Writing Creatively With Spirit

June 21, 2013
by predencia 10 Comments

Countdown to Cameroon – Reality check

Friday June 21^st 2013

Post elation and the reality is beginning to sink in. Volunteering is not a holiday, it’s a job, and preparing to volunteer overseas is like starting a job abroad.

First there’s the CRB or police check, then there’s booking the flight, booking in with the surgery for immunisation – yellow fever and cholera are compulsory as are malaria tablets. Add visa application (which is not a straightforward affair with the Cameroon embassy) and all the people who have to be informed this end and in Cameroon and its way more than starting a job here.

On top of that the blurb states that it’s approximately a day’s travel by bus to the project from the airport, (and the flights I’ve looked at so far are anywhere from ten hours to thirty-one hours).

I have to buy a sleeping bag. I’ll need it for the volunteer house as bedding isn’t provided. I have to buy a pair of wellingtons because it can get very muddy between April and November, and warm clothes as the altitude of project means it can get quite chilly in the evenings.

By Monday I was beginning to wonder whether this was such a good idea, but after speaking to one of the staff at Original Volunteers on Tuesday I was all fired up again. Filled in and posted the police check form. First job done, about twenty to go.

June 21, 2013
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Countdown to Cameroon – 20th June 2013

Thursday June 20^th 2013

It’s hard to believe that this time last week I’d just signed up for volunteering in the Cameroon. Having paid my registration fee I was told I’d get an information pack by 6 p.m.

Entrance to Utoxeter Race Course

Had I been at home, or had access to my emails, I think I’d have been checking every five minutes. As it happened I was at the Utoxeter Races Ladies Day eating fine foods, drinking more champagne than was good for me, and having a little flutter on the horses.

There was a moment when I looked around me at the beautifully laid tables, the shiny cutlery, the sparkling crockery, the flowers, the food and the drink. I listened to the happy laughter as everyone became more relaxed with the effects of the welcoming Pimms and Champagne.

I looked and thought about how different things were going to be in Cameroon. I took a snapshot of the scene in my mind, and thought, oddly, that I’d need to recall the picture when I’m there.

I got home just before midnight and headed straight to my inbox. There they were; two emails from Original Volunteers. One welcomed me to the organisation and gave me a time line of what to do when. Things like booking flights, completing various documentation, booking vaccines, applying for visas.

It also supplied the link below to Hannah Holtby’s blog about her experiences while volunteering on the project.

The other email contained more information about the project itself. The more I read the more overjoyed I became. This project seemed tailor made for me. I have an interest in education, health and empowerment. The project has a school, health facility and advocacy and women’s empowerment service.

I’m interested in meeting Tikar people. The project is located in Kumbo, which is very close to the main area for Tikar people, (if my geography serves me well). And the icing on the cake – it’s an area that specialises in natural medicines.

June 20, 2013
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Session 35 – Skeletons in the desert

Thursday June 20^th 2013

Pineapple

Greg is on holiday so we had a stand in. He began with a discussion about sitting in open and closed circles. I asked ‘what’s the difference between an open and a closed circle.’

‘In closed circles the emphasis is on working with spirit. Open circles are the apprenticeship to closed circles.’

‘How will you know when to move to a closed circle?’ I wanted to know.

‘Your guide, and your facilitator’s guide, will give you an indication when the time is right?’

He went on to explain that open circles mainly work psychically, and that this is an important part of working with energy. There is a point, however, where people feel drawn to work more spiritually. That’s the time to move, if the facilitator also agrees.

He told us he was going to take us through a guided meditation into the desert and leave us there for a while before asking us to return.

Before the meditation Cain (that’s his name and it is significant later) began by having us visualise a ball of light coming up from the ground through our feet, our ankles calves, waist torso and head.

He then began the meditation. He asked us to walk down a lane. I was a sunny day, no traffic, all peaceful. We came to a wall of light. Walk through the wall of light into the desert on the other side. On this side too there was blue sky and sand, but no trees or buildings. ‘I’m going to leave your here’ he said and call you back when it’s time to return.

When we began with the ball of light I felt the energy move through me, but it made me sleepy. By the time we got to the wall I’d have much preferred to drift off to sleep, but I felt like someone yanked me awake and told me I needed to do this one.

