Hi all,

I am grateful to be in your inbox today. A lot can happen during a season change for intuitive folks. The fall can also feel full for parents and people intensifying their workloads, so may my words be helpful and healing here today.

This month I thought I would tell you about misconceptions about spirit guides. Instead, I got stung by a wasp in July, had an allergic reaction, spent 5 days in sting-induced liminal space, and since then have been watching life arise and dissolve in a steady flow of surprises. In other words, I can’t hold on to ideas about much of anything and that is mostly fabulous. It often goes like this for me, an unexpected event throws me into deep liminal space and starts a transformation that was waiting to unfold. My everyday ways of relating with the physical and spirit worlds give way to new surrender, a major backing off, a more humble listening. I got pretty intimate with deeper surrenders when I had post-concussive disorder, and since then, if an illness or injury becomes a transformation gateway, I say…wait a sec – this feels concussiony! A time to let the fuck go, really, and then let go some more. Thank you wasp.

When I emerged from the allergy induced haze, my ancestors pointed out the places where I was holding life too tightly. I received the message, and started letting go of projects, plans, worries, and dreams. Most of all I let go of the way I was envisioning my life and directing my life force, which suddenly felt far too narrow. I turned it all over to the divine again and again. I offered up my projects, plans, worries, dreams, and the vision I had for my life that suddenly felt like it was dying.

I gestured this. I told source, myself, and all of my spirit team that I was listening and willing to do things differently. I rescheduled things. I said “I don’t know yet” a lot. I listened. I asked for a dream from my ancestors almost every night. I paid attention. I left myself be soft and patient. I felt my sticky fingers get uncomfortable with the not knowing and reach for control, and snuggled them back into me with kindness. It’s OK to not know where life is going, I reminded the parts of me longing for control. Where control softened, love bloomed. My ancestors stood at my back, closer than before.

Yesterday I met with Brooke to plan my 40th birthday ritual and the topic of offering came up. She asked about how offering became so important to me, and I told her about this one gem that I still love so much from my Buddhist past. In the Tibetan Buddhist set of Ngöndro practices, there is a meditation practice in which you make little mandalas out of gems and colored rice and offer each one while you repeat a mantra. The practice tends to flow in pretty quick movement, so these are not the ornate full room sized sand mandalas that you may have seen in documentaries. Mine mostly looked like scattered lumpy piles of rice falling off of a gold plate before I swept them away with my hand and plopped the next one down. Even though I rarely perceived the mandalas themselves as beautiful, repeating this gesture so many times for so many months, it became less arduous and more freeing and blissful just to offer. It was as though clouds parted from in front of the core of my being revealing true beauty and power. Mandala was my favorite practice and the gesture of sweeping away while deep breathing and often smiling is still alive in my body after all these years. I’m not a Buddhist anymore, but I am a person who loves offering.

I also love prayer. Prayer can be so many things. A desperate call. A gesture of humility. A gesture of strength. An acknowledgement of relationship with whom you are praying to. A recognition of sameness. A recognition of difference. A way of co-regulating with the divine. A movement to dissolve one’s separate self into the greater field of love. Prayer is so often an offering.

This is all to say that for me, early autumn is not the season for ideas, for rapid growth or building, as it is for some folks. It is a season for prayer.

Here is one that I am happy to share with you.

Sigrdrifa’s Prayer

Sigrdrifa’s prayer is old. It was recorded in the Poetic Edda, and probably originated orally around the year 1000-1100, though no one knows. It is a good prayer for grounding, empowerment, and getting in touch with pre-christian northern ancestors and their gods. Feel like you have too much on your plate? This prayer might be for you. It is about waking up and engaging the world. For those who have ancestors who spoke Old Norse, speaking the prayer in Old Norse may feel resonant.

Heill dagr! – Hail to the day!

Heilir dags synir! – Hail to the day’s sons!

Heil nótt ok nipt! – Hail Night and her Daughters

Óreiðum Augum – With loving eyes

lítið okkr þinig – Look upon us here

ok gefið sitjöndum sigr – And bring victory

Heilir æsir! – Hail Gods!

Heilar ásynjur! – Hail Goddesses!

Heil sjá in fjölnýta fold – Hail to the mighty fecund earth

Mál ok mannvit – Eloquence and native wit

gefið okkr mærum tveim – bestow on us here

ok læknishendr, meðan lifum – and healing hands while we live

English translation by Galina Krasskova

More on Sigrdrifa’s prayer in this video (alternate translation and reconstructed Old Norse pronunciation at 4:08)

Appreciating

1. Courting the wild twin by Martin Shaw is exceptional and I love it and it did good things to my heart, especially the final sections.

2. Get to Know Your Guides: Ten 1:1 sessions and extra support to ground you into connection with your spirit allies. I love this program and have a few spots left.

3. John Lockley’s meditation to connect with your soul

4. I thought Netflix’s cheeky How to Become a Cult Leader was really well done. I was initially sad that they didn’t include a MLM or a more subtle cult (the 6 they cover are the worlds most famous deadly cults), but the writers clearly identify abuse tactics throughout so you can spot them easily.

5. Everything about In Defense of Burning Man by longtime Vancouver blogger, Carmen Mills.

6. Movie: 3000 Years of Longing. It is rare to see a whole movie about a relationship between a human and a magical being. I loved it. Plus Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton. Amazon prime lists the movie as “Strange.” Not in my world, Amazon!

7. Dying with Dignity Canada is gathering support to get the government to finally approve advance requests. If you are talking a friend and they say “If I ever get dementia, I want MAID” an advance request would make this possible (I am using this example because I hear it a lot, but it could be any condition). Dying with Dignity is the main organization helping to make MAID more accessible.

May your movements this season bring your soul ever more present, alive, and in service to your true calling.

Rayann