Of Bees and a Bucket of Water

I recently remembered an encounter I had with a bee when I was five years old, which resulted in my first inkling that I wanted to be a writer. Like most children growing up in warm climates, I walked around barefoot most of the time. I was mildly allergic to bees, so when I stepped on one, I couldn’t walk due to the pain and swelling. My mum’s remedy was to soak my foot in a bucket of ice cold water.

Photo by sebastien rosset on Unsplash

I still remember the scene – it was in my parents’ bedroom in the home where we lived just before they got divorced. I was feeling confined and rather sorry for myself, hoping the cold water would do its job so I could again move around. I can’t remember feeling much else, but like all children I must have been subconsciously aware of all the emotional undercurrents, the tears that were not being shed and the fears surrounding the end of a chapter. A thought popped into my head that I wanted to write a story about a bucket of water one day. I didn’t know the plot, but the emotional thread had something to do with a little girl who lost her way and found it back home again.

I dismissed the idea as silly almost immediately, but the thought stayed with me for a few more years even though I felt embarrassed at the mere memory. In my immediate reality, the world around me crumbled and was rebuilt as two separate worlds, both of which still formed part of my life. It wasn’t perfect (when is anything ever), but everyone involved got on with their lives and found some sort of resilience.

A few years down the line I was forced to deal with my personal darkness, because my subconscious mind urged me to do so. It is impossible to say how much of my anxiety was linked with wounds from childhood, but the road to better well-being was long, arduous and intermittent.
Although I expected the healing journey to help me return to “normal”, or rather, help turn me into a normal person, it wasn’t the case. Instead, I opened Pandora’s box and a plethora of monsters attacked me, but they eventually turned into allies. I discovered pieces of myself I had forgotten existed, or perhaps had never been aware of. Along with the archetypal realm of vivid, confusing and sometimes terrifying images, I also re-discovered my ability to love, something I felt I had lost. My dreams had been hiding in the same closet as my monsters. Through my fear of unleashing my shadows in the world, I had also been suppressing my gifts.

It may not be obvious what bees and a bucket of water have to do with healing and it wasn’t obvious to my five-year-old self either. But now that I have an understanding of symbols, I think it was the universe’s genius way of showing me something about my path in life. Time and again, whenever I was incapacitated due to physical illness, injury or emotional turmoil, creative expression was my great saviour. Water is symbolic of the unconscious, and through plunging into this realm and turning the archetypal images into stories, the poison in my system lost its potency. Through turning to the healing waters of my soul, also known as tears, my pain gained a purpose.

The incident came to mind again only recently, about three decades later, when I was reading about an encounter with bees of another author whose work I admire. The book is Supernatural and the author is Graham Hancock, who was born in Edinburgh where I currently live and the incident coincidentally happened in South Africa, where I was born. Hancock ventured into the Drakensberg mountains to find and examine ancient rock art. The hypothesis he puts forward in the book is that encounters with supernatural beings inspired the oldest forms of creative expression and indeed brought about the origins of civilisation and religious thought. While he was studying the ancient art, he became aware of a beehive, which was very dangerous considering he had had severe allergic reactions to bee stings in the past. When he was stung, he had no serious reaction, but he remembered that bees had spiritual significance in the mythology of the San people of Southern Africa. To him the experience was meaningful and may have led to insight into the inhabitants of other non-physical realms and our relationship to them.

Hancock’s story encouraged me to again look at the experience of inspiration my bee sting brought about when I was five years old. My journey to mend the wounds in my soul brought me in touch with the wounded healer archetype, a phenomenon that occurs across cultures where healers find their calling through an experience of physical or mental illness. Through plunging into the depths of their soul, they meet helpers in other realms, who assist them in healing others. My efforts to heal certainly opened doors to other realms and led me to learn about shamanic healing. In my case, healing and creativity go hand in hand.

As little as bees are, if the San people had it right, they could be the soul’s messengers even when they are threatening. At such a significant time in my young life, these tiny helpers came to whisper in my ear how I could move beyond pain to claim the power in my soul. When I had all but forgotten about my aspirations, they reminded me, through literature, what my original dreams were.

