Details of all our Earth Listening Circles since Samhain October 2020 until today

2024

Friday  March 29th This week we will be looking at what Good Friday means to us, even if we are not practicing Christians. Firstly, from an Earth Listening perspective it’s important to remember that when the early Christians were setting dates for the new Christian Celebrations, they sensibly chose to utilize the already existing Celtic Celebration times in order to keep the natives on board…always a good idea! So Easter is set in relation to the Spring Equinox-- in fact it is on the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.  Good Friday is the day that commemorates the death of Jesus, three days before Easter.  Last week, when we celebrated the Spring Equinox, we were looking at “awakening to the new”. Now, maybe it would be good to ask, “Is there something l need to die to, before l can awaken to the new?” So what trait or habit is holding us back?  Let's use the energy of Good Friday to ask ourselves if this could be a good moment to let go of the way of being or habit that no longer serves us? As we take this question into our Earth Listening meditation this week, let’s listen to the help available from Mother Earth, who is such a wise teacher around letting go and moving on.

Friday March 22nd This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be welcoming the ending of winter and opening to embrace the  Spring Equinox. This time of year is traditionally celebrated as The Festival of Awakening, because the whole of the natural world is waking up after its long winter slumber. Day and Night are of equal length all over the world, the light is beginning to grow, the birds are singing, looking for mates and building nests. We too often think about cleaning up our nests, in the form of sorting out stuff we no longer need and giving it away, spring cleaning and starting afresh. As the sun strengthens, we feel its warmth, and a renewal of the life force. Like the birds we may occasionally feel like singing for joy, or at least humming a tune we know and love, maybe as an attempt to lift our spirits after a long hard winter. Sometimes life does seem relentless and hard, but developing a sense of hope and optimism can often be the start of a new and more enjoyable phase in our life starting to bloom. So like the spring flowers…the daffodils, tulips, hyacinth and primroses raising their heads and smiling at the sun, let’s too awaken to new possibilities with a renewed sense of hope for the future.

Friday March 15th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at feeling appreciation for ourselves and others. We often look at what we aren’t doing so well at, so this week let’s look at what we are succeeding in. It seems to be part of our culture to not appreciate ourselves and what is going well…but the problem is, if this is our mindset we are not good at appreciating others, including Mother Earth. Do we ever stop and list all the good things in our life and thank ourselves for all the effort we are putting into life? Equally, how often do we do the same with our loved ones? And what is even more relevant to our circle is how often are we so concerned for all the species that are becoming extinct, that we fail to spend time mentally listing all the amazing flora and fauna that are doing a great job at surviving despite all the adverse conditions? So this week let’s do just that, and feel how it lifts our spirits and all the sentient beings that surround us on a daily basis.

Friday March 8th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at where we go when perseverance is no longer appropriate, and we can’t yet imagine moving into acceptance….so the most appropriate and helpful thing to do is to express our pain both to ourselves, but more importantly to other empathetic listening ears. Expressing our hurt, pain, rage, sense of injustice, grief, exhaustion and frustration is actually how these Earth Listening Circles started. Four years ago just as lockdown was starting to happen l found myself listening to the ocean in North West Wales, and was shocked and taken aback to literally hear Mother Earth’s hurt, pain,  rage, sense of injustice, grief, exhaustion and frustration. Then immediately on my return home after my vacation, at my first ever Deep Adaptation meeting to find myself in a breakout room with Sasha and Dorian for the first time and discover, they too regularly listened to the Earth. From here our weekly group formed itself, and was obviously what Mother Earth wanted us to be doing, hence its continued growth 4 years later. So let’s support each other as we share our pain just as we do every week, realising Mother Earth wants to share Her pain with us too.

Friday March 1st This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at perseverance. Those of us who joined Anja on Saturday for a wonderful storytelling experience will have been inspired by the perseverance of the main character in the story. I was going to call her the heroine, but she wasn’t your average heroic type character, she was simply someone doing and being who she naturally was. Because she followed her dream, ultimately after many setbacks she was rewarded. As we listen to Mother Earth and watch how She deals with the numerous setbacks She encounters, we realise that perseverance is a big part of the mix. Whether it’s the fragile snowdrop pushing its way through the cold, dark soil, or the humble earthworm pushing her way through the myriad roots and autumn debris to aerate the soil, it all takes perseverance. Let’s listen to Mother Earth to see what it is we need to persevere with this week. 

Friday February 23rd This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at quieting our busy mind. Have you ever noticed that as soon as we are faced with a problem that brings up feelings of being unsafe, the first place we usually go is to our mind? It occurred to me not only how unhealthy this habit is, but also how illogical it is. If we were faced in reality with an unsafe or even dangerous situation it would be our body, not our mind that actually moved us to a more safe place! In our culture where mind is elevated above not only body, but also feelings and spirit, we invariably try to think our way out of the problem. But because our mind is incapable of comprehending the bigger picture, the decisions we then make invariably exacerbate the problem. However if we were living in a more natural and healthy culture, our go-to place would be happily resting in our bodies ready for whatever appeared in the moment. From this calm and connected space we would naturally respond in an appropriate manner, minimizing the risk and disruption to ourselves and everyone else. So as we learn to listen to Mother Earth, we naturally sink down into this deep connection with our bodies, and from there our abiding and safe connection with the natural world becomes an antidote to feelings of being unsafe. 

