Lights Out 2005

Feeling The Approach Of Another Growth Year

I'm sitting here on the edge of 2006, contemplating the past and the coming year.

On the one hand feeling sad as life is not yet as I would like it to be .. and on the other, acknowledging that some huge things have happened and are continuing to happen because 'Deepening' is taking place and therapy moves me on and on, round and round on a spiral out of here.

Although the first year on the Deepening has not been plain sailing by any means, alongside therapy, it has taught me so much about 'me'. I am beginning to be able to touch a much quieter and calmer place inside myself, which was there all along and I always rushed past. I've been learning to stop and look because it is worth it and because I am actually not as bad as I fear. At Poulstone and now and again in my daily life, I am also learning to turn towards love and light and I'm starting to believe that one day it will mostly be love and light and I will no longer need to turn away.

It feels sometimes like I have to fight so hard, just to get up in the morning. When life is difficult, I'm grateful to make it through each day, as I feel very often it would be easier to just lie down in a corner forever and give up and I don't.

I look forward wholeheartedly to the project which lies before me and another year of learning to live in the moment and embrace the life I was born to live.

A year or so ago, I met the Barefoot Doctor (Stephen Russell) at a book signing .. in my book, in response to our brief conversation, he wrote ;














I feel thankful for so much, not least the inspiring 'teachers', who have been and who are now, part of my life.

So, for them, all of them (and some of them do not know who they are !)

Rose coloured healing vapour & a lot of present moment magic, now.
And of course Love

SH December 31st 2005

The Deeper - The Beauty

Paul, Greta, Anne, Allan, Barbara, Me, Anne, Jane, Richard, Jenny, Pam, Mike G, Gerard, Jo, Jennie, Thea, Andie, Sally S, Sally A, Sarah, Jackie, Mike B & by no means least, our absent friend Janet.

Ode To Be Free

The opportunity to be,
To really be and really see,
A little glimpse of how to grow,
To really grow and really know,
The things I had,
The things I lost,
The way it is,
The way it was,
Peeling back the layers small,
The layers big,
The layers all,
Underneath the clouds and mist,
I yearn for more than to exist,
When I can, I'll fly away,
Once on the wing, my heart will play,
Peace and joy are all around,
One day I know it's to be found,
A lust for life and love for me,
I'll take my life back and be free.

SH December 2005

An Altered State Known As Love

SH December 2005

Fantastic - December 2005

He did !

A Therapeutic Journey

I finally decided this would be ‘it’, when I had been sitting with the idea for a bit and then I took it to therapy with me. My therapist was really encouraging and enthusiastic about it too. She said it could become a journey very much like therapy.

Having talked about my ideas on several occasions to my project partner P, who agrees it all sounds great, I'm now giving my proposal to R.

Hopefully, he will agree also, this project is worthy of me and me of it.

From The Outside In

Within a circle,
In a square,
Inside my heart,
I’ll find it there

SH November 2005

So ... Bring It On

I intend to create a sacred space in my home where I will not be interrupted for a whole day each week and I will see what happens. I will use music and candles to invite myself to creativity and space. I’m going to really indulge myself for the first time in years.

I am apprehensive about many parts of this. I will need to hold much with the principles and not beat myself when my creations are ‘rubbish’. I want to go toward seeing beauty on the page, created and allowed by me.

I am quite scared about the inner me which may be revealed and things from the past which may come up for me to face. I am ready to ‘embrace tiger and return to mountain’.

I also am holding the thought that ‘nothing’ may happen and I will become frustrated.

I have read that the Tibetan’s, once they have created their Mandalas, destroy them, to be reminded of impermanence. Being a person who clings desperately to all things, this will be a real challenge too.

I thought that I would encompass my first two ideas and maybe create Mandalas under trees or in nature when I feel this movement in me and also maybe use some of my music to invoke feelings which inspire.

I feel enthusiastic about this journey which lies before me and I am holding another fear of boredom and not being able to maintain the enthusiasm for a whole year, however, I think this project has the potential to be very diverse and with the Mandala theme running through my life, many new things could happen.

As always, although slightly apprehensive, I am looking forward to all the challenges, joys and pleasures I will hopefully encounter along the way. This already feels like such a gift.

It feels most of all, like I did not choose this project as such, more that it showed itself to me as an opportunity.

Mandalas - A Celebration Of The Gift Of Life

I will meditate with them
I will let them arise from within my own meditations
I will use them to capture the moment
This will be a journey of self discovery and personal growth

There will be ‘form’ and ‘no form’
I hope it will be an expression of my sub-conscious
It will bring me to my centre
I like the fact that there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ Mandalas

I have read that they can be danced or dreamed and made of anything
It will be fun and indulgent
I’m hoping they will bring clarity out of my confusion
I hope to contact the deeper wisdom within me

I’m hoping they will help to show me who I am truly meant to be
It will be an opportunity to grow, to love and to be
I’m hoping even chaotic scribbling will bring harmony

There is no guarantee of arrival, only the hope of eternal transformation

Project Proposal - November 2005

I could not think at first of a project, but I trusted that I would. At the end of a week after the Deepening meet, I only had two ‘real’ ideas and neither was moving my heart, nor could I seem to form them into a project. One of these was to sit under a tree in nature, somewhere different each week and just be with myself in a quiet space and the second was to use my music collection to somehow tell the story of my life over the weeks. After much deliberation on these two, they still did not feel like ‘it’.

I decided to search the internet for ‘Spiritual Journeys’ and ‘Pilgrimages’ and again at first nothing grabbed my attention. Then I stumbled across some beautiful and very colourful images, they were called ‘Mandalas’ and I had known nothing about them until now.

The more I read about them and the more colourful, elaborate and creative designs I saw, the more I was drawn in.

Not being at all creative and having never been able to draw or create things, I ruled this out as a project and was just enjoying looking at the immense world of Mandalas before me. I felt I would never be able to find anything as beautiful as this within myself and even I if did, I would never be able to express it in such a creative way. Then I saw this as a huge reason to consider ‘going there’ and I decided to say ‘Yes’.

I started to look into the subject more and started to read about the many different ways Mandalas are used and the many different cultures which use them, project ideas started to fall into place.

In The Direction Of Love

A Sacred Journey - October 2005

"Standing in front of myself ; everything that I have been, everything that I could be and everything that I am now ... at the beginning"

The end of the last day of the 3rd and final Deepening meet of 2005, the next piece of homework is offered ;

'A vessel to support what is growing in me'
'A vessel to strengthen that which is weak'
'A vessel to explore the four principles'

'A vessel to set sail on a pilgrimage,
a sacred pilgrimage,
A SACRED JOURNEY'


To engage once a week for one whole year

Who will it serve ?
How can I apply the principles ?

Some form of recording is to take place in order to present the project in 2007 to all fellow 'Deepeners'

Phase One

• Decide on the project subject
• Get the permission of your project partner
• Put the project to Richard

Phase Two

• Clarify practical details to allow 'GO' in February 2006
• Offer the project ideas at the weekend meet in February

Phase Three

• Engage with the project