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Stories & Thoughts

•3 THINGS YOU'RE GRATEFUL FOR•

This is a practice I do almost every day. Not only is it a wonderful way to feel gratitude for all that you have, but it's an amazing way to come back into the present moment, to take stock and to shift your mood if you're feeling down/angry/tired/despondent/anxious🧘🏼‍♂️ My practice of this has changed over the years. At one stage my best friend and I used to send a daily update of our list to each other, at another stage I wrote them in a journal every day, sometimes my husband and I share ours before we go to sleep and other times I just list them in my head 📝 If you're not practicing it already, I would highly recommend it, notice the shift in your perception once you're done ✨ Instant mood lifter! ⬆️

•WHAT IS REIKI?•

(Said "ray•kee") This is a Japanese translation, Rei meaning universal energy and ki meaning life force⚡️ Reiki is a natural healing modality that uses energy to bring about balance and relaxation to the body, mind & emotions. A typical Reiki session involves the practitioner placing their hands in various different positions on or over your body🙌🏼 The universal energy essentially flows through them, to you. Sometimes you will experience instant warmth or coldness, sometimes you will feel prickly or heavy sensations and sometimes you won't feel a thing ✨ The energy will move to places in your body and energy field that have blockages or need balancing and the session normally leaves you feeling calm, relaxed and at ease🧘🏼‍♂️

•SPACE CLEARING•

Ever walked into a room and felt your mood change? Had goosebumps or a weird feeling when walking down a passage? Perhaps plants won't grow in an area or your animals & children don't like a specific spot in your house? 🏡 Just like people, spaces have energy too🌀
Sometimes residual negative energy, entities or imprints can be present and need clearing. Often incense, burning herbs or opening a window to let some air & sunlight in can help clear the space and re-energize it, but some spaces need a bit more work and a deeper perspective🔮
I offer space clearings for offices & homes 🌿If you'd like more info or to have a chat, connect with me. Let's get your space 'up to energetic scratch' and oozing with positive vibes ✨

•NEW STARTS•

On the first day of every year, my husband and I plant a tree 🌳 We both write down our own intentions for the coming year and then sit and write our joint intentions📝After we've shared our lists with each other, we will dig a hole, bury our intentions and then plant the tree on top of them -Setting our intention that our intentions are received well by Pachamama and that the year is full of love, abundance and growth. For both us and the tree 🌳I often sit in our garden looking at the trees we've planted, reflecting on the years we've had, the storms we've weathered, the seasons we've endured, the growth, the flowers that have bloomed and the fruit that's formed. Oh what a journey the last few years have been - Here's to another one, happy 2022 and happy manifesting! JAN2022

•FOUNDATIONS OF ENERGY COURSE•

In 2009 I did my first Reiki Usui course & it was amazing. Not only experiencing 'energy' in another way but being able to send energy to others & facilitate healing. Having this energy activated in my body and also knowing the responsibility this encompasses sent me into a series of shifts. A shift is essentially a release of old energy/patterns/conditioning which makes space for growth.Shifting can occur after a healing, ceremony, activation of energy or even from planetary or lunar changes. Sometimes it can manifest physically & we could feel energised or perhaps we could suffer from a head cold. Other times it could manifest emotionally & we could feel teary or have a bout of creativity. Sometimes it could be more of a mental experience & we have clarity of thought or the need to complete tasks. It can be a time of deep introspection, connection & growth. It's important to surrender to the process.I had opened a door into a new world that I didn’t necessarily understand yet. I had a lot of support from my Reiki Master but felt I needed to go back to basics & learn all I could about energy to build my foundations to manage my future shifts and maximise my growth. I read books, went for healings, joined groups & attended any course I could, to expose myself to more management tools.I look back on my learning journey with fondness(& trepidation)but also gratitude - it was a self-inflicted "baptism by fire" & I learnt so much that has stood me in great stead. This brings me to why I created this course, I realised the importance of teaching some of what I have learnt in a short course to provide tools & support for students.In Jin Kei Do Reiki we learn the history of the lineage, tools to facilitate healing, symbols & meditations,but it is not typically part of the teaching to learn how to ground yourself or protect your energy for eg. I feel it is important to teach these techniques (&more) if you are to be holding space for other people's healing &your own. Even if you aren't wishing to facilitate healings, Reiki is a wonderful tool to use on yourself for your own journey.My intention is for my students to experience profound, yet gentle shifts.This is a great grounding for either the beginning or the continuation of your journey with energy ✨ DEC2021