Friday February 16th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at acceptance. In conversation earlier this week with a dear friend, who knew l had experienced a stressful situation and was feeling disappointed at how l had handled it, said, “some times, something happens, which breaks the spell - and sometimes, it just doesn't happen, and we seem to have to learn to live with that 'part' of ourselves”. To me this is such a deep reflection on life. In our alpha-male dominant culture, it’s all about being pro-active, making changes, breaking through the barriers that stand in our way. So when that isn’t possible we tend to berate ourselves. But what if we weren’t meant to be breaking through the barrier? What if the problem has presented itself to teach us when to stop, breathe, take stock, and simply accept we had bitten off more than we could chew? When we spend time in nature we see that all beings in the natural world seem to know their limitations. They recognize that the creature running from them can run faster than they can, so give up the chase. Maybe sometimes the most growth-full thing we can do is learn from Mother Nature and simply accept our limitations.

Friday February 9th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be completing the holistic sequence we were working with before Imbolc, so this week we are deepening our Spiritual Connection with Mother Earth. In the previous weeks we have looked at deepening our physical connection, our psychological connection, and our emotional connection with Mother Earth. So how we do we connect more deeply spiritually with Mother Earth? One definition of spirituality is our ability to intuitively understand something that impacts our soul and gives meaning to our lives. It seems that our Spiritual Connection manifests through our intuition…when we just know something and we don’t know how or why we know it, but we just know it. So when we are alone in nature, letting go of thoughts, feelings and sensations and dropping down into our inner soul connection, it seems that is where the deep benefits of Earth Listening really show themselves. The letting go of our individuality and separateness and instead opening to our sense of inter-being, belonging, merging with and opening to the deep joy that arrives with this connection…that is the gift that makes our efforts so rewarding.

Friday February 2nd This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be celebrating the Celtic Festival of Imbolc, which represents New Beginnings, and is symbolized by the humble snow drop. This tiny little flower pushes its way through the frozen dark earth from its little bulb, at the coldest time of the year and shines out with its brilliant clear white bell shaped bud that opens into this delicate and beautiful flower. For me it is my very favorite flower because it so perfectly represents the struggle we sometimes have to go through to lift ourselves out of our cold dark stuck place, and be willing to take a chance in finding a different perspective that may lead us into a beautiful place, even when it looks as if the odds are stacked against us. It’s willingness to open despite being faced by such a hostile environment is a total inspiration to us all when life is hard.

Friday January 26th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be discussing our psychological connection with Mother Earth. The last two weeks we were looking at first our physical, then our emotional connection with Her, and so now in true holistic mode we are moving on to how we think of Mother Earth. Do we really think of Her as a sacred living being, just as we are?…and this extents not just to the rocks and rivers, mountains and grasslands, oceans and our own back yard….but all her myriad creatures, flora and fauna, bids, insects, animals, fish. Each one of these is a sacred being, in the same way as we ourselves are all sacred beings. So maybe it’s time to go back and rethink who we are? Are we a physical being that may or not have a spirit…or are we actually a Sacred Spiritual Being of Light temporarily on this Earth in order to have an earthly experience? Maybe we have ended up treating nature so badly because we have totally lost sight of who we, as human beings really are. Let’s listen to Mother Earth to see what she thinks of how badly we have lost our way, the consequences of our mistakes and where we need to go from here.

Friday January 19th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be deepening our emotional connection with Mother Earth. Last week we looked at deepening our physical connection with Her …so now we are moving up to connecting from our heart to the Heart of the Sacred Mother. When we think of our favourite place how does it make us feel? What words would we use to describe these feelings to ourselves? Are they warm and fuzzy feelings, deep sadness and grief, optimism and hope or inspiration and awe….or any other emotion? Are our feelings often similar or the same…or different every time we visit Her? What do these feelings tell us about our heart felt connection with Mother Earth and how do these feelings sustain us in our day to day activities? Do we even remember our connection to our Sacred Mother as we go about our day…and how important is our love for the Earth in our working life, or with our family or when we are at rest? Let’s see where this contemplation leads us this week.

Friday January 12th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be deepening our physical connection with Mother Earth. When we meditate or simply become still and quiet it is usual for us to feel ourselves coming down out of our heads and sinking down into our core, down into our base. As we become aware of our base, we notice that the bottom of our spine is actually touching the chair on which we are sitting. So as we imagine ourselves outside in Nature, under our favorite tree, or sitting on our favorite rock we can remember how it feels to be in such close proximity to Mother Earth. As we start to breathe more deeply we can become aware of breathing with this large Sacred Being on whom we are sitting. As we remember that we are physically made up of the same elements that She is made of, and that when we die and are buried we will physically become part of Her, we can feel an even deeper connection. We belong here, we are as much a part of this place as the birds, the fishes and the animals and we can start to identify as one of Her many children, who is held securely and loved by Her.

Friday January 5th Happy New Year to Earth Listeners in all 4 corners of the Earth! At the start of this new year it seems appropriate to look at some of the “wicked problems” that the whole world is facing at this moment. I first came across this phrase when l was studying with Ken Wilber and his Integral Theory. The definition, according to Wikipedia is “A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize.”  To those of us who have always felt that we were part of Mother Earth, and were horrified by the dominant belief of western culture that humanity has a right to use and abuse all other living beings, and the Earth herself in the pursuit of so-called progress…...these wicked problems come as no surprise. Indeed they have been predicted for more than 50 years, but for many people they come as a total shock….and having lost personal contact with nature these folks don’t know where to turn. So it is up to us to find a way to share our deep connection with Mother Earth by way of assisting these folks to return to their roots and start to once again listen in order to enable us all to find loving responses to our predicament.

