the muted swan song

~ loving awareness ~
episode 08

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"The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you"

– Rumi

In ethereal form we came here to visit, the wonders of nature, her beauty exquisite. Graceful, elegant, she put on quite a show, captured and enraptured more we wanted to know. Our form morphed in material ways, becoming denser in bodily displays. Soon we had forgotten from where we came, bound by Earth rule, former memories to reclaim.

But perhaps it's easier said than done, shapeshifting out from what you've here become. Burdened by life's increasing pressure, so we're swanning in with a little refresher.

Arms out like wings, ready to swan dive, born again as we come alive. But what of those who belly flop, into the sea of emotion they water drop. Panic attacks, full of worry, unsettled inside, with life they scurry. The mind forever doing its thing, but peace of mind it will seldom bring.

For the swan might dip its head beneath the water, but for feeling and sensing just like it oughta. No attachment to the reflection below, but intuitively shaping what they now know. It's easy to be taken by the waves of emotion, fluttering of feathers and creating commotion. The swan teaches how to gracefully flow with everyday life, without feeling overwhelmed by struggle and strife. Fanning its feathers for water purification, extending an invitation of new affirmation.

Yes, we've all felt the ugly duckling's woes, but few proverbially paddle through with webbed toes. Some shout out "come on cut me some slack", others let it slide like water off a duck's back. When taken in under the swan's wing, one quickly learns a wondrous thing. Cultivating love, beauty and peace, comes from inside for outer release.

But deep down darker waters beware, careful of being caught by ancestral despair. Streaming in of distant dark deeds, from predecessors your own pool feeds. Are you grabbing onto things you've heard or seen, attaching to things now yours to clean. The swan's beak is able to bite through, things you might find hard to chew. It's one of the heaviest birds in the sky, but sheds its flight feathers for anchors to untie. Remembering the lake mirrors its beautiful white wings, true pure nature with angelic strings.

Agilely gliding through Water and Air, in search of clearer waters in which to now stare. Whilst bird's eye is effective at seeing a larger perspective, with underwater eyes things appear much bigger in size.

Dear friend, so many ask when will the work be complete, those layers of hurt we are seemingly called to repeat. Patterns of aggression at the hands of the abuser, perpetrator in need of an accuser. But do you hear the call, for it's now time to take flight, extend your neck, pull up to the light. Open your chest for the Air to pass through, clearing your throat from that old residue. Silently flying, ahh your majestic wing span, self-realisation, rhythmic divine plan.

How does it feel to now soar the sky, to which dramas have you waved goodbye. Perhaps they'd really got under your skin, could it be that you were too deep in. For season change can bring a welcome relief, migrating to new states of higher belief.

These are my own insights, but a great beauty of life is that of perspective, so how might others respond to the spirit of Swan, unbeknownst to this being the spirit they are receiving. How might they perceive it through their six senses. And when the Water below glistens crystal clear, what is revealed to the eye of Seer.

Whilst this podcast focuses on one story, more sharings can be read in raw after-session written form below.

* some participant names have been changed for pen names.
* no participants were informed that it was the spirit of Swan we were working with until after they had all shared their experience of the Session.

Ulrike

My name is Ulrike. I was connected with Andy through a friend of Tamera who sent me an email describing the work Andy was doing with organic agriculture, nature, conservation and exploration in the Amazon and Andes. And Andy was sharing his plantally work and I immediately felt a great attraction to this work without even knowing exactly what it was..

I am almost 62 years old now and when I look backwards, I see a certain cycle of 12 years where I start to change life, sometimes really drastic. Starting with moving more or less from one day to another to Portugal, falling in love to a Portuguese fisherman and we live together in what would be his family. My son was born and I was living as a fisherwoman. Really working together with him in the ocean, in nature, and trying to survive one day by another, depending on how much fish we would catch. From that, I moved on into the interior of the land and I could see my spiritual life start it. I was taking a lot of meditation courses, vipassana meditation. I learned to be a tai chi teacher, qi gong teacher. I was doing chakra work, light work education, foot reflexology training, craniosacral work and education. And I met my homeopath, my teacher, with whom I studied many, many years. And this is a very big part in my life. Even today, the homeopathy.

