Rebecca Campbell's Blog, page 11

Rose without Thorns

You have a right to your joy. Peace. Sweetness of life.

Most roses have thorns that protect the plant. When you walk past, it’s so easy to get caught on their spiky stems. As if the thorns themselves are an initiation for the observer to get to the breathtaking beauty and scent of the queen of all flowers in full bloom.

However, there are a small number of roses that are unlike most, possessing few or no thorns, and that’s what this card is all about. The Rose without Thorns is an invitation to dive straight into the sweetness of your life. To rest into the softness. To enjoy the delicious fragrance, to rest in and relish what it means to be currently alive in this body. To embrace all the beauty and bliss that life has to offer.

 

Card of the day from The Rose Oracle

You have a right to your joy and the Rose without Thorns wants you to take every ounce of it in right now. To celebrate and lose yourself in the sweetness of your life. This is a rare moment in time of deep peace and enjoyment. You’re being called to taste all that it has to offer. To drink it all in. You deserve every drop. You’ve worked for this moment. Embrace it now with open arms. It’s safe for you to enjoy this. To welcome this. To embody all of this. And while life is ever-changing and forever inviting us to grow, right now your lesson is to be in the delight of it all.

Rose Transmission

I have a right to my joy. I appreciate and drink in the sweet nectar of my life. 

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A theory about birthdays

A gentle note: In this email I mention the loss of a baby and talk about birth.

I have a theory around birthdays and I’m curious if you may have experienced it in any way. There’s an energy I have come to call The Birthday Portal, where each year around our birthday some of us can experience an energy that potentially echoes the energy of our own birth and the life or even themes we chose to incarnate into. For some it comes in the days leading up and for others it’s just on the day itself. For some it’s pretty subtle and for others it can be more significant lasting for days.

What I’m talking about is not about getting older, it’s more about re-circling back around the energy of your birth. For so many decades I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I felt such big and complex feelings every year in the lead up to and around my birthday. On the one hand I was so excited, and at the same time I felt a grief I could not label that was so deep and all encompassing that it would stop me receiving the celebration.

When my son was a few days old, my mum made a fleeting comment about the days after my birth that felt like a key had just been given to me. Discovering this bit of information felt like finding a part of me that had been frozen and lost for so long.

She said that on the September day I was born on, the hospital was over capacity. This meant that my mum and I were put in a corridor and then tiny room with another mother who had just unexpectedly lost her baby and was deep in the throes of grief. My mum felt so terrible for her and desperately tried to keep me quiet, as every time I cried it would no doubt trigger the loss of her baby, both physically and emotionally. As the flowers and balloons and celebrating family and friends kept rolling in, my mum felt so bad for how this grieving mum must have been feeling and tried to downplay the celebration.

This tiny piece of information that came out of my mum’s mouth as a passing comment landed deeply in my body. Suddenly I understood why as a child I was so obsessed with death and the process of grief. Why in my teenage years I began reading psychology textbooks on the grieving process like I was at university. And why since the age of sixteen I had formed such deep relationships with women, sometimes four times my age, who had tragically lost a child. I would visit them after school and in university and listen to them describe their grief for hours on end. It was as if my life had been for some reason woven with theirs. Decades on, I now wonder, did all of this come from a blueprint set up in the first moments and days after my birth? And if I knew about this would it have helped me understand myself and my path a little more clearly?

I wonder, do the moments of and around our birth cause an imprint within some of us? Of course like all things in life there are many ways to look at it. Perhaps all of it is chosen from the perspective of the soul. Perhaps even the most difficult of experiences are the stone which our greatest gifts are chiselled from.

One of the things I love most about being a mum is creating new rituals that we do as a family. Although you don’t need to be a parent to do them. One ritual we do now is on each of our birthdays we tell the story of our birth.

Yesterday my son turned three and it was the first birthday he has been properly speaking for. He woke up and I had created a birthday altar for him and we gathered around it and told him the story of his birth.

