this has to do with what on the surface looks like a shop. It is a shop. It is also so much more. For those who know it there is no need for further embellishment. For those who do not know it yet...well it is a place of knowledge and community, a place of equality of secular and non secular it is Sanctuary. There are visitors from all over the world, and from every race creed and religion. Some come for curiosity and stay because of the warmth of the welcome and the lack of suspicion. Some come to browse the shelves and talk to Samantha the owner and discuss their queries with her almost endless knowledge and experience. Others come for healing and educational experiences. All come in love and respect. Through politics and financiers who would be sharks in silk suits the 'shop' is at risk for lack of repairs and landlords who are slum lords are doing what they do best and undermining the very heart of the businesses along that very old street. A place of history and connection pre dating Christianity, so it is up to us to put as much pressure on Glasgow City Council and their enforcers and reclaim our home city back so that it's heart and soul may be at peace again.Save Ladywell - City Property LLP & Your Place Property Management: Save our business! fb.me/1I26uIxDX
— Leslie Marsh (@reverendshaman) May 5, 2013
Monday, 6 May 2013
Musings with cancer
The Sword in the Stone…
I’ve been thinking a bit about transformation and change lately. The other night a thought sprung into my slightly muddied mind. I had been pondering about the impending chemotherapy in a week’s time and of what will happen inside me.
A sudden vision of the duel in T.H.White’s ‘The Sword and the Stone’ popped into my conscious mind. The duel is between Merlin and Madame Mimm, he the mentor of the young and still unaware Arthur and she the Wicked Sorceress, a child stealing and thoroughly un-nice person out to eat the young boy.
The duel is all about power and the ability to change quickly, adapting to the present situation.
They metamorphose into different creatures, she a cat, he becomes a dog, each one besting the other.
It is a battle of wills and of inspiration because eventually Merlin becomes a microscopic bacterium and infects her while she is in the form of a dragon, her most powerful and intimidating form.
Very David and Goliath, if you like the biblical metaphor; because of course Merlin has won. By being very small and very clever he won the day and Arthur’s freedom.
The whole book is about the metamorphoses of a boy into a King; the journey from servant to master.
Each stage of his teaching he is ‘shape shifted’ into different animals so he may experience the world the way it is for each on in its own habitat walking a mile in the shoes of each one. Every lesson is a story and every story has wisdom dressed in metaphor.
Because he is so young perhaps, the boy accepts the magic quite happily and with each successive transformation the donning of the ‘shape’ becomes easier. The lessons are more accessible as the procedure gets into the muscle of the boy.
Eventually all the lessons will have a muscle memory, so that when the King requires an answer to a problem the muscle will flex and release the energy of the boy’s memory for that problem.
Accumulative knowledge is something we do not notice. We become good at something – it gets into the muscle of our memory and becomes an automatic process, available at our finger tips without so much as a thought process to prove itself.
It is strategy, and it is what we learn from conception onwards.
These days though sometimes we forget that we can do amazing things. Sometimes we will be reminded and if we are open enough to the idea of there being a muscle there to flex, then sometimes we will remind ourselves how to deal with the Madam Mimm’s of our lives.
We can shift our consciousness to become small and to enter within our selves and fight the dis – ease inside with all the magic we can muster.
We are learning machines; we just have to be taught a different lesson sometimes.
We all know something we do not know we know yet (Milton Erickson) and we need to be reminded occasionally.
Who knows, with the right learning and the flexing of the right muscle maybe we too can pull a sword from a stone.
To help someone pull a sword from their stone go to the just giving page and help us to help Macmillan cancer support.
I’ve been thinking a bit about transformation and change lately. The other night a thought sprung into my slightly muddied mind. I had been pondering about the impending chemotherapy in a week’s time and of what will happen inside me.
A sudden vision of the duel in T.H.White’s ‘The Sword and the Stone’ popped into my conscious mind. The duel is between Merlin and Madame Mimm, he the mentor of the young and still unaware Arthur and she the Wicked Sorceress, a child stealing and thoroughly un-nice person out to eat the young boy.
The duel is all about power and the ability to change quickly, adapting to the present situation.
They metamorphose into different creatures, she a cat, he becomes a dog, each one besting the other.
It is a battle of wills and of inspiration because eventually Merlin becomes a microscopic bacterium and infects her while she is in the form of a dragon, her most powerful and intimidating form.
Very David and Goliath, if you like the biblical metaphor; because of course Merlin has won. By being very small and very clever he won the day and Arthur’s freedom.