From this period, which almost lasted 12 years, there came a big change again. And I moved with my former partner to Tamera as I came to a state in my life where I wanted to widen my perception of healing from the personal healing into the more collective healing, and also to understand that to heal it can be a very internal process, but it needs also certain surrounding which supports healing.

And I was curious to experience community life in one point, and I was at a point in my life where I saw that I was a bit desperate and needed the community to to feel more powerful regarding to political issues, regarding to create healing fields. And on a very personal level, I have a son that at time was 19 and he had already a couple of years of a codependency and a drug history.

And I knew the only way to support him would be in changing my life completely. And this happened really, really strongly from moving into an individual 2 to 3 people relationship into a big community like Tamera. I am very happy for this experience because I learned a lot about healing as a collective mechanism. I learned a lot about how the field itself is empowering us, creating an energy of healing, and also the research between human beings, between nature, between the water, between the energies and the buildings we were wanting to build. And amazing how life is when we are living together with each other as mirroring ourselves and becoming aware of our structures and patterns. And one of the main issues I was experiencing is building up trust between the humans and all species, visible and invisible, and how to do this.

After almost ten years living in Tamera and also traveling a lot with my partner, I went many times to Brazil, supporting social projects in the slums of Sao Paulo and having retreats in the spiritual center from John of God and in other communities.

I felt it's time for change again. And we bought a little plot of land nearby Tamera and now we are in the process of constructing a small project with the intention to be a model also for restorative energies, water recycling, healing field between nature and human being. And also what I'm dedicating myself and I'm learning and observing is how to take care of the bees and how to interact and to communicate with the bees on a very deep, intuitive and spiritual level.

When I received the invitation from Andy, I found myself in a delicate state after my partner had severe health problems, and I also was not feeling very well, really looking for deepening my own healing path. I felt immediately that there was an angel reaching out to me, wanting to support me, and immediate opening of my heart. And not only of my heart or to my whole senses, my whole energy field was opening to something unknown, which I didn't know. And it created a very lively energy in me of being receptive and open and joyful.

When the contact was opened also with a group, I could feel how I was entering a space where it was easier for me to be the observer of what was happening within me, but also what was happening in the outside.

And it was a great support to have a group identity because we shared our experiences and it was comforting to see that almost everybody of us had same experiences and that makes me feel included and connected and releasing this stress, Oh, what is going on in me? Am I the only one experiencing this? And in life I personally had like a journey through my whole biography again and again, popping up images and memories.

I also connected to my dear friend, my animal spirit, the Falcon. And he allowed me to look through his eyes and my life. And I received the message from him "it's time again and again to recall and regain the lost part of your spirit". And that's how I felt very deeply that through this joined group process, I was able to open up again for all that I felt was missing or where I felt was incomplete, and it could come to the surface.

And together with the group experiences, it allowed myself to open and be there to receive and regain and recall what is missing, what seemed to me missing in my soul, to feel complete again, like some of our group members, I experienced many nights awake and being open to just observe what cosmic energies wanted to connect with me. I also experienced quite some painful moments physical pain with my heart, with my abdomen and a restlessness.

And there was also this other side where a lot of joy and hope inspiration was coming into my life again. And I felt at moments that I was walking around after having drunk maybe two liters of coffee. I don't ever drink coffee, but it felt like this being full of energy even without having slept. And that was a really amazing state of being, because all my senses were so alive and open and receptive.

It also happened during this time that other angels were reaching out to me. I had an astrological reading. I was becoming a life case in the ongoing study group of a homeopath I'm attending. So I perceived such a big opening and connecting to all these supportive energies, which are there when we are open ourselves to it. So it was a very light, full and powerful time to be in this spirit.