 

For someone who never sits still and is not much of a cuddler, he was absolutely captivated. As if a deeper part of him was being seen. Now the rest of the day was a bit of a rushed and very very intense, just like his birth. But for this precious moment around the breakfast table, time seemed to stretch. As I tucked him into bed he asked me if it was my birthday too. I said it wasn’t but he was adamant that it was both of our birthdays. And now writing this, I see that it was.

I wonder if the details of our birth and the early days of our life have an imprint on us and the life we chose to incarnate into. Perhaps regardless of the circumstances they are perfect for what our soul came here to do. And through acknowledging them we can understand ourselves and our path a little bit more.

P.S. I’ll be going live on Instagram and Facebook on October 27th, sharing a 20 minute download called Spiritual Practice for Busy Parents, although you don’t need to be a parent to listen to it. If you feel called, I’d love to see you there! You can add it to your calendar here.

 

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The Lineage of the Rose

 Moved by the Goddess. Here for this. Soul call. Gather.

These times, these changing, divisive times – your soul chose to be here right now for this. You’re part of a collective team led by the Goddess, by the Mother of Us All to reweave the thread of the rose back into the tapestry of humanity. To make spaces where all people feel cherished and safe. To heal and be healed from the destructive patterns of patriarchy. To be part of the return of the Goddess to the Earth.

If you’ve been doubting your path, you’re being called to look within and trust the whispers and weavings from caverns deep. The way of the mystic rose is walked by few, and known by heart not mind. Try not to overthink; rather, trust the threads that are woven deep.

 

Card of the day from The Rose Oracle

Living and dying with your heart open is truly a courageous act, as a life well lived is full of losses and tragedies as well as great love, triumphs, and adventures. When we’re going This card contains within it a confirmation of the inner call and a reassurance that you’re not alone in it. The Mother of Us All thanks you for being part of these changing times for humanity. She acknowledges your devotion to doing your best to support yourself and others in the journey back home – to themselves, to each other, and to the Earth. She wants you to know that She is available to guide you every step of the way. Speak, sing, and dance with her. You are led. You are led. You are led.

Soul Inquiry

How are you being called to commit more deeply to humanity and the Earth?

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Free Meditation: Pillar of Light

In all of my meditations I imagine myself entering what I call the Grace space, where I rest in the arms of the Great Mother or the sacred intelligent pulse of Life. There are so many different ways to do this, both with your eyes open and closed.

Today I’m sharing with you one of my favourite go-to meditations to feel centred, energised, strong and protected.

The meditation is called the Pillar of Light Meditation and you can add it to your collection and download it for free here.

Once you’ve practiced it a couple of times and got the hang of it, you can use this tool in the moment – sometimes I’ll do it with my eyes open when I’m doing the washing up or just walking down the street! You don’t even need to do it with the guided track, you can do it for 30 seconds or 60 seconds anytime you want to feel connected.

 

DOWNLOAD MEDITATION

As I am preparing for maternity leave I am organising a few free sacred experiences and classes over October and November (watch this space).

The first one is something new called Spiritual Practice for Busy Parents, you can find out more about that here. And watch out for an email from me next week where I’ll be sharing an invitation to join me in ritual and sacred circle! If you’re not on my newsletter list, you can start receiving it here.

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The Waste Lands

Sustainability. Slow down. Tend to your garden.

There’s an anonymous 13th‐century French myth in the form of a poem called The Elucidation that tells the story of a king who abuses the land he’s supposed to be the guardian of.  The king breaks the trust of the well maidens – the spirits who were guarding the wells of the land – and they flee. The waters run dry, the plants wilt, and the land, which was once rich and fertile, becomes barren, creating a wasteland.

This is the most powerful card in the deck. It’s a wake‐up call for us to stop the destructive behavior that’s resulting in us becoming brittle and unable to live in a sustainable way. The sacred feminine is abundant; She knows that the Earth can provide for what we need and that She doesn’t need to take more than She needs. She tends the Earth around Her and within Her. She’s the keeper of balance and the protector of all living things.

