Mid Summer Musings

Mid summer today and what a gorgeous morning ! A friend and I got up at 3.15am and headed off to a nearby mountain moorland where we had a great view of the sunrise ..... very moving and much food for the soul!

We were fairly quiet over our respective flasks of coffee and fennell, interspersed with personal silent musings..and then exchanging about some of our reflections.

She had recently returned from a healing retreat in Bali where she had met an NGO who had been working in the Congo and was feeling rather overwhelmed by the scale of atrocities that people can perpetrate on each other. Indeed she was having to give up the NGO work as it was more than she could bear. My friend pondered about how many people might be giving up on humanity ever being able to live as a considerate, responsible part of the planetary ecology.

Just then across the valley, I heard a cuckoo calling out three times ( almost biblical!!!) My mind was caught by the timing of her question and the call from the cuckoo. It made me ponder whether some 'cuckoo' gene had gotten into the human genetic pool ..something which stands out as being equally incongruous with the natural humanity that most of us would want as the base platform for our lives on earth.

Reality and Virtuality

I had a skype call yesterday with my two gorgeous grandsons in Australia. The youngest was delighted with a new little app on my son's I-phone and I have to say it was rather fun! He could press an egg on the screen and each time a different animal would appear. First a mouse, then a rabbit and next a fox and so on ....press, pop and another animal ..very more-ish for a three year old!!

However, at the same time, it gave me food for thought too ..each time he told me which animal it was, I had quite a different chain of connected images to go with the animal which related to events which had just happened in the last couple of day. The rabbit, for example reminded me of the one my cat had just brought in that very morning and was the first sight of my day, as I went downstairs and into the kitchen ....very real indeed!! The fox reminded me of a visit to a friend's place a couple of days earlier..he has two large ponds and the little strip between the stretches of water is a favourite run of a rather friendly fox..trouble is, it is also a nesting place for a family of what was a pair of ducks and seven ducklings..now sadly down to a pair of ducks and three ducklings thanks to the fox!

The ipod was giving instant thrilling instant images, whilst for me in the countryside, each animal was very much part of the chain of life and living with a very physical and inter-connected element to it.

I do wonder just what long term effects the instancy and dis-connected factor of virtual reality will have on the minds of the young? With the animal app, perhaps it was simply charming and educational, but what about some of the other more aggressive virtual games?

The soft and the harsh

Like so many people in the UK, I've been shocked this week by the amount of death and violence reported on the news. What makes people lose it and turn feral, or feel they have the political right to kill another ? It seems to be a modern day phenomena that violence erupts like a volcano and then subsides again.

Even the report of a fox attacking two children in their beds seemed strange and un-nerving. Although we were told in the report this is not unusual behaviour for foxes, those of us who live in the countryside are well used to fox attacks of chickens in hen runs or lambs in the fields, but I've never heard of a fox going indoors, walking upstairs into a bedroom and attacking sleeping children.


Somehow the highlighting of the harsh caused my mind to be drawn to the tender side of life...and to follow are two snapshots of the kind of thing I mean ...


On Friday I took my cat to the vet and whilst sitting in the waiting room an elderly lady came in. She looked like she had suffered a recent stroke as one side of her face was crooked and her left eye drooping, and carried with her a large cage with a chicken snuggled comfortably on a blanket....she was totally focussing on the hen to the exclusion of the rest of us in the room (unusual at a country vet's) ..and you could just feel her care & concern towards her small avine companion.

The following morning I was sitting in a cafe having some coffee .. looking out of the window, watching passers by. Another elderly lady came along, obviously very arthritic and assisting herself with the use of a stout walking stick. She was accompanied by her mongoloid looking son for whom she had obviously cared his whole life. The bond between them was tangible..but what was so moving was that he was taking care of her, with his hand placed carefully on her back and steadying her as they moved along in harmony.

Somehow it is this tender side to life that to me seems at the heart of the special contribution that humanity has to bring to the table of life and living. That ability to exercise choice and consciousness to make the world a softer kinder place....

Just Imagine ......

What sort of incredible intelligence could design the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly???



I started to write this article about the amazing story of imaginal cells .....and their role in the phoenixing of the caterpillar into a butterfly but somehow I felt myself being stopped short .....somehow the sheer fact of what is possible in nature moved me more than the science of it's process.

Change is such an intrinsic part of living and yet I know that there is a part of me ( perhaps in all of us?) that thinks things will stay more or less stay the same.