As I stepped through the wall of light I felt incredibly sad, and started to cry. Not ‘racking sobs’ as they say in all the romantic novels, but tears that were painful behind my eyes before dripping hotly onto my cheeks.

As I stood looking around at the vast expanse of nothingness I became aware of my grandmother beside me. She didn’t speak but looked on sympathetically as I took some tentative barefooted steps across the hot sand.

I soon got accustomed to the heat. We walked for some time before she offered me a wide brimmed straw-like hat.

When I looked at her quizzically she replied, ‘You’ll need it.’

We walked on a little more and came to a stop in front of a spot of sand that started to bubble, like boiling water, or maybe more accurately like molten lava – slowly, with big bubbles.

I looked on in astonishment as three skeletons came up out of the sand. They stood in front of us. As I gawped I was aware of my grandma looking at me a step or two away.

The first skeleton started to grow flesh. When he was fully fleshed I asked him to show me his face. He was very dark, with a hooked nose, wide forehead and very cheekbones. He pulled a cloak around him. It was made of a fabric of yellow and green diamonds.

When he was finished the second skeleton went through the same process of growing flesh. He was slightly shorter and thinner. His cloak was grey, or more of a dirty white. While I was asking him to show his face Cain asked us to come back.

The third skeleton was waiting patiently but I didn’t have time to observe his re-skinning.

During feedback Cain said he was sorry I’d had a tearful experience, he’d hoped it would have been a pleasant one for everyone. (The others had fairly pleasant experiences). He said the skeletons coming up from the earth were to show that we come, stay for a while, go, and come again.

He said that when he looked in on my meditation he saw a woman behind me in a bright maroon cloak holding an umbrella over my head. He said it wasn’t in a material we’d normally associate with umbrella, ‘more like my namesake, cane,’ he added.

I was immediately curious as to what he meant by ‘looking in on my meditation’. He explained that at a certain level of training and experience you can actually connect with individual’s meditation.

I later told him that I’ve been doing some work on ancestry, and that there is a group in Jamaica called the Maroons, and that Jamaica is noted for sugar cane production – hence the umbrella being made of cane.

Someone else suggested that ‘flesh’ could mean words, as in ‘in the beginning was the word, and the word was made flesh.’

‘Could this have something to do with your writing?’ she asked.

I admitted that I’ve been referring to the ‘bones’ of the parenting course I’m writing, but it still needs a lot more flesh on it.

Later, while I was sharing this with a friend, I made a slip and said I needed to do more research on the Cameroons (meaning Maroons). In a split moment we both heard the link between Maroons and Cameroons.

Please, if you know anything about skeletons or deserts (there is one in Cameroon – does this mean I’m to go when I visit later this year?) please let me have your thoughts if you can see any more links or uncover any more layers.

June 18, 2013
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Session 34 – Encaustic paintings

Monday June 17^th 2013

We were definitely missing male energy today. Eight females engaged with crystals, cards and Encaustic paintings. Aim? To connect with spirit and give readings to each other.

There were two new people and one that moved over from Greg’s Thursday evening group – on account of working nights.

My Encaustic painting – landscape

After the opening prayer one of the members lead the first meditation. She used a set of cards and asked us to choose one to focus on during the meditation. Mine was essentially about asking for help and keeping going till I get to the top of the mountain.

We then did a healing meditation using quartz crystal. I had a massive wand and felt its energy as soon as I picked it up and sat it on my lap. I could barely focus on the meditation because the energy was so strong from the crystal.

‘Shall we do the Encaustic paintings?’ Mary asked.

There was a chorus of ‘What’s Encaustic paintings?’ from most of us.

‘I’ve brought an iron and some paper,’ said Jill, rummaging around in her bag. ‘I’ve brought the wax as well.’

‘I’ll get the ironing board then,’ said Mary, and disappeared upstairs.

‘It’s best if we just show you what to do,’ Jill said in reply to our wide eyes and dropped jaws.

And she was as good as her word. An ironing board was set up in our meditation room. The iron was plugged in, the small oblongs of what looked like photographic paper were piled at one end of the ironing board while Jill and Mary spread newspaper on it and laid out small blocks of coloured wax.