Card of the day from The Rose Oracle

The rose has seen civilizations come and go. Empires rise and fall. In this card She’s delivering an urgent message to slow down and stop any way of being that’s not sustainable. To release anything that’s making us brittle. To tend our garden, our bodies, and the Earth around us.

Soul Inquiry

What way of being is no longer sustainable for you?

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Open

 Say yes. Expand through the extremes. Trust life.

This is probably one of the biggest challenges of Life: keeping your heart open through the extremes. No one is immune to the highs and lows of the human experience. From the ecstasy to the agony, the joy to the grief, the love to the loss. We can’t bypass the difficult parts of being human if we want to truly experience the bliss. And if you close your heart off to the grief, you won’t be able to fully experience the joy.

The rose teaches us this, season after season. She knows that if She doesn’t surrender to each of the seasons, come summer She won’t be able to bloom. Birth teaches us this too. The safer the mother feels, the more she can open.

 

Card of the day from The Rose Oracle

Living and dying with your heart open is truly a courageous act, as a life well lived is full of losses and tragedies as well as great love, triumphs, and adventures. When we’re going through difficult times, when we most want to separate, the healing is often found in connection not separation. When we close our heart and shut down because the pain is too much, we often find ourselves more separate than before. The rose shows us how to open to the world, no matter what the day brings.

This card is here to encourage you to say yes to life, to expand through the extremes, and to put your two feet wholly and completely in.

Soul Inquiry

How can you say ‘yes’ to life?

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The wisdom teachings of the fertile void

I am officially in the final trimester now and I can feel myself deepening into what I have come to call the fertile void of a new chapter or perhaps even book. I am no longer who I was and yet am a long way off where I will soon be.

And while I have been through the portal of physical birth before, I can sense that each initiation is one to itself. As the leaves fall all around me I can feel the descent of the fertile void of my own coming winter approaching. Death and birth are both near.

Everything and nothing exists in the Void. It’s where all life begins and ends. It’s the winter and the womb. The fertile darkness where all things originate and all seeds grow. Comforting and intimidating. Freeing and daunting. It can feel both overwhelmingly small and huge. The Void is where faith lives.

It is in the Void that we are called to surrender to the unknown. To allow the fertile darkness of nothingness to nourish the new seeds growing within you. Regardless of whether you know what they’ll one day become.

It’s in the cloak of night that we are called to surrender to the mystery of what’s next. To rest, and to allow the winter to do the work for you.

To hand over your control and trust that just because you can’t see what’s happening beneath the surface, it doesn’t mean things aren’t at work or working on your behalf.

The greatest weavings happen when we find a way to surrender and trust that our life is being knitted for us. Right beneath the surface. In ways known and unknowable. Now is the time to cultivate faith and allow deep deep rest.

The Void often surfaces at the end of a chapter or life phase.  When we’re called to let go of all that we know and identify with in order to be born anew.

When you’re in the Void it can feel unknown, bewildering, confusing and scary – and as if you should be ‘doing’ something. However, it’s at this time that the most productive thing to do is relinquish control and surrender to the changing mystery of your life.

To gather up the faith that perhaps beneath the surface, the seeds of a new tomorrow are hard at work. And what might seem like it may be asleep, may actually be hard at work, just in a way different from before.

SOUL INQUIRY:

How are you being called to surrender to the unknown in your life?

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The Breathing Rose

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Heart Healing. Emotions. Connection. Time eases.

Often, healing is a slow, steady process. It’s complex, not linear. It takes as long as it takes. And most of the time that’s much longer than we’d wish. But, like all things in nature, there’s a mysterious intelligence to it. And if we trust it and let the vibrant petals fall to the earth, cut back what’s no longer, and protect the new shoots and buds from being pried open, we may find ourselves in a second bloom. And fruit will follow.

You can’t manufacture that. We must trust the great mystery in the process.