The universe is teeming with life and intelligence, expressed in the smallest and largest of ways. My story about a bucket of water is maybe not the original one I had in mind, but thirty years later I am writing it to honour the little girl’s dreams. Because regardless of how small and insignificant she felt, and often still does, the universe was in her as much as in everything else. Although she didn’t know it at the time, she was capable of wisdom.

An Interpretation of a Dream of Success

I pay careful attention to dreams and often find that they give me valuable information. As an example, I have received a warning of a forthcoming injury, which I sadly ignored and had to pay the price. My dreams also give me information on unresolved issues and how they play out in my life and relationships. After several years of diligent dream journaling, I am disappointed on those rare nights when I don’t remember my dreams. I shall also confess that some of my dream material still seems like mumbo jumbo.

Sometimes I have special vivid dreams that I can clearly connect with a theme that is going on in my life at present. This was the case a few nights ago, when I dreamed about people and places of my past as well as someone I have never met.

A very central person in the dream was a successful author whose work I love. This person came to visit and owned a café in a town where I used to live. The café was supposed to be popular because of the association with the writer’s name, but somehow it was very quiet. I knew that I would meet the writer later and was excited about it. Before I relate the encounter with the famous man, there is another part of the dream I want to share first.

A person who used to be close to me was in the dream, and we were together in a group meditation. The person is still in my life, but very much on the periphery. In real life, the change in my relationship with this person was quite painful as I had to let go of the good times but knew we were outgrowing each other. In the dream this person denied having any association with me. In addition, I felt excluded due to the actions of the group leader, who I felt could sense that my heart was not in it. Even though I learned that my friend was going through a difficult time, I left the gathering, feeling rejected.

A river in Scotland, not quite as dangerous as the Zambezi.

Back to the main thread of the dream, and I find myself sitting in a small boat with the famous writer. We are about to go through rapids à la Zambezi River in Africa, but it is also in Scotland where I currently live. Only in dreams can you be in two places at the same time.

Famous author to me: “So you are also a writer. What is the name of your book?”
Me: “In Search of the Golden City.”
Famous author: “Ah. You’re deep.”
Me: “How do you know that?”
Famous author: “I can tell by the title of your book.”

I am somewhat flabbergasted, but I think to myself that of course he knows something about the symbolism of gold. He talks about his café, and says that actually it is not as successful as expected. He adds that there is tension in his business due to politics. I think to myself that it cannot possibly dim his prosperity, but it is a valuable reminder that nobody’s life is perfect, and nor should I expect mine to be.

Reflecting on the dream in the morning, I felt that it was telling me something about the changes I made in the last few years, with the result that some doors closed. The old friend in the dream represents the structures of my past and my relationship to it. There is a reason why some people and situations that used to be stable fell away. Some of it had to do with my own attitude, but the point is that I cannot retrieve what has gone lost.

I thought about the meaning of the Zambezi River and the rapids. As a child I was fortunate enough to go into remote places in Africa. Some of these trips were rather difficult, but until today I remember the animism I felt in nature. I didn’t understand it at the time, but those experiences stayed with me and became very meaningful.

Being in a boat in white water with a person whose work I admire and who engages with me refers to the uncertainty of following my dreams. I am in a risk zone with only the forces of nature to guide me. Yet I feel connection regardless of where I might end up. Considering the famous writer’s struggles, I felt that the dream told me that I have to let go of archaic ideas of success. According to the world’s definition, I will always fall short and it is risky anyway, even for those who make it work. The things I value have found me and will continue to do so. Whatever price I have to pay for not “fitting in” will be worth the satisfaction of following my heart.

A day or two after the dream I saw a real quote on social media by the author I dreamed of about closing doors on the past. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

Clouds and Dreams

Nature talks to us, and often reveals to me something about what’s going on in my own mind. Clouds have caught my attention over the last week, especially the wispy kind that drifts in a clear blue sky. In Scotland where most days are marked by an overcast sky, these light clouds are pleasing to the eye. To me clouds represent dreaming, and reflecting on them I gained insight into the relationship between ideas and action.