2023

Friday December 22nd This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be contemplating the forthcoming Winter Solstice traditionally celebrated on December 21st. It is the most important part of the Wheel of the Year, because it is the moment the long awaited LIGHT starts to return to the Earth and for this very good reason was appropriated by the early Christians to further their cause. So whether we prefer to celebrate the birth of  “Jesus - the Light of the world” or Mother Earth and Father Sun as our Light-Bringers, for us all it is definitely a time of thanks-giving and celebration. To our ancient ancestors it was essential we gave thanks for the returning of the light, as this would make the difference between life and death over the coming months….And maybe over the coming years it will seriously be the difference between life and death for future generations when we start to see ourselves as Light-Bringers contributing to “embodying and enabling loving responses to our predicament” as the mission statement of Deep Adaptation states. So maybe at this especially sacred time of year it will be good to take time to listen to Mother Earth to see what are the next steps we can take to contribute to becoming Light-Bringers at this time of such great darkness and destructive on our beleaguered, beautiful and beloved planet. 

Friday December 15th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at Earth as our Mother. Ramey sent us this beautiful poem that she has created based on Psalm 23 in the Bible, following our discussion last week, so it seems like a good idea to have it as our theme.

Friday December 8th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be contemplating becoming the cup that holds complexity. This phrase was coined by Thomas Hubl, trauma therapist and spiritual teacher. He speaks of the need, in our continuously growing, complex life situation to be open to holding this complexity with calm, equanimity and acceptance. For so many of us we tend to prefer to close down and simply hang on to what we already know and understand, but increasingly life seems to have other plans for us! We are constantly being bombarded with ever more excesses, horrors, brutality, and destruction every time we listen to the news. But shutting it out only reduces our ability to be present with what is, both for ourselves and for our relationships. However when we take this feeling of overwhelm into our relationship with Mother Earth, sitting in receptive mode with one of our non- human friends in deep reverence we can begin to sink into this deep place within ourselves that actually does have the capacity to hold this ever growing complexity. Somehow listening deeply to how Mother Earth copes with all the crazies being thrown at Her at the moment, enables us to also cope better with our lives.

Friday December 1st This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at a different way of being around folks with opposing views. The image of a see-saw comes to mind when thinking about spending this holiday time with folks from our past and how difficult that is for many of us. If we imagine Person A sitting on a sea-saw and describing the beautiful country view visible to them from their high perch facing east, but Person B arguing and saying no, their view is of a grey smoky cityscape as they are facing west. Of course both are correct, but unless they swap sides and actually look at the view visible to the other they could continue to judge the other as having an incorrect view. It is highly unlikely our protagonist is likely to change positions but if we are willing to take this broader view maybe our communication can flow more easily. So as we contemplate our recent maybe less than flowing conversations we can decide to take our dilemma to Mother Earth, spending time in a place we know and love and become open to seeing and accepting that some people simply don’t have the capacity to see the wider view and then be willing to take in both opposing views in our wider embrace.

Friday Nov 24th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the concept of Rising Strong. Over the last couple of weeks we have been looking at healing our broken parts through becoming our own loving mother. As we do this we begin to feel a sense of becoming more whole, more beautiful, stronger and more resilient than we were before we were broken. Brene Brown in her book “ Rising Strong” suggests we write a new ending to our story, “and use this new braver story to change how we engage with the world, and to ultimately change the way we live and love”. As we engage more deeply with nature, learning how to connect with Mother Earth more deeply, sharing our broken feelings with our favorite tree, river, mountain or plant and listening to Her acceptance, love and healing vibrations we find our ability to rise stronger becomes a tangible possibility. In fact it seems that the art of Earth Listening becomes synonymous with Rising Strong.

Friday Nov 17th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be working with the concept of becoming our own loving Mother. The more we listen to folks, the more we realise how few of us actually got the sort of mothering we needed, and as a result from time to time throughout out lives crave the unconditional love, attention, understanding and awareness that was not available to us back then. Clearly we are never going to get that need fulfilled but sometimes we can take ourselves back to that needy time and remember a garden, or a particular tree or hillside that we particularly loved. We can remember what it felt like to be a small child loving and feeling loved by Mother Nature, enjoying the closeness and lack of separation we felt before our mind took over, telling us we were superior to and separate from Mother Nature. And as we reconnect to this healing sense of belonging, we can begin to feel able to grow into our own loving mother, holding ourselves in a loving embrace with total acceptance of how we are feeling right now, just as Mother Earth held us and made us feel as small children. Once again listening closely to Mother Earth can restore us, enabling us to function in a crazy world, even when we are feeling in need of loving and caring ourselves.

Friday Nov 10th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be working with our Broken Parts. So often when we feel broken, alone, frightened and desperate we feel shame and try to hide away from others. We don't want others to see this Broken Part incase it frightens them away and they reject us. But as our relationship with Mother Earth deepens we begin to understand that She is able to hear all our grief and desperation without turning away. She knows exactly how we are feeling because she is suffering in a similar way. Mother Earth is the most empathic listening ear we could ever have because there is nothing we can experience that is unknown to her. We can safely share our pain with Her and it will only deepen our relationship. She does not want to be constantly distracted in order to not feel....and actually neither do we. If we are at the end of the line and wonder if we can go on, we have the perfect companion open to hear our woes any time of the day or night. Again this is one of the many gifts that come with developing the capacity to truly listen to Mother Earth 

Friday Nov 3rd This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at being one piece in Mother Earth’s jigsaw puzzle. 

Last week we were preparing for the Celtic New Year at Samhain, celebrated on 31st October. This is the most magical time of the year for all of us who work closely with Earth Energies. And so it is a perfect time to reconnect to being just one of Mother Earth’s children... not being either separate from or superior to all Her other children. The image of a jigsaw puzzle seems a lovely way to picture this sense of belonging. Like any other jigsaw it is not complete when one piece is missing. So if we as humans go missing, by growing too big with our arrogance and ignorance to a size where we no longer fit into the whole, then something serious has gone wrong and the whole jigsaw itself is suffering. Let’s listen this week to how we can once again return to who we really are, one part of the wonderful whole that is our beautiful Planet Earth.