The whole book is about the metamorphoses of a boy into a King; the journey from servant to master.
Each stage of his teaching he is ‘shape shifted’ into different animals so he may experience the world the way it is for each on in its own habitat walking a mile in the shoes of each one. Every lesson is a story and every story has wisdom dressed in metaphor.
Because he is so young perhaps, the boy accepts the magic quite happily and with each successive transformation the donning of the ‘shape’ becomes easier. The lessons are more accessible as the procedure gets into the muscle of the boy.
Eventually all the lessons will have a muscle memory, so that when the King requires an answer to a problem the muscle will flex and release the energy of the boy’s memory for that problem.
Accumulative knowledge is something we do not notice. We become good at something – it gets into the muscle of our memory and becomes an automatic process, available at our finger tips without so much as a thought process to prove itself.
It is strategy, and it is what we learn from conception onwards.
These days though sometimes we forget that we can do amazing things. Sometimes we will be reminded and if we are open enough to the idea of there being a muscle there to flex, then sometimes we will remind ourselves how to deal with the Madam Mimm’s of our lives.
We can shift our consciousness to become small and to enter within our selves and fight the dis – ease inside with all the magic we can muster.
We are learning machines; we just have to be taught a different lesson sometimes.
We all know something we do not know we know yet (Milton Erickson) and we need to be reminded occasionally.
Who knows, with the right learning and the flexing of the right muscle maybe we too can pull a sword from a stone.
To help someone pull a sword from their stone go to the just giving page and help us to help Macmillan cancer support.
Thursday, 10 May 2012
A Shamanic journey to the Faerie Tale
http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/137000953123892/
Take a wander through the woods with us and follow the next story Dreaming Beauty Wakes Within.... 6th Feb
An Introduction to Shamanic Journeying at Shining Light in Edinburgh
http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/111543699019547/
10th Feb Suitable for beginners 10:30am - 16:30pm 60 GBP
with a non-refundable deposit of 20 GBP
Then there will be Scottish Pagan Federation Conference on the 13th April 2013 where we shall be revisiting one of our favourite experiences 'What Big Eyes...(abridged for the venue)
Book with venues direct please.
Friday, 23 July 2010
Becoming the Master of Self
The Sword in the Stone…
I’ve been thinking a bit about transformation and change lately. The other night a thought sprung into my slightly muddied mind. I had been pondering about the impending chemotherapy in a week’s time and of what will happen inside me.
A sudden vision of the duel in T.H.White’s ‘The Sword and the Stone’ popped into my conscious mind. The duel is between Merlin and Madame Mimm, he the mentor of the young and still unaware Arthur and she the Wicked Sorceress, a child stealing and thoroughly un-nice person out to eat the young boy.
The duel is all about power and the ability to change quickly, adapting to the present situation.
They metamorphose into different creatures, she a cat, he becomes a dog, each one besting the other.
It is a battle of wills and of inspiration because eventually Merlin becomes a microscopic bacterium and infects her while she is in the form of a dragon, her most powerful and intimidating form.
Very David and Goliath, if you like the biblical metaphor; because of course Merlin has won. By being very small and very clever he won the day and Arthur’s freedom.
The whole book is about the metamorphoses of a boy into a King; the journey from servant to master.
Each stage of his teaching he is ‘shape shifted’ into different animals so he may experience the world the way it is for each on in its own habitat walking a mile in the shoes of each one. Every lesson is a story and every story has wisdom dressed in metaphor.
Because he is so young perhaps, the boy accepts the magic quite happily and with each successive transformation the donning of the ‘shape’ becomes easier. The lessons are more accessible as the procedure gets into the muscle of the boy.
Eventually all the lessons will have a muscle memory, so that when the King requires an answer to a problem the muscle will flex and release the energy of the boy’s memory for that problem.
Accumulative knowledge is something we do not notice. We become good at something – it gets into the muscle of our memory and becomes an automatic process, available at our finger tips without so much as a thought process to prove itself.
It is strategy, and it is what we learn from conception onwards.
These days though sometimes we forget that we can do amazing things. Sometimes we will be reminded and if we are open enough to the idea of there being a muscle there to flex, then sometimes we will remind ourselves how to deal with the Madam Mimm’s of our lives.
We can shift our consciousness to become small and to enter within our selves and fight the dis – ease inside with all the magic we can muster.
We are learning machines; we just have to be taught a different lesson sometimes.
We all know something we do not know we know yet (Milton Erickson) and we need to be reminded occasionally.
