of magic is an understatement. I knew I was home before I stepped out of the car.

The Hurlers are larger than they appear, and are perfectly aligned with the stars…

As tends to happen in these ancient lands, my feet began to move as though driven by some deep cellular memory, responding to the forces of the land. Find the seer’s stone, the command kept entering my conscious mind as it whirled with the energies of the land.

The seer’s stone sits in the center of the Hurlers

The land was damp from rain, and a puddle had formed within the well around the central stone. I could not comfortably sit here, as I had at Bratha’s stone in the Peak last April, so my visit within the circle was brief. After paying my respects, I walked the perimeter stones in two of the circle, while my eye caught upon the portal stones, briefly. I will return after, I promised myself.

I could not ignore the intense pull to the land beyond. The hill with the balanced stones of giants felt like a magnet drawing me ever-closer to its energy. The land, as I have learned, beyond stone circles is filled with secrets of the past. Stones litter these ancient landscapes and each has a story to tell. There were too many to linger beside here, and my feet did not want to go slowly.

One can imagine a gathering place here, where the stones do the talking.

The vegetation of the landscape of these sites is always worth noting. How it grows along the ancient tracts…when it is interrupted, swirled or corse…

An uneven landscape that seems to have been modeled by deliberate hands.

There are many ditches around the Hurlers, as well as deep circular depressions. As Sue noted, it could be from mining the lands for ore, or for some other, perhaps ritualistic reason. There is the sensation of falling inward to another realm near some of them, and the grass often swirls in imposing tufts which speak of disruption.

IMG_3744 2.jpg — Several depressions threaten to tumble the unsteady.

My feet, though, kept racing toward the hill beyond, where the Cheesewring sits like a giant stone bird. Was I following the Michael line to some sort of apex of energy? It felt like a force beyond logical reason. Yet, I stopped at the edge of the stone settlement, just where the land starts to dip before it climbs. I looked at the imposing hill just beyond with longing, before I turned around. I was far, quite far, from the other three I had come with and logic told me it would not be fair to follow my heart into the mist. And so the climb would have to wait for some other day, perhaps in the future.

I got tantalizingly close before I turned away.

Something told me, though, that if I had stood long enough between those to standing stones, I would have gotten there sooner.

Following the Broken Lines of Earth to Brentor #leylines #albion #middlegradefantasy

On July 22, 2018January 11, 2022 By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections, the labyrinth, Travel Adventures, Warriors of Light9 Comments

“The ley lines, lad. The ley lines. The lines of light in Earth. Some call them dragon lines. They haven’t been right for quite a long time now. Clogged by darkness. Broken by greed. I’m a mess. But then again, that’s nothing unusual these days. The entire planet is filled with broken lines and clogged pores, you might say. But you’re here to help fix that. So much work to be done. You best get started.” — Albion speaking to Ari, Book 2: Warriors of Light

“When we saw the cover of your book, we knew you had to be here,” Sue confided after I arrived for the June 2018 Silent Eye School of Consciousness workshop. The hexagram started appearing to me before I enrolled with the school and even before I met Sue through the wonderful world of blogging. Sue, though, has been my primary human guide as I navigate this sacred symbol and others.

Labyrinth_MainImage_Small — From the cover of my new book, *The Labyrinth*. Book 1 of the *Warriors of Light* series

The mystical hexagram seems to defy time and language, appearing throughout history and prehistory on Earth, as well as in the alignment of heavenly bodies. As above, so below. It unites the male and female aspects of ourselves and the “world” at large. Six years ago, I realized this symbol was asking to take form upon the pages of the book I had begun to write. Appearing in a grove of oaks, it looked like a maze of broken light. As I wrote, allowing myself to be led by the unseen force of the higher consciousness, I came to realize that lines of energy exist in the Earth and within us as the life force energy that is the “Light of Life” itself.

Ancient symbols predating religion appeared throughout the churches we visited during the June workshop.