My Encaustic painting – portrait view

Mary then demonstrated how to rub the wax onto the hot plate of the iron and manipulate it over the photographic paper to form a picture. She changed colours several times, sometimes layering one over the other. She had a beautiful abstract picture by the end. And even as I stood admiring it I began to try to make sense of it psychically.

We all had fun creating our own unique pictures before pairing up to give readings to each other. I’ve stopped being amazed by how accurately whatever is being read can be to the person you’re reading for.

I saw in my partner’s picture the face of a silver lion with the body of a monkey. I knew instinctively it had to do with her protective qualities, but also her ingenuity and sense of fun. I saw a blue heart and thought it related to her reconnecting with her love of expressing herself. She admitted that she’d had some problem in the past but was becoming more open now.

The reading from my picture was about going all the way to the top. She saw ‘go’ at the top right hand corner of the picture (portrait view). Swirls of positive energy were taking me there.

The Monday circle seem to be the one that introduces me to the many and varied tools one can use to do a psychic reading, while the Thursday circle focuses more on developing mediumship skills.

Monday’s seem to confirm where I’m going whereas Thursday’s give me new pointers.

As you know I’m always interested in other people’s experiences. Have you ever done or read an Encaustic painting? Can you see anything in the one I did? Let me know if you can, please.

June 15, 2013
by predencia 5 Comments

Poetry performance – The Guide

June 15^th 2013

I’m a member of the writers group Writers Without Borders and was persuaded to perform at the Celebrating Sanctuary event today. Celebrating Sanctuary is an event held as part of Refugee week each year in June.

This poem is one that I wrote virtually in my sleep. I’d write a verse and try to get back to sleep, then another verse, and another would come until the poem was finished. I then slept soundly. Now I understand that it was probably a spirit dictated one.

I haven’t written much poetry recently. I find it quite difficult to write poetry when my head is in prose. Does anyone else find this? Is this literary inability to multi-task?

June 14, 2013
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A month in Cameroon

Having traced my African ancestors to Cameroon, I’ve just signed up to go and do some volunteer work in a project out there. I’m going with an organisation called Original Volunteers. The project runs a school, a health facility and a women’s empowerment service. I’m planning to go for a month later in about ten

Crotons. Just wanted to brighten up this post on a cold and grey day.

weeks time.

I’ve never done any volunteering of this kind abroad, so already its feeling like a massive adventure and I haven’t even left home yet.

I’d love to hear about your volunteering experiences and whether you’ve ever heard of Original Volunteers, or used them.

June 11, 2013
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Spirituality and Wellness in the New Millennium

June 11^th 2013

I went to a lecture by Dr Ra Un Nefer Amen 1(the first) on Saturday entitled ‘Spirituality and Wellness in the New Millennium.’ He’s the founder of the Ausar Auset Society International and the lecture was part of the 40^th Anniversary celebrations tour.

Ausar Auset 40th Anniversary Lecture

His main points were that the body is but a tool for the mind and it is by connecting with our spirit and living spiritually that we achieve true health.

He talked about there being no stressful events, that death, divorce, redundancy and any of those things we’ve come to attach the label ‘stressful’ to are not stressful in and of themselves.

There are, however, stressful responses, and increasingly the media are encouraging us to believe that these stressful responses are ‘natural’. Terms such as ‘naturally I was devastated, naturally I was angry, naturally I was traumatised,’ are heard in many broadcasts.

These responses are not natural; they are the responses of an unprepared mind, an untrusting spirit. It is stress that causes diseases, and that connecting with our spirit increases trust and trust reduces or diminishes stress. He also said that when we’re stressed our IQ reduces significantly (I can’t remember the exact percentage) which is why we don’t make good decision when we’re stressed.

He said something else that really made me think. That worry is trying to control the future and grieving is trying to control the past. I know the one about worry, and have accepted it into my way of thinking and being, but it was the first time I’d heard the one about grieving. But the more I thought about it the more sense it made. Grieving is about wishing something was different. We often feel helpless and angry that we couldn’t control the situation to stop the death or the loss from happening.