Fri Oct 28^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle, we will be celebrating the Celtic Festival of Samhain. There are 8 Celtic Festivals, which include the two Solstices, two Equinoxes and the four cross quarter days that span those four festivals. Samhain is traditionally celebrated on October 31st and is the most important of the Celtic Festivals, being the Celtic New Year. It is a Festival of Remembrance where those who have recently passed over are remembered, as are all our ancestors. Traditionally it is a night of mysteries and divination, a time when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest, a time of affirming rebirth in the midst of darkness. The leaves are falling off the trees and birds are migrating showing us it is a time of forced adjustments, which once accepted reveal a new set of possibilities. Lets this week become aware of moving in to a new phase. What have we learnt from the old year? What do we wish for ourselves for the new year? As we accept change, loss, grief and death as part of life, this is the time to feel ourselves deeply connected to everyone and everything in the natural world, becoming one with Mother Earth and all Her Children.

Friday October 6th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be experiencing putting our roots down deep. Reading some notes made last April during an Earth Listening Circle it seemed a good idea to repeat this concept here. Mother Earth had shared this wisdom “Don’t go for the short term relief of coming up to the surface to look for the little rewards of passing watering. Go down deeper and find the deep water table of the sustenance that really nourishes, refreshes and heals.” What a wonderful metaphor for life. Sometimes it’s so easy to go down the familiar path of dealing with difficulties the way we always have, but occasionally it seems we are being asked to literally go deeper. Maybe as we do the healing work necessary to help us cope with our predicament, a new response is being called for. And it seems Mother Earth is always willing to help point us in the right direction if only we will take the time to listen to Her.

Friday September 29th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be working with overly controlled and manicured previously natural places. It does seem that over many years humanity’s ideas of beauty have changed to such a degree that sometimes actual beauty is lost. Just like a face that has been savaged by plastic surgery in a mistaken attempt to beautify it can become contorted, so too can nature be distorted by an attempt to beautify it. What makes us as humans believe we can improve on Mother Earth’s creations? I guess we all know once wild places that have been taken over, and in an attempt to attract tourists have been overly manicured and tamed until there is little resemblance left to the natural beauty that once shone out. Maybe we could sometimes visit these places and really listen to them, reassuring these places that not all humans wish to tame and subdue them. It seems that sensitive folk who feel the pain of these places but are still drawn to work with them are to be admired and applauded for their tenacity and awareness, and it is certain they are blessed and thanked by Mother Earth.

Friday September 22nd This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be celebrating the Autumn Equinox. There are 8 Celtic Festivals, which include the two Solstices, two Equinoxes and the four cross quarter days that span those four festivals. Autumn Equinox is celebrated around September 21st and is a celebration of Thanksgiving. We traditionally celebrate Harvest Festival in schools and churches throughout  the Northern Hemisphere. At this time day and night are in perfect balance all over the world, bringing a sense of balance and harmony to our lives. From now on the days will shorten and become colder, so it is a time to stop and adjust to a major change point in the earth’s energy. All of nature is involved in responding to this change, and we too need to respond to the outer changes by making appropriate inner changes ourselves. This is also a time for reconciling opposites, dark/light; female/male; old/young, a time to honor and celebrate the whole of life and our place on the Earth. So lets share our gratitude and thanksgiving as we listen to Earth Mother and get any tips for how best to use this sacred time.

Friday September 15th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the magic of letting life unfold in its own way. Recently, wondering about the beginnings of the magical experience of Earth Listening that has unfolded over the last three years, it became apparent that some of the most beautiful experiences we have in life seem to grow and develop organically with little or no effort from us. In no way could we have predicted the possibility of this ongoing delightful experience which has become Earth Listening for everyone of us who experience this phenomenon each week. Some people drop away and others join us, bringing their own personal and life enhancing experiences that enable our circle to continue to evolve and grow and blossom just as happens to all natural systems, under the loving guidance of Mother Earth.What a joy to experience this sense of flow as we stop working so hard and attempting to control everything, allowing Mother Earth to become our role model and teacher.

Friday September 8th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be working with the concept of Listening FOR…. Usually when we listen, we are listening TO something or someone. But last week the idea of listening FOR was brought to my attention. Maybe when we listen TO, we have an expectation of what is coming, listening mainly to the actual words, rather than listening for the meaning, the truth of what we are hearing. When we listen FOR what Mother Earth is wanting to communicate with us it could help to put us into a more relaxed, receptive and nonjudgmental state of mind. There is a lack of expectation as the term implies we have absolutely no concept about what we might receive…if indeed we receive anything at all, which is also totally acceptable. But as those in this circle know, even if we might not receive anything, someone in the group is going to have had an experience that totally speaks to our soul. 

Friday September 1st This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be asking what Mother Earth wants to share with us. Usually we approach our Earth Listening sessions from the place of having a question for Her, or at least having a topic we want to share with Her. Following some inner work, a small group of friends of mine have been working with recently, it appears sometimes Mother Earth is calling us and a particular place wants us to visit or revisit it, because it has something it wants to share with us. It seems that if we are often drawn to the same place in our imagination when we do an Earth Listening session either with others or alone, then maybe this place really has something it wants to share with us. As we become more open to having interactive totally two way conversations with Mother Earth on a regular basis just as we do with a close friend, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised when we feel a place we know and love coming to us in dreams or calling to us in a quiet moment. Mother Earth is a Sentient Being and therefore may enjoy our conversations with Her as much as we do.