And so it was no surprise that I was drawn to the workshop before I even knew why. The hexagram, leading the way. There was the hexagon around the Cerne Abbas giant, which aligned with the stars above. Orion mapping the inner and outer-landscape at each site we visited. Seven churches forming a star with an inner point of light. And, dragon lines running through it all, guiding present and long forgotten footeps.

“In the middle of the hexagon is the source of the golden light, but there are a million paths to get there. I don’t know how to explain it exactly. It’s like a spider’s web. There are smaller lines of light, like veins on a leaf, which fill the large star we share, all leading to the center.” — Sula, The Labyrinth, Book 1: Warriors of Light

I’m not sure I’ll ever be wholly or holy comfortable in a church. Although I admire their outer beauty, there is a rigidness to their structures that constricts my cells. An old church sits atop Brentor in England. Dedicated to St. Michael, it resides along his ley line. Inside the church, which still feels very solid and powerful in form, there is a stained glass window of the saint who is often seen in other churches slaying a dragon. Not so here.

Instead, the dragon lies dormant below him. The mound of earth itself, having erupted with its fire energy thousands of years before. It is no wonder I was not comfortable within these fortified walls. Although the saint here looks a bit wild and paganish with his feathered attire, his visage is fierce as he looks down upon the land with his sword poised for striking. His skirt wears the eyes of the peacock. Is there a bold defiance in this image inside a church that has laid claim to the land?

Stuart and Sue explore the top of Brentor. Sue blends into the fortification, while Stuart gazes into the landscape.

The gargoyles here do not appear on the roof of the stone building, but in the guardian stone itself, which sits, placed by Nature one presumes, at the base of the hill.

There is not just one face in this Guardian Stone filled with protective gargoyles.

I like this stone, as I do most stones that feel like there is a living presence within them. They often feel like friends, and when approached with trust and an open heart, they have much to share. Eyes are often drawn to them without always knowing why.

The jagged rock of the guardian stone mirrors the tor it guards. Born of fire and earth, it is a hybrid of forces that feel unbalanced. I cannot help but think of Glastonbury Tor, so different from Brentor with its elegant conical shape, which to me feels very feminine, yet powerfully in control and aligned with the sacred heart. I do not recall seeing a guardian stone when I was there two years ago. Just ewes with their spring lambs dotting the landscape with the energy of rebirth and the promise of a resurrected heart filled with Christ-consciousness for those who wish to ascend its summits.

My daughter poised for flight atop Glastonbury Tor, filled with exhilaration.

Brentor, in contrast, seems to represent a struggle of forces. As though the the battle between Earth and Man has yet to be won. Its church is largely intact, and dominates its summit, unlike the solitary tower that remains rather elegantly atop Glastonbury. Beautiful and non-threatening. Yet, is there really a victory to be won here?

Despite the masculine feel of Brentor, it is guarded by Hathor’s animal.

The giant that lies under St. Michael’s church at Brentor may be latent at present, but history has taught us that we cannot conquer forces that are greater than ourselves, because these forces also reside within us, unbalanced. When we disrupt the energies in Earth, as we are doing now, She responds to our unease. When will we learn?

A sacred stream runs through the body of the land below Brentor.

Water, like fire, runs through the veins of Earth. Nearby the base of Brentor, there is a small stone enclosure that appears to mark a sacred stream. Unlike Glastonbury, this one is mostly hidden, and there is no urging of tourists to gather. Yet, there it is filled with hope, carrying the blood of life through the land.

A Castle and Dinner

On July 21, 2018July 21, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections9 Comments

After our walk through the haunted woods, Larissa and I piled back into our rental and set out in search of dinner at the Castle Inn. The road there proved to be a little more challenging than planned. The trusted navigation got the better of us and we ended up driving through fields of vegetation where no car should be allowed to venture, praying audibly along the twisted, smaller-than-one-lane-endless-road that we would not meet another vehicle heading in the opposite direction until we were dumped into a slightly wider road and then finally found the tavern we were searching for.

