Over the weekend, I’ve been listening to writer’s podcasts. Sharon Blackie, one of my favourite authors was interviewing Manda Scott, author of the Boudicca series, which I absolutely loved. I read the books over ten years ago and could not put them down. She wrote history as though she had been present and it felt completely real, as though she had been eyewitness to the events. At that time, there were so few books written about that period, a period which I work with myself in my earth-healing, so her books were like gold-dust.
I had always been curious about those books and how they had come to be written. When I found the podcast interview, I was thrilled. I was even more excited, when I discovered she had written the books through a process of ‘Dreaming’. (She is also a teacher of Shamanic Dreaming). I was also particularly interested in her writing because I was also writing a book about that period. I’m still writing it!
She received her information from, in her words: ‘the old Gods of Brittania.’ Because I receive my books from the Ancestors and Old Gods/Goddesses too, her books totally resonated with me. In fact, they resonated with all those women, who I personally knew, worked with this energy. It made perfect sense. She tapped into a history that remained in the Ether, in the land, a history that is as present today as it was yesterday. Such is the Ancestral way. Nothing is lost. It is all there if you know how to access it.
Because my own life involves accessing this ancient knowledge, I always recognise when an author is accessing it too – and when they are not. There is a completely different energy between reading stories that are ‘real’ on some level of memory and when they are created through reason rather than belly-feeling. Which to be fair, is how most people write. People create from the mind and others read through the mind too. When I was younger, before I learned to do otherwise, I read in the same way. Now, I find it impossible. There are so many books that have a great story, but because they are not anchored in a ‘reality’ of energy and feeling, I cannot take the words in. They float away, like leaves on a river and I cannot grasp them. I try to go back over what I have read, but again, it drifts away. Eventually I give up and move to another book. There is nothing wrong with the book, I simply cannot read it.
It takes a whole other level of learning to feel words on a page, as opposed to simply seeing them. Part of this learning involves healing: healing our past, our traumas, our pain. Reconnecting our minds with our belly-knowing. It is a painful, long, process, which is why most people avoid it. I can remember when I was doing a two-year Psychodynamic Counselling course in Winchester, I had a meeting with my supervisor to discuss a client’s issues and gain insight into them. We spoke about the process of healing. I, in my naivete, believing there was some end-point to all this pain and that one day I would be free, living the life I imagined for myself, my history healed and forgotten. My stomach dropped when I heard the words: ‘You never stop healing. It is a lifelong labour’.
I was absolutely floored and felt depressed for days. What did he mean lifelong? Did he mean I was always going to feel like this?
Although he was right, he didn’t explain that it would become easier, less painful, the more I processed my past. He also didn’t know that I had an arsenal of tools he did not possess. I had a wonderful connection to the Universe, I could access Universal energy. I had learned Reiki and used it every day. I was also learning everything I could about energy-healing. I read the Seth books avidly and had ‘Past-life’ and ‘Life between Lives’ sessions. These made all the difference. It made my emotional healing far more intense but ultimately worth it.
The healing does not end, but it becomes more balanced. It becomes an everyday process, a habit you cannot unlearn. You become the Watcher, the witness of yourself.
The more I healed, and the more energy I could access, the better I became at sensing and feeling and allowing. If I had not gone through this process, over the past twenty-six years, I could not do the work I do today. I would be too defended to feel, and to interpret what I perceived, without projecting my own issues onto what I was given. That is not to say that all of my issues are cleared, because they are not. I still have work to do, but I am more accepting of my flaws than I was before. As my supervisor said, it is a lifelong labour.
In writing from ‘history’ in an energetic way, where the truth is present, you have to learn to heal. You have to learn to trust yourself and to trust the information you are given. You then have to trust yourself enough to let it out into the world, to birth it in a way that others can access it too, trusting that it will get to the people who will most benefit from it.
Manda Scott met with much resistance when she suggested the trilogy to her publisher. She was known for Crime writing, not historical fiction. She was building a brand and the Boudicca books did not fit with that. In a Vision Quest however, she was told to write the books and that they would change the world. So she trusted her guidance, and herself, and another publisher bought the books.
As she was told, we need to reconnect to our ancient history and learn to reconnect to the land and the ancestors, as they did. To access their knowledge. It is Time.
They are our salvation.
Ann M Murphy 