Significance
Tree
Drawn on Crete during a Vision Quest in 2001, 3 days and nights on a mountain with just water and a tarp for shelter (7 days preparation and 4 days evaluation), this Crecian Oak (Quercus Coccifera) was my anker and provided shade during my time alone. It planted itself on a rocky slope where it was exposed to the prevailing wind. What is not visible in this drawing is the massive damage at the left-hand side, where a storm or may be lightning removed most branches. My fascination has always been with the ‘entrance’, the door. What does it lead to, what is hiding in there?
Marigold
Why is there a little marigold on this page?
It is one of the symbols for the way I work. This flower is Calendula officinalis, a plant used a lot in companion planting to support, strengthen, and alleviate problems so the plant can produce and bloom. Calendula is part of the marigold family and both have a reputation for protecting vegetable gardens from pests. They provide a shield of protection for plants from the root up.
When I am working with you, I aim to use the qualities of the marigold, whereby I am your companion, support you from the root up, to keep you safe in sessions, to help you bloom in whatever area of your life you have chosen.
Live the Questions Now
When I first read Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Letters to a young poet’, I was struck by the logic of some of what he was describing. With the quote that follows, it was the logic that you can not understand and find a satisfactory answer if you are not ready for it. This makes a lot of sense to me as a Developmental Counsellor. A simple example: you cannot expect a very young child to understand time, Sure, they may want to please you and work with you to ‘be in time; to wait, or whatever you ask of them, but the concept of time is alien to them until primary school age. As adults we may forget that we too have times that we are not ready yet; we want to be, we want to have all the answers now. Turn to Rilke and see if he makes sense to you.
… and I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
Calm your Mind
All things are changing, we often have no power over it, death, loss, redundance, fire, water, wind, earth. They all are able to turn our lives upside down, create enormous change in all the layers of our lives. How do you then go on, with trauma shaken you to the core?
When you look at the gentle movement of the morphing figures, it may create a calm, a resting place for some. For others it may create a different understanding of change. Whatever it does, just for a moment it takes you to a different place where expectation, suspense, patience, enjoyment may create a tiny haven in the day’s upheavals.
As a Trauma Informed Counsellor, I know about the power of Change, Big and Bold and Soft and Subtle. Allow me to guide you ….
Silence Poem
In the Stilte
kiemt het Leven
In the Stilte zwelt the vrucht
Wordt het kleurenkleed geweven
Van de zomeravondlucht.
In the Stilte
O als wij maar wilden wachten
Samen zwijgen lang en stil
Zal ‘t Heelal aan ons ontvouwen
De geheimen van haar Wil
In de Stilte
ASK me for the translation and where to find the tune of this beautiful Dutch song.