by Andrew Machon | September, 2024 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
Listen to the podcast version of this article In drawing this card, you are invited to explore the extent of your courage. More to the point, if you were to be the most courageous that you have ever been – how would your life change? What difference would being more courageous make? The photograph associated with these words, was a moment on a great fjord in Norway when, from behind the clouds, the Aurora Borealis suddenly appeared. As a photographer I love to capture the Lights most when the clouds begin to part. Somehow, the presence of the clouds, make the Lights even more remarkable – maybe we need to know both the Light and the Dark within our lives to make meaning of either or both? What I believe I am drawn towards as a photographer, as in my life, are moments such as these caught on film – moments of revelation. Have you had moments of revelation in your life? If so, when? Describe what suddenly emerged into your awareness in these moments? What came to you in these moments of revelation? Take what time you need to consider and respond… These moments of surprise, where we suddenly realise something new – that appears to come out of the blue and from beyond and behind our everyday thinking – are like an unveiling that has meaning and value – whereby we discover a deeper wisdom beyond and behind whatever we may have thought. What likely limit us in our lives is fear. Take a moment to validate this for yourself. When you consider what you fear...
by Andrew Machon | September, 2024 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
Listen to the podcast version of this article In drawing this card, you are invited to explore your originality. What is it that makes you – you? And different to anyone else – original. What distinguishes you from any other person you may know? What may you vitally and uniquely bring into your life that is own mark and fingerprint. If you look around, you may see that many of us revert to what we should and must do. Who we return to, is a form of ourselves, the person that we think we should be to draw the attention that we need from others. Of course, we are shaped by significant others, parents, idols, special friends, those we respect and love. We are ever in the making as we travel through life. Whenever we do what we should, must and ought – outside time of immanent crisis – we shape ourselves in the way others wish and so copy. We become like others. The photograph associated with this card is one of a perfect reflection. It was a very special evening in Finland, where the Northern Lights were not only on show but also caught in perfect reflection. This mirroring of the Lights invited me to reflect on how I am in life. If and how, I copy others. I have been referred to as a ‘carbon copy’ at times since I was born an identical twin. I have someone – a dear brother – who appears to look the same as me. However, whether you are a twin or a sibling or an only child –...
by Andrew Machon | September, 2024 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
Listen to the podcast version of this article In drawing this card, you are invited to explore your anxieties. To face into, rather than turn away, from them. To explore how they may be able to guide you forward and what you may learn from this experience. The photograph associated with these words shows an enormous display of the Northern Lights – one that took my breath away. With the great enormity of the show, I only noticed after taking the shot that there was a small boat in the corner. Take a look, if you will. Immediately this juxtaposition of the huge and miraculous Lights and the small boat made me feel anxious. The boat seemed so small and insignificant – out there alone and at sea. Apart and separated. Notice for yourself how when you are anxious you may feel this sense of being separate, isolated, alone, ‘apart from’ and like the little boat – ‘at sea’. See if you are willing to explore your own anxiety. And what is making you anxious currently. Gently connect with and own your anxieties. Acknowledge what you are anxious about. What concerns or worries you? See if you can simply name what you are anxious about. This is an opportunity to meet with your anxieties to give them your attention more fully, rather than a temptation to turn away. Commonly and automatically, we push our anxieties away – which may create the scene in the photograph – a sense of being separate and feeling very small in the face of something unknown and very big. But what if our...
by Andrew Machon | December, 2023 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
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 experience. For what do you most long? Take some...
by Andrew Machon | November, 2023 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
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 the someone other, who you are becoming. Today...
by Andrew Machon | November, 2023 | A Guiding Hand, Andrew Machon
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 – for the certainty of being right offers confidence and...
