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STREWTH!

Strewth! what a week this has been for surprises and revelations! Things being unearthed and coming to light because the truth has a repetitive habit of doing that, you see, of coming up and out, in the end. There is this wonderful Facebook post that features a lion with accompanying text quoting the wise words of Augustine of Hippo: "The Truth …. is like a lion, you don’t need to defend it, let it loose…. it will defend itself!" There is a lot of truth in that message of the mighty lion.

Lies are the weapons of mass destruction. I was contemplating this thought today as I was physically weeding and pruning in my garden whilst pulling out the biggest and tiniest of weeds. The bigger, tougher weeds require a real deep digging down to their core roots, because as every seasoned gardener knows, if you only part remove it, the unwanted plant will sprout back tenfold in a short period of time and if left unattended, the unwanted weeds will run amok and take over the garden, some strangulating it with their sticky, twisty stems coveting wanted plants in every direction.

Voltaire once famously said “The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul”. That was me today, with sunbeams on my face and my hands busy not only digging out stubborn weeds but also scraping up the droppings of fox excrements of the most pungent urban variety which felt deeply symbolic of the gardening, weeding, cleaning, cleansing and nurturing that I have done this week, amongst my family clan members, networks of friend circles, and with my clients in my therapeutic work. I have been gardening both metaphorically and physically all week on many levels. Hacking my way through the overgrown jungle of distortions, secrets and lies, deceptions and ambiguities abound. Being a deeply reflective person by nature, I had to question myself and just why is it that I seemed to be attracting all this dark negativity in force during this week in particular? Why is all this murky, lurkey dirty business coming up to be cleansed, plucked and cleared? As Prophet Kilbran wisely taught us that we must tend regularly to the garden of our souls.

This week I have been writing my Self-Mastery course for an online audience, following my creative retreats of Freeing Your Writer Within, and knowing that everything is connected, and nothing crops up by chance, there is great richness in the synchronicities of my week for me to explore. I have experienced professionally listening to clients of mine, who cannot bear living their life as a lie anymore, and that being true to themselves and their life purpose is of paramount motivation for them now to change their approaches towards life, in taking quantum collapsed leaps forwards in their transformational process. This has been a tremendous honour to co-facilitate and help guide and assist them in reaching their goals of living a life of truth: their truth.

I have personally witnessed and observed friends and loved ones in my inner circle not speaking their truth and defensively blocking the truth to be let out into the glorious nakedness of the midday sunshine, to be seen for all that it simply is and simply is not, even with supportive encouragement that it is safe to do so. Now we all have our defensive patterning’s in place for protective armour reasons naturally, as it is very much a part of our being human. Indeed, we each have our own version of our own truth that we seem to instinctively and intrinsically believe is right, rigidly sticking to it for life and death in some cases, and those in that boat can find themselves getting defensive when that truth of theirs and their boat is rocked and challenged, or proven to be otherwise different to what was originally thought of as being so true. So patient I am, and remain, positively confident that we all learn to speak and walk in our truth, in our own given time, and in our own way, and eventually all the truths will align because our open sharing of our truth speaks to the truth in others on such a highest order that it transcends typical human conversation. Yes, there are of course many different versions of a story, as everyone in any story has their own truth of course, each character’s relative relating to their own unique set of experiences. For example, different siblings growing up in the same household, with the same parents and parenting styles, can selectively record completely different emotional accounts of childhood and even of the same events, as being unique for them, and as anything really is possible. Human perception and memory have both been scientifically proven to be subjective and fallible after all. But factual events, are simply that, they are events that either did or did not happen, no matter what our fantasy reaction to the event is, or just how much our deluded selves may want to believe, or not believe as the case maybe. Truth is truth at its most basic core, with no amount of denying. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! Just ask the lion!

One dear friend, who in celebrating her birthday with me this week shared that her church elders have advised her to go back to her alcoholic abusive husband that she had finally found the courage and strength to leave and recently seek refuge from, only to now be morally advised to stick with her now outdated vows of a continued life sentence of misery, abuse and pain, for ‘the sake of’ their young children. Hoping and praying that new growth shoots can spring from such organic manure, like the lotus flower blossoming from the mud beneath, I can only hazard a guess? But after a decade of constant trying in her challenging marriage, my friend is weary, as well as battered and bruised and the children the middle-man Priest speaks of ‘protecting’ are meanwhile deeply impacted and not positively so! Strewth!