Exhausted from limited sleep and a long day of driving, and more than a tad bit hungry, I pulled into a full parking lot and started cursing my fortune as an amused pedestrian ambled in front of me. After one unsuccessful trip around the parking lot, I decided to pull over to the side behind a parked car in a spot that wasn’t really a spot. Crooked. “Um, do you want to straighten the car out a bit?” Larissa offered, wondering, like me, if we were illegally parked. “Nope,” I declared. “I’m done.”

Luck, it seemed, was actually on our side and we found our car as we left it after our meal. A meal that was surprisingly tasty and filling, and was served to us in record time. After finishing the last remaining morsel of curry, I turned to Larissa with renewed faith in the world and suggested we venture over to the castle beside the pub. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to be closed,” she declared.

Although it was inching well past dusk, the gates were open, and, feeling a bit like rebellious teenagers, we went inside to explore Lydford Castle. It’s just not a complete trip to the UK if you don’t stop and see at least one castle, in my opinion. So I got my castle, by what felt like pure happenstance.

Since we were the only visitors, Larissa and I explored the dank remnants at our leisure. It didn’t take long. The castle, as many that are still standing (in-part), has outer walls but no floors or interior room divisions. An imagination is necessary to fill in what it once may have looked like. It didn’t take us long to explore what remained, and the slippery footing and ever-darkening light, I could tell, was making my companion a little nervous.

The castle sits nearby an old church, and the grounds beneath are mounded by the remains of ancient forts, which makes one wonder what predated the battlegrounds. Whatever it once was, Larissa and I did not linger to investigate. We were tired and wanted to make sure we found our way back to Lee Byre before dark descended upon the landscape. In the morning we would begin our adventures at Brentor with Sue and Stuart…

A Reclaimed Forest At the Edge of Dartmoor #dartmoor #ancientengland

On July 19, 2018December 12, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections, Travel Adventures11 Comments

After the formal portion of the June 2018 workshop with the Silent Eye School of Consciousness had concluded, my traveling companion and I hopped into our rental car and headed toward Tavistock to continue our adventures with Sue and Stuart. Whereas they had opted to take the winding, more adventurous route through Dartmoor, we ~~wimped out~~ braved the major roads.

If I could have done it over again, though, I would have taken the long way in the hope of getting a little lost, but more about that in the next post. If you visit the link to Sue and Stuart above, you will get an idea as to why.

Instead, Larissa and I had a rather uneventful drive into Tavistock. Thankfully, Larissa’s phone navigation landed us perfectly at our very remote, but incredibly charming B&B, Lee Byre, which sits on the outskirts of Dartmoor and has a perfect view of Brentor , where we would be meeting up with Sue and Stuart the following morning.

Larissa posing for a picture inside our cosy accommodation at Lee Byre

We arrived at Lee Byre through a narrow gateway of rocks (I wish I had taken a photo), whose chins jutted within inches of our compact car, and down an even more narrow hedgerow at least double the height of our vehicle. Here we were greeted with another gateway, this one fashioned out of wood, which opened to a carpark near our lodging. Here we were greeting by the resident hens.

The resident hens were quite intent on hitching a ride with us.

I could not have envisioned a more perfect place to stay, and as I told Larissa more than once, “I could easily live there.” Even if the forest behind our cottage was haunted. The stone buildings that housed our hosts and their rental accomodations sit amidst exquisite gardens and offer, on a clear day, a wonderful glimpses into the land of Dartmoor. Breakfast is served each morning freshly prepared using local ingredients that include perfectly poached eggs from the resident hens, freshly baked bread, honey made from the bees that pollinate the lovely gardens, and homemade yogurt, jam and granola served on top of a table painted by the proprietor. Have I mentioned before I was in heaven?

Our hobo lunches were prepared for us before we set off toward Dartmoor the following day

Dinner requires a 24-hr notice, and since Larissa and I were not sure of how the day would unfold, we opted to find our own end-of-day meal. Although I like to eat on the early side, I agreed to wait awhile before venturing out again in the car, and the two of us decided we would take a wander into the forest behind our lodging.

