Spellbound by Frederick George Cotman
Leaving the Grey Life Behind
Swan Lore Story
"The swans beak presses against the back of my heart, and her wings wrap around me. The child and the grandmother. My inner child and my wise woman. Fled in fear, destroyed and separated. Yet leaving messages to be understood down the path of time, to return home to this place of light. To shine. And work the magic of our lineage that can not be destroyed."
I believe that there are echoes of memory in our own DNA and spirit of the experiences and stories lived by our ancestors. Sometimes these memories are full of fear and guilt and at first they feel like they are part of our present experience but the more we journey with them we see how they are strange and irrational. We somehow know that they are part of us but do not belong to us.
Today I share Rachel's story of journeying with the Swan along her own ancestral line to uncover and release a chain of guilt and shame that has been buried deep in her ancestry. I'm so happy that the child and the grandmother - the inner child and wise woman can now play freely again. The knowledge of the plants and nature is part of Rachel's ancestral folklore and it can be shared and received as it was intended - as a wise and beautiful inheritance.
Swan Lore Story:
"I enter a restful peaceful forested glade. I approach a waterfall, which cascades into a deep glade. The water falls across my head and down my face. I am on my knees, gazing into the deep pool of water. I see the faces of two women. Both with stories to tell. Fading in and out of view. One as old as this place. With long white hair, and eyes full of wisdom. The other, a younger woman – I feel her fragility. Some nervousness. She wears a finely tailored dress of a servant, and is in her mid twenties. It is her that I receive.
I am in the basement of a Georgian/Victorian terrace home. It is the servant quarters. There is the smallest sliver of light coming through from a window to the city street above. It is here that I sleep and mend. Above is a family who I work for. I feel very alone and feel judged and avoided by other servants and domestics that I come into contact with. I am full of a sense of otherness, of escapism. I go to the very back of the room. I lift a rug to show a ‘grate’ that covers a deep hole in the ground. I feel I must confess it is a very dark energy that comes from this ‘pit’. This vortex. I feel I must appear to not invite this energy. Yet it is here that I lay and dream. The rug back once again, overlaying this deep ‘vortex’.
I cannot tell you what it is that I dream here, only that I am full of dreams. Perhaps it is to sew. Yet, with the ink stain on my finger, I know that I dream to write. Immediately, a vision. I, she, am sitting naked and cross legged, a pure energy being, over that vortex of energy that is rising up from the ground. I/she is connected to Source. I am beyond time and place. This is in answer to your question. We travel to a forest. A long way away from this city. I am a child. I am with my Grandmother being led on a gentle path through a tall forest filled with light. I feel safe, warm, and led by this woman who shows me herbs with her beautiful old and perfect hands. I live here with my Grandmother. We live in a wooden house surrounded by trees. Immediately time and memory becomes fragmented.
I am both hovering above a scene with uniformed soldiers who are attacking my Grandmother who lies on the floor, imploring me in her mind, with the last of her vital energy to escape this place. They wear dark clothes, angular. There is fire in the forest surrounding our home. I am running and running as fast as I can in the direction my Grandmother pointed. It is as if the great white light that surrounded my Grandmother and our home was the reason the soldiers came. I understand that the gifts of our lineage that were manifest in the material realm will emerge in perfect time. It is that light that still protects me and leads me home. I ran and ran as our home was surely ground to ash. In the years that followed I was taken in by a family, with whom I did a lot of farm chores. When I became a young woman I was sent away to work as a domestic in this city. Perhaps over the ocean.
I come to the glade. To the waterfall. I and she stand face to face. I take her hands in mine. I gaze into her brown eyes, her innocent face. What is there to say to this woman, my mother of my mothers. ‘It was not your fault. It is time to release the guilt at your Grandmothers death’. I feel a release and know that the heaviness that infused her life, is the heaviness that infuses mine, and the hiding, the fear of being safe, and the burden of carrying a gift that can not be expressed. We are back in the forest, behind the veil, of the veil. The Grandmother is there, and the child runs to her and is taken in her arms. It is as it was, once again. As it should be. The rightful place. Hand in hand, learning the lore of the land, protected and safe to grow into a woman who channels this light. The swans beak presses against the back of my heart, and her wings wrap around me. The child and the grandmother. My inner child and my wise woman. Fled in fear, destroyed and separated. Yet leaving messages to be understood down the path of time, to return home to this place of light. To shine. And work the magic of our lineage that can not be destroyed.
As stood with binding around me. White cotton first, that fell, and I felt a weight lifting. I didn’t need to be silent anymore. Underneath were chains, and I had a brief moment of fear, and felt the pull into darkening visions. Julia was intuitive, strong and didn’t falter with her direction for me to make the choice. It was a clear choice. I let the chains fall. This was the moment of reckoning. I had carried those chains for lifetimes along bloodlines, and there was nothing left for me to gain from them. Metal chains of guilt, taken on by the innocent, and which held me trapped in fear – Fears that my light made me unsafe, and would bring violence and trauma upon me and those I love. I was carrying a story that my truest soul expression, this expression of the Earth song had no place in this world. That this expression and its power to heal was of a time past, destroyed. I needed to grow up, and face the reality of a grey life – Grow up before my time, into a world without the wisdom of the Elders who held the interconnected web of life in their being. It didn’t feel like the end of a journey. I felt clear, curious and gently driven to experience the world, and myself without the weight of a thousand lifetimes!!!
I had been witnessed, and I had heard my voice after what felt like such a long time. I had new affirmations to practice morning and night – affirmations of the energetic vibration that I put out to the world. I immediately felt the power of these affirmations, extending outwards from me with love, expression of Source . For me, this is the work, to take one step after the next, embodying this wisdom, these choices, this deep soul work – this work that would not have happened without Julia. I feel so grateful to her and her work in the world. Also that she introduced me to the Swan, whose gentle love never falters, is patient, clear and true, and supports me when I call."
Rachel
I was so happy to read about Rachel's current work leading children into the Australian bush to find bush tucker, to know what plants are and do, what is edible and full of healing. Thank you Rachel for sharing your beautiful story and opening your arms to your grandmothers again. I hope it has helps anyone who is reading and relating to this story.