On the same time it allowed that all things could come out. Painful, traumatic, all things could come up to be really transformed. It was a strong time of transformation.

When we finally came to the intensive session, when Andy connected us to the spirit in a more profound way, I was immediately in the field of the bird, I felt like a cormorant. A black cormorant was flying over the ocean and I could look through his eyes very sharp, and I would see the fish in the water. And I would dive down deep, deep, deep into the water, really diving down to the ground where it's dark, where it's muddy, full of plants. And I even felt, wow, I am at home in the water, in the darkness, and I'm at home and the light in the sky. It didn't make any difference anymore for me. It was like two sides of a coin representing me myself. The inside, the outside, the open, the closing. It was very profound. And to be in this openness of perceiving different ways of belonging to the cosmos, it was a very profound experience of being whole. By allowing everything in this way of being, I could feel that my hands became very warm, filled with strong healing power, which I held on my heart, allowing my heart to calm down and to be healed. And it felt not like being that personal, individual healing. It felt like a healing of of the heart of Mother Earth, of the universe of humankind. So just very, very deep healing happening. And I extended it to other parts of my body where I could feel the flow was moving energy through the parts which were needing healing.

When we came out of this group experience all together, I have to say that I felt so safe and supported by and Andy's presence and how he guided the whole group before, during and after this journey, that I want to express one more time my my gratitude for this.

Coming out of this intensive 32 minutes and Andy was sharing what spirit he invited us to. That it was the swan. I felt, wow, so deeply touched that I was in a way connected to a bird, a black one, and not the white one. A black one who is at home in the sky and in the water like the swan as well. It moved me very deeply to allow myself to be in this receptive and meditative state intuitively and with my medial capacities to perceive the field. It gave me a way of self confidence that this way of connecting to nature and to the spirit is is a way I am. I want to continue and I want to deepen. So I'm very grateful for this experience.

I have been doing similar things with homeopathy. We call them titrations. This is when we take a substance and we work with a substance, moving it with milk sugar and being in the energy field and perceiving the spirit of the substance. I did this a lot with substances from the bees to understand and to connect more deeply with the intelligence and with the healing powers.

The difference, I feel, was the time frame and the space frame, like we were in this field for a couple of days to sense it, to open more and more, perceiving, allowing, being the observer. And then in this session of the 32 minutes to be in the real intensive presence of the spirit, it came to the nucleus of what was going into resonance with me and the spirit. So this is what I really liked about it. And also not knowing what the spirit was because then the mind is not involved at all. I like this approach very much. Also to have this cooperation and this exchange with the group was very supportive for me, being connected on such a subtle and almost telepathic way is something I appreciate a lot and I want to introduce this more and more into my life. And I think it is also adequate to the energy and time changes and transformation we experience as humankind.

So there's a lot of appreciation towards and regarding the tools and the methods Andy has been choosing, to give this opportunity for me to learn and to open up for being on all levels and with all senses and my receptive person, human being or being or experiencing myself as an energetic being. And I'm very grateful for this.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all of you to the group and to Andy.