This forest reminded us both of the Pacific Northwest, but felt like it held thousands of years of secrets

I don’t think I’ve felt a more haunted woods. The haunting effect was only heightened by the fact that it was dusk and a trail of feathers preceded our footsteps like deliberately placed breadcrumbs. The crows, it seems, were guiding our entire journey through the landscape of Albion. Although we were the only hikers in the woods that evening, I felt eyes all around me. It was difficult to tell if we were simply being observed or tested. Perhaps it was both. In these haunted landscapes, which seem to occur in abundance in England, I often feel as though I must earn my welcome.

Crow feathers followed our paths throughout our adventures in England and I should not have been surprised to find them here.

Larissa appeared less troubled than I, or perhaps she was just hiding her unease. We both remarked how we felt like Robin Hood and his Merry Men could appear at any moment around the corner. It was that kind of forest. While she delighted in the moss that “looked like tiny ferns,” I kept seeing faces in the trees and rocks.

The fern-like moss in all its emerald beauty

The only history we learned about this area we were walking in was from our hosts at Lee Byre, who told us, as they handed us a trail map, that there was an old quarry mine near the top of the hill. A not uncommon site in these parts of England.

After some venturing off the trails (mostly by my urginings) to look for intriguing views and anything else that might choose to appear, we eventually landed at the abandoned quarry.

The unsettled feeling continued to permeate my wanderings as we explored the long-abandoned site. Thorny bushes hugged the cement walls of the quarry remains and it was clear by looking at the old shed on the outskirts that Nature had reclaimed the site as Her own once again.

The presence of elemental beings was undeniable, and as I walked the hilltop I wondered if the hands of man had left their mark in a way that made our presence somewhat unwelcome. Were we friend or foe in this forest that felt like it could both swallow us whole or embrace us wholly?

Larissa standing in a place where one could not help but feel small.

Larissa and I were walking as Nature’s children, but also as children of man. Here in this reclaimed wild landscape it is both easy, and difficult, to forget that we are made of Earth but have spent thousands of years trying to prove we are not. I was unsettled, but rightfully so. A guilty child looking to earn back a mother’s trust.

Take these broken wings

On June 7, 2018June 7, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Reflections2 Comments

The red-winged blackbirds started appearing in my neighborhood about a week ago. In the eleven years I have lived here I have never seen red-winged blackbirds near my home. Now they seem to follow me everywhere. The pair flies across the crossroads of intersections and alights from trees at the edge of the forest. The female looks ordinary and unassuming. She wears the colors of camouflage, like a cloak of decaying earth.

It was the male who appeared in my dream many months ago. Opening his wing of night to reveal the power of red blended with yellow, which he formed into a ball of flame and threw for me to catch.

And now he is here again, with me in physical form. Over the last two days, he has left me three broken wings. Not his own, but those of moths. Night butterflies. Remnants of a feast left behind.

The first wing appeared in the field where I will soon be teaching summer yoga classes. The hindwing of a Cecropia Silk Moth. I heard the song in my head written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney before I saw the blackbird.

The fire-rimmed eye of the hindwing of a Cecropia Silk Moth

Yesterday, a wing from the same moth appeared. A forewing banged up perhaps from traveling the fifty yards or so from the location where I found the hindwing. A little distance away, a nearly invisible white wing of what may have been a Fall Webworm lay like a fairy’s wing on the pavement.

Last night was a fitful night of sleep. The left side of my head was congested as though all the turmoiled thoughts in my mind had settled there to block rest.

“Blackbird fly into the light of the dark, dark night.” (lyrics from “Blackbird” by Lennon/McCartney)

We all have our broken wings. Life has a way of breaking them, and the breaks can deepen through past-life wounds we may not even remember. Wings that were, perhaps, meant to be broken so that we may find the true, free soul. The light in the dark, dark night.

I have realized, these last few days, that I have let myself stray from the path of the true self. I have allowed myself to be disempowered and voiceless at the expense of another’s ambitions that do not feel in alignment with my true self. The blackbird has appeared as a reminder of the strength of the soul aligned with Truth. He has left me the wings to fly into the Light.

An Unusual Labyrinth?

