When Spirit Guides You…

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”

Rumi

Hello, Lovelies.

I’ve been in Sedona for the past week. It was never part of my original plan for coming to America. I was going to Scottsdale to a conference, and then to New York to stay with a dear friend.

Instead, my team member Christi (who lives in Seattle) and I hired a car and came to Sedona.

I felt compelled to be here.

When we went to collect our small economy hire car the only one they had for us was a gigantic four x four truck (or ute for all of us Australians). That turned out to be useful, because we have been driving in and out of national parks and along backroads. Thank you, Universe.

As we were planning our Sedona trip, not really knowing what we were planning, I realised I had all of the crystals my Aboriginal Aunties had given me for songline repair and portal work – the kind of work that women do quietly and privately, going out into the bush to meditate and do the energy work that was taught to them by their own grandmothers and aunts. These old Aboriginal women had told me that one day I would walk the world to do this work in the spirit of my own Ancestral lineage, and with the support of their teaching which had healed my own broken links to my wise ancestors. They told me that some of the tools they were giving me would go to others who needed them, and I would know when it was right to gift them forward.

Of course, I was in my twenties back then, and it all felt like a fairytale, and I was sure it would never come true. I thought I would go back to my old life in corporate Australia, and all of that fairytale would be put behind me, an anomaly in my timeline. But then, in the city, I met other old Aboriginal women who still did that same work – driving our vast country to places where no elders remained to do the singing, and then doing the work that was needed, because they could, and because they cared so deeply for the earth and all upon her.

They looked like ordinary old women, all of these women. Middle-aged or more. In shabby clothes, driving beat-up cars. People who drew no attention to themselves. Mothers, grandmothers, retirees, pensioners, school teachers, cleaners. Out they went into the bush, carrying their sacred tools in plastic shopping bags or vast handbags slung over their shoulders. Sometimes, I was privileged enough to go with them.

So, here I am in America, feeling called to go to Sedona. It makes no sense. I don’t know why I am going there. It costs money to hire the car, to book the hotel rooms, to pay for our meals – and I have no plan. Just a deep knowing.

We will wing it, I tell Christi.

Okay, boss, she says in her reassuring American accent.

And so we found ourselves standing in a Vortex in Sedona…

I called on the Spirit of the land, the Elders and Ancestors, I asked permission to be there, acknowledged the Traditional Custodians of country, and then waited.

Our answer came. Yes. Do the work. And help the work flow to more people. So, once again I called on the Ancestors and Elders as I have been shown, and I asked that, if it was appropriate for me to do this work, could we be directed where to go?

And we were.

I connected with my students and community online. They stepped forward to become part of a world-wide meditation and energy healing practice. They gave lovingly of their own time and energy, and came with hearts ready to help and serve in any way they could. Thank you, all of you, for you have been a huge part of this journey.

Without maps, and with no local knowledge at all, Christi and I found the broken songline deep in a national park, we found the springfed headwaters of a river, we found an ancient tree on a gridline with a direct access to the portal below Sedona. We found it all, easily, and in the correct order. Just by tuning in to our guiding feelings, and the physical sensations in our bodies.

More than that, I had brought sacred tools and stones all the way from Australia. Not knowing why. Nearly four kilograms of stones and tools in my suitcase. I transferred them all to my handbag.

Christi and I were two middle-aged women, dressed completely inappropriately for hiking, walking into these nature reserves and me with a vast handbag full of sacred tools slung over my shoulder.

All week we found the right spots, we sat on the ground, we meditated and I did my work, and then we would finish and wait to see what was required next. Every time we found the place we needed to find, easily. Directed by Spirit. And there was always one place left, where we could park our car.

The work, at times, has been brutal. Not all meditation is gentle and restorative. But we were glad to do it, and it has been so very worthwhile. Deeply fulfilling on a personal and soul level too.

And how did it look to all the hikers and mountain-bikers who passed us as we worked? Like two crazy old ladies, sitting in the dirt, meditating, surrounded by rocks.

I am totally okay with that, because that’s pretty much how it was.

It’s pretty much how it is. I spend a lot of time, unseen and unnoticed, back in Australia, doing what my Aunties showed me all those years ago. Sitting in the dirt, singing up songlines.

On this trip we met other people, who also do sacred work, and who had a direct connection to a group of Indigenous Elders and Tribespeople at a portal in another country, who had called for tools for working with the Great Mother. I had those stones and sacred tools, and I was able to gift them on, just as my indigenous Aunties had known and predicted 25 years ago.

Patience, Nicole. Patience.

Why am I sharing this story?

Two reasons.

Firstly, because it’s a story that belongs to us all. When we are open-hearted, when we trust, and come from a place of love and service, and when we surrender to the Universe, we are ALWAYS guided. Our job is merely to move our doubting mind and ego out of the way so that we can act on that guidance. Universal Guidance is strong right now. Tune in. Trust. Act. Know it will be okay, or so much better than okay. It’s important to do the work you are called to do, just because you are called, and without expectation of ever receiving anything in return except learning or satisfaction.

Secondly, because I have been born into white privilege. I am of a tribe of people who lost their soul knowing, their ancestral knowing, their generational knowing – and who replaced it with book learning, commerce, institutions, experts and disconnect from the natural world. That world has its place too. Science and the Arts have brought great gifts to the world. But somewhere along the way, we have lost connection to the deeper cultural wisdom that lies within all of us – those values of looking after each other, valuing each other, and looking after and valuing the earth as more than just a resource to be exploited in the pursuit of wealth. We have devalued tribal and traditional wisdom in all cultures as being somehow less than the knowledge that has been accumulated in academic, educational, religious and commercial institutions.

It was only because of the wisdom, kindness and eternal patience of a group of elderly Aboriginal women, whom my world judged as being worthless, that I was reconnected with my own spirit, my own ancestral lineage, my own purpose at the time of my spiritual awakening, and that this Sedona trip’s magic has unfolded in the way that it has.

There is so much continuous unbroken wisdom, or at least fragments of that ancient wisdom, that still resides within our indigenous communities. They are the ones who hold answers we have lost or forgotten, about how to care for the land, and each other. I want to honour that, to acknowledge that, and to ask that whoever you are, and wherever you might be, that you lean in to those elders and communities, spend time with them and support them in ways appropriate to you. Or at the very least, stop judging them, as I had done, through the lens of white privilege and our modern system of politics, education, social class and religion. They hold an important part of the puzzle of being successfully human and living in harmony with nature. We all hold parts of the puzzle, and all of us are needed now, as the planet and humanity face great change and crisis.

2020 is a year of stepping forward in a new way, of creating new approaches to solving old problems.

If you’re called, let Spirit guide you. Tune in. Trust. And be yourself.

That’s where the magic happens.

It can happen that way for all of us.

Love, dusty sparkles and cactus blooms, Nicole xx