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Journaling from 2021 into 2022

12/29/2021

Every year, my guidance gives me a series of questions to journal about as I release the old year and invite in the new year. Each year, the questions are similar to the last. They are good questions and I usually share them. This year is different. I was not given questions. I was given a kind of “fill in the blank” with different topics then have been covered before. I was asked to go just a little deeper. And so, as usual, I share. I hope you find this as helpful as I did. Journal it or just think about it as we leave 2021 and cycle into 2022.

Fill in the blanks with whatever comes to you easily.

Upon leaving 2021 and opening to 2022, I feel ________________
I realize that I may hold the following regrets:
I realize that I may hold the following resentments:
I am willing to release these regrets and resentments and trust that Grace will support me in this release.
I am also willing and ready to release the following and trust that Grace will also support me in these releases:
I am happy to open the door wide to the following in 2022:
Most of all, I open the door to:
11 things for which I am grateful:
11 things about myself for which I am grateful:

Allow your personal guidance to assign you a word for the year – a word to explore, reflect on, and embody. Tell someone close to you about your word. During the year, create something that expresses your word – a writing, music, visual art, etc. This is to assist you in expressing your word – not for someone else to critique - so don’t take talent or technique into consideration as you create.

May blessings and love abound for you in the new year! Sunemaura O’Brien

a ceremony for the solstice - an alternative to the burning bowl

12/20/2021

Ceremony of Release for the Winter Solstice
Rev. Sunemaura O’Brien

This ceremony is an adaptation of the traditional Burning Bowl Ceremony which takes place at Winter Solstice. It can also take place at the New Year. Its purpose is to gratefully release the previous year and with equal gratitude, welcome in the new year. I had adapted this ceremony once, and I have now adapted it to suit those of us who live where fire hazards are very real and restrictions are in place. We give our releases and our intentions to Mother Gaia to compost and plant with our gratitude…
What is needed:
A medium to large (depending on the number of participants) bowl of soil.
A pen and 2 small sheets of blank paper for each participant

Opening Prayer:
(or use a prayer of your choosing)
We honor the long dark night and the return of the Light that is symbolized by Winter Solstice by turning within. We look inside and give thanks for the blessings, the lessons, the hardships of 2021. We look inside and give thanks for the blessings, the desires, the intentions of our souls which will come to pass in 2022. We open our hearts and lives to Creator, to Mother Gaia, to the ancestors, to our guides and angels, to all loving support. We are so thankful.

(At the leader’s direction, participants take a few moments to write on the first sheet of paper what they are finished with from 2021 – blessings, lessons, hardships, anything they are ready to release.)

One person at a time tears or folds her paper, takes it to the bowl of soil, offers a prayer (silently or aloud – her choosing), and stirs her paper into the soil. The rest of the participants hold space, witness for her.
Leader:
We release these concerns, these hardships, these lessons, these blessings to the Mother, to be buried within her, to be composted, to be transmuted to nourishment for our lives, for our gifts, for our love.
We are so thankful.

At the leader’s instruction, participants spend a few moments writing on the second sheet of paper – intentions, desires, prayers for 2022.
One person at a time tears or folds her paper, takes it to the bowl of soil, offers a prayer (silently or aloud – her choosing), and stirs her paper into the soil. The rest of the participants hold space, witness for her.
Leader:
We feel sure that the whisperings of our souls are being heard. We ask Mother Gaia to hold these intentions and prayers deep in her womb, to help us gestate and grow them in the new year. We are so thankful.

The bowl of soil is then buried in a sacred place in the Earth.

Closing Prayer:
(or use a prayer of your choosing)
I am loved and cherished by the Divine Mother.
I am complete.
She restores me in my tumult.
She brings me to serenity.
She guides me in right thought and right living.
Though this world in which I walk
sometimes seems dark or chaotic,
she helps illuminate love wherever I go.
She protects me. She never leaves me.
She provides me with everything I need and then some.
She fills me with abundance of every kind.
She anoints me and calls me her own.
Goodness and compassion shall come toward me and from me
every day.
I will rest in the womb of the Mother
into eternity.
I live and breathe in gratitude.
(adaptation of the 23rd Psalm, Rev. Sunemaura O’Brien)

from us to you...

12/6/2021

Our boys, Venus and Jupiter, 1 year old

10/8/2021

Bring Forth the Divine Feminine on the Fall Equinox

9/16/2021

The upcoming Fall Equinox is a lovely time to settle into the heart of Creator, to access the voice of the Divine Feminine, to commune deeply with her and to bring her forth within us.
As the Divine Feminine rises, there are those who, mired in old paradigms, succumb to fear and lash out at her. We can support her in the face of this seeming onslaught, not by lashing back, but by nourishing her wholeheartedly – thus bringing her forth in ourselves, in each other, in humanity, on the planet.
Outward action on behalf of the feminine energy is beneficial but will not bring in true transformation. Connecting deeply with the Divine Feminine within... allowing her to come forth, to speak, to express, to bring love...this is the action which will bring transformation.
Fall Equinox is September 22. Let's make it a time to commune with the Divine in the form of the Sacred Feminine within. This is a perfect time to call on her to speak.

Close your eyes. Take in 3 deep, cleansing breaths and release 3 soft and slow exhales. Silently or aloud, ask the Sacred Feminine within to speak to you. Ask her to share with you how you personally can nourish, strengthen and bring forth the Sacred Feminine Energy, for yourself and for the planet.

Pick up a pen with your non dominant hand. Make it a pen you really enjoy using.

Start writing. Bypass your mind. Let the Sacred speak. Let her words flow onto the page. Write for as long as the words flow. Put the pen down. Take a few deep, cleansing breaths and slow, releasing exhales. Give thanks. Wait a few hours before reading what's been written.