On May 26, 2018July 30, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Classes, Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections, Spirit Channelings, the labyrinth17 Comments

I dreamt last night of a world I did not want to leave. “Hold me back,” I told my companions, lest I fly up into the wonderous sky above. At that moment I was watching the dance of clouds as they morphed into fairytale forms, yet what was below was as magical as what was above. A child’s playhouse of wonderment and joy. I have dreamed these landscapes before. I have even traveled them in visions only to return to the density of a reality that seems, on the surface, false and formed through the deliberate hands of ego-driven might. By hands shaped by the individual quest for greed.

My soul has not forgotten the true magic of Life. Of untempered Joy. Every so often, it returns me to that state to bring back hope and also Truth. I have walked the broken lands that still hold magic for those who wish to see and feel it. Through the deepest depths of a despair that is not just mine, I have felt the ever-present stirring of Light.

We all walk the landscape of magic, whether we are aware of it or not. At each moment we can choose whether to become the trapped victim of fear fed by that greedy hand lusting for power and dominance, or we can find that ever-present state where the river of Life flows to the frequency of Light.

Here is where the inner-child resides, waiting to dance to Truth. We call her the inner-child because she holds the key to Life. She never forgets the “child-like” state of wonder that is the magic of all existence. The embodiment of true Joy, she resides in all of us. Tuned to her frequency, the world around her shifts to match the rhythm of her dance.

For so many of us, including those who are not yet adults, the inner-child is already lost in a long-forgotten place. We may know she is there. Sometimes we may even feel her inner core of light, but we have forgotten who to get to her. It is as though we reside in a labyrinth that takes on a maze-like form because the light within us is filled with broken lines created by pain and fear. These shadow lands impede the natural flow of light, which is that magical life force energy that vibrates to Truth. To Joy. To Love.

As one well-intended individual has pointed out, the labyrinth that appears in my first book in the Warriors of Light series does not resemble the labyrinths seen throughout ancient cultures, and which is now used in “New-Age” healing modalities. The labyrinth I chose, or rather chose me, is a maze of lines that unite the above with the below. Those who are familiar with esoteric teachings will recognize it as the mystical hexagram, the Star of David, or the Merkabah . Its origin predates religion and division. Two triangles overlapping in union, connecting the above with the below in perfect harmony. The true self, that “inner-child,” can be found always at the center. The seat of the soul. Of Truth. Of Light. Un-changing. There can be many individual journeys to get there, but we all, eventually arrive at the same place.

The book will be out soon…I had a minor glitch in formatting, a glitch which is turning into a gift to allow a more beautiful expression of the book and the vision that is being held to assist and support children young and old reconnect with the inner-child of Truth.

Winter Returns to Pull the Cells Inward

On April 15, 2018April 15, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections12 Comments

Two years ago the weather was the same. The New Hampshire climate is not so different from the Peak District of England. April can be sunny and warm, or it can return, in a moment, to the icy hands of winter. Today in New England it is raining sleet, which is collecting upon the ground in growing layers of white. I imagine the still unopened buds on the daffodils and crocuses are pulling inward.

My own mind travels to the Nine Ladies Stone Circle in Derbyshire. Recalling the same pounding sleet that challenged our four seeking forms on the second day my family and I ventured out to find the circle. Or should I say evening? We chose the impending arrival of the night both times we sought the vaguely marked landmark. I, much more urgently seeking than my husband and children, who seemed more to indulge me than feel the need. The body, though, remembers the past, even the past that extends beyond its lifetime. There is an imprint that is made deep within the cellular matrix that connects to the soul’s lifetimes and it behooves one to take note of the triggers that bring the memories back to life.

I knew the land was testing me. Asking me what I was willing to remember. Asking me if I was ready to return to a time that pressed me beyond the brink of conscious memory. The forces that reside in these sacred sites of the moors are strong and very much alive, yet they are mostly unseen, serving as the haunting imprints of a past that was filled with a magic that we have mostly chosen to forget. Walking with the intention of awareness, though, one cannot help but feel it.

