Healing the cycles between People, Plants and Animals
2nd of December, 2020
Sparrow Hawk and Annie the Horse & Horticultural Land Healing
The deep relationship between people, plants, animals, and traumatised soul parts
The use of essences to improve the energy of the land and my home environment has been a large part of my work since I moved into my childhood farm 3 years ago. As you can imagine moving back to where many of your early patterns began can for some raise very old wounds. For me this was certainly the case, in fact I think if I could have chosen another option, I would have done anything to prevent myself from revisiting the pain of childhood. It was like walking into a large black hole, not only knowing that I will be healing some very difficult parts of myself but also, with 288 acres of land that also required healing it seemed huge. Many things have happened on this landscape over the lifetimes and being a very sensitive to energy on many levels, I knew it would be a journey. I did feel for some reason that this area needed help and support, as well as myself finding peace with my childhood and wounds that held me so tightly bound into a person I no longer could be and a skin I could no longer wear. The farm was in my family for 52 years, where my grandfather worked horses, one horse in particular features strongly in this piece of work. Annie was her name a beautiful mare with a white star on her head and she only had one eye, she was my favourite of all his horses, probably because she was slightly impaired but mainly because she would come to my window every morning when I was younger and wake me up with a whinny early in the morning, she was a gentle soul.
My Grandmother was a farmer's wife and looked after my aunt who was disabled, she devoted her life to my aunts’ full-time care. My grandmother was my earth mother and teacher, we had such a close bond, she taught me many things and it was her that I walked the fields with looking at flowers and identifying plants, we would spend hours looking for four leaf clovers to press and place in birthday cards. She wanted dearly to be a journalist and she wrote beautiful stories and words. Her Celtic background was embodied with in all that she did, her love of nature and her hard life working the land, at times I believe she was very isolated. When she passed, I learnt my greatest lessons, as we had so many insights together as she was dying, we investigated the spirit world as she faded away. I told her about my vision for the farm. So, the project began, and the preparation on the land also began.
Within the first 18months as well as the physical renovation to do, I had extensive Kinesiology to help release some of the patterns that have been repeated around the farm for many years. There was a clear sense of suppressed female energy and isolation, we cleared a pattern where the daughters of the farm were never given the same autonomy as the sons. We also worked on the battle that took place at the time of the War of the Roses where four Roman soldiers had an angry dispute, then in spirit they chose to stay after the battle to guard the four corners of the land. This work was carried out by a shaman who worked very closely with me her field specialising in the study of the Brigante tribe in this area pre-Roman times. She carried out extensive acupuncture the land to help release some of the stuck energy that ran through the garden. Here she used flower essences of her own personal choice to remedy the land of which she did not share.
Myself, I gently released with meditation and singing a gentle stream of women that waiting patiently to move on to a higher realm, I clearly remember their faces coming to me early one morning, a very peaceful experience indeed. One woman in Spring was seen in the garden dressed in white tending to the flowers, I will never know who they all were and I never expected all of this to happen with plant devas communicating daily as to what the land needed, it was very overwhelming at times.
It started to become clear that it was not just the land on the farm but also the land around the farm that held lots of trauma, so it was also clear that I could not do this alone.
In 2015 I went to Plant Consciousness in London and it was there that I heard a speaker called Patrick MacManaway he engages in traditional healing and shamanic practices, geopathic stress remediation, and site energy enhancement for farms and people. This was perfect and just by chance he was passing my door on a visit to Scotland. He did 12months of very extensive work on the farm and sensed that the land within a 3-mile radius held a deep curse, this being around the farmland and this was causing me some discomfort. As he worked, I went through only what I can describe as complete mania, as whatever work he did, I would feel the echoes of it with in my body. This came in rounds but as 6 months passed it became easier.
The farm began to change, and even now I feel patterns resurface, so many layers to land healing, I guess it is continuous in some areas, but my main focus after the physical work came to completion, was to bring my attention into the garden and grow the healing plants that have spoken to me for years, some of the plants Gran and I had found were no longer here due to over grazing in the time that farming was subsidized for the amount of sheep you grazed. I began working in a biodynamic way applying BD 500 applications and horn silica just to the land to enhance its spiritual force.
In Winter 2016 I began to become aware of a change in the farm, it felt like stuck energy, I was beginning to feel that unsettled feeling I get, sometimes I can feel anxious, and things begin to happen in certain spaces. This time it was near the pine woodland at the front of the farm, I can only explain the land starts to feel sad which influences me. As it was winter there were no apparent plant changes. It was clear that some clearing or change was needed, I felt something hanging around. I called my friend who is a shaman to come and look with me. As she arrived the Starlings created a murmuration in the shape of a heart above the house, she got to work immediately and felt two people in spirit waiting to cross over, but one more wanted to pass but would not leave the land, nor would it leave me.
She explained it was an animal, but it would not leave as it held onto a soul part of me and it would only leave when this was returned, I was a little confused. At the time I was taking essences myself which had been selected for me by one of my group. She had chosen Star of Bethlehem, which is used for trauma, but I really did not feel I had any shock or trauma left to release. My friend that was doing the clearing on the land with me said she could see a small bird of prey, possible a hawk waiting to bring it back, so left a little bewildered I sat with this for some time. As it was the Winter Solstice, and I was due to hold a gathering in the barn that evening. The sun was going down, so I felt the stillness and thought it was a good time to drum facing the sun. As I started to drum, I have never felt this before, but I was aware of a gentle force behind me, I felt and heard a swish fly past my ear as I drummed and there it was a Sparrow hawk, I felt my body gasp a little and yes possibly a gentle returning of my soul part, but I had no idea what it related to. Still I had no idea what this soul part was all about.
Later that evening my friends arrived at our Winter Solstice banquet, as we chatted my friend took a casual picture of the table decoration, my arm got in the way. As we scanned through the photos of the evening the next day at breakfast, the picture she took had a distortion. We looked at my arm and clearly over my hand was a white shadow. As I looked closely my heart opened and I began to cry. I could see at the top of the white image was the head of the Sparrow Hawk, and to the right of the shadow was the image of my favourite horse Annie you can see her white star on her forehead, her eye and nostril. I simply could not believe what I was seeing. Then the memory came back to me, the trauma soul part became clear, something I had obviously blocked for 25 years.
You see when my Mum and Dad took over the farm after my Grandpa died suddenly, they inherited the horse Annie. My Dad and Mum did not want he. One day when I was at college, I arrived home as I always did to go to the garden to say hello to Annie, but she was gone, I could not find her anywhere. When I asked my parents my Mum replied %3Foh we sent her away" I was devastated, the memory of that came flooding back , I remember not reacting I just walked away and held onto that grief. Annie and Star of Bethlehem flower essence knew this needed releasing and brought this into my consciousness in such a profound way. Annie's spirit had stayed all this time to be near me until that soul part was ready to be returned.
I took the essence for a few days and gave an offering to the land and Annie with thanks and gratitude, the land resumed its gentle state again and the anxiety went. I feel that if ever there had to be a time to convince me the power of essence work in the subtle healing of the relationship between the land, animals, plants and humans this was most certainly the highest point of my learning.