There are other harvests, too. Westacre’s spiritual centre has sown the seed of its first e-mail course and gained a over 70 subscribers. That includes you – thank you!
The renovation project is still in its infancy, but we have gathered a lot of knowledge in the last few weeks. It will give us confidence as we make potentially pricey decisions.
The main course of this Westacre Newsletter is a Lughnasadh meditation. Enjoy the ripening of the season, and let it help you consider your own harvests.
Blessings of the ripening apples,
Hilde
## In this issue
– Meditation with the Summer Sun
– Featured link
– Stay in touch and help the Westacre Project
## Meditation with the Summer Sun
As always, this meditation is best done outside. Choose a spot in the sunshine or in dappled shade – be sensible about what your skin can take). If your meditation time is at night or it happens to be raining, choose a quiet spot indoors and let your imagination provide the sunshine.
Settle down in a comfortable upright position. Turn your attention to your breath, without trying to alter it at all. Just notice your breath as it is at this moment.
With each out breath, allow your body to relax. Let your weight settle into the lower half of your body. Feel the places where your body touches the Earth.
As you relax more deeply, allow roots to grow from the base of your spine. Let them comfortably spread into the soil beneath you.
Feel the life force of the Earth as it is this day. Its green abundance is all around you. Feel the Earth’s power to sustain this riot of life.
Let the power of the Earth flow up through your body. Let it nourish and replenish every cell in your body.
When you feel strongly connected with the Earth, let branches grow from the top of your head, from your shoulders, into the air around you. Relax out into the air, stretching your branches into the sunlit sky as widely as feels comfortable.
Take your awareness along your branches into the smallest twigs. Feel how buds are growing there. Bring your full awareness into one of those tight buds.
As a bud on the twig of a tree, let the sunshine warm you. Feel how the light of the sun makes you swell and loosen.
Breathe easily, as you open, stretching delicate petals into the light of the sun. Radiate with flower beauty.
Take some time being a flower in spring. Enjoy being open and receptive. Allow life to happen to you.
After a while, you begin to feel old and tired. Your petals gently loosen and drop to the Earth.
But as the sun shines on you, more warmly now, you feel yourself swell. Feel how you are growing into a tiny green fruit.
Feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. Feel how it ripens you to your fullness. Take as much time as you like to ripen in the sunshine.
Feel what it is like to be a ripening fruit under the radiant sun. Allow yourself to soften, to sweeten, to grow. Surrender to the warm sunshine.
When you feel ready, draw your awareness back from the fruit into the branches of the tree.
Slowly travel back to the trunk, and feel your own body sitting in meditation.
Let your awareness sink into your roots, into the good Earth. Stay there until you feel settled and completely at home in your body.
Write or draw in your notebook about the sensation of ripening in the sun. Have something to eat and drink and return to your day.
## Featured link
Rachel W. Cole
Rachel is an American life coach with a unique angle on teaching people, and women in particular, about self-love. She speaks of seeking fulfilment in life in terms of what we hunger for and how we feed ourselves. Through this metaphor, she encourages us to listen to our body’s urges and desires, and to find ways to feed our starving souls.
The other day, her post about using terms of endearment for ourselves, struck a chord with me:
http://rachelwcole.com/2013/07/16/terms-of-endearment/
## Stay in touch and help the Westacre Project
As we work on renovating our 1930s semi, we aim to share our new-found knowledge about ecorenovation and energy saving retrofits. If we can inspire just a few more people to modify their houses to save on fossil fuels, we can benefit the Earth and all living beings.
Roughly every week, the Westacre blog publishes a new article about an aspect of our renovation project. So far, we have covered topics like the choices we are making about insulation materials, the aesthetics of our renovation project, and tips on removing a wasps’ nest from your working area. Check out http://www.westacre.org.uk/category/project/
All these posts are publicised on social media, including Twitter. You can stay up to date by following @HildeWestacre.
You can do a lot to help us spread the word. Follow Hilde on Twitter and strike up a conversation. Retweet anything you find remotely interesting. This will help us a lot to grow our audience and inspire more people to lower their carbon emissions for the good of all beings.
Our contact details and our presence on social media can be found here:
http://www.westacre.org.uk/contact