He surprised us with a healing meditation, pointing out that the body can heal itself using positive thinking, sound and colour. In the limited time he had he couldn’t go into the theory of all of them but wanted us to experience healing with sound and positive visualisation.

The meditation began with a chant he said he’d channelled through his guide. It was a beautiful sound which we sang for a while before he asked us to stop singing and follow the recording in our heads as he guided us through the rest of the meditation.

We used visualised light and sound to move through the body healing all parts that need it.

It was very powerful! I think the intense energy of the group (about 150 people) added to the intensity of the experience.

I dropped into the bliss state very quickly, lost all sense of time and space and body, and drifted in and out of it during the meditation.

At the end some people spoke of their experiences of healing; headaches gone, lower back pain that had been there for weeks vanished. Some people saw blue light, others silver. He explained that these are the colours of his guide.

For those who saw other colours he said they were the colours their bodies needed at that time.

Quite a number of people shared my experience.

I reflected how weird this would have seemed ten years ago and thought about how far I’ve come on this spiritual path. The thing is, I know there is still so much I don’t know and have yet to experience.

Dr Ra Un Nefer Amen 1 is obviously a deeply spiritual person and a very well know international figure (I looked him up later on the web) but his concern during the two hours he was with us was clearly for our well being, to leave us in better health than when we arrived.

I’ve found that there’s something about people who are very secure in their spirituality – they are very humble. I obviously have a way to go yet!

I’m going to check out the Birmingham branch of the Ausar Auset Society International and learn more about what they do. Please let me know if you’ve had any experience of this group in the UK or elsewhere.

June 9, 2013
by predencia 2 Comments

Clutter Clearing and Writing

June 9^th 2013

Ok, so this blog is about writing creatively with spirit, i.e. do my spiritual practices, including my communication with spirit, influence my writing?

At the end of April I completed the first draft of a book I was writing on parenting – Love is Not a Reward. It was my intention to begin writing a distance learning e-course for an educational establishment in the Caribbean at the beginning of May.

I’ve been struggling with the concept of how to present this course for over a year now, and as the time arrived for me to make a start on it I was no clearer about what to include or how to structure it.

Hunting the boxes for journals

One night I decided to write up the constellation events I’d attended for the blog. I knew the first one was in 2007/8 and headed to the loft to find the box with all my journals and diaries. After a quick look I realised it wasn’t in the 2007 one, and I couldn’t find the journals for 2008 or 2009.

I was very puzzled. I began hunting all over the house, even looking in places I knew they couldn’t possibly be. It was this search that began what was to become a month long process of clutter clearing.

It began with arranging my journals in date order. I’ve realised that I’m going to be relying on them more and more for information that I hadn’t considered significant at the time, but which I now understand were milestones in my spiritual development.

Then it progressed to peeking into other areas of the loft, into other boxes and bags, and making decisions about whether to keep items I haven’t looked at in over four years, books I didn’t even know I had, or certainly had forgotten I had, clothes not worn in years, again, items I’d forgotten I had.

The one thing I wasn’t expecting when I began the process was how much I’d learn about how our possessions define who we are. They are the very essence of our identity.

That dress I bought ten years ago that cost me a week’s wages that I wore once, but refused to throw out because it cost so much. The shoes that pinched my toes and gave me corns but that many people said looked lovely. It’s not that these things don’t fit me anymore (well actually the shoes never did) it’s that I kept them as a reminder of who I was. And that person is not who I am now.

Black bags of books

With each thing I threw into plastic bags to donate to charity shops, I was making a statement of who I no longer was, and by default what I was keeping was also defining who I am.

While some things caused a little pang as they were dropped into the bag, it wasn’t until I came to deciding which books to throw out that I really began to question who I am. Some of the novels were not too big a wrench, all my Jane Gardams, the Wilt series etc. I reasoned with my scared hoarder that if I needed to read them again I could always borrow them from the library. And indeed A Course in Miracles says ‘nothing is lacking that is needed.’

The big tussle with a voice in my head came when it was time to make decisions about my spiritual and professional books. The conversation went something like this;

Voice: ‘You know you’re going to have to throw out all the books that no longer reflect who you are, don’t you?’

Me: ‘Yeah, I can see these books on angels, the Kabala, Buddhism, Reiki and so on need to go.’