Clouds vary in shape and form. They represent illusion in the sense that they appear soft like cotton, but consist of water. They are continually in motion, moved by currents that are invisible to the eye. It is easy to see a vision in clouds, signifying the uniqueness of each person’s point of view. The perceived shape is never true to the actual shape of the cloud, and since it changes all the time, it reminds of the fluid character of dreams. Clouds vary in tone, more so when the sun is shining. Where an endless blue sky can become monotonous, clouds that reflect the interplay between light and darkness give character to the heavens. The overcast aspect of clouds indicate the collective nature of thought and reality: while each perspective is unique, we also co-create the world through the way we dream together.

Representation of the World Tree:
the Shamanic Model of the Spiritual Realm

In the shamanic model of the spiritual world, there are three aspects which are connected to one another through the symbolic world tree: the upper, middle and lower worlds. In my experience, the upper world is the realm of wisdom, guidance and creativity, and often the place where inspiration is found. The middle world is the one where we assert ourselves, and the lower world signifies power and earth energies. To reach the upper world, a shaman needs to move his consciousness up the world tree and through a boundary that indicates the limit of the middle world. From there she has access to the universe of light represented by the sun, the moon and the stars, marked by freedom from the heaviness of the earthbound realm. Perhaps because of their dreamy attribute, I see the border between upper and middle worlds as a layer of clouds. The realm of the upper world is marked by infinity, but the creative energy of the universe can only take unique expression within boundaries, otherwise it becomes lost. From this perspective, clouds represent the thought processes beyond which we have to move to get inspiration, but to establish these ideas, we have to return to the material world where we act. Clouds contain the elements of air and water, indicating that intellect and emotion work together in the creative process. The light or fire on the other side of clouds signifies Source that acquires depth through the individual perception of its contrast with the shadows.

One element that is missing from clouds is earth, which represents the material reality. When it comes to dreaming, the biggest challenge is often how to give structure to our visions in a world ruled by restrictions. Clouds can never be captured, and by the time their substance reaches the earth, their form is lost. The dreamer can, however, plant seeds, and build on what he would like to see grow. When seeds are planted and nurtured under the right conditions, at least some of them will find a way to grow, aided by the sun and the coming down of the clouds. There is a lot that the planter has no control over, and this illustrates that although working with love is necessary, trust is also required. While dreams can reveal something of our connection to the universal mind, the matter that we work with doesn’t truly belong to us, and sometimes it’s best to let the universe decide how and in what way our dreams will come to fruition. The dreamer is an instrument of universal will as much as the entirety of creation is an expression of something we cannot know or understand.

How Would You Live Differently?

Recently I have been finding it increasingly hard to reconcile the world in my dreams with the world that I actually live in. The material world just seems too demanding and no matter how focused I am or carefully I plan, I cannot keep up. There are many who offer opportunities, but the premise is always that the competition is really strong so you have to be truly exceptional to “get in”. The world seems to be a place where everyone is really stressed out having to fight exceedingly hard to get a piece of a cake that is getting ever smaller.

Although the promises of success, opportunity and being one of a selected few outstanding individuals are alluring, I feel that it’s too draining to try for ever being better than I am. It feels like the harder I try to meet expectations, the more inadequate I feel. The satisfaction that comes from achieving goals hard worked for is always fleeting and somewhat empty. But although I would rahe to turn to re eo let me know your thoughts.used I am or carefully I plan, I cannot seem to keep upowed youther turn to the world in my dreams, it doesn’t exist to everyone. I feel fragmented trying to keep up with the material reality whilst at the same time remaining in touch with my soul.

Last night I meditated on my feelings, asking for guidance that would be useful. I went through different visions but will share what I feel is relevant. At some point I reached a place of nothingness where everything was white. I hit a barrier that I felt although I couldn’t see it. The guiding spirit that was with me continued past the barrier but I couldn’t move on. I hung suspended in the whiteness with the universe holding me although there was nothing else. To me the barrier is symbolic – the point where the old way of doing things can no longer work. When it is reached, everything falls away, including old identities and structures of meaning. Yet the universe is there to hold us while the way is paved for something new. There are forces stronger than us and although it cannot be seen, it can be felt.

