How did we get here? A her-story

Welcome to Unto the Grove. A little about my journey here....

A little her-story

Welcome to Unto the Grove. Unknown to me this has been carefully falling into place over the last 30 odd years, one little piece at a time.

If I had to pick a moment when it began it was when I was 11 years old and thought I saw a ghost in my room. She was stood on the end of my bed. I immediately ran out the room, the image engrained in my mind. I developed an interest in all things spiritual and over the next few years read about astral projection (and realised I had already been doing it), paganism, crystals, and got my first set of Rune stones. During this time I also met my long-time friend Katherine (who now runs Wild and Wonder) and together we bought crystals, explored the countryside, talked about faeries, followed the cycle of the year.

At 16 I decided to explore Reiki (I don't remember now how I came across it) and took my first degree Reiki with Caroline and Paul Crawford in Northampton. I remember my attunement distinctly, with a bright white light clearly visible through my closed eyes as Caroline walked past me. I continued my interests throughout university, exploring essential oils and Qi Gong, before deciding to follow Reiki further and complete my second degree.

I had been previously advised to select the Reiki Master you felt drawn to and so it was I ended up at Atlantis School of Healing with Usui Tibetan Reiki Master Alison Bennett. Alison was particularly gifted and it was during a peer treatment that she told each of us our spirit guides were standing next to us. As I lay on the couch to my astonishment she perfectly described the "ghost" I had seen at 11 years old, now standing at the bottom of the couch. I had never described her to anyone, so there was no way she could know.

For a while I provided Reiki treatments at a local gym, but was faced with clients who opposed my age and the experience, questioning my healing recommendations. So this all took a back seat for a few years. I found if I mentioned Reiki, crystals, tarot, paganism, people backed off pretty quick and so I hid it away.

At 25 I went through a big break up and decided to go for a past life regression which was eye-opening. I wasn't sure I believed, I thought I was making it up, but when I googled information afterwards I really couldn't be sure how I knew such ancient information. I read books by Brian Weiss; Same Soul Many Bodies, Through time into Healing, and became more convinced of our many lives and the need to learn lessons through each life to move up the spiral. Maybe the hurt was all a learning curve. Could I see a resonance through my many lives?

Over the last few years I have become gradually more open to sharing these parts of myself, and in so doing feel much more connected, and a sense of remembering rather than learning. This began when I started attending women's circles in an attempt to get better at speaking about how I felt to others. My yoga teacher who led this circle gently encouraged me to speak my truth and gradually it became a little easier, and I realised how special a held space like this was. When this circle stopped I couldn't find another, and I stumbled across The Goddess Space by Anoushka Florence and something she said really stuck with me

"If you are constantly calling out for the village and no-one is responding; maybe that's your sign to build the village".

This was exactly how I felt, calling out into the ether with no response. And so I signed up to her training to learn to hold space for others and invite them to also remember this deep sense of connection that we have lost in modern society.

Alongside this in 2021 I also started training as a Sound Healer. The singing bowl I bought in

Kathmandu, Nepal and the many instruments I used to play at school suddenly felt like they had a purpose. I bought a guitar and relearnt to read music. As I learnt the history of sound healing, it connected with so many things; it felt both overwhelming and very right. It connected with what I already knew about Reiki, and with my personal ethos.

For years I had also been using herbs for my own health, the jars in my cupboard contained herbs that sounded like they belonged in Harry Potter. I knew enough to brew a variety of teas for myself but I longed to know more. So I started a herbalism course. It was like a huge penny had dropped. It was in this moment that I finally felt I understood my purpose as a healer. Each of these things, since I was 11, had been adding another string to my healing bow, and now it felt like home, it felt like a deep sense of remembering, not learning something new. I strongly believe that our ancestor's knowledge also resides in our cells, that this healing knowledge was stored somewhere within me, and it was all finally starting to make sense.

And that leads me to now. Unto the grove. Something about trees has always had a resonance for me. I often stop to stand with trees and absorb their wisdom and gentle nervous system. Hornbeams hold a special magick for me, the silent guardians of the forest. A grove, a meeting place, a circle of trees, felt like the right place to gather, to connect and share this knowledge and so Unto the Grove was born. And it is my hope that this will one day also be a physical space, within a physical grove.

So through my long, rambling story, my message is that things happen in our lives that we don't always understand in the moment, a skill we think we will never use, a person who appears in our life at a particular moment, a soul we feel we have known before; these all have a purpose and that will become clear in its own time.

For now, let me help you to remember.