•BEING PRESENT•

Yesterday I went for a morning walk with a friend. As I was leaving, I thought about taking my phone to take a few photos. (I love taking photos, my Dropbox, Google photos & Apple cloud will attest to this with the lack of space I have available 🙄) but I made a conscious decision to leave it at home & enjoy the views rather than snap them 📸 As I stepped out of my house, I looked left- the full moon was still up in all it's magnificence and to my right were the most beautiful purple and pink clouds preparing for sunrise. I thought of quickly running inside to get my phone to take a photo but instead I took 2 minutes to enjoy the view. To see the moon in its entirety, to soak up it's energy and to say thank you for all that she does for us 🙏🏻 To watch as the pink clouds became more orange and to really appreciate the duality of the setting moon and the rising sun🌅
It reminded me of a similar experience in Zambia, except we were watching the sun set, the moon rise & we were drinking sundowners out of spades 😛 As we walked up the hill, the moon was perfectly positioned just above the trees for another great photo, instead I focused on my breath and on the sensations of my body warming up in the chilly morning breeze❄️
We crossed over the creek, on the one side it was gushing with water and the other side was calm & still with mist rising from it. 'Oh I wish I brought my camera to video the gushing water' I thought to myself. So again, I consciously connected to the water, to the sound of stillness on one side and intensity on the other and watched how it flowed downstream with purpose💦
Up another few hills and we had panoramic views of the sun rising over the trees and farmlands. And again, there I was, wishing I had brought my phone to capture the colours (you must be thinking what a slow learner I am at this point 🤣!)
I took a breath and really looked at the clouds, at their pink candy floss qualities and how the pinkness almost reflected on the forest below. On the other side, the clouds were a deep orange contrasted by the blue sky. I smelt the freshness of the air and the soil warming up beneath the sun. As we always do on top of that hill, we comment on how very lucky we are to live here and then begin our journey back.
On the way home, I had to keep reminding myself to soak up the scenery with my senses instead of this 'need' to take a photo and it really was a beautiful lesson in staying present.
Perhaps you miss out on the present moment because of social media, a never ending to do list or anxiety and 'busyness'?
This is your reminder to Stop ✋.Take a breath 🌬 and notice something you would normally miss 🌈. Xx OCT2021

•EMIGRATION•

4 years ago today we left our country of birth. It's a strange thing to leave your country of birth. We were privileged enough to be able to choose to leave and weren't seeking asylum or refuge for any reason.It took us nearly 3 years to get accepted into Australia. We were declined 3 times. Without going into too much detail on the application process, on the third decline, we decided to call it quits and give up on our goal of moving to Australia.About a week later, our emigration lawyer emailed to say that overnight my partner's occupation came up on the needs list and she had immediately lodged an application for us.6 weeks later she called us at 4am to say we had been granted permanent residency. I still remember that morning, sitting in bed overwhelmed with shock and excitement and then having the task of calling our family with the bittersweet news.
Leaving Africa is not an easy task. If you have visited the continent you would know that there is something incredibly special about the energy there and that it gets into not only your bones, but your soul.There are days when I have an inexplicable ache for Africa - to be there, experiencing the vibrancy, the smell of the earth, the diversity.
Before we left, we did a bit of a road trip North. In Zambia, we were sitting with good friends around a fire, looking at the stars and they said "when you look at the stars, you can remember us, because we see the same stars and the same moon. Even if it's a bit later than you, we see them and we are still connected."When I look up at the sky now, I remember this. It's my connection not only to my friends and family but also to Africa.
So at this full moon, I would not only like to give gratitude for the last 4 years of living in Australia, our new home but for the friends & connections we have made here and the lessons we are learning. It's also a note of remembrance for the people we have left behind, the people that we can't get back to, the people that we love ❤️Full moon blessings to you, wherever you may be 🌕xxJUNE2021

•A PUMPKIN JOURNEY•

I love gardening. I love feeling the soil between my fingers and smelling the Earth. I love nurturing plants and watching them flourish. I love being constantly amazed at how nature works 🌱
My preference is herb and veggie gardening (although indoor plants seem to be an obsession too!)👩🏻‍🌾 I'm a bit of a trial & error gardener and I don't put too much thought into planning, which sometimes works out and often doesn't 🤷🏻‍♀️
Last year, I finally had the space to grow pumpkins. I propagated the seeds from a friend's pumpkin and watched them grow into seedlings. 1 plant survived my dogs' obsession with potted plants and after a few weeks, it was strong enough to plant in the ground. I guess I never really thought about how much space pumpkin vines needed but over the next few months it literally took over the garden bed and even started creeping up the fence and over into the neighbour's garden.
Pumpkin flowers are a vibrant yellow, there were so many of them 🌼 Finally a pumpkin started growing, everyday I would go and check on it's progress. I reckon my dogs saw how much attention I gave this pumpkin and they needed to see what it was all about, so they chewed it off the vine 🐕
I was getting despondent at this point - so many flowers and not one pumpkin. My acupuncturist suggested pollinating them myself.
I didn't realize that there are both male and female flowers on a vine and we rely on bees to pollinate the female for a pumpkin to grow. These flowers are only open for about 6 hours, so the bees need to work quickly to make several visits between the 2 flowers in order for pollination to be successful 🐝
Being the keen gardener I am, I took matters into my own hands and 'hand pollinated' for several weeks. Still no pumpkins.
If you have ever dealt with a pumpkin vine, you will know that they are prickly and cause itchy scratches all over your hands and arms when pruning. They also hold water in their stems so when you trim the vine, water comes pouring out unexpectedly 💦
After about 3 months of this unsatisfying cycle, I was about to pull the vine out when our neighbour mentioned that a HUGE pumpkin was growing from my vine on their side of the fence.
At first I was quite annoyed, after all the time and enthusiasm I spent on this vine, a pumpkin grew almost by accident - where it had no attention or love.
But excitement crept in and I kept peeping over to watch it's progress, all the while tending to its roots and leaves from my side of the fence. Resigning myself to the fact that I wouldn't get to taste my first pumpkin and finding the lessons in the journey🌱
To my utter excitement, our neighbours delivered the pumpkin with a bow tied around its stem for my birthday - I was so chuffed!
As I cut and peeled the pumpkin to use in various dishes (and to share with the neighbours), I thought about the very long journey we had been on - nearly a year since I first propagated the seeds - and the lessons I was taught.
I am yet to master the art of patience and surrendering, but every lesson takes me a step closer 🙏🏻 MARCH2021