On other pages of the website I have waxed lyrical about Yggdrasil, counting the blessings bestowed as I materialised the vision that brought me to Bornholm. I have appreciated the garden sheltering the tree of life and registered the qualities and attributes conducive to deep transformation. I have described, at length, the first produces I saw fall from the tree, sometimes unexpectedly, others intentionally: a guest lodge, a retreat centre and a community house. But are these produces really the fruits of Yggdrasil? Maybe not quite yet. I intuit that I have been gazing through the eyes of the mind at different configurations of the tree of life, examining the macro structures (the context) that yield abundant harvests and release us into contemplative awareness (the content). Time to adjust the lens and appraise what the eyes of the heart see.
From this perspective and altitude of awareness, Yggdrasil becomes a container or a vessel calling us to a voyage, within and without, an initiation exploring the depths and heights of what it means to be alive and to apprentice ourselves to becoming fully human. The guest lodge, for instance, then becomes a particular configuration shaping the inner voyage leading to wholeness, the purpose of which is to uncover who we are in essence.
Meandering through the hoisting structures of Yggdrasil, I discovered that the voyage is a pilgrimage, an odyssey leading us back home. By definition, an odyssey includes a series of initiations edging us towards thresholds of understanding as we make our way back home, towards contemplative awareness and the fullness of who we are in unitive consciousness. We fall through cracks of vulnerability and powerlessness, we wrestle with the demands of true honesty and sincere humility, we bravely and wholeheartedly embrace everything that meets us on the way as we tumble and fumble on the circuitous pathways leading to the centre of the pattern of our life from where transformation arises.
“It is in the intimacy of relationship that grief and pain are transformed into joy.”
The colourful harvest, filling the platter I am about to hand round, contains the fruits gathered as I travelled through the roots, branches and foliage of the tree of life, namely Yggdrasil Guest Lodge. The idea of drawing on the strength and resources of a majestic tree works well for me, more so than boarding a ship heading for foreign seas. I am someone who has known since early childhood the benefits of connecting to trees and, unbeknownst to me, I am a seasoned contemplative versed in forest bathing or Japanese shinrin-yoku. My connection to trees is innate and needs no scholarly nor wise explanation to bring me alive. I know from a source deep within me that the relationship draws forth reciprocity and solidarity. Better still, it is in the intimacy of this relationship that grief and pain are transformed into joy.
Two varieties of fruit adorn the bowl: publications about the mystery of an odyssey with wholeness and options to work in one-to-one sessions to supplement our odysseys.
Work on the materials chronicling my odyssey with wholeness started in 2018 shortly after I had settled on Bornholm. At the time I was collating materials and putting them together to shape, and promote, the new line of work I intended to pursue after leaving academia and taking the brave step of becoming a self-employed philosopher. Progress was slow, necessarily so. I needed to drop my well-disciplined scientific mind forged in the world of ‘publish or perish’ as I rushed from one deadline to another and consented to grow from the scathing remarks of peer reviews.
I needed, and wanted, the writing to coalesce at its own pace. I soon recognised the value of allowing this time of maturation and not precipitating what requires a slow ripening. There were many episodes of ‘stop and pause’ as I rearranged the materials gathered. I liberally displayed texts and images, chapters and verses on the floor of the Abbey seeking to catch the patterns and motifs coming to the forefront of my awareness as I honed my inner listening.
I eventually settled for a trilogy tracking the waves of consciousness unfolding unto itself with a progression in the storytelling starting with a ‘Me Story’ followed by a ‘We Story’ leading on to a ‘Big Story’, each story encased in the next level like Russian dolls.
I selected titles for the three volumes to illustrate the progression: An Archaeology of the Personality for the ‘Me Story’; Pathways to Selfhood for the ‘We Story’; From the Wholeness Perspective for the ‘Big Story’. I designed a structure based on a fractal motif for presenting the materials, the same for each of the three volumes. There were several iterations of each of the manuscripts and much reshuffling of the materials across and within the three volumes. When it was time to introduce people to the pathways, I gave monthly readings, chapter by chapter, to a small group of fellow-travellers who became the first recipients of the contents. Preparing the materials for a public reading, albeit in an intimate circle, was instrumental in polishing the texts, more so than the feedback received. More than anything, I wanted to test the receptivity of the materials gathered in sequences of ‘Words & Music’ and assess their ability to ignite a shift in perception and cognition. Then, followed hours of diligent editing to tease out inconsistencies, curate a new idiom and design the presentation of the spiralling pathways shaping the odyssey.
“… a contemporary odyssey written for women by a woman exploring the feminine psyche …”
The work studies the phenomenology of consciousness with, first, the arc of personal development during which we transition from egoic to self-reflective awareness before shifting into the second half of life. There we stride the pathways of transpersonal development which requires that we pierce the veil of illusions of the self-reflective person obsessed with its self-defined image. This enables us to then ‘fall upwards’ into the empty space of luminous grace which epitomises unitive consciousness. Along the odyssey we gather the fragmented parts of the personality to shape an integrated, whole and connected self that I call the wholeness of selfhood or ensouled individuality.