Who knows, with the right learning and the flexing of the right muscle maybe we too can pull a sword from a stone.
To help someone pull a sword from their stone go to the just giving page and help us to help Macmillan cancer support.
I’ve been thinking a bit about transformation and change lately. The other night a thought sprung into my slightly muddied mind. I had been pondering about the impending chemotherapy in a week’s time and of what will happen inside me.
A sudden vision of the duel in T.H.White’s ‘The Sword and the Stone’ popped into my conscious mind. The duel is between Merlin and Madame Mimm, he the mentor of the young and still unaware Arthur and she the Wicked Sorceress, a child stealing and thoroughly un-nice person out to eat the young boy.
The duel is all about power and the ability to change quickly, adapting to the present situation.
They metamorphose into different creatures, she a cat, he becomes a dog, each one besting the other.
It is a battle of wills and of inspiration because eventually Merlin becomes a microscopic bacterium and infects her while she is in the form of a dragon, her most powerful and intimidating form.
Very David and Goliath, if you like the biblical metaphor; because of course Merlin has won. By being very small and very clever he won the day and Arthur’s freedom.
The whole book is about the metamorphoses of a boy into a King; the journey from servant to master.
Each stage of his teaching he is ‘shape shifted’ into different animals so he may experience the world the way it is for each on in its own habitat walking a mile in the shoes of each one. Every lesson is a story and every story has wisdom dressed in metaphor.
Because he is so young perhaps, the boy accepts the magic quite happily and with each successive transformation the donning of the ‘shape’ becomes easier. The lessons are more accessible as the procedure gets into the muscle of the boy.
Eventually all the lessons will have a muscle memory, so that when the King requires an answer to a problem the muscle will flex and release the energy of the boy’s memory for that problem.
Accumulative knowledge is something we do not notice. We become good at something – it gets into the muscle of our memory and becomes an automatic process, available at our finger tips without so much as a thought process to prove itself.
It is strategy, and it is what we learn from conception onwards.
These days though sometimes we forget that we can do amazing things. Sometimes we will be reminded and if we are open enough to the idea of there being a muscle there to flex, then sometimes we will remind ourselves how to deal with the Madam Mimm’s of our lives.
We can shift our consciousness to become small and to enter within our selves and fight the dis – ease inside with all the magic we can muster.
We are learning machines; we just have to be taught a different lesson sometimes.
We all know something we do not know we know yet (Milton Erickson) and we need to be reminded occasionally.
Who knows, with the right learning and the flexing of the right muscle maybe we too can pull a sword from a stone.
To help someone pull a sword from their stone go to the just giving page and help us to help Macmillan cancer support.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Perspective
Umpire’s eye
I have no idea what to do. It seems that the more you give advice, the deeper the hole you dig. So why give advice at all?
Interesting question; advice is given normally because it is sought. Should the seeker ignore the advice and things go awry, how do they choose to heap all the blame on the giver?
How do seekers choose advisors? Do they perceive that the advisor is sorted, and has life and all it’s vagaries under their complete control? Is this what they want to emulate – a perception of control?
If this is so... seeker it may be ignored.
Why then continue to ask for advice?
Why then continue to give it?
From the lofty heights of the Umpire’s Chair great perspective can be gleaned. It’s a long way up and so things that are happening at baseline level may be missed and if you have no other recourse then the Umpire has the last word.
It is a long way up, how did the Umpire get to be there? Someone chose them for the job.
The more information we have the more choice we may have.
But, only if we ask the right and pertinent questions.
I have no idea what to do. It seems that the more you give advice, the deeper the hole you dig. So why give advice at all?
Interesting question; advice is given normally because it is sought. Should the seeker ignore the advice and things go awry, how do they choose to heap all the blame on the giver?
How do seekers choose advisors? Do they perceive that the advisor is sorted, and has life and all it’s vagaries under their complete control? Is this what they want to emulate – a perception of control?
If this is so... seeker it may be ignored.
Why then continue to ask for advice?
Why then continue to give it?
From the lofty heights of the Umpire’s Chair great perspective can be gleaned. It’s a long way up and so things that are happening at baseline level may be missed and if you have no other recourse then the Umpire has the last word.
It is a long way up, how did the Umpire get to be there? Someone chose them for the job.
The more information we have the more choice we may have.
But, only if we ask the right and pertinent questions.
Monday, 7 December 2009
journey to the islands
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No not those islands! The Vancouver, British Columbia islands in Canada – that’s where we were.