Voice: ‘Do you understand why?’

Me: ‘Yeah, it’s not that I don’t believe in them anymore, it’s just that now I understand they are all one, all the same energy, I don’t need to keep so many books on all the different parts. They were great as part of my learning and development but, given that I need the space I don’t need to keep them anymore.’

Voice: ‘Great. And the professional books, you know they have to go as well don’t you?’

Me: ‘WHAT?’

Voice: ‘Yes, you heard me, the professional books.’

Me: ‘Which ones?’

Voice: ‘Any that doesn’t fit with who you are now and the way you practice now. Any that doesn’t address the spiritual aspect of your clients.’

Me: ‘That’s most of them.’

Voice: ‘My point exactly.’

Me: ‘But if I get rid of my psychology books, my counselling and coaching books, my working with bereavement books, my biology and nutrition books, how will people know who I am?’

Voice: ‘How do they know who you are now? Do you have them with you when you’re talking to someone at the supermarket? Do you have them displayed when you’re on the train, or at the airport, or on the beach? Do you have then when you sit in a bar and someone tells you their life story and ask for your help? Do you have them…?’

Me: ‘Alright, alright, I get it, but what if I need to look up something?’

Voice: ‘Tell me the last time you looked up something in one of those books?’

I thought for a moment, and for a moment longer, and honestly couldn’t remember. It was then that I realised how much of my identity was tied up with being a qualified, professional, practitioner. Despite the fact that when I work with people now I trust that my higher self speaks to their higher self and guides me to what is appropriate for them and for me, I still had the books as confirmation that I am a bona fide practitioner.

Me: ‘Ok. I’ll throw them out. I’ll only keep the ones that are consistent with who I am now.’

And so it was that I let go of books that have defined who I was for the last twenty years, and in the process redefined myself in much simpler terms as black, female, a writer and spiritual student and teacher.

It was a very liberating feeling to put the books into the bags and to feel that I was passing them on to someone else who needs them for that part of their journey. I was no longer attached to them.

A week later I when I went to my A Course in Miracles study group, I pulled a card and laughed out loud when I read what was on it.

‘Your worth is not established by teaching or learning. Your worth is established by God. …nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth.’

Confirmation or what!!!

I have a friend who has a massive problem with clutter. I shared with her how I came to realise that our identities are tied up with what we keep and refuse to let go, even though we know they should go. It’s because we’re not ready to change the identity they represent.

More clutter to clear

Once I realised it was about identity change, I waded into many other things that wasn’t even on my original list. The question wasn’t ‘will it come in useful one day?’ but ‘does this fit with who I am now?’

What I thought would take a few days actually took the whole month.

At the beginning of June when I turned my attention back to the parenting course I was astounded that within an hour the structure of the course presented itself, along with content, chapter headings, modules and units.

I mentioned this to one of my sons. He asked, ‘do you think the clearing helped the course stuff to come in, because you’d cleared all that clutter out of your head?’

‘No, I think the course stuff was always there, clearing the clutter allowed me to see it.’

I believe as writers, artists, people trying to find solutions to problems, that when we clear the daily clutter out of our heads it enables us to see the solution, find the plot for the story, see the moves for the dance, find the right strokes for the painting, work out how to re-structure our finance and find the right words to soothe a fiery situation.

Sometimes clearing physical clutter can help with this process.

If you’ve had a similar experience or if you have issues with clutter I’d love to hear from you.

June 3, 2013
by predencia 3 Comments

More dreams about weddings

June 3^rd 2013

I’m not sure what’s going on but last night I dreamed that I was marrying a woman. I was wearing a long white fitted gown, the one I got married in last time. I had a massive bouquet which was handed to me at the last minute. It looked as though it had just been delivered by the florist and someone had taken off the cellophane wrapper. A gladioli flower gave it its length.

My bride was white, tall and quite plump. She was dressed in a short purple dress and wore a purple headdress. The wedding was taking place on a long street and we were at opposite ends. The minister was at her end. As s/he began to go through the vows we were still a long way from each other. We ran toward each other and swung each other around when we met. It felt like I was meeting her for the first time.

The people around us (about 30) cheered. One of my brothers shouted good luck wishes from the other side of a railing. He was the only member of my family there.