The bud somehow manages to burst through the constraints by opening to life. All of nature has this intelligence within it. The challenge when we’re going through a time of healing – which is another word for growth, transformation, change – is not to close ourselves off from the world when we most want to separate and shut down. To somehow find the courage to open through the agony, the difficulty, and the hurt. And when we feel safe enough, to let Life soften us not harden us, to deepen and cradle us.

 

Card of the day from The Rose Oracle

This is a card of deep heart healing. It will often come to us as a symbol of emotional healing that’s in the process of happening. The mending’s underway. Treat yourself and your healing with compassion, understanding, and gentleness. This is a card of deep encouragement that you’re doing it. Time will ease everything soon.

Soul Inquiry

 How can you treat yourself with gentle compassion and softness? How can you trust the timing of your healing?

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Sophia

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 Divine plan. Wisdom. Intelligence within. Destiny.

Sophia is a Greek word meaning wisdom. Sophia is thought to have been a force present at the time of creation and is often presented as a woman. This turns our patriarchal understanding of a sole male God responsible for creation on its head. In the Bible’s Book of Proverbs, Sophia says, ‘I was present at the beginning of the creation… participating at the side of the Lord in the work of creation.’ Many scholars and art historians believe that the female figure beside God in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling is a representation of Sophia. The philosopher Rudolph Steiner believed that the ancient Egyptian Mother Goddess Isis was an incarnation of Her.

The galaxy overlapping the spiral of the rose on this card is a mystical representation of Sophia as holder of the divine plan. The intelligence that tells the rose when to open and the planet how to spin also exists within you. This card brings with it a message to trust the intelligence that brought you here. Have faith that the blueprint of your destiny is already known. What secret dreams do you have? What are you being called to say yes to? To create?

 

Card of the day from The Rose Oracle

Sophia embraces the cosmos. She holds the blueprint of creation. No person or thing is left out. Call upon Her to guide you. Rest in the intelligence that exists within your cells. Trust that you know what to do. Trust the blueprint within. Allow the seeds of your destiny to guide you.

Rose Transmission

I trust in the divine plan, activate the intelligence within my cells, and unlock and act on my most expansive destiny now.

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Birth, resistance and the creative process

I’m just back from Edinburgh where I was speaking at the Writer’s Workshop. It was my birthday while I was there and my first big in-person event in over three years, and it felt so good! I spoke to a room full of writers about my writing and creative process, with a very pregnant belly. It’s one of my favourite topics to speak on, and as always, new things came through on connecting with the creative muse and using the birth mysteries as inspiration for the creative process!

Personally my creative process is full of resistance, and actually, it is very often through facing this resistance that the greatest creative breakthroughs come. In fact, the best writing and creations I have ever written were through the portal of resistance and calling upon my creative muse to show me the way through it.

It was so good to meet so many inspiring people who were acting on an inner call, including a very powerful group of writers in this year’s Diverse Wisdom group, members of The Sanctuary and students from my Inner Temple Mystery School Training… In Real Life!

The last big event I did was in Portland, Oregon, when I was pregnant with my son. That was also a very special day, and I wonder how the presence of the child influences what comes through each time I speak, just as each workshop is unique, a sacred co-creation of those who happen to hear the call to gather.

This might just have been my last trip before hunkering down for the winter and birth. Last time I was pregnant I spent all my energy preparing for the birth and postpartum period and didn’t even set up a nursery for my son. Birth was a big deal for me, and this preparation was extreme and deep. I might write more about it some day.

This pregnancy, having already been through the birth portal once, I feel I can now see beyond the birth, and I’m feeling the pull to nest and prepare the space for my daughter to arrive earthside. I’m growing more and more curious as to who has chosen to come, and wonder where they were before. Though I felt the presence of my babies in utero, I personally have not felt the urge to enquire too deeply into soul communication, rather enjoying the physical intimacy of the experience.

To me, it feels like a precious bud preparing to bloom, and so far I have not felt the urge to pry the petals open, knowing there are mysteries at play here.

Birth is one of two initiations we all share. Death the other. Both fascinate me more than anything else.

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