Friday August 25th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be working with creatively responding to difficult parts of ourselves. Last week we looked at creatively responding to difficult situations outside ourselves, but what happens when the difficult situation arises within ourselves? And then the blame game runs out of steam, and we may be at a loss as to how to respond. However when we sit with and listen to Mother Earth and any of her sacred beings, we get the sense of sinking down into our bodies, into our deepest and wisest True Self and watching how She responds to the difficulties She faces. From this place of connection and belonging we can become curious and compassionate towards the difficult part and start a dialogue with it. We may be surprised to find it has something very important to tell us that can in fact greatly enhance our lives and maybe even the lives of those around us. Mother Earth truly is our greatest teacher and role model when we take time to really listen.

Friday July 28th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be working with the energy of Lammas, the cross quarter day that falls halfway between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox, and is traditionally celebrated on August 2^nd. It is a celebration of the Harvest Mother, a Fire Festival and Feast, where fires were lit on Earth Mounds, like Silbury Hill in southern England, near to the Stone Circle of Avebury. The first fruits and grains were offered to the Earth Mother, and people drank cider or beer to celebrate the Essence of Germination. It is a time when the male energy is symbolically sacrificed back into the land when the grain is reaped, so the Feminine can be renewed. As the harvest is gathered in, it is the time to lay in store what we have reaped for the time of scarcity that lies ahead. So what are we harvesting in our own evolving consciousness that will provide for us and nourish us in the more bleak times ahead? Let’s thank Mother Earth for her plentiful harvest and experience gratitude and appreciation for all we have been given.

Friday July 21st This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be working with the idea of Being Here Now. Many years ago one of my early teachers, Ram Dass wrote a book called “Be Here Now”, which l still have a very ragged copy of on my bookshelf. As a psychiatrist prior to becoming a spiritual teacher he was in a very good position to see with his own eyes the devastation caused to folks by constantly striving to be or have something different from what they were actually experiencing in the moment. By always wishing we were somewhere other than we are right now, or constantly living in either the past or the future we miss the wonder of being here now. Last week we looked at the spontaneous joy that arises when we are in nature, listening to Mother Earth. So this week let’s open even more to being able to experience this joy by watching and listening to the very best teacher we could ever have, Mother Earth.

Friday July 14^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the idea that  Mother Earth wants to share her joy with us. Listening to James Twyman, Peace Troubadour during the Mystics Summit last weekend where as a Christian priest he is talking of the most profound spiritual experience he has ever had was when he took psilocybin mushrooms in a therapeutic setting recently. His interview reminded me of an experience I had many years ago where a friend and l were in a grass field in September looking for magic mushrooms and the more we found and ate the more they waved to us from other parts of the field as if they were calling to us, wanting to attract our attention in order to share their plant medicine with us, and bring us the immense joy they were feeling as part of our Earth Mother’s radiant love for us. When we listen to James and others researching the restorative powers of plant medicine we are reminded of this deep and lasting joy that pervades the universe and is so wanting to share this joy with us. So let’s listen deeply in our Circle to feel and share some of this joy.

Friday July 7^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the sweet smell of success. Every morning for the last few weeks the amazing gift of the sweet smell of honeysuckle, roses, sweet peas and geraniums fill my nostrils as l step outside in the early morning to greet my very best friend….Mother Earth. I experience such a joy at being given this gift so magnanimously and gracefully repeatedly throughout these summer months, that l have come to wonder if this is the definition of a successful life. In the world most people live in, to describe their life as successful ….when as an elder they live in a small rented bungalow and own very little ….could be described as delusional. But the joy that flows from my beautiful little garden, the backdrop of the Sacred Malvern Hills and the myriad of birds, bees and insects, flowers, trees, shrubs and vegetables that share this space with me, couldn’t be greater if l was a billionaire. So let’s enjoy and share the gifts that we are given freely by Mother Earth, basking in this very successful relationship that truly is our birthright.

Friday June 30th  This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at what makes somewhere feel like home. A few weeks ago we mentioned that sense of naturally letting out a long, slow, deep breath when we find ourselves walking in a part of nature that we know and love, or when we return home after being away. When a friend moves house after a month or two we ask them if their new house feels like home yet? So what is this feeling that we describe as feeling at home? And is there anything we can do to help ourselves have this feeling more often? Clearly it is good for us. Our breathing and heart rate slow down, we start to relax and our mind stops racing around. For those of us who make Earth Listening a habit, we know that when we listen to Mother Earth, we literally start to feel at home. So let’s try to spend more time in this state of connection and home coming as we face our future.

Friday June 23rd This week, our Earth Listening Circle we will be marking the Summer Solstice traditionally celebrated on the 21st June which is the Festival of Attainment.  It is the time when we celebrate the longest day and shortest night. In ancient times, before we had clocks, the time of year was marked by the direct position of where the sun rose at ancient monuments like Stonehenge, so people congregated here to welcome the solstice sunrise. The sun is at the height of its power, and so are we!  We reflect on what we have attained this year, and what is still left to be done. It's a time to celebrate our aliveness and the fact that we are free to choose how we respond to the changes life brings. It is a time to reflect on and express to each other our hopes and intentions, and to be clear about what we want to achieve while the energy is high. It is the turning point of the year and from now on the days will start to shorten, so it is essential we accept that change is inevitable and welcome it. So let’s listen to Mother Earth, becoming aware of how She approaches change, and be willing to adapt to change as graciously and elegantly as She does.