Friday, 18 September 2009
Learning to Dance
And we are back in reality! Well of sorts anyway… not long returned from the Society of Shamanic Practitioners UK annual conference at Gaunt’s House Wimborne in Dorset.
We rose very early on the Thursday morning and travelled down from our home in Lanarkshire, it was a very peaceful and uneventful 7 hours. We had time to reflect and to gear ourselves up for the next 3 days and 4 nights of being manically Shamanically motivated.
When I say manic I mean it, there is a lot stuffed into this programme, from workshops on Mexican healing techniques of the Curanderismo to the unique and one time only event of the Ghost Dance.
The place was jumping with energy – and I mean energy, photographs contain a multitude of orbs the Ancestors were being honoured and they turned up in their hundreds to be so!
The most wonderful thing about this conference is the diversity of its delegates. So many people with so many different levels of experience and knowledge and as Leo Rutherford said, it gives an opportunity for the teachers to learn from the students.
Valuable as that is the camaraderie is second to none. For some it is the only time that they are in contact with others for the rest it can be the only physical contact as in these modern times most things are done by modem and micro chip.
So there is a bonding that goes on and yes it can be likened to a family that comes together for a once yearly festival, and that is such a good thing because we are just that – a family.
This family that comes together is but a branch of the clan that is part of the village that makes up our world and we are in a world of connections. The story of our family grows each time as we learn to dance together.
Connections need to be strengthened and maintained just like anything else worth doing it takes time and effort.
Beatles quote, ‘And in the end – the love you take, is equal to the love you make.’
Symbiosis. We are pack, we are clan, and we are family. Energetically we can feel the connections in the ether and we know how and when to get in touch. Easier now with email and particularly with the blog era having arrived; communication has never been easier and harder at the same time.
There is still the need for the physical connection – the shaking of hands, the kiss on the cheek the bear hug that says ‘It is so good to see you / be here with you now.
Memories are the sutures that glue us together, our stories, and experiences shared mend and heal wounds.
Remember then, all the experiences and leave behind the pain of growing. Celebrate that all our ancestors, from the two legged to the four and eight and more, of the winged ones, the standing ones and the stone ones have stories to tell.
If we would but listen to them, we could learn to dance the lesson and dance into our destiny - the one that waits for us.
Until we dance again around a fire…
To all my relations
Ho!
And we are back in reality! Well of sorts anyway… not long returned from the Society of Shamanic Practitioners UK annual conference at Gaunt’s House Wimborne in Dorset.
We rose very early on the Thursday morning and travelled down from our home in Lanarkshire, it was a very peaceful and uneventful 7 hours. We had time to reflect and to gear ourselves up for the next 3 days and 4 nights of being manically Shamanically motivated.
When I say manic I mean it, there is a lot stuffed into this programme, from workshops on Mexican healing techniques of the Curanderismo to the unique and one time only event of the Ghost Dance.
The place was jumping with energy – and I mean energy, photographs contain a multitude of orbs the Ancestors were being honoured and they turned up in their hundreds to be so!
The most wonderful thing about this conference is the diversity of its delegates. So many people with so many different levels of experience and knowledge and as Leo Rutherford said, it gives an opportunity for the teachers to learn from the students.
Valuable as that is the camaraderie is second to none. For some it is the only time that they are in contact with others for the rest it can be the only physical contact as in these modern times most things are done by modem and micro chip.
So there is a bonding that goes on and yes it can be likened to a family that comes together for a once yearly festival, and that is such a good thing because we are just that – a family.
This family that comes together is but a branch of the clan that is part of the village that makes up our world and we are in a world of connections. The story of our family grows each time as we learn to dance together.
Connections need to be strengthened and maintained just like anything else worth doing it takes time and effort.
Beatles quote, ‘And in the end – the love you take, is equal to the love you make.’
Symbiosis. We are pack, we are clan, and we are family. Energetically we can feel the connections in the ether and we know how and when to get in touch. Easier now with email and particularly with the blog era having arrived; communication has never been easier and harder at the same time.
There is still the need for the physical connection – the shaking of hands, the kiss on the cheek the bear hug that says ‘It is so good to see you / be here with you now.
Memories are the sutures that glue us together, our stories, and experiences shared mend and heal wounds.
Remember then, all the experiences and leave behind the pain of growing. Celebrate that all our ancestors, from the two legged to the four and eight and more, of the winged ones, the standing ones and the stone ones have stories to tell.
If we would but listen to them, we could learn to dance the lesson and dance into our destiny - the one that waits for us.
Until we dance again around a fire…
To all my relations
Ho!
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