Next thing I was led to a place where I walked onto a stage. The spotlight was on me and I had an audience. I was told that all eyes are on me and the world is waiting to hear what I have to say. They would listen to me, so what would I tell them? I walked forward and said with conviction, “Be the joy that you are. Do what you love. It’s the love that is important, so cultivate it.”

Then I was asked: if you have to take your own advice, how would you live differently? I thought about it and said that I would probably be less afraid to love. I would let go of expectations of the way in which love should play out. I would also care less about having been hurt before because if I can still love then it doesn’t matter. I would be quicker to forgive. The thought occurred to me that whatever is going on around me is perfectly fine because the details are unimportant. The important thing is that I love.

In my spiritual search I keep returning to the same place. The world in my dreams is about love whereas the reality I know is based on a strange kind of order that doesn’t actually work. This morning it occurred to me that as clueless as I often feel, maybe I have been making the right decisions all along. Maybe I am not naïve in thinking that bringing your authentic self to the world is closer to the target than for ever being at the mercy of the material world. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the old reality is collapsing and that we have to create something better. Perhaps the destruction of the fear based reality is the natural order of things and whatever follows will be better and more substantial. I’m hoping it could mean that humanity is waking up to the fact that love and joy are the natural state. That is what it’s there for – to help us stay on our true path.

A great deal of trust is required to embrace a world that the eyes cannot yet see. The challenge for me would be following my own advice when the world is begging me to do the opposite.

I would like to hear your thoughts. If you have one chance to have the world’s attention and everyone is willing to hear you out, what would you tell them? What would you do differently if you followed your own advice? Please comment or send me a message to let me know.

Why Myths Are Important

We tend to think of myths as forgotten stories from a past that doesn’t belong to us, one where people held irrational beliefs and didn’t know anything. But the truth is that we are still living myths today, individually as well as collectively. In fact, everything is based on myth. It’s because we believe in our present day myths that we live them and perpetuate them. If we want to change our personal or collective reality then we need to take a look at the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. We have to decide not only what we would like to discard, but also what we would like to take into the future.

Myths and dreams are the symbols that illuminate our current self-concepts and contain the seeds of what we can become. The Now-moment contains nothing at all, except what we choose to believe in. The Now moment is pure potential and completely insubstantial. But Now is also the bridge between our myths and our dreams - the space in which we can create. Now is often too fast on us – it doesn’t give us time to deliberate and make informed decisions. That is perhaps why it can open the door to change, because even though it is insubstantial, it is all that we really have to work with. Now is the moment of choice, the moment where all possibilities are connected and from where we can choose our experience. In my experience each Now moment provides the opportunity to either heal the past or direct the future.

Dreams are nothing other than the myths of the future telling us what is possible. If a dream stirs our hearts then it calls us to a better future. The question is often how to use the Now to transform our own stories, releasing myths from the past that no longer serve us to bring the dreams of the future into our present reality. But in truth all myths are important, regardless of whether we like them or not. If we want to get rid of a personal myth, it will probably re-present itself with more insistence until it is healed. We only heal our myths when we love them, because unwanted myths represent parts of ourselves that need to be loved back to life. Once it is integrated into our sense of self, the unwanted myth no longer has control that is beyond the power of our own will. It will then cease to run the show, because we are no longer afraid of it.

In Paulo Coelho’s books I have read about the personal legend. Being authentic means weaving our myth so life works for us and we fulfil our greatest dream, which should also be our biggest ambition. This doesn’t mean that we should be flawless, but that our chosen myth should be original and have the power of our own creativity.

