Inner Guidance : my morning of following my inner voice

Sometimes we need to get really still and quiet to hear inner guidance, sometimes for me a message just comes through as an impulse to go somewhere or do something or open a book at a certain page. It has happened to me more times than I can count and today was one of those days, deeply wintery, gusty and cold, my dog Jasper was resisting all cues to go out for a walk so I got in the car to take myself out for a coffee and then I got some guidance to go to the bookshop and browse in the poetry section.

Well when I opened one of the books a small piece of paper the size of a post it note fell out and on it was a piece of writing about Being Still, I had collected about 6 different poetry books off the shelf to have browse through as well and at the same time came across a stunning collection of poems from a young aboriginal writer, Kirli Saunders, called Kindred. It was the front cover of the collection that first jumped out at me, on a turquoise blue background it shows two vibrant crimson wattle flowers over the top of which the title is written in white block capital letters.

I loved the poems I read, so I bought the book, then I went to get my lunch and read the first poem. It bought tears to my eyes as it was on the subject of mothers and is called Matriachs written about mothers who continue to pour out their love to children, often ending up being drained but always with the realisation they are giving to something far larger than themselves.

Reading the poems marked some poignant feelings for me too because I often feel in older age, mothers are not taken care of in the ways they often need to be and so many years of caring for others can empty them out. At the moment in Australia we have a Royal Commission underway into the practices and maltreatment in aged care and it is being found there is so much neglect of the elderly due to overstaffing that older people are suffering, there (often alone, but not always) abandoned by family who are just unable to care for them at home.

Anyway the other poem from the collection I really loved was this one :

UNBIND

Unbind your

seeking heart

cup it in open palms

turned to Father sky,

as offering

to Grandfather Sun

in gratitude with grace

to Grandmother Moon

with faith

allow spirit to guide you

with time worn map

of ancient passage

passed down

in spoken story

and walk softly here,

for you are an ear

to our ancestors,

and a mouth

to carry their song

they have readied you

guiding you all along.

I often feel I would fit in better to the aboriginal culture even though I am a whitey because I often feel such a strong connection to my ancestors and I love the personifications of Father Sky and Grandfather Sun . I was remembering recently a powerful dream I had in one of my earliest years of active sobriety, I happened upon an ancient dusty place where a circle of aboriginal women were performing a sacred ritual/dance. I was accepted into the centre of their circle of healing and I recall feeling in the dream a profound sense of homecoming and spiritual connection. So it is interesting to me that all the ancestral history would open up to me in later years of sobriety and often I do feel my ancestors speaking to me.

I recently had someone in a Facebook group tell me the ancestors can bind me down or hold me back, but I don’t always feel that way. I feel that it is important for us to become aware of our ancestral stories and it seems sad to me that so many of the elderly die with their stories all locked up or hidden under wraps inside of them. Maybe some of them lose their way to their stories in a modern world that has not one clue of what they have lived through.

Mum and Dad started to tell me their stories when I was quiet young. I used to love nights the projector would come out with showing of old slides of years gone by before the cosiness of our family ruptured and fractured in Dad’s quest for upward mobility. Sadly Dad died before he could tell me of much he endured throughout the war and as an airman freeing POWs from Indonesia in the aftermath, although I know he was held at gun point in the hangar one night by a Japanese soldier who ended up letting him go for some reason. In later years his best friend, my Godfather Piet Hos told me some of these stories. But in later years I often asked Mum for her retelling of her life and family stories and I feel sad now that I never honoured her request to one day write her story down. I often think it would make a gripping movie.

Anyway I am so glad I followed my inner guidance to the poetry section at the bookstore today. It was a lovely use of a stormy Friday. Winter winds have been wild and full of fury today and its very fresh presently but I will get my recalcitrant dog out soon for a walk and blow off some of the cobwebs. I will write out below some of the quote on Being Still that I found in that book today to finish this post. It really seemed to hold a powerful message for me today.

Just for a moment. Listen to the world around you. Feel your breath coming in and out. Listen to your thoughts. Be at peace with being still. In this modern world, activity and movement are the default modes, if not in our bodies, at least in our minds. We rush around all day, doing, doing, incessantly. We are always on, always connected, always thinking, always talking. There is no time for stillness. This comes at a cost…. try doing less each day. Breathe when you feel yourself moving too fast. Slow down. Be present. Find happiness now, in this moment, instead of waiting for it. Savour the stillness. It’s a treasure. It is always available to you. It is always within you.