Or hear it. On the first night, there was the cry. Like a woman calling for a lost child. My daughter heard it too, so I knew I wasn’t going insane. Put the pull inward was fierce, and I could see an emotion that approaches fear on the faces around me. We left as the darkness began to descend to reveal the shadows of the far distant past more acutely. There are legends about people being lost in the moors and never returning. The elemental forces hold a rein here that is strong and often unrelenting. It serves to test your notion of survival as well as your willingness to remember what many have chosen to forget.

Winter is the season of dreaming. Of a hibernation that turns life inward toward the soul’s truths if we are willing to sleep with awareness. It seemed fitting, in many ways, that the sky chose to release winter’s return on our second venturing out to find the stone circle we never found on the first night. This time I was determined not to allow my body to be pulled to other landmarks, no doubt equally, if not more, significant for the journey. Yet, there was a reluctance, a fear, to venture into these shadowed lands that felt threatening. I was, simply, not ready to understand and to feel fully what it had to reveal. There is an initiation or re-initiation, that must occur, and I was not ready. I also had my family with me. A family that was there because of my urgings. The fierce need to protect over-rode everything else.

The Gaudy Tree Draped in Artificial Finery

Despite the unrelenting skies, we found the circle. It seemed so small, and in many ways insignificant, or rather forgotten. The tree that hovered beside it was draped in gaudy finery, which I found repulsive. A desecration of the sacred. I resisted the impulse to pull down ribbons and naked plastic bodies of miniaturized women. Who does this? I wondered. This was not the worship of the past my cells knew. A place visited often enough, perhaps, but forgotten.

But still, the whispers of the past were there, haunting the sacred ground. They called through my body in a language I was trying hard to resist, but also to remember. It would take me another year to be ready. To willingly return to the moors (in a different area) and visit the sacred land with a memory fierce and very much alive. Thankfully, a year later, I walked back through time under the watchful eyes of those who are familiar with the forces of the land, lest I go too far astray.

The Beginnings of Endings

On April 11, 2018April 11, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Memoir, Reflections, yoga13 Comments

The owl appeared as the resurrected phoenix during my last, formal meditation as a student of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness. At some point, the seeker becomes the seen as the threshold to the mysteries are opened. The wisdom that always lies in wait within is always just a conscious breath away, but humans can be shallow breathers. In my young adult novel The Labyrinth, which is due to be released in a month or so, the voice of an owl cuts through the darkness as teens search for what they cannot find.

“Whoooo Loooooks for Yooooou?” The owl calls out to them.

Ultimately, are we not all looking for our own selves? The truth of the soul that is often only allowed to exist fully in the false protection of the shadows. The eyes, therefore, must turn inward and grow accustomed to the dark, where eventually they learn to see the light held within. We are all seekers of wisdom, but sometimes it is worth asking what is the wisdom we truly seek?

The crow was waiting at the top of the building when I stepped outside the door of my final day of yoga teacher training. She cawed loud and strong, least I miss her presence, looking down at me as her eyes followed me to my car. Don’t forget who brought you here, she seemed to be saying, along with, you know this is only a beginning.

I have learned, over the course of these last three years in particular, how much endings are really just beginnings. Once we have crossed that threshold that marks the completion of a road along our journey, another road awaits us. The road is often unmarked or vaguely marked at best. if we knew what was waiting, would we walk with the open heart that requires trust and surrender?

And so I find myself walking across the threshold with eyes that have learned to see in the dark. Fear has become a friend that sometimes takes my hand to remind me of courage and I have grown comfortable with what is waiting to be known. I have learned that within each moment I can find the presence of teachers surrounding me. They are the trees outside my window and the birds that pass by. They are the people I encounter on the streets, and the dogs who share the couch as I write. My computer is my teacher, with all its quirks and challenges. And there is always, that ever-guiding light within.

I have become also, a friend of wait. Patience provides a soft hand that is worth holding for as long as it is offered. Magic is, after all, held in the present moment and if one pushes against the ever-flowing current of time it is lost.