Friday June 16th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be connecting with places on Earth that are wounded and giving them our loving attention. As we do this, we will be collaborating with the energy of the Global Earth Exchange which is going on this week, organized by Radical Joy for Hard Times. RadJoy is a worldwide community of people  dedicated to bringing meaning, beauty, and value to places that have been damaged by human or natural acts. This is what Radical Joy says about the act of connecting with wounded places on Earth: As we connect, we open to a willingness to face the sorrow we feel when the places we care about have been hurt and to respond not by turning our backs but by boldly stepping forth to spend time with these places and offer them gifts of love and gratitude for all they have given to us. We believe that in these troubling times, taking care of the places where we live in the present, even as we work for a better future is an essential tool for survival. Listening to the land and to one another, we discover a new sense of belonging. We gain the courage to go through hard times, for we see that it is always possible to give beauty and kindness. We recognize that all places, like all people, have inherent value. We discover that, although we may disagree with our neighbors about some things, we share a deep and abiding love of place. We understand that we are all connected in the common ground beneath our hearts.

Friday June 9th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be working with the idea of allowing. Last week, during our discussion on spaciousness, the idea of allowing came up. We saw how the more spaciousness we have in our own minds, the more we are enabled to embrace what is, and life starts to flow more easily. So taking this idea even further, we can see how Mother Earth is a wonderful teacher when it comes to allowing things to be the way they are, and not putting up unnecessary resistance, that only blacks the flow of joyful spontaneity. As we learn to allow life to unfold exactly as it is doing, being willing to take the apparent setbacks and turn them into something positive, we too can reconnect to that same flow of joyful spontaneity and the light starts to return to our lives.

Friday June 2nd This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be working with the idea of spaciousness. When life is stressful we can easily find ourselves closing in on ourselves, allowing our mind and feelings to become tight, reduced to familiar ways of reacting to life, maybe behaving in ways that became familiar to us in our teens, when we automatically reacted against our circumstances. However invariably as we mature we find these familiar patterns have become restrictive and we long to stretch out, finding a more spacious, open, welcoming response to life’s ups and downs. Let’s look to Mother Earth this week as our teacher and guide who can lead us into a more relaxed, open-minded, welcoming sense of spaciousness, beauty, acceptance and peace.

Friday May 26th This week in our Earth Listening Circle was will be looking at Reflections and the need to periodically take time out to reflect on our life and how we are feeling about the direction we seem to be going in. But it occurred to me to ask ourselves what lens are we reflecting through? My favourite singer/ song writer of all time was Dory Previn and one of her albums was entitled “Reflections in a Mud Puddle”. If we stare at our reflection in a muddy puddle it will look somewhat different than if we look at our reflection through a pristine clear, still lake. So sometimes it may be good to take time out to reflect on what we are reflecting through. Is it our same old business as usual mind set, or our reactive, hurt, disappointed lens we have carried since childhood or the clear, sparkling, spiritually infused lens of our True Self? Let’s listen to what comes up for us when we reflect on Mother Earth and Her innate clarity this week, allowing Her perspective to help clear the lens through which we reflect.

Friday May 19th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at what Beauty means to us. In the western world of thought dominated culture, beauty has come to mean the opposite of ugliness, good rather than bad, preferred rather than opposed. But when we look at Mother Earth and her concept of beauty we are given a much broader concept and meaning. At this time of year when all of nature is coming alive, vibrant, verdant, abundant, the joyous sound of birdsong fills the air, and we feel our spirits uplifted and easily burst into song too. But when we take a closer look, we begin to see that there is also beauty in the time of year when the fruits have ripened and dropped from the trees, when nature goes into its dying and death phase, it’s resting time before the renewal of the following spring. Maybe we can lift our sights beyond the merely physical beauty we see around us right now, to the inner beauty and wholeness of the cycle of life.

Friday May 12th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the idea of sacred timing. Have you ever struggled to achieve something that you really wanted, putting in so much effort and really willing it to succeed….only to find it hasn’t worked after all? Then some time later to suddenly realise that whatever it was you wanted has suddenly appeared in your life without any effort from you at all? This could be down to sacred timing. The ways of humankind are not necessarily the ways of Mother Earth, nor yet the ways of Great Spirit. It seems when we are struggling to achieve something and we don’t seem to be getting anywhere…in fact it feels like we are moving through treacle, everything is sticking, and there is no flow… that may be a case of us not listening to sacred timing. Maybe we could spend time in nature and listen to what Mother Earth has to say about what we are trying to achieve, and it may simply be that the time isn’t quite right yet.

Friday May 5th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be celebrating  Beltane, the Celtic Fire Festival, midway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It was a time when Pagan folks  celebrated the marriage of the Earth Goddess and the Horned God….or in a different language, the coming together in joy and harmony of our right and left brain hemispheres…or the interplay and balance between the yin and the yang in each of us, as well as the harmonious relationship between men and women. It is traditionally celebrated on May Day, and is relevant throughout the month of May, where folks would use “ the wearing of the green” in honour of Mother Earth who displays her beautiful green apparel for us all to see. It is a time of joy, dancing, fun and laughter….so desperately needed by Mother Earth and all of her Sacred Beings at this time.

Friday April 28th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be working with what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls The Sacred Bond. She says “ Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a Sacred Bond”. We often speak in our Circle of this two way relationship that so many of us feel we share with Mother Earth, but to elevate it to the level of becoming a sacred bond…well that opens up a whole new dimension to the relationship. Let’s ask Mother Earth how she feels about this new level of relating and what can she suggest we need to do to strengthen this bond between us.

Friday April 21st This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the idea of Mother Earth Medicine. A participant in our Lebanese Earth Listening Circle last week said “This is an experience that can not be explained. This is Mother Earth’s medicine for each of us, that we need so much”. This statement so resonated with me, and is such a beautiful way of describing our connection with Mother Earth that western so-called civilization has so lost. She is our home, our base, the source of our sustenance, our beloved friend and mentor, and definitely the provider of the medicine that humanity so desperately needs at this moment. And it seems so essential that we become willing to take the medicine we are given, to open to hear what this medicine has come to show us, and how by listening to Mother Earth maybe we can start to heal our severed relationship with our Mother and each other.