In my own journey, looking back and looking inwards, I have been lied to, badly lied to in the past, both emotionally and physically abused with the matrix of lies that gets you caught up in such a sticky weedy web, that drains your life force energy, keeping you feeling weak, stuck and afraid. But somehow, with courage and determination, you have to find a way, just like I did of literally plucking yourself out of such a toxic environment, to breathe and dust yourself down and then take a rain stock check of just where you are now, where you have come from, and where you want to be, in even one days’ time from now? Take each day as it comes, day by day if need be, and ask yourself what weeds you could pull out now from your garden to let it grow and flourish and keep how you visualise it looking when it is exactly how you want it in your minds-eye. Then focus on doing that. Exactly that, taking little action steps daily until they build momentum and bigger and bigger, more positive changes start to happen.

Just like a tracker, don’t take your nose off from the dog, cat, or fox scent….follow their trail and take out the excrement for as long as it takes….. when the surface is is clean, they won’t come back! No rodents for that matter will enter your sacred space, the garden of your soul. The Fantastic (Mr Fox) Gardeners blog online states: “foxes will make it into your garden if your garden is messy or overgrown! And they are no different to other four legged friends!” In other-words they like discreet hiding places in which to deposit their dumpings, just as any other intelligent animal appreciates and would choose the same, if given a chance, I mean who really in their right minds likes to defecate in open public when crouched in your most vulnerable position? The four-leggeds are just as shy, and are no different in that way to as us two-leggeds is the bottom line (no pun intended). In my contemplations, it struck me, that ‘lies (being the opposite of truth)’ are akin to these number twos! They survive and thrive in messy, murkey, overgrown and unattended environments. So in terms of good practice Feng Shui, cleanse, clear and declutter your life on all levels, so that no scavenging-pooping fox will think twice to dump on your parade! Do not provide any parasitic environment for which lies to thrive and hop upon. Simples! Keep it Clean, Keep it Green! Oh and a little tip that I have been given by a neighbour that I am now experimenting with, is that foxes do not like turmeric mixed with water, so just pour it around the kacked on area and it acts a natural territorial deterrent apparently? It is also plant friendly! Please let me know your experiences if there is any truth in this home-made remedy or not? I am giving it a whirl as got to be worth a try! There are endless possibilities for Mothers watered milk for the other end! But remember, its not called 'Yellow' (staining) for nothing!

As I continued to garden today in the midday blazing sun, exposed in my running attire from my morning jog with my son, I contemplated that gardening in both the physical domain and in the metaphorical spiritual sense is a constant practice, in need of regular tending rather than once in a blue moon, much like getting fit by jogging! Jogging and blogging! You cannot just jog once or twice every now and then, you need to focus on a regular routine to keep physically strong and in peak condition. It also occurred to me that the moon is transitioning and swelling into a full under-bellied one at that, in the sign of Scorpio at the time of writing, and so this is why all the unearthing has been happening in the run up to next week’s full moon in the astrological sign of Sagittarius the archer's arrow of truth! That’s a natural truth I can trust! Sense that is common at last!

In Zen Buddhism we have a wise teaching that is “before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water” So with these contemplations now realised and expressed to be more widely shared via this blog, this jogger-blogger is now off to exfoliate my blackheads!!! Tune in next week for some more gritty home Strewths!

Zoë Owl is a writer healer revealer…. She offers 1:1 hypnotherapy sessions at www.asanahealth.co.uk that can help you with any blocks you’re facing in your personal self or with expressing your creativity and the truth of who you really are. She is an author with a range of self- help adult and fun learning creative kid’s books, all detailed on her website, where she also offers oracle card readings to help guide you on your journey back to you! Please go to www.zoeowl.com for more information on the wide variety of services Zoë offers, including bespoke workshops and creative retreats.

The Lion Truth
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