I fondle the leaves of yarrow, so soft and feathery. The whisper from the plant... you can be soft and have boundaries too. For wounded women who give too much, who love too much, who overextend, yarrow is soul medicine.
On a healing journey we can sometimes misinterpret the well-meaning advice "have boundaries". What does that mean? How do you start saying no after a lifetime of saying yes? When the irritation rises and you know that a line, somewhere, has been crossed with your sacred self, how do you approach that with a loved one?
In the beginning we may construct boundaries like electric fences, ending relationships when the irritation rises. We choose to remove rather than repair and we lose a lot of good people that way.
We swing wildly back and forth between people-pleasing and then ostracising. We villainise the humanness of others. We slip into the role of victim, and we become the hero who takes away our own discomfort, preventing true growth.
Because it is hard to love somebody in a healthy way. Because we were never taught how. Because personal responsibility is a new way of being. Now we are required to truly listen to ourselves and others, to navigate relationships without a list of rules, but by feeling in and tuning in, in each moment.
Yarrow says...
I can love you and say no
Conflict is not an emergency
The repair is more important than the rupture
Ahava
Jenny xxx
Elder (The Wise Woman's Folk Herbal Series)
Lessons from Elder
Elen of the Ways, wise Lady, Ellan tree, help me sing my soul back home as I travel along ancient holy paths.
Help me to remember those who have taken this well-worn road before me and call on their wisdom when I need to. Who are the shamans and the doulas for this particular rebirth you are going through? Find them and keep them close.
This morning I grabbed my basket and went to gather elderflowers for drying to make tea. This wonderful tree with its flowers and later on berries can be used to encourage purging of infection, through sweating and urination.
The prettiness of the flowers are all spring in her maiden loveliness and yet, the wisdom underneath is the wisdom of the crone in its truthful reality.
Nothing is as it seems in this hall of mirrors that is healing. Underneath the bride in her wedding dress is the years of processing painful trauma. Behind the perfect birth photos is a woman who has let her ego be decimated in the messy inferno of birth.
Elder says to me today: healing is messy, and necessary. You need to let yourself feel the fear, sweat it out, allow yourself to be cleansed. You have everything you need in the wisdom of your body. Trust the process.
Ahava
Jenny xxx
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Evolving Consciousness
Sitting by the river talking to the fairies
Lots of antenatal education talks about the links between birth and sex, our mammalian brains, nature's design, relaxation, privacy, pleasure, comfort, oxytocin. This is all perfectly true, is something I share with women and families, and I am so glad people are finding out about this truth.
For me, I view birth and sex in humans as also serving to evolve consciousness. This is what makes humans fundamentally different from animals when making love or birthing. The two acts are what connect us to animals but are also what connect us to the divine. I once read a book by Jean-Yves Leloup that said 'humans are the bridge between animals and angels' and it resonated so much with me.
Giving birth and making love at the highest vibration are transformative spiritual experiences. The higher levels of consciousness require an ego surrender - and the ego doesn't often give up without a fight! Many women are shocked at the strong emotions that giving birth brings up in them as they experience the painful, healing, humbling surrender that is giving in to the birth experience.
Where birth education and hypnobirthing often get it wrong is that the goal is not a perfect, calm birth. It's overcoming our own inner resistance, walking through the fire and allowing ourselves to surrender and be born anew.
Ahava
Jenny xxx
Www.thewomenswitch.com
🌹Online sacred pregnancy hypnobirthing, pregnancy yoga & womb wisdom courses, home birth doula services, placenta remedies & ceremony 🌹