Lindsay

It moves subtly through - permeates, really. I had expectations that kept bubbling to surface Wanting to be seen. Me shoving them down, “you aren’t allowed here”. We’re supposed to be receiving - yet this, just another expression of control. There’s a push pull of I WANT to receive, I WANT to be transformed vs I ALLOW. i spend much of the session hunting. “Show me what you wish for me to see” I plead. I am gifted light codes, sensations, even visions… But they are not deemed “enough”. At one stage I go into my hip pain - it doesn’t go away just because I engage with it and want it to. Another control mechanism. After some time, I ask why I do not have faith, why I do not believe. Because it cannot be me, I realise. “I am not good enough” the belief cries out. I am able, but. I am loving, but. I am humble, but. I am wise, but. I am strong, but. But becomes a tub, all of my not enoughness filling it up, through the tap of beliefs I feed it with. And all the while, i can lament how I am disconnected, how source has “skipped” over me in the ease and grace department, how my gifts are complex to understand, how others have it “easier”. My ego wants fireworks, wants bells and whistles, wants to say look at me, look how grand I am! But I push away because this is not my nature. This is an adoptive form I do not wish to parent. I think the way cannot be easy, because of my judgement. Even during I kept evaluating my own experience, grading it in a way. My own failings. At the beginning of the session I was on a beach, streaming light, pulling from I’m not sure where - superconsciousness?- into the earth plane, dancing a dance, I fluidly became all of the sand, then a speck of sand, all encompassing. Then a crab picked me up and I became the crab… and then enters the thought that I’m supposed to be doing/learning/ transforming. There was even judgement that I did not cry. That my body didn’t shake. That I didn’t not feel or experience what I was “supposed to”. I feel now as I write this how these judgements, this control, this perpetuating cycle of disconnection - is ready to fall away, as liquid, simply washed away. The subtle is magnificent. The subtle is simple… and pure. I was shown a swan pluming it’s feathers at one stage, gentle waves licking the sand, feeling myself move joyously, the ripples of some pleasurable sensation caressing me… all the while I was searching for what was already here.

Selva

Oh my god….. it took long until my journey started. I even thought wow, what if this time nothing is going to happen? I fiddled around to be comfortable, too much light, I needed to put a blanket and cover my eyes to feel like in the dark. Like a seed buried in the ground or laying deep down on the ocean floor. Still irritated and very much in my mind, wondering if the journey this time would be completely different. My arms started to feel strange, like growing. I heard a voice: Surrender. Then I only felt sadness. The deep sadness of the grief I’m going through. My ex-partner appeared, but like a ghost. I begged the spirit please, can we connect, I need something or some tool to be able to connect to people. The spirit said no - you are perfect, trust me. But it gave me a golden cobra that led me into a forest. I laid down into the lush green floor, really loving the green. Long time nothing happened and then suddenly I was inside of myself. I understood suddenly - we are going to set this house in order. I have the chance to heal my core wound! We started by letting go of baggage from the past, like clearing out shelves of storage. Then turning up the volume of the good stuff. Then I met myself as 3 years old and we played together. Then I held myself as newborn and I told myself look, whatever happens in the next years, when we grow up we are safe!! We grow into a really strong person and life is beautiful. My grandma appeared and we hugged and I thanked her for taking such good care of me as a baby. My mom appeared and my dad and my grandpa and we all hugged and they apologised for everything they did that caused hurt to me or turned into wounds and we forgave each other. Then they went on to do the same with their parents and grandparents through our whole family lineage. Then a man appeared who is responsible for the thoughts that get delivered into my head and I said please man, we need to improve the quality, we can’t go on like this. And he said I’m glad that you came, I’m also tired of the loopy loop it’s absolutely boring. I like him now. Then I just wandered around in complete awe of my inner landscape, absolutely fascinating. I cried heavily during the whole session. Then a stag appeared and I jumped on his back and he carried me back into the forest and said: Now that you know you, please come back any time. Wow!!!! I can’t put into words how massive, timely and important this was for me. Healing next level. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Maike

Words: I am nothing and I am everything. I see goddess isis, I feel this thing she is wearing on her head on mine. I am a falcon that is send to hunt. A group of light warriors gathering. Peaceful. Extremely powerful. It is time. My body feels light but out of balance. Feels like left side is floating higher up. I feel the spirit working on my 3rd eye. Like a shield that was there for a long time and is weirdly ingrown in my flesh is being removed. It doesn't belong there. I am laying in an earth grave in the forest. Dressed in white clothes. Hundreds of butterflies circling around me. There are many people standing around. They are praying. Singing. Doing things I don't understand. It feels very peaceful. I stand up from this grave. I shake of some dust from my shoulders. There is a dear friend of mine taking me by my hand starting to walk with my into the forest. Tears streaming over my face. So beautiful. Quite rough change from there on. I feel the spirit starting to work on this 'origin point' of the pain I experienced last days. There is a deep wound with some splinters in that need to be removed. There is like a fire burning inside of me all of a sudden, my body covered in sweat from one second to the other. My body cramps and moves in all weird ways. Fast uncomfortable movements. I open my mouth, there is something leaving me body through my throat/mouth. I start purging. Very bloated belly. Strong headache. I notice that I am holding my breathe. Loud voice: if you want to live you need to breathe. I start breathing deeper my body keeps moving to the end.