The Changing Consciousness and its Implications for Reality

I didn’t have a clear opinion about whether I would buy into the idea of 2012/2013 and what it meant for changing consciousness on the planet. Whilst 2012 was quite a hard year for me, supportive friends have told me that things would get easier. I wasn’t sure I believed them because it felt to me that things were always going in cycles which were more or less the same. However I can honestly say that my friends were right. Things have changed drastically for me over the last year or so, mostly in terms of the way I viewed things. Insights that I didn’t have before would come to me from nowhere. Whereas before my struggles had mostly been internal, I became more and more aware of how things operated on a collective level. I recognised that my issues aren’t weaknesses in myself but perhaps an indication of what humans go through based on what we buy into. The more I moved to a space where I was having a critical look at global problems versus having a critical look at myself, the less concerned I would become about my own success. Not because I’m more altruistic and less egotistic but just because it’s too draining to for ever try getting ahead or being better than I am.

I would like to highlight a few insights that came to me from nowhere – the “in-between” spaces. To start with, the circle as a symbol has spoken to me lately. This was initiated by my visit to Stonehenge last week, a mysterious stone circle in England dating from ages past. A post-visit meditation plus a few other coincidences presented the following ideas.

Flow:

All things are connected. We are made of the same stuff. This is not my own idea but one that has been repeated many times by many seekers, perhaps because eventually we all come to the same conclusion. Dust we are and to dust we shall return. Perhaps that is also why the Earth is a globe and has an elliptical orbit around the sun. Everything is in flow and the Universe flows through us. It is not linear but if we allow the light of love to shine through then we are as a circle providing a hollow container for the flow of God. That is when we are on the bridge between the visible and the invisible, the space where we are all things and therefore don’t need to be anything other than what we are. What we want is readily available for us to BE if we recognise that we don’t even need to be it; it is what we are. In this place where we aren’t looking for anything, good things come to us from nowhere.

Reality is But a Projection

Reality is our instrument just like we are Love’s instrument. The problem comes in because we believe that things are the other way round – that we are at the mercy of reality and that love is our instrument. That is when we start to suffer because we want to use love to fulfil our own needs. When we believe and trust in Love we allow it to flow through and transform our reality.

We Don’t Need to Have Our Dreams Come True

We are the dream and we love dreaming. Everything we dream of is already here, inside us. If we can access the dream we can pull it from thin air and bring it into reality. Once we realise that, all we need to do is share our dreams with the world. Within our own dream there is also the seed of everyone else’s dream. Sharing and living our dream, shining it out through love will also wake up the souls of others to realise their dormant dreams. We are the same light and the same dream, just like we are made of the same stuff.

Changing the Nature of Reality

In a world where fear-based systems prevail it can be hard to live the flow of the circle. I often have the feeling of bumping my head against a brick wall trying to realise my dreams since the structures of authority are pyramid-based. Within this paradigm there will always be someone at the bottom and we will continue to re-create the problems we are having. Identities are boxed in and we forget who we are. We become our possessions, which are also meaningless unless we believe in what they symbolise. At the risk of being labelled a conspiracy theorist I’ll confess that I get the impression our minds are being controlled so we could be sheep in favour of supporting a system from which a minority draws benefit. We believe we have to fall in with it in order to survive which is ridiculous because what we really need is supposed to be provided by Nature.

To me it sometimes feels impossible to change the way things are – the nature of the world we know. It is run and controlled by crystallised structures which are based on nothing at all. But once we see that, we have the choice to continue believing we have to fall in with it in order to survive or, on the other hand, believe in what we would like to believe in, making it reality. Fighting the system or worldly order is futile. However if we allow the dream to flow through us (or flow to dream through us?) and we operate from where we are with awareness of love, I believe that we can transcend the old order and move to a new dimension where all things are possible. Once the old is no longer useful, it will fall away. It is easier for us to move or adapt if we are in flow than it is to shift an ingrained system on the level where it was created. Recognising that what we need is right here, right now will bring it into this world. This is not only a fact, but a necessity.

The Power of Music and Our Lives as Songs

Music has an interesting effect on me. When I listen to (good) music whilst training, I train much harder with less effort. I don’t feel any more tired afterwards and I’m in an even greater mood the rest of the day than through exercise alone. I like to imagine that my good mood is contagious and that the people around me also benefit from my elevated energy levels. I am convinced that no anti-depressant can be even half as potent as the combination of good exercise and good music.

