Cup of Light

8th March 2010, in the bungalow garden, Urubamba, Peru

In the cup of light, you will find a tonic that soothes your soul, mind and body.  Drink that which gives you peace and harmony, that which feels joyous and truthful.  Share the loving feeling that arises within and hold the energy in your heart to create a highway and connect to those to whom you wish to send this love.   

To create your tonic, search within the realms of your inner beauty and ask your guiding spirits to pour their energy into your intention.  From your filling heart, nurture all that is love and connect to the infinite highway of beauty and peace that can be shared and unifed amongst all that is.   

Can you begin to see the implication of the universal love that is?  Can you dwell on this implication and allow all the loving results to permeate your world and create such magnificence?   Go on, try it, a few moments everyday can create a world of pure love…

This lilly would light up every morning as the sun rose from behind the mountain.  It’s brilliance permeated the garden with a gentle yet strong feeling of love and courage.  It revealed all that it was through the light and shadow created by the sun and it’s movement in the gentle breeze.  It was and is a teacher to all that experience such repeating beauty in nature.

2011, A great year for change

At midnight on 30th June 2007, I was in Intag, Ecuador.  With little or no ambient lighting we had to find our way using torches.  I flicked my torch over some bushes to find some "eyeshine" from spiders.  Instead, I stood for 45 minutes and watched one of natures most magnificent changes.  A grasshopper expanding out of his old body and creating a new, larger version of himself.

Gently and very slowly pulling his antenna's out of their old skin....

Sometimes we have to make change to ourselves in very slow, caring ways.  If the grasshopper rushes this process and breaks his antenna's, he'll no longer be able to feel his way around the nature that he lives in.  Making the change though, allows him to feel further....

Here, he begins to scrunch up his new body to give him more length for pulling his new antenna's out.

Making shapes with our bodies can often remove blockages of energy that are no longer flowing.  A good stretch and crunch is wonderful for feeling lighter.  If the grasshopper didn't have the flexibility in his body, he wouldn't be able to pull his new antenna's out and find food.

Almost fully scrunched up, hanging on, upside down, beneath a leaf, through the stickiness of his old body.

Sometimes we find it hard to change, so why not look at the change from a different angle, like upside down for example, we often find ways to help ourselves if we remember to view things from many angles.  If the grasshopper was doing this on the other side of the leaf, he'd have to pull himself up against gravity making the change immensely difficult.  This way, gravity helps.

The antenna's are out now and he's just hanging upside down with only the probe tucked into his old body to hold him in place.

It's always a good idea to hold on to part of the old whilst adjusting to the new change.  Once the change is set, let go.

What next?  He now has to pull himself back up towards the leaf and old body in order to straighten out his body and remove the probe.

Change is often hard work, sometimes chaotic, sometimes frightening, sometimes over-whelming.  Our universe teaches us to do things and do things completely, leaving nothing half done.  The rewards for making the change become bountiful and the heart and mind become more connected by experience.

He's now grabbing his old body with his legs, he's getting ready to secure his hold and remove his probe.  He's also beginning to open his wings for drying and taking on their true form.

Sometimes we have to take a leap of faith and just go for it.  Knowing that we will always be caught by love and experience, we have to contort the old and release into the new.

And now he is gently lowering his hind legs and pulling out the probe to finally return to hanging up the right way.

The dead leaf in the background to the left, takes on a mystical appearance of an owl - the night messenger.

Through tricky times of change and brave steps that we take to make them, we are always supported by our guardians, angels, love and universal energy.  Always.  We only have to take the first step...

Here our grasshopper is hanging on by his legs only.  His old body still vitally important for sticking to the leaf and supporting the heavy weight of his new body.

Strength and courage from within, trust and faith in the choice, all help to making a difficult challenge slightly smoother.  Still the rocky road but a lighter energy of love carrying you over and round it.

The final stages of expanding his beautiful new wings and adjusting to his new form.

As the catapillar metamorphises into the beautiful butterfly, so do grasshoppers change their old bodies for new, so do humans grow and evolve through change and experience. 

And now, he waits.... very patiently.

When we choose to change, we reflect on what was and what is now, we take time to get to know the change, to be it, to allow it and to enjoy it.

Finally, he's eaten his old self to give him energy, replacing that which he used to make the change.

2011 is a magical and mysterious year.  There are new energies surrounding and penetrating us.  Change is occurring everywhere at a molecular level and we know that tiny molecules and atoms make up a universe.  Be aware of these loving new changes all around us, absorb them, become them, break old patterns that destroy your happinness, choose other options that bring you happiness and love from within yourself, when we a truly loving from our hearts using the abundance of new energies that are around us right now, we unify our species into a pure, loving, light being.

