by Andrew Machon | December, 2023 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
Listen to the audio version of this article In drawing this card, you are invited to explore your belonging. Automatically, we go towards questions around belonging that include: “where do I belong”. But maybe belonging has more scope than knowing the outer place where we ideally may choose to live. The image associated with these words held a very powerful moment of realisation for me. Note that the Aurora was intense and illuminating the night sky on a fjord in Norway. The Northern Lights graced the whole sky filling it with wonder and remarkably appeared to emanate from a single source. I found myself thinking whilst observing this spectacle about belonging. And as shared above, how we tend to locate our belonging solely in a place. Such places may hold great importance I have realised through my life. For these are the places where we feel most at home. Where we recognise the folk and the cultures and wherein, we feel at our most natural and content. So often belonging takes us towards a place where we choose to be. However, on this evening, witnessing the Aurora, I realised that there may be a much deeper source to our belonging. That we each have a longing, and could it be that when we become the person that we long to be – we then experience belonging – not necessarily highlighting a particular place outside of ourselves – but more discovering the experience of belonging in our own skin. So, in drawing this card you are invited to explore different dimensions of your belonging to deepen your awareness and...
by Andrew Machon | November, 2023 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
Listen to the audio version of this article In drawing this card, you are invited to explore more fully the person that you are becoming through your life and work. We often focus our attention much more on the ‘what’ we are doing which includes the goals we want to reach and what we wish to have. However, if you reflect deeply, you will realise that throughout your life you are evolving as person, you are ever becoming more self-aware fostering a sense of wholeness and completeness. Reflect how much of your life is about wanting and having. It is a natural aspect of humanity that we have needs and wants. But in our preoccupation to have and to find we can often overlook the person behind, and how we are changing through our life and work. The central question in drawing this card, is to reflect much more deeply on: Who you are becoming? Take some time right now and through the day to map out your journey and to consider your evolution as a person. Notice the points in your life where you feel you have changed? And bring to mind and acknowledge how you have changed? Cultivate the clearest picture from looking in at yourself in this way? What do you notice most about you? What qualities inform your life now? It is strange in life with our preoccupations for searching and finding – a continual seeking something more – that we overlook that behind the scenes we are continually becoming more aware of who we are. The game of seeking something more can essentially hide...
by Andrew Machon | November, 2023 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
Listen to the audio version of this article In drawing this card, you are invited to explore the nature of relationship and how your capacity to relate may be deepened. If we look to Nature and the photograph associated with these chosen words, we are taken to an evening beside the huge lake Inari in Finland. It was a very still and quiet evening and the Northern Lights had just begun to show as I looked out towards a small island. It was remarkable moment symmetry. Nature as a way of reminding us of the symmetry of things and the vital role of reflection. As I captured this moment on film, I began to recall and reflect upon the nature of relationship – my relationships – and how in fact we learn how to relate to others. Such relating has a symmetry and reflexivity of its own. For what we judge and reject in ourselves, we are unable to be with and include in others. But what we accept in ourselves we can naturally relate to in others. Notice that learning how to relate is what I call an ‘inside job’. If we slip into our automatic outwardly judging role – we not only reject the others view, but quite literally turn away from the chance to relate more deeply. In the symmetry we are exploring, what we reject in others, we are unable to accept in ourselves. Relationship then rests upon our ability not to automatically judge and reject but to instead to seek and accept. You might realise already that our temptation is to judge –...
by Andrew Machon | October, 2023 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
Listen to the audio version of this article Have you considered and or already realised what value there may be in befriend suffering? In drawing this card, you are invited to cultivate your resourcefulness and resilience as you go through life. Often the way we automatically think may be back to front. We think that if we ‘box’ or push unwanted emotions away, we rid ourselves of them. And doing so makes us strong and more resilient. But what if the opposite were true? Takes some moments to reflect across your life to date. Consider the times when rather than turning away from emotions you have been able to turn toward them. When we suffer, we are invited and learn how to bear our emotions. Rather than pushing them away we begin to ‘make with’ their acquaintance. If you have experienced times like this, then recall them. Did a willingness to suffer – to bear your suffering – give or gift you anything? If so, what? Take what time you need to reflect and respond to these questions. When we fear and push things away, we banish our emotions to the edge of our consciousness and beyond. We think that’s the end of it. But what if we are gravely mistaken in our rational logic – what if, what we push aspects of ourselves beyond our consciousness rather than disappearing they may takes control and silently govern our behaviours and key aspects of our life. Some believe that what we push into our unconscious becomes our symptomology and compulsions. And what we place beyond our conscious control may...
by Andrew Machon | October, 2023 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
Listen to the audio version of this article Many of us fear getting lost. And might avoid this experience it at all costs. But what if getting lost was just another natural aspect of being human and living our daily lives? If we were to view being lost not as something to be feared, but more as an opportunity, then how much more may we open to the experience and discover? In drawing this card, you are invited to open more fully to explore your sense of feeling lost. Less as something to be feared, and more as a vital opportunity. Ask yourself the question: Where am I feeling lost in my life right now? And rather than turn away from any potential fear, take some time to turn towards and into this experience. See what happens when you are willing to meet with and even embrace these feelings. If you are willing to name where you are feeling lost in your life and work? Be as specific as you can. Express I am feeling lost here and here – and name where? Then turn towards this experience by being willing to befriend any fear that you may have felt. Notice how this allows you to relax more into the experience. You may inquire: What have I been fearing? And name your fears. And then mindful of these emotions, reflect upon – the opportunity or opportunities – which may now be able to open for you. It’s quite remarkable that if you are willing to ‘turn towards’ what you would automatically ‘turn away from’ – in this case...
