Caves and Wheels

I am in one of my cafe haunts on Byres Road writing the intro material for Wheel 2 and the next bits of literature for Cave and Drum. I have been thinking about what the theme of the last few months has been for me. Well, this time has undoubtedly been influenced by Saturn who has been showing up with great force in my Saturn return year revealing all kinds of illusions; opening my eyes to the truth of many things I couldn't see so clearly before. I am lucky to be travelling through the wheel of the year with a few other people studying Saturn's antics and this has made everything so much easier. And this fact actually leads me into what the theme of this year is. It is community!

My early guidance was always that the path for me was drawing community together. It's kind of ironic because I live with my cat and love being free to be alone to day dream and create! But then, similarly there is a circular force that weaves through that just wants to gather people together to play and create a better world. It is a creative force that seems to have a mind of its own but really it is who I am when I am not so convinced that I am separate. I often sense myself as an earth bound body that is part of a wider invisible entourage. Once when the lights went out on this world, another realm revealed itself and there they all were staring at me. Well, I was utterly terrified and asked that never to happen again. I sense them all of the time though and know the truth that people are multidimensional beings, a plane of conscious engineers inside a wider system. The circular force that wants to gather people to play and create a better world together is what we bring to us when we are more than one person. It is a force that is the spirit of co-creation and love in action. It is contagious and it brings joy and healing. Sometimes it uncovers tricky stuff because it can expose what is stuck and hidden for healing first in order to bring us together, but it works in the name of kindness and bliss. In my role as a shamanic operator and space holder, I am constantly taking delight in the way this force works to bring me together with people and create great beauty.

Years ago I left the art world. I couldn't find my place in it anymore. I couldn't find a language that explained my understanding of art as a communicating spirit. I became an art exile. I worked instead in a different guise as a researcher of shamanism and visionary ways exploring this creative force which actually feels closer to what art is. Today I work within the arts as a filmmaker. It allows me to work as a creative unit, working to ignite creative spirit through story. I still wonder at the focus being more on the serious issue of making films rather than the joy of finding the wonder of this creative force.

Community brings the greatest fun and wonder. I have always loved being an artist and finding others who want to be creative and make things happen. Equally I love the shamanic community who will always be game to dress up as animals, shake rattles, dance, sing and journey deep into the imaginal realms in order to draw wisdom and inspiration from the creative forces. Regularly it hits me that I would die of toxic overload and meaninglessness if it weren't for the joy and purposefulness of my work with circles of people both online and in person. Similarly in filmmaking I watch actors shape shift and bring stories alive, make up artists and costume designers conjure alive all kinds of forms, musicians take us deep into trance and tap open the emotional realms and the skills of the sound-recorders and camera operators capture story like magicians ready to hand over to the magic of the edit.

The power of creative community is inspirational. Lets join the dots with caves and wheels as the title. This summer, I was really lucky to have three days filming in the caves on Arran and experience community working together with ritual and focus, perhaps in a resonant way to the ancestors who would have gathered cave painting and story telling around the fire. At the same time I am writing a six month course about caves and drums and beginning to understand my embodied relationship with stone, earth and the power of sound in a way that feels like a remembering of deeper experiences of community etched into my soul. A way that is led by the creative spirit.

With wheel, well Wheel the course and later book, was my first ever experience of working with a gathered community of people to listen to and travel the cycle of time together. The birth of my son in 1999 had uncovered my need to anchor with the wheel of time in order to continue the experience of a conscious reconnection to the cosmos and the many realms that was a gift of his birth. The instrument to reconnect being the anchoring with the wheel of time was a knowing that went beyond words.

This knowing has just been recharged. The guidance to bring community together on the land has opened up the creation of Wheel 2. The circular force that weaves through and wants to gather people to play and create a better world together has been keeping me awake at night. Never in my life than at the present has the need been so strong for multi-dimensional and inclusion preferring circles to take their place on this land. In the midst of difficulties that I see playing out in the world right now, the wider invisible entourage stay positive and alert waiting for communities to come together and create beauty with them.

Well, I had better go back to the writing of these courses. I just felt compelled to write a blog post today and spread a bright and vital message and to connect with community

 Happy, resilient community building everyone!

All are welcome