To quote a wise man of the 20th century, Leo Armin, "we live to change and change in order to continue to live"

And when I look at the butterfly, it reminds me that I probably cannot even begin to imagine what changes lie ahead .... but it encourages me to make space for the unthought,the unknown and the unimaginable ...and to welcome the idea of it.

Evolution of Consciousness or Conscious Evolution?

An ever growing number of people today believe we are on the brink of a new evolution of consciousness




...but did you ever stop and think this could be the first time EVER in our long history, that it could also be a CONSCIOUS evolution. Because of our ever growing understandings of evolution, we can recognise the significance of our times and this great new wave of possibility.

We can 'read the runes' so to speak of the significance of a new kind of spirituality that transcends differences of race and creed, appreciate the possibility of living a more integrated and interconnected life, recognise that compassion, kindness and humanity are as much the hallmark of being human as our intelligence or creative capabilities. We can learn from our past....see the shortfalls of a materialistic civilisation or a culture which disconnects from the healing aspects of nature.

There are so many ways to 'catch the wave'

And we can choose to get into the water, and find the ways to surf ! It really is a bit like being in the ocean ..you know its bigger and more powerful than you, with it's potential dangers..but so incredibly exhilarating and enlivening !!

Imaginal Cells

Many evolutionary thinkers today, such as Deepak Chopra or the 'Be the Change' presenters, are using the analogy of imaginal cells as a way to think about the gathering number of people who feel we are on the brink of a new evolution and are drawn to playing their part in this great spiritual adventure.

So what are Imaginal Cells?

We all know that butterflies begin their life as caterpillars, change to a chrysalis and metaphorphise into butterflies. It has to be one of the greatest mysteries and miracles of the natural worlds! But it's only recently I learned a bit more about the actual process of what happens ..and the following info comes form the 'sacred sites' website

When a caterpillar nears its transformation time, it begins to eat ravenously, consuming everything in sight. The caterpillar body then becomes heavy, outgrowing its own skin many times, until it is too bloated to move. Attaching to a branch it forms a chrysalis —an enclosing shell that limits the caterpillar’s freedom for the duration of the transformation.

Within the chrysalis a miracle occurs. Tiny cells, that biologists call “imaginal cells,” begin to appear. These cells are wholly different from caterpillar cells, carrying different information, vibrating to a different frequency – the frequency of the emerging butterfly. At first, the caterpillar’s immune system perceives these new cells as enemies. But the imaginal cells are not deterred. They continue to appear, in even greater numbers, recognizing each other, bonding together, until the new cells are numerous enough to organize into clumps. When enough cells have formed to make structures along the new organizational lines, the caterpillar’s immune system is overwhelmed. The caterpillar body then become a nutritious soup for the growth of the butterfly. When the butterfly is ready to hatch, the chrysalis becomes transparent.

Well, that is one fantastic story...is it not ? ..more fantastic than anything we could dream up ...and yet part of the reality of the world around us.

So the analogy being popularised is that those who are pioneering a new way for humanity are initially regarded as being 'intruders' and viewed in a hostile manner by the establishment. Yet slowly, initially in smaller cell groupings and then later by the groups clumping or networking together, they cease to be the intruders and gradually form the more dominant influence which becomes the foundation out from which a new civilisation can emerge..just like the butterfly does from the chrysalis.

There are many feature of this analogy which catch me but the one I want to highlight here which is totally incredible is that if what is being said is true, this is the first time EVER in the planet's history, when evolution is a conscious process. It's a spiritual adventure in which people are knowingly volunteering to be participant

WOW, now that is a real adventure into the unknown !!!!

A Stretch of the Imagination!

Just imagine 40,000 years ago when modern man ( and woman!) were travelling and spreading around the planet




....could either the neanderthals or even the developing early modern man possibly have conceived how we might look like and live today? The changes in brain capacity, intelligence, art, music, literature, space exploration, modern technology and on and on ?

Yet, our understandings of history, geology, evolution and of course technology allows us today to travel down that time line and imagine for ourselves what life might have been like for them all those millenium ago !

They couldn't have imagined us because simply we were in the future....and not yet happened

Likewise, the generations which will live ahead of us are in the future and perhaps beyond our own imaginings....but what a great idea to open our minds to the reality that life does change, does evolve and make some space to contemplate along what lines the future might draw humanity....along what lines would we like it to be drawn?