#Carved #Writephoto

On March 22, 2018March 22, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, Uncategorized22 Comments

bowl-on-the-moors — Photo Credit: Sue Vincent

She said, “Show me your soul, and I will take you inward.”

I looked across the vast landscape that surrounded me and back to the well. The ground felt firm beneath my feet, and I could feel the warmth of the setting sun strong against my back. The infinite sky above offered a dreamscape evoking heaven as we like to think of it. Yet, my eyes were drawn to her offer.

I peered over the edge of her basin. “You will not see the bottom, for there is no end.”

Fear rippled my heart. “That is good,” she told me. “Allow yourself to feel before you let go.”

My hands, gripping her rock shook with tremors of emotion. My eyes added salted water to the pool below.

“All life begins in darkness,” the voice urged me closer to the center. “But the soul resides in the Light.”

My contribution to Sue Vincent’s weekly #writephoto prompt challenge. To participate, please click here.

writephoto

Five Days with a Restless Gaia in Bermuda #bermuda #traveladventures

On March 7, 2018December 9, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections, Travel Adventures, yoga8 Comments

Gayatri: The feminine form of the divine, and therefore one may extrapolate that Gaia, or Mother Earth, is an aspect of her. (Note some associate the Gayatri mantra with the solar god, Savitr, as I mentioned in a previous post. As I work further with this mantra, I find myself returning to what I felt years ago when I first heard it, that it is an awakening to the divine feminine energy that resides in all of us. An energy that balances the fiery sun).

I wore her turquoise in the form of a teardrop in the well of my throat each day. The chip of stone the same shade of blue as her waters, which turned from tranquil to a fierce sea that I knew could pull me back to her womb in an instant. On the tiny sliver of an island called Bermuda, I was acutely aware of the power of water and the great womb of life. Water that in one moment held stillness, and in the next turbulence.

The first day mirrored calm. There were hardly any ripples dividing the liquid element from air, and my eyes could see an unobstructed bottom through several feet of depth. Often, I found myself looking for life in the great womb, but found only a few colorful fish one day in the deeper, darker blues.

Along the shoreline, the inorganic waste of humanity collected the memory of greed in forgotten areas. Finding this depressing, I focused the lens on beauty.

Abandoned vacation huts over tranquil water. Behind the veil of pine, garbage accumulates.

Until it was unavoidable.

By day three her breath, which blew in a soft caress upon my arrival, had turned into a gale force that permeated all the pores in my body. It was not an icy wind, but a penetrating one meant to awaken that which we tend to keep still not because of peace, but because of a choice to ignore.

The photograph cannot capture the magnitude of Her strength

So I welcomed her air and felt the exhilaration of life stirring through time. Nights turned restless and I woke often to hear her constant cry as she tried to rip the shudders of my the house where I was staying open.

What do you want from me? What are you trying to tell me? I found myself asking the divine mother, knowing the answers were held in the mirror of my dreams. They showed me the walls that needed to be brought down, and the shadows held through fear opened to the raw, untamed element of air. The spiral like a hurricane bringing me ever inward to the eye to examine and release.

The key, held in the open hands of surrender.

I will stir up your life, but you must examine what I bring forth.

Bhargo devasya dhimahi

Diyo yonah prachodayat

Often, I found my mind returning to the Gayatri Mantra, in particular, these last two lines. Seeking the cleansing through the goddess. Igniting the light more deeply within, while feeling Her womb enclosed around me. Wrapping me fiercely, but not consuming, while I stayed on her strip of land called Bermuda. The place some say is at the tip of a sacred triangle that points “up” toward the ever-present Light.

The Light Behind the Story

Category: Reflections

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Following the Broken Lines of Earth to Brentor #leylines #albion #middlegradefantasy

A Castle and Dinner

A Reclaimed Forest At the Edge of Dartmoor #dartmoor #ancientengland

Take these broken wings

An Unusual Labyrinth?

Winter Returns to Pull the Cells Inward

The Beginnings of Endings

#Carved #Writephoto

Five Days with a Restless Gaia in Bermuda #bermuda #traveladventures

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