Friday April 14th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the concept of enlightenment. A friend recently suggested to me that this time of year can be seen as a time of enlightenment, because each day there is more light available for us to use, enjoy and benefit from. What does that word conjure up for us? Is it the idea of some remote guru who has all the answers, or a library full of books that we are encouraged to digest in the belief that other peoples words are what need? It doesn’t seem to me that the trees feel the need to copy others, or think that they need something other than what they already are in their essence. Maybe we can listen to Mother Earth and see what simply being with Her shows us about the concept of enlightenment, as we relax into this beautiful time of year, absorbing the extra light that is now available to us. 

Friday April 7th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at what the Christian celebration of Easter and especially the implications of Good Friday mean to us. As with most Christian festivals they have been originally positioned at a sacred time in the Celtic wheel of the year celebrations. The word Easter comes from Oestra, the goddess of light, fertility, spring and the name comes from the word Oestrus, the fertile time in an animal’s sexual cycle. The Christians believe Jesus was crucified in order to bring new life to humanity, to change the old view of an eye for an eye, to a new more inclusive and loving world view. So whether we choose to celebrate this time of year from either a Christian perspective, or an Earth perspective or indeed from both, let’s welcome the ending of the harshness of winter and restrictions and embrace the new life, light and opportunities that come with the spring and Easter.

Friday March 31st This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be connecting to an indigenous perspective. We will be breaking with our usual routine and by way of introducing our meditation time, we will listen to the words of LylaJune, the young indigenous scholar, daughter of Pat McCabe “Woman Stands Shining” Dine Elder and wise woman. Here is a young woman raised to not only listen to Mother Earth, but to know on a deep and intimate level her connection with and responsibility to Mother Earth. It is so heart warming to listen to these words and to know how she and her mother have started the ball rolling to buy back their Sacred Mountain, the home of their tribe going back millennia so they can once again work with the land to restore the thriving life paradigm, allowing all of life to thrive.

Friday March 24th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at our growing awareness of the importance of sharing our Earth Listening experiences with others. Prompted by our excitement at starting to develop our very own Earth Listening website, we are becoming aware of the need to spread these discussions far and wide. If we have benefitted from this Circle over the last few years (which we all realize we have) then maybe we need to give something back to Mother Earth to show our gratitude. This week we will be listening to hear in what way we can spread the word about how this listening process benefits not only ourselves, but Mother Earth herself. She so longs to be heard, seen, listened to …if ever we are to right some of the wrongs that we have done to Her. So as spring starts to breaks through maybe this is a good time to answer Her call.

Friday March 17^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be connecting with the ending of winter and opening to embrace the Spring Equinox, traditionally celebrated on March 21st. This time of year is traditionally celebrated as The Festival of Awakening. Day and Night are of equal length all over the world, the light is beginning to grow. It is a time of balance in the natural world, so are we able to awaken to a sense of resilience and balance within our own being? Can we become the ones who steady ourselves, connecting deeply with the natural world around us, holding the world and all sentient beings in balance, and sending out light and love to all who need it? Last week we were discussing the healing nature of the Cedar Tree. My research has produced the information that Cedar spiritually represents endurance, eternal life and immortality. Maybe we can use this awareness to look at the qualities that endure and are eternal, literally immortal like the qualities Mother Earth demonstrates when we listen deeply to Her.

Friday March 10^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the idea of rebirth and renewal. This inspiration was prompted by finding a pleasant surprise in my garden this morning. A tree surgeon had come to look at my dead mimosa tree in order to remove it, and l also asked him to look at a once beautiful shrub next to it that had prematurely lost its leaves in the excessive heat last summer and l feared was also dead. Fighting his way through the  mini jungle at the bottom of my garden, he discovered one branch was coming into bud, implying the shrub was still partly alive. I was so delighted, it reminded me of how Mother Earth is full of surprises. There is nothing predictable, linear or regimented in nature…instead there is a wonderful surprise element waiting around every corner. Maybe we could listen to our local patch of Mother Earth to see what message she carries for us about rebirth and renewal. 

Friday March 3^rd This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the concept of presence. I was just listening to a meditation on presence and was reminded how much of our life is spent thinking about our life, rather than actually living it. When we filter everything through our mind we are one step removed from the world around us, from our relationships, our own bodies and how we are really feeling. It is sometimes so much easier to tell ourselves how we are feeling…or should be feeling ..rather than asking ourselves how we are actually feeling…then listening to the answer. So as we are all learning how to listen to Mother Earth in this online circle, maybe we can take this skill of deep listening in to becoming more present to ourselves. Bringing this level of presence to our own bodies, feeling, mind and intuition will enable us in turn to become more present to all those we meet as well as our beloved home, this planet, Mother Earth herself.

Friday Feb 24^th In our Earth Listening Circle this week we can be inspired by the question As l face collapse of our culture, what am l grateful for? This was the response of Joanna Macy this week to a question in her interview with Jem Bendell, the professor of sustainability whose article several years ago prompted the founding of Deep Adaptation. It is a superb interview because it brings out the point that climate change, species extinction, human conflict, soil degradation and all the rest of our current problems all come from mistaken human thinking…the fact that we have lost our way in the great scheme of things, falsely believing ourselves to be separate from and superior to the other sentient beings and to Mother Earth herself. So this question is a wonderful place to start…and in listening to Mother Earth maybe we can start to realize what blessings Mother Earth continues to shower us with, and allow this humility to return us to a sense being a part of the whole.