A Medicine of Love - Nature Essences

8/22/2021

Recently, I have been developing a close relationship with the plant, Holy Basil (Tulsi). I have been nurturing her in my little garden. I have been making incense with her flowers which are unbelievably fragrant and attract tons of bees. I have been drinking tea from her leaves and flowers daily, cool and refreshing, or hot and calming. And I have been communing deeply with her flower essence. She has been working with me with her lovely and most sacred essence. In such a gentle and insightful way, she has taken me to my shadow, shown me the places where I have separated from Creator, from Mother Earth, from my own Soul. She has shown me why I have made these separations. She has shown me how to heal them. She has soothed my pain. She has freed me in so many ways. I am so very grateful.
The Sacred Earth Plant Essences are vibrational essences ready to reach out to you. Ready to help you balance, heal and thrive. They are offered in mist form, as this is how I am guided to offer them. As the mist gently falls around your head, face and body, you feel a quiet shift. These shifts happen the three or four times each day that you spray the mist in your auric field. Over just a few days of using a mist, these shifts will begin to come together in little (or, at times, quite big) insights and realizations, synchronicities, shifts of thought or behavior patterns, and/or other healings. The essences support virtually any healing modality with no concerns for problematic interactions.
The Sacred Earth Essences are available by messaging me at revsune@gmail.com or text 719 937 9652 They are not available at the website shops.

While I would be super happy to share my essences with you, it is so wonderful to make your own. Plants close to you share their medicine with you with great love... what a wonderful gift of healing this is!
Circle members are enjoying the series on Communing with the Plant Spirits, learning to communicate with plants. In the next few months, we'll be covering the making of Nature Essences – flower essences, stone essences. Subscribe on the website www.circleofthesacredearth.net

The Gift of the Nature Spirits

7/16/2021

Roughly 25 years ago, a few years into my first garden, my heart to heart communion with the nature spirits began. In time, the plant spirits introduced me to the joy of making and therapeutically using flower essences. This led to making essences of stones, crystals and other aspects of Nature. Then came essence blends which incorporated the essences, essential oils, reiki and prayer.   When I left Florida almost 2 years ago, I found myself having to leave all of my essences, made in my garden in O'Brien, Florida, behind.   Now, on my daily walks, the plant spirits of the high desert of Colorado are talking to me, sharing their healing gifts, directing me to make their essences and share them. I am also feeling a fire in my belly to share with others the joy of communicating with Nature in the form of plant spirits and the making of flower and other nature essences. I am offering this through private classes, offered online, and through lessons posted to members of the Circle of the Sacred Earth on the circleofthesacredearth.net website.
The nature spirits see the suffering and confusion of humankind. They also see our magnificence.   They honor both. They are happy to assist with our healing - to assist in guiding us as individuals and as a collective towards our magnificence.   They offer their essences - their high frequency vibrations - to interact with our essences - our vibrations - to bring us more in touch with who we are and what we, as individuals, are meant to bring here to Earth. They each have their own way of doing this. The essences are offered in a mist form. Traditionally, vibrational essences are taken orally, but several years ago, I began making them into mists to be misted around the body, in the energy field. I am very happy with this method.

Each flower has it's own individual vibration. This vibration carries a gift, subtle yet profound, which can bring about a shift in the emotional and spiritual - and consequently, the physical - being of a human or animal.   Stones, crystals and other aspects of Nature offer gifts of their own. Communicating with aspects of Nature and helping them help us through sharing their gifts has moved me deeply over the years. I am so thankful.

Planting by the Moon

5/7/2021

Planting by the Moon
Gardening brings us closer to the wonder and beauty of Nature. Co-creating with Nature, with the Divine, brings a special kind of fulfillment. Gardening within the rhythms of Grandmother Moon is especially fulfilling and, corroborated by the Farmers Almanac and other age old sources, will lead to healthier, heartier plants.
There are many ins and outs of gardening with the moon. Many gardeners suggest taking it a step at a time as you build relationship with the moon and it's cycles.
Start with the simple.
The simplest way to garden with the moon is to plant when the moon is waxing or full AND in a water or earth sign (Pisces,Cancer, Scorpio and Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn) and weed, till and harvest when the moon is waning AND in a fire or air sign (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius and Gemini, Libra, Aquarius).
Yes, there is a reason for this. The gravitational pull of the moon affects the tides – the water on Earth. The short of it is that during the waxing and full moon, there is more moisture in the soil which creates a better climate for planting.
….Just one more way of bonding with Nature!

An Adaptation of the 23rd Psalm

2/1/2021

by Rev. Sunemaura O'Brien

I am loved and cherished by the Divine Mother
I am complete
She restores me in my tumult
She brings me to serenity
She guides me in right living and right thought
Though this world in which I walk
Sometimes seems dark or chaotic
She helps illuminate love wherever I go
She protects me - She never leaves me
She provides me with everything I need and then some
She fills me with abundance of every kind
She anoints me and calls me her own
Goodness and compassion shall come toward me
And from me
Everyday
I will rest in the womb of the Mother
Into eternity
And I live and breathe in gratitude.

January 02nd, 2021

1/2/2021

Questions to ponder as we leave 2020 and enter 2021
Pondering 2020:
In what ways did I stretch myself?
What did I love about this year?
What am I leaving behind?
What was my greatest hurt and how am I resolving/healing it?
In what ways was I congruent or incongruent? How did my words and actions match up with my values and intentions?

Pondering 2021:
How would I like to stretch myself?
What would I like to enjoy?
What would I like to commit to?
How will I be congruent? How will my words and actions match the truth of my soul?
What quality would I like to explore and embody this year?