The Dragonfly has been my spirit animal and guide for the last decade, and I chose to use it as the emblem for my holistic therapy business ~ Emerge Holistic. I wish to share a little more of myself and what this image means to me, which is in itself a medicine story…
For me this image is filled with the vibrant energy of life. I see delicacy, power and beauty as well as the symbiotic relationship with the natural world. I feel Salacia energy in the orbs of crystalline liquid light.
But what it represents to me above all is Transformation.
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Almost exactly a decade ago, I realised that I was not fully living. My life was constrained by anxiety, external expectations, isolation, unmet needs and unfulfilled dreams.
I had a bathroom floor moment.
I knew that I could not go on living a half life. There had to be more than this.
So I set out on a journey. Using intuition as my guide I charted a course towards an unknown future, but one that I knew was meant for me.
Shortly after said bathroom floor moment, I found myself at a women's circle where a wise woman invited us all to pick a card from the Earth Magic deck.
I picked the card of the Dragonfly and it's meaning was ‘You are in an intense process of emergence into the next cycle of your life.’
I went home and began a spiritual journal. On the first page I drew a picture of a lotus flower and a dragonfly. The Lotus flower card meaning unfoldment, appeared to me time and time again as I sat in this circle of wise women and each new moon I bared my soul and sifted through the muck in the base of my being that my flower may bloom again.
And so it did.
I look back at myself almost a decade later and I can see how far I have travelled, but it didn't happen overnight. It took many small steps, some mis-steps, the occasional re-route and most of all sheer determination to keep on going.
My quest led me to explore a unique blend of wellbeing and psychotherapeutic modalities targeting mind, body and spirit, many of which have deeply influenced my way of being in the world. As a spiritual seeker, I tenaciously sought out therapists, teachers, books and courses to help me to understand myself and the human condition.
My ultimate goal was to develop my capacity for intimacy and my ability to sustain a loving relationship that felt fulfilling.
I explored courses and teachings in a whole manner of things from Tantra, Person-Centred Counselling, Non-Violent Communication (NVC) and Evolutionary Relating to The Law of Attraction, Angelic support and guidance, Shamanism, Evolutionary Astrology and Crystal Healing. Along the way I learnt the vital importance of self-awareness, and having love and compassion for myself.
I learnt that self-care was not selfish.
On my journey I found Connection with myself. . . with nature. . . with others and with life force energy. I started living… and step by step my choices brought me into alignment with the life that was meant for me.
As time passed I noticed that seeing a Dragonfly was a sign that I was on the right track. They came to me in moments of doubt or moments of joy as if celebrating with me.
I spent three special years living in a Shepherd's hut that I named ‘Dragonfly's Rest.’ It was close to a mill pond, where I often whiled away an afternoon on my paddleboard drifting in the middle of the water. This was my crysallis of transformation.
During this time I even manifested a car wrapped in dragonfly print. Yeah That actually happened! I drove it for two years before letting it go because I felt too conspicuous everywhere I went and I just wasn’t ready yet, I was still in the chrysalis. The car was a gift from my father to console me after my beloved grandmother’s death. My father has always seen what I am capable of, but is often many steps ahead and at that time I just wasn’t ready to start the holistic therapy business I knew was coming down the track. I wasn't ready to emerge.
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Over the last few years I have transformed into a more empowered and authentic version of myself. I have started my client practice which has focused on offering tantra to men and working in this way with the wounded masculine has given me great insight in how to better support both male and female wellness and the different approaches needed.
Working for myself in this particular practice has been a challenge and I have dipped in and out of office jobs to give me a financial boost when things were tough. I couldn’t have got where I am now without the unconditional and non-judgmental support of my parents, always ready to give my bank account a little boost when things were really dire, without me having to ask. It has been a frugal decade both financially and sex and relationship wise and many times in the last couple of years I wondered what it was all for.
Many times I doubted myself and my teachers, sometimes thinking tantra and spirituality was a cult and just another way the world extorts money from the naive. I had invested a large inheritance and more in personal growth and professional training and my existence was still very much hand to mouth.
This year I decided enough was enough, I was going to go back into the mainstream world of work for perhaps 2 or 3 years to boost my finances to enable me to move to a new home that really felt like mine. I got a job for a pensions company.
It lasted 3 months. I simply could not adapt myself into that world anymore. As Charles said on the October broadcast, It didn’t feel good in my body. I no longer fitted in that world. I had a lot that I could offer the company in terms of my empathy and people skills but the position they put me in did not allow for me to use my gifts, it was like they simply couldn't see them. I was stifled and so I became sick. Whilst I was off I had a dream about an opportunity that was coming, one that I would narrowly miss out on if I was in a job.
I took some time off and on the day I returned to resume my pensions training, driving my usual route to work I was very close to the turning for the work car park when I was met with a road closed sign. No entry.
This is one of the ways the universe talks to me. I am a taurus and so need very clear and concrete signs. I did a long diversion to get to the car park and by the time I walked into the office I knew what I had to do. I spoke with my boss and over the course of a lovely conversation we came to an understanding that this would be my last day.
And so I returned to my tantra practice, clients came in abundance for a while and all was well. The first two months after leaving the pensions job I earned exactly the same figure as my salary. This was confirmation that I was on the right track.
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I began incorporating Charles’ principles of Sacred Economics into my work and was openly available for exchanges. One day a man came to me who was travelling in the area from Cornwall, he booked a session and I delivered it with love. Once we connected it became clear that he had a lot he could offer me on my path, he invited me to visit him in Cornwall and experience his land-based spiritual healing. I didn’t take any money for his session. Soon after, we began some virtual sessions that enabled me to heal some old psychological wounds that still festered, and I planned a trip to Cornwall as soon as the school holidays were over and flight prices reduced to a level that was affordable for me.
I could have made any number of excuses not to take this trip, both due to the cost of the flights and it taking time away from my client work not to mention that I barely knew the man. And yet this didn’t matter.
It just felt right.
The week before I was due to travel I was sitting in my garden drinking cacao and looking out over fields and I was visited by a Dragonfly. It landed directly on my left breast and stayed there for some 10 minutes.
I felt euphoric.
The following week I had a magical time in Cornwall, we visited stone circles, tintagel and spent time on the beautiful land he called home alongside the Camel estuary. I was enveloped in the lore of the land, and discovered a significant past life that tied me to the lands, to this man and to the work I had been practicing with clients. Coming together as two conscious people created a portal for information to come into our conscious awareness and I came to understand the origin of my current work as Celtic rather than tantric. My Cornish friend and I shared some massage exchanges it was like we had two halves of a book that was suddenly complete.
I connected with the holy wells and learnt how to support the female body to heal and regenerate.
I experienced for the first time how it feels to be supported by divine masculine energy.
I experienced a spiritual awakening.
I realise that I have all I need within me. I no longer need courses and external materials, although I trust that if I am drawn to a certain book or teacher it is going to hold an important message. But I now engage with this material in a different way, rather than trying to take in as much knowledge as possible I simply seek out information that can broaden and deepen the wisdom I hold within.
This was the opportunity I dreamed about... and best of all I didn't have to go to an expensive retreat centre. It literally came to me.
My communion with the dragonfly was a signal that my transformation is complete.
I am ready to Emerge.
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