The Gathering

I have a new friend, someone I met when she took on the work of live-in carer for my father. As we’ve spent time together, we’ve found we get on pretty well. She’s a couple of years younger than me and - for the astrologers out there - we share a Taurus sun and a Gemini moon. If we’d been at school together, we would have been those two at the back laughing our heads off and passing messages. Instead, we do it while we look after my dad and try not to be too annoying for him. I have to tell you that laughter is precious in these circumstances. I am so grateful for her presence in our lives.

Over the last year she’s got to know my dad and his irregular rhythms. She knows that in the mornings, he’ll sit on the side of his bed and just be quiet for 20 minutes. She says he is “gathering himself”. This is such a beautiful concept when applied to someone whose thoughts and memories are slowly being set free to return to the One Consciousness. Each day, he loses the ability to call back a few more of them, but still he gathers himself. His Self.

I have 48 hours-ish when I don’t need to be there. Time. Time to walk in the sunshine, talk to my favourite trees, see the return of the plants who contributed flowers to my little home apothecary last year, breathe in the scent of the earth and gather my Self.

As I did this today, I remembered who I am when I’m just me. I remembered that I have hopes and dreams that are still achievable. That I have a vision for how I want my next decade to go and I am ready to bring it into the physical realm. Make it real. I may have to wait a little while yet to make some of the big moves, but I can inch closer every day, even now.

This time last year I was just beginning a three month journey with Yarrow essence. It’s good for boundaries, I’d read, and I needed some. But rather than supporting me in policing some line that I didn’t want others to cross, it helped me to see how I could be a whole vessel. How I could stop leaking my wishes and hopes away. Stop dropping them, forgetting them, handing them to others. I could be a strong vessel that held all those precious things I’d gathered, ready to share any overflow. It took me by surprise, enchanted me, and after three months I thought I’d made a permanent adjustment.

Er, no.

I think Yarrow may be my signature essence that I should just take every day for ever.

Certainly, I’m loving the vision of a beautiful, rustic bowl. A scrying bowl almost, with swirling images of Future Me and my life (although we know time is layered, right? And the future is also now). Taking a few minutes every day for gathering myself, and embodying the vessel, feels like manifesting to me. Energy work at the foundational point. I recommend it.