That’s where the dream ended, with the two of us swinging each other around.

Some sites suggest that marriage is about unifying different sides of yourself. This appears on the website http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_it_mean_to_dream_about_getting_married

‘Marriage signifies commitment, harmony or transitions. You are undergoing an important developmental phase in your life. The dream may also represent the unification of formerly separate or opposite aspects of yourself. In particular, it is the union of masculine or feminine aspects of yourself. Consider the qualities and characteristics of the person that you are marrying. These are the qualities that you need to look at in incorporating within yourself.’

First I dreamed I was getting married to God, integration of spiritual self, then to a friend. Could that mean that I’ve finally made friends with myself? Now I’m getting married to a woman. This may be another message about bringing more feminine energy into my life, truly accepting my femininity.

Could it also be about integrating the black and white side of me? Genetically I’m obviously mixed, but had never really thought much about my white genes until I did the work on slavery while writing Love is Not a Reward. Maybe I’m finally accepting all aspects of me.

I’ve just come through an intense period of house clearing – lots of clutter cleared and identity redefined. I’m going to write that up as a separate blog, but I feel that maybe that had something to do with this dream.

As always, I’d welcome any additional views on any part of the dream. Always eager to learn.

June 3, 2013
by predencia Leave a comment

Session 33 – Runes and condoms

June 3^rd 2013 (Monday)

Today we played with runes and laughed a lot. Maybe it was the slight increase in number to eight, maybe it was the addition of some male energy in the shape of Tim, or maybe it was the very erotic rune cards and some frisky minds.

Open Doors within by Eileen Caddy

It began when Mary couldn’t find a piece of music she needed. Tim filled in as we waited with a tale about the birds in his garden rejecting the food from Poundland, whereas they gobbled up the stuff from Sainsbury’s. It veered from his impending complaint to the pound store to the gourmet tastes of his birds, and the fact they could be holding meetings to put in a complaint about him etc… etc. It was a good thing Mary had already opened the circle by asking us all to do a prayer; otherwise we may never have got going.

: Open Doors within by Eileen Caddy

To bring some order back to the group she read us today’s message from

June 3rd extract from Eileen Caddy’s book Open Doors Within

Eileen Caddy’s book Open Doors Within. June 3^rd is all about faith, trust and looking for answers in the silence. It’s about being the change on a personal level that you want to see in the world. ‘Get yourself sorted out first,’ she says, then spirit ‘can use you to help and serve your fellow human beings.’

We all said it was true and it had the desired effect of sobering us up for our main activity, which was doing reading from runes.

As not many people remembered to bring their runes Mary decided to do three rune readings for each person in a large group. It was an unusually difficult set to read, and not helped by the fact that the pack contained runes that were not on the key she’d issued us with.

Despite this it was amazing how often two runes came out for different members of the group.

GEBO – It is union, partnership of any sort but you must keep your individuality and self-confidence. For this is the rune of freedom’

THURISAZ – The door is its symbol. Then, observe every moment, every detail. Think it over and get free from your ghosts. Then cross the borders,’

In addition to the two above I also got INGUZ – Claims you to split up relationships or old habits – you are ready for a new start; even for a new child. The meantime could be dangerous. So, keep your good mood.’

In truth it was a little bitty, with people trying to first make out which rune it was and then trying to make sense of the interpretations, some of which was quite brutal. For example, NAUTIZ – ‘Your dark sides block you and make you weak. Investigate what makes you so attractive to bad luck.’

The one that made the most sense to me was INGUZ, especially in light of my dreams about moving and babies.

One member had brought in a set of rune cards. They were much easier to read and had the most beautiful and erotic images. The group erupted again when the meaning of my card was being read. I heard the word ‘protection’ and sniggered.

‘Why did you laugh?’ Mary asked.

I hesitated a second before admitting, ‘There a red hot man on this care and I’m being told about protection, just wondered if I had any in my handbag.’

Well, the innuendoes flew as everyone looked at the card. Wish I’d taken a photo. By the time we came to saying the closing prayers (again all taking turns) someone asking God to help out with my stock for my handbag.

I so needed a laugh, hadn’t thought it was have been at circle. Loved it!