Friday Feb 17^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be attempting to run an Agenda-less meditation and discussion. Some weeks ago we decided to ask Mother Earth what She means by the term Earth Listening? Previously for some time we had been asking Her what steps She is suggesting we take in order to help our predicament. But we were wondering if maybe it’s not about what we are meant to be doing but more about what She wants to tell us. What does She want us to listen to? What is the Story She wants us to hear? So taking this theme still further, by having a totally agenda- less session we can simply become the open receptacle ready to receive whatever wants to be communicated with us. Let’s see how it goes!

Friday Feb 10^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at using our Earth Listening skills in a wider context. We already know how personally beneficial these Earth Listening sessions have become for our regulars, but are wondering could these benefits be extended beyond the personal? In what way could our relationships, our working lives, and our community be enhanced by the ideas and experiences we gain from this sacred practice? And most importantly in what way could Mother Earth be included in the beneficiary element of these Earth Listening skills? Let’s open our hearts to where this practice could lead us for the benefit of all?

Friday February 3^rd This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at Balance in Nature. Usually at this time of year it is often seen as a very joyful time with buds appearing and the birds starting to sing again, but this year for many of us we are reminded that as one living being is growing another one is dying. There is no such thing as constant growth. Flourishing and expanding goes hand in hand with slowing down and dying. For many of us we are aware of someone we know who is dying while someone else is giving birth…the sense of celebration and festivities feel dampened down by the presence of death and decay. Let’s listen this week to how Mother Earth deals with the balance between the new beginnings showing themselves at this time of year and the death and decay which we see only too clearly in our gardens and parks.

Fri Jan 27^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the meaning of the Celtic celebration of Imbolc, traditionally celebrated on February 2nd each year. It is the Festival of Renewal and New Beginnings, when the Celts celebrated Brigit or Bride, the Triple Goddess of poetry, smith craft and healing. It was a festival sacred to women as Imbolc means ewe’s milk, and there is an abundance of animal mother’s milk available so it is the perfect time to connect with our Earth Mother, thanking her for her continued bounty. The light is beginning to grow, buds are beginning to appear on the trees and the snowdrops are gallantly pushing their beautiful faces up through the cold dark soil. It is a time for planting ideas and leaving them to germinate just as the seeds are germinating, so our meditation will encourage us to sit still in nature and feel the stirrings of the earth and our oneness with the Earth and each other. What does Mother Earth want us to hear and respond to at this magical time of year?

Friday January 20^th This week we will be asking Mother Earth what She means by the term Earth Listening? In the last few sessions we have been asking Her what steps She is suggesting we take in order to help our predicament. But Sasha and l have been discussing that maybe it’s not about what we are meant to be doing but more about what She wants to tell us. What does She want us to listen to? What is the Story She wants us to hear. Sasha has sent me a link to an article by Theodore Roszak which he wrote more than twenty years ago, speaking of the need to listen to “the voice of the earth expressing its own pain through our seemingly unrelated woes”. It was the voice of the ocean that alerted me to how Mother Earth was feeling several years ago and that direct experience led me to connect with Sasha and for us to start this ongoing study group. So we felt maybe it’s time to once again ask Her what She wants us to listen to.

Friday Jan 13^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the concept of sharing. A colleague of mine in our local Climate Emergency Centre put me in touch with an UK organisation that sends you up to 10 packets of seeds for only the cost of posting. I was intrigued and sent off for my free seeds. The return email said this “We can only give seed away because people who have received seed from us save seeds from some of the plants they grow and return it to us to give away next year. Please consider doing this with us”. I was totally overwhelmed with the beauty and simplicity of this system…and it got me pondering on the amazing example Mother Earth gives to us in the way she shares everything she has with us….we don’t even have to pay postage.

Friday January 6^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be concentrating on the little steps needed at the beginning of something new. When we look at how Mother Earth faces the start of something we notice what little steps She takes. It is several days after the Winter Solstice before we start to notice a tiny change in the time of the sunset. Here in the UK it only changes by at first a half a minute, then a whole minute but is very slow and hardly noticeable for the first few weeks after the Solstice. And the sunrise takes much longer to start it’s slow and steady climb out of the long winter nights. Maybe we need to consider how to also concentrate on the little steps that we need to take to help bring humanity out of its “dark night of the soul” period that we have been enduring for so many years and into the light of love, truth, caring, compassion and a recognition of the sacred in everything and everyone.

Friday Jan 13^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be looking at the concept of sharing. A colleague of mine in our local Climate Emergency Centre put me in touch with an UK organization that sends you up to 10 packets of seeds for only the cost of posting. I was intrigued and sent off for my free seeds. The return email said this “We can only give seed away because people who have received seed from us save seeds from some of the plants they grow and return it to us to give away next year. Please consider doing this with us”. I was totally overwhelmed with the beauty and simplicity of this system…and it got me pondering on the amazing example Mother Earth gives to us in the way she shares everything she has with us….we don’t even have to pay postage.

Friday January 6^th This week in our Earth Listening Circle we will be concentrating on the little steps needed at the beginning of something new. When we look at how Mother Earth faces the start of something we notice what little steps She takes. It is several days after the Winter Solstice before we start to notice a tiny change in the time of the sunset. Here in the UK it only changes by at first a half a minute, then a whole minute but is very slow and hardly noticeable for the first few weeks after the Solstice. And the sunrise takes much longer to start it’s slow and steady climb out of the long winter nights. Maybe we need to consider how to also concentrate on the little steps that we need to take to help bring humanity out of its “dark night of the soul” period that we have been enduring for so many years and into the light of love, truth, caring, compassion and a recognition of the sacred in everything and everyone.