Wendy

In the beginning I felt quite restless, overstimulated, irritated. All is dark around me. I feel a powerful pounding just below my ribs. Stomach pain. Trying to accept the darkness around me instead of fighting it. Who is here in this darkness? Don't be afraid to show yourself I hear myself say. A young boy appears. I cuddle it and say that he doesn't have to sit here alone in the dark. We both get on our way to a lighter place. An Indian is walking in the mist on his way. He is carrying a child on his back. I change between 'being that man (determined and on my way) and being the kid (following the elder that knows the way). After a while I feel a presence in the room, some guide is with me. Telling me to rest, my body needs it. I surrender to sleep. Peaceful feeling. Later I feel my body temperature rising. As if I have a fever..

Gülben

I feel washed from the inside from old (all incarnations) wounds all over my body. I felt a soft energy almost demanding my old injuries, cause they still keep me closed from my old mission to heal the world. And this time I released them all.. let them all dissolve in the presence of this benevolent being. Drifting into a timeless space i came eye to eye with a whole version of me (or us all) and ... felt really light and widely open in my heart. Still am. Touched by an old promise. I gave myself. When I came here. I even don't know whose of us this is. Thank you Andy, thank you spirit for this holy experience And thank you group for showing that WE ARE SOMEWHAT ONE..

Vicki

I was made very aware of all my senses, the elements,and stillness. The warmth of the sun, the cradling of Mother earth and her gentle pull. Grounded. Laxy like a lioness. Lying in the sun watching, feeling, hearing, smelling, tasting my environment. Awareness razor sharp but no need to react.Treading lightly...my cold feet were brought to my awareness. I had 3 drops of a cold liquid dropped on to my 3rd eye at the beginning. Pains across my lower belly, intense on the right side.I feel relaxed as my belly area get some healing. A lemniscate thread of gold and silver weaved through my entire body...Mother Earth Father Sun, nourishment...A beautiful horse breathed in and out... Paws, claws, hooves and pad marks in the earth everywhere ...my feet were cold.I was warm under my blanket.My dog came in just as the session finished exactly on time... I lay in the floor in the nice chilled energy and she put her paw on my body and gave me a gentle nudge. Still processing and feeling lazy with lower abdomen pain and a little headachey... Thank you.

Ana

Tears flowing at the beginning, my eyes were like burning Went back to my childhood Primary school , so much sadness, I was the weirdo child outsider had no friends , misunderstood, lonely. Retrieving fragmented parts of my soul, from my childhood, calling back my innocence, back into my heart. heart aching. Inner child healing I see her she’s precious , she’s beautiful and unique. Only love that is what she needs . Tears of relief and gratitude. Finding out buried parts of my self . There was a bird coming in, I could hear it’s song. A rabbit and a sort of a deer and fairies. Fear in my stomach. Someone stabs me many times. I'm scared. I push people away when the ego feels threatened. I close the doors of my heart and body. A man it’s like a guardian in a sort of a boat said to me are you ready to allow the river of life to come in? I said I’m ready.

Thank you Ulrike for your sensitivity and sharing story and thank you to the others whose written sharings are openly offered here also.

Thank you dear Swan, whose spirit can teach us about associating and disassociating, attaching and detaching. And when we close our eyes to life’s nasty surprise and try to escape from what takes shape, might we lose pieces of our soul, no longer here are we now whole. But by flying back to where we’ve been before, with loving awareness these memories we restore.