Is THIS the way? 💎

In the last few days I’ve used shamanic journeying, tarot, microdosing, astrology, dream work, mythology, inner child work, Socratic questioning, guided visualisation, Kabbalah, alchemy, and other traditions and systems in working with clients and students.

Some of these I use because they’re my mother tongue (e.g. Socratic questioning, mythology, and archetypes) some I use because I’ve been guided to do so despite much resistance (e.g. shamanism as a whole, and teacher plants especially), and some I use because they’re the other person’s mother tongue (e.g. Human Design).

WHY WELCOME THE WORST PARTS? 🐉

One of the important lessons of the folktale, The Lindworm, is that the more we push something away because we see it as ugly, unnecessary, disruptive, dark, shameful… The more dangerous and destructive it becomes.

This includes other people who we see as ‘other’, parts of ourselves, such as emotions like anger, pain, shame, grief, longing, and desire, as well as our natural gifts and traits, especially ones that aren’t understood or valued in our culture - neurodivergence being an example.

Working with teacher plants (aka ‘plant medicine’) 🌱

I first began working with plant spirits many years ago, long before I had been trained to do so shamanically (in fact, perhaps before I even knew there was such a thing as doing so shamanically)!

The tale of the Hunter and Fox Woman have returned to me after their visit a couple of years ago, last time they came via finding a dead fox in my path when I took the “wrong” route home, and this time with a fox’s tail, as well as through the current Mythical Quest in UNIO.

(And I don’t mean magic in a ‘happiness, sunshine & rainbows’ kind of way… I do actually mean real magic as you’ll see as you read on, but if TLDR, Dr Daniel Ingram’s definition “Extraordinary Magick: includes the levels of causal effects that are beyond what most people consider the ordinary world of cause and effect, i.e. the realm that science, with the occasional exception of particle physics, considers mythical.” is a pretty good one for now.)

So many of us are waking up to being bereft of community, something that was a birthright for humans for aeons.

And perhaps those of us who are here to embark on mythical soul quests into dark forests and forgotten temples, meeting dragons and angels - metaphorically and otherwise - feel the lack of it more than most.

📜✨ On World Poetry Day, we offer you 'THE THRONE' - a provocative invitation and reflection by Lian Brook-Tyler on reclaiming your sovereignty and living your soul’s myth. ✨

THE THRONE

Everyone knows that Queens and Kings

are only meant for myths and as figureheads.

If one dared speak of sovereignty,

the call would resound:

who does she think she is?

Throwback Monday to the honeysuckle of Union

🖤🤍

The first photo was taken this week as I sat on the swing seat amidst the honeysuckles springing back to life… the other photos taken three years ago, and shared along with these words:

What steps are you taking to cultivate deep listening and understanding of the symbolic language of spirits or deities?

Jessica Howard, an author and a mentor who has been a practicing witch for over 20 years, joins Lian to explore the experience of feeling a call from a particular spirit, element, deity, or being and the mythical journey it can take you on. Jessica shares her personal journey with water and how she was called to work with the element, and Lian shares her own with the Oak and Rose.

I watched the film ‘Otto Baxter: Not a F***ing Horror Story’ last night – a documentary that follows a film-maker with Down’s syndrome as he makes an autobiographical horror film.

The film he makes is called The Puppet Asylum - it is a reimagining of his own life, from birth as an unwanted, deformed, horned child “The Monster”, through his years in captivity in the ‘Puppet Asylum’ at the mercy of “The Master”, to eventually becoming his own master.

As Jonathan Wilkinson and I were planning the opening ceremony of UNIO, we were looking at our Life’s Work Gene Keys - which is one of the many magical ways we’ll be journeying into the Great Work with our students this month.

One of the tells of an Old Soul that Jonathan and I have noticed is neurodivergence - such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and dyspraxia - it’s not always present but it is more often than not (and when seems it’s not, it’s usually just that it hasn’t been discovered yet).

1. Focusing on searching for new clients rather than whole-heartedly serving the precious clients you already have. 👁️
2. Treating your soul business like a hobby and prioritising everything else in your life over it, and yet, still expecting it to bring the results of a business. 💼

Humans are designed to be endlessly fascinated with and moved by stories… something that this crazy modern world knows and uses to maleficent effect.

Unless we become focused on, even obsessed with, and ultimately devoted to our own story, we will be forever pulled into the stories of a world that is hell bent upon eating itself…

Those who know Jonathan and I at all will know that very little of what we do is on a whim… the curse and blessing of bringing two souls together who are both said to be “over-thinkers” (a description which is often a misunderstanding of the vital deep inner workings of old souls but that’s a story for another time.

The way my daughter moves from voraciously reading (currently the Throne of Glass series of fantasy novels) to devotionally creating from that inspiration is a beautiful reminder of how natural and necessary those cycles of receiving and giving, consuming and creating, are for humans if we are to be in right relationship with ourselves and the world around us, human and otherwise.

An old soul is an individual whose depth and wisdom seems to transcend their chronological age and life experiences.

Recognising yourself as one helps to shine a light on the particular gifts and challenges of being an old soul in this new world and understand the right path for you.

Yesterday, I was thinking of my great uncle George and how unusual interracial marriages were back then in the 40s.

I asked Chris Tyler-Humm if he could find any photos in my mother’s photo albums and bless him, he went rummaging through the albums and sent over some precious photos, as well as an old letter he’d found.

As acclaimed mythologist and author, Michael Meade, said on our recent podcast “Your calling keeps calling.” (Link below.)

I can attest to the truth of that… in two ways:

Firstly, that as much as we might try to dismiss the call to a deeper, more spiritual, more magical, more mythical way of being and working, it will keep calling, for a lifetime if needed, and in ways that are harder and harder to ignore.

It was 6 years ago today that I had the operation that restored enough of my hearing that I can now manage without hearing aids (not that I managed particularly well with them).

It’s easy to take even miracles for granted after a while but I do my best not to