Finally, the hours and days of devotional work came to fruition and in 2024 I self-published the first two volumes which, twinned, illustrate the transition from the ‘Me Story’ to the collective ‘We Story’, from the first half of life into the second. The first volume is an autobiographical account of my early life. I take the reader through my faltering steps in an incomprehensible environment when, aged seven, I am uprooted from England and moved to Switzerland. This was the first major shift I experienced igniting my future passion for understanding how we learn and engage in necessary transformational work. In the second volume, I guide the reader through the circuitous pathways of evolutionary consciousness following the migratory routes from cognitive psychology to philosophical theology. Stepping on the path whittled in Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, this contemporary odyssey is a story written for women by a woman exploring the feminine psyche within the frame of creation spirituality.
“In the past months I have been able to see the events consigned in An Archaeology of the Personality from a fresh perspective. This has radically changed the origin story constellating the corpus I used to script the narrative of my life.”
Interestingly, as soon as the books were published, I knew I had outgrown the materials released into the world and, much to my surprise, they suddenly felt obsolete and outdated. I had no interest in promoting the books and even struggled to get hold of my author’s copies. I felt the urge to give up the numerous maps of the pathways I had carefully plotted. I was impatient to move on and away from this body of work, even momentarily to grieve it. Why was I surprised by the uninvited troubles, when I know of the risks of clinging to the past?
I had initially thought that, after a brief break, I would start editing the third volume, the ‘Big Story’ of consciousness. That was not to be because I simply fell apart. Fortunately, this was not a burnout crowning the intense work of the last months, but an invitation beckoning me to a new odyssey. So, I stepped into the refiner’s fire and readjusted the inner compass, originally set on wholeness, to oneness. I archived all the materials gathered for the third volume, threw out all the preparatory work for the two first volumes and, after the good clear out, I voluntarily entered the desert experience so as to start again from ground zero.
With hindsight, I realise that this phase of maturation would not have been possible if I had held back on the self-publication. The materials patiently and diligently curated needed to be out there, somewhere, wherever that is, for the real transformational work to begin, starting with my sincere breakdown. The first stage of the odyssey with oneness implied putting to rest the distressing stories of my childhood because, once told and heard, once received and blessed, the gateway to forgiveness opens. In the past months I have been able to see the events consigned in An Archaeology of the Personality from a fresh perspective. This has radically changed the origin story constellating the corpus I used to script the narrative of my life. Therefore, not surprisingly, my storyline has completely unravelled to reveal the golden thread taking me out of the labyrinth of my mind into the empty space of nothingness. It also comes with a fundamental shift in my practices, away from mindfulness boosting self-reflective awareness into the contemplative practices of staying in nothingness.
“… an art form reflecting my adventures in the pleats and folds of consciousness …”
The experiences have profoundly changed my relationship to reality and, consequently, the nature of the conversation, for which I am grateful. They come with a complete re-orientation of my writing skills. Letting go of authorship has allowed the first batches of words to freely enter the world and join the stream of generosity flowing from the imaginal realm, the world of creative thoughts and ideas from where the original words and music now return enriched by reciprocal harvest.
The experience has opened new gateways leading onwards into the not-yet-known shimmering at the confluence of psychological integration and spiritual growth. My usual roadmaps for producing publishable materials have collapsed, finally. So have my well-disciplined strengths in creative writing and editing. I know that a new book is in the making. It will easefully flow from the art form reflecting my adventures in the pleats and folds of consciousness, an art form that encapsulates my unique voice, chanting and praising our courageous efforts, conscious and unconscious, to become fully human. The two self-published books are not only the outcome of love’s labour, they are the starting point, the point of origin, the foundational soil receiving both what is outgrown and the seeds of compassion, resting in the oily darkness of fertile soil, trusting the passage through death that returns us to life, always.
Click on the pictures below to discover more about each book, including excerpts retracing my footsteps on the odyssey.
The books can be purchased on Amazon.
Alternatively, if you are prepared to wait, you can purchase both books directly using the contact form below. Indicate which book you want to order, how many copies and the delivery address. The price quoted will include postage fees.
The one-to-one sessions draw on the materials of the odyssey with wholeness looking at the articulation between psychological integration and spiritual growth. The format is simple: we sit together, online or in-person, and we wait. We fall down the cracks of silence, stillness and solitude and we listen. Then, from the pregnant silence, we move towards the vanishing point on the horizon and join a new conversation beyond the habitual narratives and scripts, the conversation eagerly awaiting our loving presence.
In these sessions, I am seeking to pierce the veil of self-reflective awareness that keeps us stuck in our stories and egoic ramblings. For this reason, I have moved away from cataphatic practices (object-focused awareness) in favour of apophatic practices (objectless awareness).
Intuitive Reading: a contemplative pause to review where we are in the story of our own unfolding odyssey with wholeness wandering, and wondering, down the pathways to selfhood.
Archetypal Energies: a preview of the constellation of 12 archetypal energies for a given situation based on a test informed by archetypal psychology.
Words & Music: a curated sequence of words and music ferrying the searing beauty that cracks open the passageway piercing the veil of self-reflective awareness, ushering us onwards to contemplative awareness and revealing the truth that sets us free.