Wishing everyone a truly magical, self-love empowering 2011.

Proboscus-less Mozzie

A mozzie in our garden.  Taken on 5th February 2010 in Urubamba, Peru.

Beauty from within and beyond is about seeing everything on our planet in a loving, accepting and peaceful way creating a harmonious and light reaction to all that occurs on our lifetime journey. 

Take this mozzie and remember how you felt when you first looked at the picture.  Convert that feeling into one of love towards the mozzie and expand that feeling towards all mozzies.  Tricky isn't it?  Especially when history and events of today have told us that mozzies can harm us to the point of killing us from various disease's that they can spread. 

We too have a history of protective violence, stagnant patterns and destruction.  We can acknowledge our history, accept our history and adjust our present to stem the tide of destructive patterns and flow with a procreative love that does not judge, but simply is. 

Let us bring balance to our lives by looking within and transmuting those stagnant beliefs into flowing changes of creativity.  It's not easy to start with, but it's pretty cool trying to figure out how you can love the mozzie rather than fear and hate it... keep trying until you really see the mozzie in the photo above as something that you can revere.  Sometimes we are given help to revere something that we're told is harmful... for example the mozzie above has lost it's proboscus, can't feed anymore and is simply waiting to die.

Look for the clues in those stagnant old patterns of feelings and emotions that create disharmony and find a way to transmute them into beauty from within and beyond.

Meet Rosa

My friend Rosa.  Taken on 14th March 2008 in Peru.

85 years of experience living in Peru, high in the mountains and then on the edge of a city, Rosa shines a light of love and childish innocence beneath her tough and fiesty exterior.  She has outlived her 5 children who have left behind various grandchildren for her to raise. 

She has an amazing cheeky grin and often looks at others, whom she thinks might be able to help her, with a childish twinkle in her eye.  If you go beneath her need to always ask for help, you’ll find a loving, funny, young energy that infects your soul with compassion for the moment.

It’s as if her experience has taught her to remain loving, childish, young and full of laughter.  Despite having nothing materialistically to help her grandchildren let alone herself, she reminds us that being here in the moment is the magical place that we can all always enjoy.  She’s a diamond in the rough.  Go Rosa, we love you.

Rosa and I. Taken on 12th February 2008 in Peru.

How did I meet Rosa?  I was volunteering for an NGO and started up a programme to help the old people in the community near the school we were supporting.  Rosa was one of the first old people to come along and receive her food.  On our first meeting she shared her story with me and touched my heart forever.

Full Moon with Halo

We camped under this full moon, with it's halo marking a clearer vision. Taken 9th Jan 2009, India

We are approaching the September Equinox and a friend tells me that the equinox and the full-moon are only 6 hours apart. 

The beauty of this "moon halo" that occured on the 9th January 2009 in India, was it's clarity.  Inside the halo the darkness seemed so transparent, illuminated by the moon's most brilliant whiteness, that we didn't need to use any other lighting to see our way.  She truly was our own spotlight that night, beaming her energy down into our tent and surrounding us with her magic.

The moon is one of the ways that I communicate to my family from whom I live so far away, she's a real human connector.

Binding Tree

Magical nature in Chitwan National Park, Nepal.  Taken on 3rd April 2009

"As we bind together with the magic of nature in a reverent way, the beauty of love, peace and harmony radiate and shine from inside us, let it flow, let it flow".

This is a magical place where the trees and plants bind together, creating shapes and forms of unity, support, love and wonder.  The energy vibrated through me and reminded me that humans are just the same when the heart is open, the love flowing and the smiles of unity providing support for each other, binding together in a spiritual partnership to witness the journey in this lifetime.

Simply magical.

Grasshopper

Grasshopper on the road between Otavalo and Intag, Ecuador.  Taken on 30th June 2007

This photo goes out to my dad who died on the same date in 2001.  It represents him as the globe-trotting work-aholic who had a great sense of humour, bringing love and laughter to all those he met.

I prefer not to recall the death of loved ones but remember their journey and the part we shared together in life.  Go "Pops" - you remain a huge influence in my life today, love you loads.

Lake Atitlan

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala,  Taken early morning on 27th December 2006

The magic of this photo comes from the peace and tranquility I feel when I look at it.  I can almost hear the water lapping against the shore, the cool breeze on my face and the strong desire we had to sit on the jetty and dangle our feet in the crisp, cold water.

Surrounded by volcanoes, the natural energy from the lake entered us like an invisible peaceful force.   It is the photo I have chosen as the background to this blog in the wish that you feel the same peacefulness from it.