The effects of dancing to good music are even more powerful. When I feel music in my bones, I let it take over my entire being. I lose track of the different notes and the lyrics become irrelevant. Even the theme of the song disappears as I am possessed by the passion where it springs from. Depending on the energy of the song, I am transported to another landscape, the one where dreams are born. Allowing this rhythm to infuse my being, I am connected to the stars whilst feeling the energy of Mother Earth rising up through my feet. I don’t even know what my body is doing as I merge with the core of some passionate idea that came into existence as a song. My batteries are charged and afterwards I often find my head buzzing with ideas urging me to express them. When I come out of my trance, I feel spaced out and would wonder who on earth needs drugs when you can get high as a kite on dancing, without the side effects.

I don’t know many people who don’t love some form of music and yet I’m not sure we realise what a potent and important tool it is. Those who banned it (with dancing) in certain countries and eras must have realised its power. I often think that the value of art isn’t fully appreciated in the culture I live in. Art is a nice to have rather than a necessity – the necessities are mostly limited to getting bread on the table and remaining stuck in our treadmill lifestyle. The true artists understand on a deeper level that music is more than a few notes stringed together or a product of the intellect. It is an expression of the soul. The more sincere the art is and the deeper the place that it comes from, the greater is its power to stir something in someone else, waking them up to their deepest desires also. It connects us to the fabric of which life is woven, asking us to remember what we would like to bring into the world. The power of music is to inspire in us dreams of the world we would like to see so we in turn may influence rather than for ever reacting to what has already been established.

Creating art is an interesting process because there is some ambiguity about how the art came into being. On the one hand, the artist seems to be the creator. On the other, the artist is merely the channel through which ideas express themselves. The best art comes from a place beyond the mind, pushing itself into being through the artist as vessel. In that sense, the idea chooses the artist and will badger him in some way or another until he shares the light with the world.

I could think in the same way of us being dreams in the mind of Creator. Looking at it that way, music teaches us something about our lives. If we want to be truly creative and live from the place where good music comes from, we have to find the songs of our souls. It’s not something we have to invent: the songs of our souls are there, waiting for us to sing them. To make the effect even more potent, we have to dance them into the world, translated as bringing our light into the world through action. I don’t think what we busy ourselves with is even that important. What is more important is that we are connected to the flow whilst acting, because that is how we will transform our reality.

Living life from the place where good music is born can free us of the necessity to always have to get somewhere or obtain something. Bringing our song to the moment we are in is a good place to start creating a lighter, freer world.

The Most Important Thing is to Act

Lately I have found myself in an extraordinarily good mood at work. This is surprising considering I have felt trapped in my office job for such a long time. So what has changed? I don’t like to use the analogy of death approaching, but I know my remaining time there is limited. I keep telling myself to slow down and be present while I am still here. The things that normally upset me are easier to deal with when I think about the fact that I’ll be away from it all soon.

What I am doing at work hasn’t changed much recently. Since I might as well, I go in and decide to have fun at work. I approach things that are normally dull or intimidating as a game. “OK, let’s see what happens when I try this.” Naturally I lean towards wanting to turn my experience of something tedious into something joyful, so I imagine myself to bring joy to the experience while I do what I have to do. If I fail in whatever way then it doesn’t matter because I’ll be leaving the company soon anyway. They will find someone else to drive their profit driven objectives.

The difference is amazing. I find myself bursting with energy and a good mood. It’s like the light that I believe in and want to be more prevalent in the world flows into the office simply through the fact that I have acted. What I am actually doing has nothing to do with anything grandiose such as “what I really want to do with my life” or “whether I’ll be good at it.” Yet I have transformed the experience of feeling trapped. Simply by acting, I have felt closer to what I would like to bring into the world. Even the most mundane things felt magical.

What we are doing isn’t the most important vehicle to take us where we want to be. To realise our dreams, it is simply important that we act. Our dreams are happening right here, right now, waiting to materialise through us. Acting strengthens our belief that we have the power to realise our dreams.